Daily Archives: January 24, 2016

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Keeping Your Eye on the Lord

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Psalms 25:15

Have you ever tried to make a perfectly straight line of footprints in the snow? It’s not as easy as you might think! Most people would tread slow and steady, heads down, focusing intensely on their feet. Whenever someone faces this challenge with their eyes turned downward, you can be sure that they’ll fail. Those footprints will be as crooked as can be.

When you’re walking with your eyes on your feet, you have no idea where you’re going. The experience is entirely self-centered. There’s no perspective, because you can’t see how you fit into the larger landscape. Genuine focus is missing, since every step treads over the last step’s focal point. You haven’t envisioned yourself as part of a bigger picture. So you simply plod through the snow aimlessly.

The only way to make a straight line of footprints in the snow is to ignore your feet. Instead, look directly ahead and find a fence post, street sign, or tree in the distance. Then, with your eyes fixed on that target, start to walk towards it. If you’ve locked your focus on something other than yourself, the path will be straight every time.

The same is true in our spiritual lives. If we walk through life concentrating inwardly, we’ll fail to see the bigger picture and likely go off course. But when we focus beyond ourselves, fixing our thoughts and spiritual eyes on Jesus Christ, we can trust our path will be straight and trustworthy every step of the way (Isa. 26:3 NLT).

Bible in One Year: Exodus 25-27

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Honoring God

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Read: John 15:1-5

Bible in a Year: Exodus 9-11; Matthew 15:21-39

[Jesus said,] “If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. —John 15:5

The church service was still in progress, and we had some visitors there that morning. The speaker was only halfway through his sermon when I noticed one of our visitors walking out. I was curious and concerned, so I walked out to talk with her.

“You’re leaving so soon,” I said, approaching her. “Is there a problem I can help with?” She was frank and forthright. “Yes,” she said, “my problem is that sermon! I don’t accept what the preacher is saying.” He had said that no matter what we accomplish in life, the credit and praise belong to God. “At least,” the woman moaned, “I deserve some credit for my achievements!”

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John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Strength for Today – Forbearing Love

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“. . . Showing forbearance to one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).

In order to walk worthy, we must forgive our enemies and love them.

The term forbearance is not often used today and is therefore unfamiliar to many of us. The Greek word translated “showing forbearance” means “suppressing with silence.” It carries the idea of throwing a blanket over sin. First Peter 4:8 says, “Love covers a multitude of sins,” and Proverbs 10:12 declares, “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions.” A forbearing person doesn’t trumpet other people’s sins but rather forgives them. Forbearance has room for the failures of others. A forbearing person also loves people in spite of the wrongs they might have done to him.

Agape, the word used for “love” in this verse, is the love that gives but never takes. It’s the kind of love that seeks the highest good for another, no matter what the cost. God showed His agape by giving us His only Son (John 3:16). Jesus said, “Greater love [agape] has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (15:13). Agape is unconquerable benevolence and invincible goodness; it is completely selfless.

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Wisdom Hunters

Wisdom Hunters – Discreet Deeds 

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Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.  Matthew 6:1

Discretion is the better part of doing good deeds. Why? One reason is that it does not bring attention to the giver but to the motive behind the gift. If I am the main attraction of a good act, then praise from men is my reward. But if I am serving others for an audience of One, then the Almighty’s pleasure is my reward. His smile is enough remuneration for my good works. If not, I fall prey to the need for people’s praise as fuel for my faith.

Hypocrites have to be stroked by someone other than their Savior Jesus. However, mature followers of Christ are satisfied to know their Lord is delighted with their discreet deeds. Jesus warns that our Christian duties of giving, praying, and fasting be done in secret so we do not become like those who wear their religion to impress others. Moreover, when your deeds are discreet, you do well for yourself, and you benefit. Your secret service serves your soul in prayer, your body in fasting, and your emotions in giving.

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – The Blame Game

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No temptation (no trial regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently. —1 Corinthians 10:13

Years ago, a comedian’s favorite punch line was, “The devil made me do it.” The audience roared. Why did people laugh so hard? Was it because they wanted it to be true? Did they want to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions by pointing to an outside force?

It’s always easy to blame someone else or outside forces for our actions. We hear people all the time who tell us, “My father never said a kind word to me.” “My cousin abused me.” “People in our neighborhood shunned me because I wore old and patched clothes.” “I never had money when I was growing up, so now as soon as my paycheck comes, it’s gone.”

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Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Christ Our Attorney

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“If anyone publicly acknowledges Me as his friend, I will openly acknowledge him as My friend before My Father in heaven. But if anyone publicly denies Me, I will openly deny him before My Father in heaven” (Matthew 10:32,33).

Some time ago, I challenged a famous and successful statesman to share his Christian faith.

“I believe that religion is personal and private, not something to wear on your sleeve,” he replied. “I am a Christian, but I don’t want to talk about it.”

I reminded him that Jesus loved him enough to die for him. His disciples were so convinced of the urgency of passing on to others the message of God’s love and forgiveness through Christ that they, and many thousands like them – though they died as martyrs – did not give up their efforts to get the message to us.

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Ray Stedman

Ray Stedman – True Freedom

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Read: John 8:31-59

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:31-32)

What a wonderful word! It constitutes a short course in discipleship. But it is more than that. It is a declaration that discipleship is the only true path to freedom, to being all that you were meant to be. If you want that, then Jesus says the way is to become his disciple. This is the path to freedom. It is the only way to be all that you want to be.

Here Jesus tells us in precise detail how to be free. It begins with belief: Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him. They had not yet trusted him, but they had believed him. They had been intellectually grasped by his arguments and his words, but they had not yet committed themselves to him. Discipleship begins with belief; even intellectual belief; they were there at the door, at the first step.

Then, he says, if you continue in my word. Listen to Jesus. Compare what he says with your own experience. Does what he says agree with what you have found to be true in living life? The test of any religion is not whether it is pleasing, or whether you enjoy it. The test is: Is it true? Does it accord with life? Does it fit what is happening? Does it explain what is going on? That is the test, and that you can only establish as you continue in his word, as you think long and deeply, read fully and frequently. Jesus suggests here that when you do that something will happen to you: If you continue in my word, you will truly be my disciple. If you read his word and you continue in it, somewhere along the line a crisis will occur. You will find that his words have grabbed you, and you will commit yourself to him, and then you are really a disciple.

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Words of Hope

Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Practicing Your Serve

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Read: Mark 1:14-20

“Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” (v. 17)

Various other practices have helped Christ’s disciples grow closer to him over the centuries, but I’ll offer just one more. We see it in Mark 1 at the very beginning of Jesus ministry. When he called his first disciples, Jesus immediately told them that following him involves service: “I will make you become fishers of men.” We also heard that in Mark 3, where Jesus called his apostles to be with him “that he might send them out to preach and . . . drive out demons” (vv. 14-15 NIV).

I’m talking now about the discipline of service. For the apostles, fishing for lost sinners involved the service of preaching and exorcising demons. For us, fishing might require the service of visiting the sick, working for justice, teaching a class, sending out cards, or caring for children.

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Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; J.R. – Perilous Paybacks

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If you happen to kill someone – either by malice or by accident – New Guinea is definitely not the place to do it. Although the practice of “payback killings” has been illegal for a century, many of the Pacific island’s inhabitants continue to adhere to the ancient tribal code. It works like this: if a relative of yours is killed, you have a right to personally kill the offender. However, retribution must be delivered on the same day as the original offense. If for some reason that isn’t possible, the families of the victim and the perpetrator must arrange for monetary compensation instead. Then, if the payment demand isn’t met, the “payback killing” becomes permissible again.

Do not say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done.”

Proverbs 24:29

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The Navigators

The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Taking Sin Seriously

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Today’s Scripture: Romans 6:23

“The wages of sin is death.”

Yet another reason we don’t experience more holiness in our daily lives is that we don’t take some sin seriously. We’ve mentally categorized sins into that which is unacceptable and that which may be tolerated a bit.

In commenting on some of the more minute Old Testament dietary laws God gave to the children of Israel, Andrew Bonar said, “It is not the importance of the thing, but the majesty of the lawgiver, that is to be the standard of obedience. Some, indeed, might reckon such minute and arbitrary rules as these as trifling. But the principle involved in obedience or disobedience was none other than the same principle which was tried in Eden at the foot of the forbidden tree. It is really this: Is the Lord to be obeyed in all things whatsoever he commands? Is he a holy lawgiver? Are his creatures bound to give implicit assent to his will?”

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The Navigators

The Navigators – Leroy Eims – Daily Discipleship Devotional – Grace for Today

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Today’s Scripture: Psalms 78-83

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” – Jeremiah 29:11

One of the greatest hindrances to the people of God is longing for “the good old days.” Why? Because in the midst of a faith journey, whenever we look back and long for the comfort and security of things gone by, we limit God. We see this in Psalm 78 where we read that in the desert the children of Israel “turned back and tempted [tested] God, and limited the Holy One of Israel” (78:41, KJV).

How on earth could someone limit an all-powerful God? Could a person stand on a railroad track and limit the progress of an oncoming freight train by holding out his hand to stop it? Yet the psalmist tells us these people whom God was leading through the wilderness were actually able to limit Him.

Continue reading The Navigators – Leroy Eims – Daily Discipleship Devotional – Grace for Today →

Today in the Word

Moody Global Ministries – Today in the Word –LOCATING SHAME

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Read Psalm 44; Romans 8:18-39

A story map is a tool that teachers use to help students understand the overall direction of a story. The map provides a context for interpreting the significance of the various events involved at different points in the narrative. Knowing where the story is coming from and where it is going keeps a reader from getting lost in the middle.

In a way, Psalm 44 and Romans 8 provide us with a story map to understand where we are in the biblical story about shame. Psalm 44 starts by looking back and recalling what God has done in the past. It can be read from different perspectives: that of the Jews in exile, that of Jesus on the cross, and that of people trying to make sense of the degrading experiences God has allowed into their lives.

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