Daily Archives: May 12, 2017

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Why We Hesitate to Trust

Leave a comment

 

Luke 5:1-11

On the Sea of Galilee, the optimal time of the day for fishing had passed hours earlier, so the fishermen were now cleaning their nets along the shore. But at the request of an itinerant preacher, one lowered his into the water. The reward for Peter’s trust was a record-breaking—and net-breaking—catch.

As believers, we likewise want success in overcoming doubts so that we can courageously follow God. But sometimes we rely on our own faculties to decide whether or not we will trust Him. Perhaps what He is asking of us seems unreasonable. For instance, the principle of tithing goes against human wisdom: When we give God one-tenth of our income, He makes the remaining 90 percent spread further than a hoarded 100 percent could.

In other situations, we hesitate to trust the Lord because our knowledge or experience contradicts His plan. All of Peter’s expertise indicated that fishing at such an hour would be useless. Sometimes God challenges believers to act even when they do not understand how they can be successful.

Listening to others’ opinions is another stumbling block to unswerving faith. There is a time for seeking godly counsel, but when the Lord makes His will clear, we are to act. We’re not to pick up the phone to ask a few friends what they think. No opinion matters except that of Jehovah, who does not make mistakes in presenting His plan.

The next time you find yourself in doubt, think about what is causing you to hesitate. Then you can pray specifically to overcome the faith hurdle and move on, knowing that God blesses steps we take to follow Him.

Bible in One Year: 2 Chronicles 4-7

 

http://www.intouch.org/

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — The Advocate

Leave a comment

Read: John 16:7–15

Bible in a Year: 2 Kings 15–16; John 3:1–18

When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.—John 16:13

As I boarded the airplane to study in a city a thousand miles from home, I felt nervous and alone. But during the flight, I remembered how Jesus promised His disciples the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus’s friends must have felt bewildered when He told them, “It is for your good that I am going away” (John 16:7). How could they who witnessed His miracles and learned from His teaching be better off without Him? But Jesus told them that if He left, then the Advocate—the Holy Spirit—would come.

Jesus, nearing His last hours on earth, shared with His disciples (in John 14-17, today known as the “Farewell Discourse”) to help them understand His death and ascension. Central in this conversation was the coming Holy Spirit, an advocate who would be with them (14:16-17), teaching (15:15), testifying (v. 26), and guiding them (16:13).

We who have accepted God’s offer of new life have been given this gift of His Spirit living within us. From Him we receive so much: He convicts us of our sins and helps us to repent. He brings us comfort when we ache, strength to bear hardships, wisdom to understand God’s teaching, hope and faith to believe, love to share.

We can rejoice that Jesus sent us the Advocate. —Amy Boucher Pye

Heavenly Father, You sent Your Son to save us and Your Spirit to comfort and convict us. May we bring You glory as we thank You for Your goodness and love.

The Holy Spirit fills Jesus’s followers.

INSIGHT: When Jesus comforts His disciples before His impending crucifixion and eventual ascension (going back to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father), Jesus says He must go away so the Holy Spirit will come. The disciples didn’t know the Holy Spirit, so how would His coming comfort them? Jesus offers the answer. The Spirit will continue what Jesus started. He will bring conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment. He will speak to the disciples not simply on behalf of Jesus, but He will speak to them the very words Jesus speaks (John 16:13-15). The Spirit would be with them in a way that Jesus couldn’t be. No matter where each of them went, together or separately, the Spirit—and therefore Jesus Himself—would be with them. For more on the Holy Spirit read Filled with the Spirit at discoveryseries.org/q0301.  J.R. Hudberg

 

http://www.odb.org

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Sharing Life and Death

Leave a comment

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

They were words that controlled us, like an electric fence to wandering minds and quaking bodies. The pastor repeated them to us frequently—at each hospital visit and in every triumphant prayer for healing within an oncology ward that seemed only to delve out the certainty of loss and the overthrow of control. His confident battle cry was so certain, so instructive: We will not fathom defeat; we will not even think about death. In the name of Jesus, we will see the evidence of healing though it is yet unseen. Despite a theology that under normal circumstances would have been bold enough to voice some very serious objections, I so badly wanted my dad to be well… So badly that we never spoke of his wishes for the funeral we would plan only weeks later.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. They are the words of the ancient writer of Hebrews, though the way we used them during those short weeks with an aggressive cancer never actually considered this. It was a verse we treated as if it pertained only to us, jarred loose from its story and author and community. Once loose, we used it as a tool to jar my dad from his own flesh, from his pained and embodied life as a creature in his final days. We were after a miracle that would erase life as it had become, a healing that would restore us back to life before cancer. We used the verse, distorted into an individualized half-truth, to keep ourselves from considering anything more.

Sadly, the God many of these prayers envisioned was more like a slot machine than a sovereign, each prayer a spin that tried to muster hope against all odds, fearfully, as if dad’s life depended on the very quality of our mustering. While I don’t doubt the charitable intentions of those prayers—or the firm belief in a God who heals—I am saddened by the selfishness I didn’t want to see as I uttered them. The words we clung to were far more about the survivors than the dying one we loved or the abundant life we professed together in the crucified Christ—even in our own deaths. We clung to this creature-denying posture at the expense of a Christ-embodying posture, a posture that could have been both a sharing of my dad’s pain and a sharing of life and death with the one who holds both our lives and our deaths.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Sharing Life and Death →

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Identify Who You Are

Leave a comment

 

Let him turn away from wickedness and shun it, and let him do right. Let him search for peace (harmony; undisturbedness from fears, agitating passions, and moral conflicts) and seek it eagerly. [Do not merely desire peaceful relations with God, with your fellowmen, and with yourself, but pursue, go after them!]—1 Peter 3:11

Paul said, “I want to do what is right, but I can’t” (see Romans 7:15-25). He was a new person on the inside because he was born again, but he still had to resist the temptation to sin.

Paul explained that “the sin [principle]” (v. 20) continues to dwell in us. We want to do right, but we don’t have the power to perform it, because evil is ever present to tempt us to do wrong. Only God can deliver us from this tendency to sin; that is why we must ask Him to deliver us from evil each day.

From the book Starting Your Day Right by Joyce Meyer.

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – God Meets Our Needs

Leave a comment

“I have been young and now I am old. And in all my years I have never seen the Lord forsake a man who loves Him; nor have I seen the children of the godly go hungry” (Psalm 37:25). 

Tom had been a humble follower and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ from his youth. He had learned of our Lord at the family altar in his modest home. Through the urging of his father and mother, he mastered and memorized large portions of Scripture. By his teenage years he was preaching, and after a brief time of study in a Bible institute he became an evangelist. His work was largely in the smaller rural churches. His speech was never eloquent nor was he distinguished and cultured in his appearance and demeanor, but he was a man of God. wherever he went, hearts were strangely warmed as he spoke the truths concerning our wonderful Savior.

Now he had reached the ripe age of ninety. His hair was snow white and a bit long, but always neat. His ministry had covered over seventy years, and in that period he had come to know heartache, sorrow, adversity and poverty (especially during the depression years). He had performed many wedding ceremonies, had spent long nights at the bedside of the sick and had preached many funeral sermons. In obedience to his Lord, he had ministered to the widows and orphans, the poor and imprisoned. On this occasion, as he was coming to the climax of a rich and overflowing life, a radiant adventure with God – yes, the supernatural life – he reminisced. As he recalled some of the heartaches and tragedies, he said, “You know, not one single time in all my years have I seen the Lord forsake a man who loved Him, nor have I seen the children of the godly go hungry. Of course, I have seen Christians suffer, and I’ve been with them in their sorrow. But there’s something different about the life of the one who walks with God. There’s serenity, a peace. And then almost miraculously, while the ungodly go hungry, God meets the needs of His children as He promised.

“Yes,” he said in conclusion, “you can trust God and His Word. He never fails to keep His promise.”

Bible Reading: Psalm 37:26-34

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: Knowing that I can trust God to meet my every need no matter what happens, I shall seek first the kingdom of God. Through the enabling of the Holy Spirit, I will live a godly life, a supernatural life for the glory of my Savior, and I will tell others how faithful and trustworthy He is.

 

http://www.cru.org

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Pecking Orders

Leave a comment

 

Pecking orders are a part of life. The problem with pecking orders is not the order. The problem is with the pecking. Just ask the shortest kid in class. Or the minority family. Or the new person at work. God says that love is no place for pecking orders. It’s easy to see why!  How can I love others if my eyes are only on me? How can I point to God if I’m pointing at me?

Scripture says, love “does not boast, it is not proud” (1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV).  Jesus’ solution to man-made caste systems? A change in direction. The Apostle Paul said, “Regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3 NASB). That’s what Jesus did. Your eternal life was more important than his earthly life. Your place in heaven was more important to him than his place in heaven, so he gave it up so you could come in.

From A Love Worth Giving

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Betsy DeVos heckled during commencement speech

Leave a comment

“One of the hallmarks of higher education, and of democracy, is the ability to converse with and learn from those with whom we disagree.”

So stated Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during her commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida. Ironically, some in the audience had their backs turned to her as she made this statement. Others heckled her during her speech.

This is the season of graduations and commencement speeches. I’m honored to be delivering such an address at Truett Seminary tonight. Thousands of other schools and universities will be holding similar exercises across the month.

But we live in an era when many tolerance advocates refuse to tolerate those with whom they disagree. What happened to Secretary DeVos is a symptom of a much larger narrative.

The latest New York Times Magazine headlines, “Is an Open Marriage a Happier Marriage?” After reading the long article, it’s clear to me that the author wants us to answer, yes. The social media campaign, “#ShoutYourAbortion,” wants us to believe that “abortion is normal.”

According to The Smithsonian, alcohol placement ads in movies have nearly doubled over the last two decades. More than 80 percent of movies now contain depictions of alcohol use. This despite the fact that, according to JAMA Psychiatry, nearly one in three Americans have suffered from “problem drinking that becomes severe.”

Isaiah said of his nation, “Jerusalem has stumbled, and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the LORD, defying his glorious presence” (Isaiah 3:8). What “speech” and “deeds” did he mean? “They proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves” (v. 9).

Would he say the same of us?

The latest Harvard Business Review carries a fascinating article, “Preparing for the Cyberattack That Will Knock Out U.S. Power Grids.” If we lose electrical power, we lose everything connected to it. And that’s nearly everything today. Is our spiritual enemy following a similar strategy?

If the root problem we face is spiritual, the root answer must be spiritual as well.

  1. S. Lewis: “Mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man. It is not like teaching a horse to jump better and better but like turning a horse into a winged creature.”

Scripture promises that “they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). How high will you fly today?

 

Denison Forum