Daily Archives: June 19, 2017

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley –The Testing of Our Commitment

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Hebrews 11:8-9

In situations when God is testing us, He will teach us new and deeper truths about Himself, His purposes, and His promises. Though we feel stretched in painful seasons, such difficulties are always designed to be beneficial.

From a human perspective, times of testing can be baffling because we don’t understand how anything good could result. Consider God’s command that Abraham sacrifice his long-awaited son Isaac. Abraham’s earthly viewpoint could have regarded this order as:

Unreasonable. “I cherish my son above all else. How could You ask this?”

Untimely. “Why now, Lord? My son is still young. He is the one through whom my descendants are to come.”

Unfair. “It’s not right that You ask this. Haven’t I left home to follow You?”

Unbearable. “This is too hard for me. I cannot take this pain.”

Abraham rejected that kind of thinking. Instead, he trusted God. The trial revealed Abraham’s unshakable commitment to the Lord’s plan.

Knowing which circumstances will help us grow, our Father asks us to exercise faith and choose His way. Recalling His unending love and wholehearted commitment to His children will help us do this. Be assured that God makes no mistakes in His dealings with us.

Imagine Abraham’s joy when the Lord provided a ram as a sacrifice in Isaac’s place. We will receive the same reward of spiritual joy when we remain steadfast. Won’t you respond to times of testing as Abraham did—by trusting and obeying God?

Bible in One Year: Psalm 44-49

 

http://www.intouch.org/

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Driven by God

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Read: 1 Kings 8:54–63

Bible in a Year: Nehemiah 12–13; Acts 4:23–37

May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in obedience to him.—1 Kings 8:58

A few months ago I received an email inviting me to join a community of “driven people.” I decided to look up the word driven, and I learned that a driven person is someone highly motivated to succeed and who will work hard to achieve his goals.

Is it good to be a driven person? There is a test that never fails: “Do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Many times we do things for self-glory. After the flood in Noah’s day, a group of people decided to build a tower in order to “make a name” for themselves (Gen. 11:4). They wanted to be famous and avoid being scattered all over the world. Because they were not doing it for God’s glory, though, they were erroneously driven.

In contrast, when King Solomon dedicated the ark of the covenant and the newly constructed temple, he said, “I have built the temple for the Name of the Lord” (1 Kings 8:20). Then he prayed, “May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in obedience to him and keep the commands” (v. 58).

When our greatest desire is to bring glory to God and walk in obedience, we become driven people who seek to love and serve Jesus in the power of the Spirit. Let our prayer echo Solomon’s. May our “hearts be fully committed to the Lord our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands” (v. 61). —Keila Ochoa

Father, give me the desire to obey You and do everything for Your glory.

Do everything for the glory of God.

INSIGHT: As you work hard to achieve your goals, ask God to give you a humble and obedient heart that is fully committed to Him.

 

http://www.odb.org

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Foundations of Disbelief

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Reading an online newspaper the other day, I ended up, as I often do, on the religion pages. My attention was first caught by a long list of various world religions, followed by the descriptions of the beliefs and key practices of each one. Interestingly, I thought, atheism was among the many religions listed. And yet in describing the main beliefs of atheists, the first sentence declared: “Atheism is not a belief.” Can a belief-system accurately be defined as the absence of belief? Its very inclusion as a belief-system among alternative belief-systems seemed to negate its first belief.

Though atheism contends disbelief in God, it is rightfully placed among the many belief-systems that inform life itself. As the atheistic worldview offers certain perspectives about the world, like Christianity or Hinduism, it requires certain faith assumptions: that the world exists in ordered, knowable nature, that our senses and intellect are reliable in discovering truth, that there is a uniformity to nature extending from past to future. At the foundation of every worldview, a number of interconnected beliefs are held in faith. The question then becomes, which faith provides the most coherent foundation for understanding the world?

Some insist the atheist’s insistence of reason as the foundation for non-belief creates a tension of incoherence within the belief itself. “Reasons require that this universe be a reasonable one that presupposes there is order, logic, design, and truth. But order, logic, design, and truth can only exist and be known if there is an unchangeable objective source and standard of such things….Like all non-theistic worldviews, Darwinism borrows from the theistic worldview in order to make its own view intelligible.”(1) In other words, the very foundation of atheistic faith allows for an unstable structure of interpretation.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Foundations of Disbelief →

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

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – All Is Ours

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“So don’t be proud of following the wise men of this world. For God has already given you everything you need. He has given you Paul and Apollos and Peter as your helpers. He has given you the whole world to use, and life and even death are your servants. He has given you all of the present and all of the future. All are yours, and you belong to Christ, and Christ is God’s (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).

A famous scholar and statesman called me aside to offer his counsel. “As the head of a great worldwide Christian student movement,” he said, “you should be more scholarly, more of a philosopher. Your approach is too simple. Your critics and even some of your friends feel that your writings and your speaking should be more profound as befits one of your stature and position.” He continued in this vein for some time. I heard him out, prayerfully asking God to give me the wisdom to respond.

When he finished I said to him, “There was a time when I wanted to impress people with my intellect, my learning. I spent many years in graduate school including two theological seminaries where I had the privilege of sitting at the feet of some of the most learned theologians of our time.”

I confessed to him that there was a period in my student life when I became intoxicated with learning and could have spent the rest of my life in the ivory tower. Then it occurred to me in a very definite, dramatic way that one of the reasons the Christian message was not better understood by every Christian and the reason the Christian church was making such little impact upon a worldly society was that many theologians, and consequently their students, pastors and missionaries, had complicated the good news of God’s love and forgiveness. I reminded my friend that Jesus, the greatest teacher of all, taught in such a way that the masses, largely illiterate and unlearned, heard Him gladly. I went on to explain that I had made a concerted effort all through my ministry to try to communicate clearly by eliminating big words and philosophical and theological jargon, the kind of “Christianese” that does not communicate except to those who are familiar with the usage.

This famous scholar seemed to understand for the first time the importance of following the example of our Lord and other great teachers through the centuries who sought to communicate clearly to the masses.

Bible Reading: I Corinthians 3:16-20

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: Remembering that God has given me everything I need, I will look to Him to guide my steps and enable me to live the supernatural life. I will also keep the message simple as I communicate the good news of God’s love in Christ.

 

http://www.cru.org

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Do What Pleases God

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Years ago a friend gave me this counsel: Make a list of all the lives you would affect by your sexual immorality. I did. The list includes Denalyn, my three daughters, my sons-in-law, my grandchild, and more. And every so often I reread it. The list reminds me that one act of carnality is a poor exchange for a lifetime of lost legacy.

Dad’s, would you intentionally break the arm of your child? Of course not. Such an action would violate every fiber of your moral being. Yet if you engage in sexual activity outside your marriage, you’ll bring much more pain into the life of your child than would a broken bone. In 1 Corinthians 6:19, Paul asked the rhetorical question, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?”

Actions have consequences. So what do you do? Simple…do what pleases God!

From You’ll Get Through This

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

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Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Police treating London mosque assault as terrorism

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A vehicle rammed into people leaving London’s Finsbury Park Mosque after Ramadan prayers early this morning. One person died and ten were wounded. According to CNN, the leader of the mosque protected the suspected attacker from the furious crowd until police arrived.

The attacker reportedly shouted, “I did my bit, you deserve it.” London’s mayor called the crash a “horrific terrorist attack.” If the assault was retribution for jihadist attacks in London on March 22 and June 3, it makes clear that violence only begets more violence. But we can choose to break the cycle of vengeance. It is a fact of human history that our past need not determine our future.

Consider Brooks Koepka, the surprise winner of yesterday’s US Open. Golf’s four “major” titles are obviously its most prestigious and stressful tournaments. It would seem that experience is a critical advantage.

However, Koepka had never won a major title before and had won only one previous PGA tournament in his six years on the tour. In fact, fifteen of the last seventeen major champions were first-time major tournament winners. In athletics, our past need not determine our future.

One more example of our thesis: when Jacob David Alderdice proposed marriage to Uzezi Elakeche Abugo, the engagement ring he gave her was too small and cut off the blood to her finger. When it turned a dark shade of purple, they rushed to the emergency room. The ring was cut from her finger, leaving her with a lasting scar. The couple was married two days ago, showing that in relationships, our past need not determine our future.

Part of our divinely created nature is our capacity for freedom. As a result, we can refuse to return violence for violence. We can refuse to let our achievements limit our dreams. We can view injuries as invitations to a new life.

Consider King David. The youngest of eight sons, he was ignored and ridiculed by his brothers before he defeated Goliath and became king of Israel. In Psalm 144, he explained his secret: “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle; he is my steadfast love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield and he in whom I take refuge, who subdues peoples under me” (vv. 1–2).

Note David’s intimacy with his Lord: six times he used “my” in referring to God. And the One he depended upon so fully gave him a future and a legacy we celebrate still today.

When we make his declaration our commitment, his victory can be ours: “Blessed are the people whose God is the Lord” (v. 15). How blessed will you be today?

 

Denison Forum