Daily Archives: May 10, 2017

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley –Genuine Awareness

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2 Kings 6:15-17

If someone were to ask whether you’re aware of God, you would no doubt exclaim, “Of course I am! I go to church, read my Bible, and pray all the time. I’m quite aware of God.” Now, let’s take it one crucial step further: Are you aware of God’s presence and activity in your daily life?

This second question makes it a bit more personal, doesn’t it? In my daily life? Right here, all the time? We would like to have that constant awareness of God’s presence, but it is difficult. When hardships and trials strike out of nowhere, we often feel bewildered and wonder why the Lord has left us alone.

During times of difficulty, we might pray even harder and longer. We plead for help but see little result. We cry, “Help me! Give me strength!” Or perhaps, “I believe this” or “I can do that.” Do you notice the common factor there? The focus is all on me, me, me, I, I, I. Even during prayer, we may be aware only of ourselves, leaving the Lord out of the matter entirely.

At that point, we may find we’re not really talking to the Father at all; we are talking to ourselves. Perhaps we are focusing on the problem and actually wishing for the ability to handle it on our own. We can, in effect, become completely blind to how God may be working.

2 Kings 6:15-17 gives us a wonderful picture of what can happen when we remove our self-centered blinders and truly see God’s hand at work. Open your eyes. Like Elisha’s servant, you may be shocked to discover the help that God has already sent your way.

Bible in One Year: 1 Chronicles 28-29

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Unlighted Paths

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Read: Joshua 1:1–9

Bible in a Year: 2 Kings 10–12; John 1:29–51

The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.—Joshua 1:9

As we ventured home from a family vacation, the road took us through some desolate parts of central Oregon. For nearly two hours after dusk we drove through deep canyons and across desert plateaus. Fewer than twenty sets of headlights punctuated the darkness. Eventually the moon rose on the horizon, visible to us when the road crested hills but eclipsed when we traveled through the lowlands. My daughter remarked on its light, calling it a reminder of God’s presence. I asked whether she needed to see it to know He was there. She replied, “No, but it sure helps.”

After Moses’s death, Joshua inherited leadership of the Israelites and was charged to take God’s chosen people into the Promised Land. Despite his divine commission, Joshua must have felt challenged by the daunting nature of his task. God graciously offered Joshua assurance to be with him on the journey ahead (Josh. 1:9).

The road of life often travels through uncharted territory. We voyage through seasons when the path ahead isn’t clearly visible. God’s plan may not always be apparent to us, but He has promised to be with us “always, to the very end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). What greater assurance could we hope for, no matter what uncertainty or challenge we might face? Even when the path is unlit, the Light is with us. —Kirsten Holmberg

Lord, thank You for being near me even when I cannot see You. Please comfort me with Your presence.

God is with us even when we can’t see Him.

INSIGHT: A classic worship song describes God as “immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes.” One of the challenges of faith is that we trust in a God we cannot see. But, Jesus came to make the invisible God visible. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God [Jesus] . . . has made him known.” When we become fearful or discouraged in the dark seasons of life, we can still see God’s love clearly through His Son. Bill Crowder

 

http://www.odb.org

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Familiar and Obscure

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Noah Webster was a crusading editor, essayist, and orator well-acquainted with the soapboxes of the early 1800s. He was deeply troubled at the state of language in America and certain that the current system of instruction would eventually arrest the spread of literacy. Rules for spelling, punctuation, and pronunciation—if at all present in the classroom—were incongruous with everyday spoken language. Many words were spelled in different ways, utilized with different meanings, and pronounced with great disparity—all of which were considered acceptable. “[W]hile this is the case,” Webster warned, “every person will claim a right to pronounce most agreeably to his own fancy, and the language will be exposed to perpetual fluctuation.”(1)

In this mess of word and meaning, Noah Webster set out to write an expanded and comprehensive dictionary of the English language, hoping to standardize American speech, spelling, and comprehension. In order to document the etymology of each word, he learned twenty-six languages and studied in various countries. His dictionary contained seventy thousand words, twelve thousand of which had never appeared in any earlier published dictionary. The project took twenty-six years to complete.

Though he never lived to see even a fraction of the impact, Webster’s influence on the study and reform of language in America was profound. For a nation in want of grammatical consistency, Webster illumined the great substance of words and the import of preserving their meaning and heritage. It is perhaps a light we should more often fear to lose: the meaning of words can be darkened in obscurity even to the point of being lost, though still uttered.

In his work, Simply Christian, N.T. Wright traces the etymology of the name of God and describes a confusion not unlike the muddle that troubled Webster. Wright explains, “[A]ncient Israelite scruples, medieval mistranslation, and fuzzy eighteenth century thinking have combined to make it hard for us today to recapture the vital sense of what a first-century Jew would understand when thinking of YHWH, what an early Christian would be saying when speaking of Jesus or ‘the Lord,’ and how we might now properly reappropriate this whole tradition.”(2)

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Putting Smiles on Faces

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Therefore encourage (admonish, exhort) one another and edify (strengthen and build up) one another…. —1 Thessalonians 5:11

God created Adam and Eve, He blessed them, then told them to be fruitful and multiply and use all the vast resources of the earth that He gave them in the service of God and man.

Are you being fruitful? Is your life causing increase? When you get involved with people and things, do they increase and multiply? Some people only take in life, and they never add anything. I refuse to be that kind of person. I want to make people’s lives better. I want to put smiles on faces.

We must all make sure that we are not like the rich man in the Bible who had so much that all of his barns were full with no room for more. Instead of giving any of it away, he decided that he would tear down the barns he had and just build bigger ones and collect more stuff for himself. He was a foolish man. He could have decided that he would use what he had to bless others, but he must have been a fearful, selfish man, who only had room in his life for himself (see Luke 12:16-20).

God called the man a fool, and said, This very night they [the messengers of God] will demand your soul of you; and all the things that you have prepared, whose will they be? The man was going to die that night, and all he would leave behind was “stuff.” He had an opportunity to make the world a better place. He could have added to many lives and put smiles on thousands of faces. Instead, he fearfully and selfishly only cared about himself.

Forget about yourself and start doing all you can to help others. Encourage, edify, lift up, comfort, help, give hope, relieve pain, and lift burdens. If that is your goal, you will be one of those rare individuals who actually make the world a better place and put a smile on every face.

Trust in Him: What are you going to do today to put smiles on faces? It won’t just happen—you have to be intentional about it. Listen for God to show you what to do and then trust that it will bless them…and you!

From the book Trusting God Day by Day by Joyce Meyer

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – We Shall Never Lack

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“Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those of us who reverence the Lord will never lack any good thing” (Psalm 34:10)

“When you have nothing left but God,” a Christian leader once observed, “then for the first time you become aware that God is enough.”

With every command of God is a specific or implied promise to enable us to do what He commands us to do. He always makes it possible for us to fulfill the conditions to obey His commands.

Rarely, will some of us see a check for a million – or even thousands – of dollars. But here is a check for millions of millions, waiting to be cashed by those of us who know and love the Lord, who love Him enough to obey His commands.

Here is a promise of God which is great enough to meet our needs, our wants, even our deepest desires and distresses.

As you and I go through our day, how reassuring it is to know that our reverence for the Lord will be rewarded by provision of every good thing we need. That means the strength, the peace, the courage, the love I need to get me through the decisions, the trials, the testings.

That also means a new consciousness of God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, the one through whom I find the supernatural, abundant life. That means a tender conscience toward God, so that I make a supreme effort to avoid yielding to temptation in any way, lest I grieve my wonderful Lord.

Bible Reading: Psalm 34:1-9

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: I shall not be afraid to go to the bank of heaven today and cash a check for all my needs, enabling me to share the supernatural life with all whom my life touches.

 

http://www.cru.org

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – The Fire in Your Heart

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A warning should be offered about the fire in your heart. Left unchecked, it can burst into a hungry flame and consume all that is consumable. The name of the fire? Solomon tagged it, jealousy! “Jealousy is cruel as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire” (Song of Solomon 8:6 RSV).

Paul was equally aggressive in his declaration. “Love does not envy” (1 Corinthians 13:4 NKJV). And speaking of envy, put my name on the list. I began smelling smoke when a friend came to me with this report from a church across town. He said, “The church is great! It’s bursting at the seams!” A more spiritual Max would have rejoiced. A more mature Max would have thanked God. But, might I confess, I was jealous. That’s pathetic! God’s cure for jealousy? Trust. The Scriptures say in Psalm 37:1-3, “Don’t be jealous. . .trust the Lord and do good.” Trust God with what you have and ask Him for what you need.

From A Love Worth Giving

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

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Denison Forum

Denison Forum – United sends passenger to SF instead of Paris

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Lucie Bahetoukilae thought she was flying on United Airlines from Newark, New Jersey to Paris. She went to the gate number on her boarding pass, where the agent scanned her ticket and directed her onto the plane. She speaks only French and did not know that the gate for her flight had changed.

Someone else was in her seat, so a flight attendant directed her to a new seat. Once in San Francisco, she had to endure an eleven-hour layover before boarding a new flight to Paris. United apologized for the mishap.

Flying to the wrong city is a metaphor for our confused culture, illustrating the fact that sincerity is no substitute for truth. Lucie Bahetoukilae was sincerely convinced that she was flying to Paris when she was actually going the opposite direction. The same can happen to any of us spiritually.

We are returning home from Israel today. As God led us in the Holy Land, God will lead us in our homeland. Unlike the pagans of ancient times, we know that our Father is not limited to a specific locality: “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1).

To experience our Lord’s leadership, however, we must listen for his voice.

In Numbers 9, the people brought a particularly perplexing problem to Moses. His response: “Wait, that I may hear what the Lord will command concerning you” (v. 8). Like Moses, wise Christians today know that they should consult with God on every challenge they face.

I know a CEO who leaves a large Bible on the corner of his desk to remind himself that God’s word is “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). Another business leader has a small room behind his desk reserved for use as a prayer closet (Matthew 6:6).

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