Daily Archives: June 19, 2016

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Investments Worth Making

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Psalms 78:1-8

Leaving a monetary inheritance for our children isn’t nearly as important as preparing a spiritual legacy that is invested over the course of their lives. But how much we choose to devote to the formation of our heirs’ faith is up to us.

In truth, everything a parent does and says—along with everything left undone and unsaid—contributes to the legacy. A child’s understanding of the world and of God develops as he or she takes note of Mom and Dad’s pattern of life, the principles that govern their actions, and the power of their words. Kids observe whether parents value obedience to God and notice what happens when they do (or don’t) follow His Word. Their first lessons in forgiveness, generosity, and service to others are learned at home, whether taught intentionally or not. What’s more, your child will notice if your principles and words fail to line up.

Investing in a spiritual legacy does not end when a child reaches adulthood. As our sons and daughters head out into the world, we continue to have responsibility to pass on the lessons we’ve learned as God’s children. Every day of her life, my own mother taught me about unwavering faith and absolute obedience to the Lord. Her lessons have continued beyond her lifetime, as they have been passed down to new generations.

If asked about a legacy, my mother would have said, “I don’t have anything to leave to Charles.” But that isn’t true. She poured her life into mine, ensuring that I knew what it was to be loved, to know God, and to live wisely in His will. That is my treasured spiritual inheritance.

Bible in a Year: Psalms 44-49

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread – Abba, Father

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Abba, Father

Read: Romans 8:12–17 | Bible in a Year: Nehemiah 12–13; Acts 4:23–37

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

The scene belonged on a funny Father’s Day card. As a dad muscled a lawn mower ahead of him with one hand, he expertly towed a child’s wagon behind him with the other. In the wagon sat his three-year-old daughter, delighted at the noisy tour of their yard. This might not be the safest choice, but who says men can’t multitask?

If you had a good dad, a scene like that can invoke fantastic memories. But for many, “Dad” is an incomplete concept. Where are we to turn if our fathers are gone, or if they fail us, or even if they wound us?

Help me live a life that pleases You.

King David certainly had his shortcomings as a father, but he understood the paternal nature of God. “A father to the fatherless,” he wrote, “a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families” (Ps. 68:5–6). The apostle Paul expanded on that idea: “The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.” Then, using the Aramaic word for father—a term young children would use for their dad—Paul added, “By him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’ ” (Rom. 8:15). This is the same word Jesus used when He prayed in anguish to His Father the night He was betrayed (Mark 14:36).

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Wisdom Hunters

Wisdom Hunters – Affectionate Father 

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For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.  1 Thessalonians 2:11-12

Am I an affectionate father? Like the geyser “Old Faithful,” do I spontaneously spew out love and affection on my children? Am I faithful to fill my daughter or son’s emotional tank with a warm embrace or a kiss on the head? Or am I so caught up in my own career and needs that I have no emotional capacity to give affection? Affection must be displayed.

A father with affection reflects his heavenly Father’s affection for him. It is out of an overflow of being comforted and loved by Christ that redeemed fathers show affection to their children. When the Holy Spirit gives us a warm and secure hug, we can’t help but hug our children and grandchildren. Eternal affection translates into earthly affection.

“Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today” (Deuteronomy 10:15).

Perhaps you have a routine of kissing and hugging your children each time you leave home and when you arrive home. There is no rushing out the door until you have made emotional deposits in your most valued relational account. Your child is your lockbox of love, waiting with a tender heart to be touched by their daddy. Initiate hugs and kisses.

When a child’s heart hurts from fear, rejection, or physical harm, move closer with care and compassion. Listen with empathetic ears and outstretched arms. Affectionate fathers are up close and personal, distant fathers are unsympathetic and impersonal. Your seeds of affection reap a harvest of healthy adult children who want to come back home.

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Choose to Surrender

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For those whom He foreknew . . . He also destined from the beginning [foreordaining them] to be molded into the image of his Son . . . —Romans 8:29

According to the verse for today, one of God’s goals in our lives is to make us become like Jesus. He wants us to continue to become more like Jesus in our thoughts, in our words, in the way we treat other people, in our personal lives, and in our actions. Becoming like Jesus does not happen overnight; it’s a process we have to choose to embrace.

Romans 12:1 says I appeal to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication… This means we have to make a deliberate decision to give ourselves to God. God has given us a free will, and the only way we will ever belong to Him completely is to give ourselves freely to Him. He will never force us to love Him or serve Him. He will speak to us, lead us, guide us, and prompt us, but He will always leave the decision to surrender up to us.

God created human beings, not robots, and He will not try to program us to behave a certain way because He has given us the freedom to make our own choices—and He wants us to choose Him. He wants us to willingly put our lives before Him every day and say, “God, Your will be done, not mine.” That short, simple prayer is extremely powerful when we really mean it, and it represents the kind of full surrender God requires.

If God has been speaking to you or dealing with you about anything, I encourage you not to put off surrendering it any longer. Choose to obey His voice and surrender today. Ask Him to be your Strength and remember that through Him you can do all things.

From the book Hearing from God Each Morning: 365 Daily Devotions by Joyce Meyer.

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Ray Stedman

Ray Stedman -Helplessness in Prayer

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Read: Genesis 32:9-32

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. Gen 32:24

This is one of those mysterious, intriguing incidents found very frequently in the Old Testament, where some element of mystery is introduced without much explanation. Everyone who reads this asks, Who is this masked man? Where did he come from? What is he doing? I am sure Jacob must have felt that way too. He thought he was all alone, having sent everyone and everything across the river, when suddenly out of the shadows steps a man, who to Jacob’s amazement begins to wrestle with him. As you read further, there is, no doubt as to who the man is. In fact, at the end of the story, Jacob names the place of this encounter, Peniel, which means, the face of God, because he said, I have met God face to face and still survived. Here is a man who, in some strange way, in one of those Old Testament theophanies, is God himself appearing in visible form, and he wrestles with Jacob.

What does all that mean? Taken in connection with the whole story there is no question that what we have here is God’s attempt to improve Jacob’s prayer life with a crash course on praying. God is attempting to break down Jacob’s stubborn dependence upon himself. Jacob’s problem was that he never really trusted God to do things. He always had that inward feeling that if he did not do it himself, God would probably not come through. Now God is dealing with him in a defining moment. Jacob has to face up to the fact that, though his prayers are eloquent, beautifully phrased, and theologically accurate, they are useless because he does not believe that God is going to do anything. All his trust is in himself. I meet a lot of people like that. They pray and talk wonderful, theologically-correct language but do not really believe God is going to act. This is what Jacob is doing here. There is no expectation, but rather a stubborn refusal on Jacob’s part to give up and expect God to handle the situation.

Continue reading Ray Stedman -Helplessness in Prayer →

Words of Hope

Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Travel Light (Part 1)

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Read: Psalm 5:1-8

Make your way straight before me. (v. 8)

The famous travel host Rick Steves says, “You’ll never meet a traveler who, after five trips, brags: ‘Every year I pack heavier.’ The measure of a good traveler is how light he or she travels.” Ever run a bag race? I remember it from childhood Sunday school picnics. Sometimes you did it with a partner, each of you putting one leg in the same empty burlap sack, competing with others doing the same. Another way was for each contestant to run or hop with both legs in a bag. It was good for lots of laughs, not for impressive racing!

In our Christian race, stumbling doesn’t require gross sins. It’s enough to be unaware, careless, or undisciplined. So Scripture urges, “Let us run with determination the race that lies before us. Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end” (Heb. 12:1-2 GNT). We get just one chance to faithfully serve God in our generation. Travel light. Let’s not use our energy to add more “things that get in the way,” but use our drive to serve God with greater devotion. Brian Diemer, an Olympic steeple chase runner, when he failed to win a gold medal, said, “I gave the best that I had . . . and that’s all that matters. There’s a lot more in my life than running—my family, my Lord and Savior.”

When you stand before Christ will you be able to say of your Christian race, “I gave it the best that I had?”

Prayer:

Lord, empower me.

Author: Chic Broersma

 

https://woh.org/

Kids 4 Truth

Kids 4 Truth International – God Is Best

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Choices: it seems that there’s always another one to make. What to wear for school; what to have for lunch; what seat to sit in at school. Have you ever gone back and forth between two choices? You wanted to make the best decision, but you couldn’t decide which one it was.

We all want the best, whether it is the best decision or the best toy or the best score on a video game. Best is a good word to describe our God, too.

God is the best friend we can have. Do you have a best friend? As a kid, I always wanted a best friend and wanted to be someone’s best friend. Proverbs 18:24 says, “There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” God proved that He is that friend when He said, “I am with you always” and “I will never leave you or forsake you.” No matter what is happening in your life, God will always be there for you. You cannot travel to a place on this earth where God will not be. You can’t hide from God. He is always there and will never leave you. He is the best friend you can have.

God is the best God. “Wait a minute!” you might be thinking. “I thought that there is only one God!” There is only one true God, but there are many false gods. That is why one of the Ten Commandments is, “Thou shalt not have any gods before me.” Paul often talked about the false gods that people worshipped in the cities he visited.

The Bible teaches that anything we think is more important than God is a false god to us. It can be anything – TV, school, friends, games, or a musical instrument. If we are so busy with those things that we are not spending time with God, then we are worshipping a false god.

We know that God is the best God, because He is the only true God. The gods many people worship cannot help or even hear their worshippers. But your God hears you and helps you every day, even if you don’t see His help.

God is the best choice. Joshua told his army to choose whom they were going to serve: the false gods of the land or the true God. You have to make that same choice each day. Who are you going to serve? God is the best choice.

God is best.

My Response:

» How can I serve God today?

» How can I serve God with the rest of my life?

» How is God my best friend?

 

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The Navigators

The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Our Underlying Hostility

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Today’s Scripture: Romans 3:11

“No one understands.”

It’s difficult for decent, upright Americans to accept that they’re by nature hostile to God, that we cannot please him. This is because they’ve confused general American morality, plus a dose of church attendance, with obedience to God’s law. Most have never been seriously confronted with the exceedingly high standard of God’s eternal law. When they are, they typically reveal their underlying hostility to it.

Paul’s writings are filled with dismal descriptions of our spiritual condition before we became believers. he said, for example, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Ephesians 2:1-2). He’s speaking, of course, about spiritual death. We were totally unresponsive to the God of Scripture. We may have been religious, but we were still dead.

Spiritually dead people cannot receive and embrace the Gospel. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (NIV). Does this mean unbelievers cannot understand the facts of the Gospel? No—it means they cannot sense their own need of it and embrace it. As long as we were spiritually dead, we could not just “decide” to believe the Gospel and trust in Jesus Christ.

In our spiritual deadness, we were “following the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2). World is often used in the Bible for the sum total of human society in opposition to God. The world’s attitude toward God varies from indifference to hostility, but the bottom line is, “no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:11). This is the world we followed. We were spiritually dead, enmeshed in a culture totally opposed to God.

 

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The Navigators

The Navigators – Leroy Eims – Daily Discipleship Devotional – Spiritual Cruise Control

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Today’s Scripture: Malachi 1-4

We love because he first loved us. – 1 John 4:19

I’ve heard it said that in the Christian life you are either moving forward or going backward. But I know people who seem to be on a kind of spiritual plateau. They aren’t in rebellion against God nor are they living in open or secret sin. But they aren’t making any progress either. They haven’t led anyone to Christ in years, and they aren’t excited about anything related to the kingdom of God. They seem to have leveled out–just cruising on some kind of spiritual automatic pilot.

During the time of the prophet Malachi, God’s people were existing on a plateau of lukewarm mediocrity. The fifty thousand Jews who returned to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon had been settled in Judah for over seventy years, but the Messiah spoken of by Haggai and Zechariah had not yet come. All excitement about a genuine and intimate relationship with God seemed to have drained away. Even the worship of God had become an empty chore.

This is the background against which Malachi speaks, calling this lukewarm community of believers to return to a living and vital relationship with God. It’s fascinating to note that in forty-seven of the fifty-five verses in this book, God speaks with first-person directness to His people. The book of Malachi is God’s call to His lukewarm people to be faithful during a time when heaven seemed silent. Notice how God begins in Malachi 1:2: “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord.”

It is love that binds God to His own. And it is love that God seeks from His own. He wants to walk with you in the devotion and commitment of your first love.

Prayer

Lord, I confess that my spiritual life is often on automatic pilot. Rekindle the fervor of my first love for You and Your purposes in this world. Amen.

To Ponder

If the joy is gone from your walk with God, how hard are you looking for it?

 

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Moody Global Ministries

Moody Global Ministries – Today in the Word – TWO FATHERS AND THE SON

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Read Genesis 32:22–33:4

Boxers train for months leading up to a match. They lift weights and engage in rigorous exercise to build up their stamina and strengthen their core. They do pull-ups, chin-ups, and squats. Before the fight they pose for the media in an effort to show that they are ready to beat their opponent. The goal is to be as strong as possible. Nobody aims to look weak.

But weakness was exactly what Jacob needed in his approaching face-off with Esau. After his encounter with the mysterious being described in today’s reading, he was left physically weaker, not stronger for the possible battle ahead. Who was the “man” who wrestled with Jacob until daybreak but refused to reveal his name (32:24)? According to Hosea 12:4–5, this was the Lord God Almighty! This interaction is an example of what theologians call a theophany, an appearance of God in human form before the Incarnation.

This event is the fulcrum of Jacob’s spiritual pilgrimage. Caught between the anger of his father-in-law and his brother, he encountered a power greater than all of them. According to the prophet Hosea, “He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor” (Hosea 12:4). The favor Jacob received was a wounded hip and a name change. From this point on Jacob would walk with a limp and would be called Israel, which literally means “he struggles with God.”

The brother that Esau met shortly after this encounter with God was not the same deceiver he once knew. Jacob’s pilgrimage was not yet over, and neither was the strife between these two rival branches of the family. But the intervention of God made a difference. Instead of a clash of armies, the reunion of Jacob and Esau was marked by a tearful welcome.

APPLY THE WORD

The apostle Paul prayed for God to remove his “thorn in the flesh.” The Lord’s responded, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:6–10). Whatever your source of weakness might be, ask the Lord to reveal His sufficient grace through it. Thank Him that you can rely on His power and not your own.

http://www.todayintheword.org