Daily Archives: August 20, 2017

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley –The Source of Jealousy

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Galatians 5:17-21

Most likely, you have been caught off guard by a wave of jealousy at some point in your life. Was it a spiritual attack? Did the enemy make you covetous? Was someone or something working to make you resentful?

The answer—which may surprise you—is no. Jealousy actually springs from within us, even though we might try to deflect the blame. For example, we may say, “Well, they just shouldn’t have that. They don’t deserve it, so I’m perfectly justified in feeling this way.”

Do you see what is actually going on here? We are not only feeling envious of someone, but we’re also saying that our jealousy is the other person’s fault! That’s simply not true. We are each 100 percent responsible for our own feelings of envy.

Jealousy is a product of the flesh. In the Bible, it is listed among such sins as idolatry, immorality, drunkenness, and sorcery—sins that stand against our holy God and are described as “earthly, natural, demonic” (Gal. 5:17-21; James 3:15).

Envious feelings can lead to unhealthy comparison of one’s own success to someone else’s. That pattern can grow into a competition to outperform others—and may result in fear and resentment. What a horrible way to live!

Though jealousy is a common emotion, it has no place in a believer’s life. So each of us should try to look objectively at the motives of our heart. Are you plagued with an attitude of jealousy today? If so, lay your honest feelings out before the Lord, and ask Him to cleanse you of this sinful attitude.

Bible in One Year: Jeremiah 37-40

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — The Turn

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Read: Esther 8:11–17

Bible in a Year: Psalms 105–106; 1 Corinthians 3

For the Jews it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor.—Esther 8:16

As the minister spoke at a funeral for an old military veteran, he mused about where the deceased might be. But then, instead of telling the people how they could know God, he speculated about things not found anywhere in Scripture. Where is the hope? I thought.

At last he asked us to turn to a closing hymn. And as we rose to sing “How Great Thou Art,” people began to praise God from the depths of their souls. Within moments, the spirit of the entire room had changed. Suddenly, surprisingly, in the middle of the third verse my emotions overwhelmed my voice.

And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing,

Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;

That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,

He bled and died to take away my sin.

Until we sang that great hymn, I had wondered if God was going to show up at that funeral. In reality, He never leaves. A look at the book of Esther reveals this truth. The Jews were in exile, and powerful people wanted to kill them. Yet at the darkest moment, a godless king granted the right to the enslaved Israelites to defend themselves against those who sought their demise (Est. 8:11–13). A successful defense and a celebration ensued (9:17–19).

It should be no surprise when God shows up in the words of a hymn at a funeral. After all, He turned an attempted genocide into a celebration and a crucifixion into resurrection and salvation! —Tim Gustafson

Our surprising God often shows His presence when we least expect Him.

INSIGHT: Esther is the only book in the Bible in which God’s name is never mentioned. Yet our surprising God often shows His presence when we least expect Him. Haman, who had tried to curry favor with the king to exterminate the Jews, found his plans overturned when God enabled Esther to expose Haman’s sinister plot. Even to this day Jewish people around the world celebrate the Feast of Purim to commemorate God’s intervention to preserve them as His chosen people.

Have you experienced a time when God surprised you by His divine intervention? Dennis Fisher

 

http://www.odb.org

Wisdom Hunters

Wisdom Hunters – God’s Leaders Have a Higher Standard 

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Priests… must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because they present the offerings made to the LORD by fire, the food of their God, they are to be holy.   Leviticus 21:6

Ministers of the Gospel submit to a higher standard and answer to a holy authority. There is something special and fearful about being a vocational servant of Jesus Christ. This is not a role to be undertaken lightly or to be chosen casually, as some secular career paths. God places eternal expectations on priests, pastors, and ministry leaders. Leaders in the church have the Lord as their baseline for behavior. Deviant behavior is unacceptable for those who lead on behalf of the Lord.

The leader’s character is his greatest asset. Someone cannot determine acceptable behavior based on what he wants when the Bible and church history have already defined the standard. How hypocritical and foolish to think leaders can flaunt immoral behavior when church members are disciplined for the same sin. Double standards may be for the uninformed and the unaccountable, but not for faithful and educated followers of Christ. How surreal to need to declare that character in the church matters! A church or ministry leader cannot practice immoral living and still lead the Bride of Christ. They cannot practice homosexuality, adultery, stealing, or lying. They cannot practice unfaithfulness in any of its destructive forms.

“An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly o the trustworthy message as it has been taught so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1:6-9).

There is a holy obligation for leaders to model and teach holy living as defined in God’s Word. Holiness is not a creation of culture but defined by God. Leaders of God’s church and ministry are to be holy as He is holy. Therefore, you can’t say you are a leader on behalf of Jesus Christ if you embrace and endorse the very sin for which He died on the cross. It would be the epitome of hypocrisy to do so.

If someone is bent on breaking 2,000 years of church tradition and 4,000 years of Biblical teaching, then he should do it in the name of another religion, not on behalf of Christianity. Do not use the Bible to defend your lame living in the name of the Lord, or the church as a crutch for crude behavior. Wake up to the fact that you have a heavenly Father to whom you will one day answer. Yes, He loves. Yes, He forgives. But above all else, He is holy. If anyone is hell-bent on hellish living, the church cannot condone it.

Where does the church draw the line for unholy living? The closer the line moves toward compromise, the deeper the church is absorbed into the culture. We lose our saltiness and dim our light. We become good for nothing and are trampled under the feet of fools. It must be laughable to the Lord that deviant behavior in church members, much less church leaders, is even up for debate.

Holy leaders do make people thirsty for God. They shine their light of holy living on the Lord. Embrace His higher standard, and expect the same of your church and ministry leaders. Elect men and women of the cloth who behave biblically, whose character aligns with Christ’s, and who model faithfulness, not perfection. They are not conformed to this world but transformed by God’s truth.

The Bible is clear: “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2-3).

Prayer: Heavenly Father, by faith I will follow You, so I can become a leader worth following, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Application: What area of my life does the Lord want me to grow my leadership?

Related Readings: 1 Kings 9:4; Proverbs 10:9; Nehemiah 7:2; Mark 12:14; 2 Corinthians 1:12

 

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Reminders

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That is why I would remind you to stir up (rekindle the embers of, fan the flame of, and keep burning) the [gracious] gift of God, [the inner fire] that is in you. . . . For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control. – 2 Timothy 1:6-7

It doesn’t matter what kind of problem we have in our lives, we need self-control and discipline to gain and maintain the victory. I believe this is especially true with regard to our thought life and the battle for our mind. What begins in the mind eventually comes out of the mouth, and before we know it, we’re telling anyone who will listen how we feel. We have to discipline our mind, our mouth, our feelings, and our actions so that they are all in agreement with what the Word of God says.

Every quality of God that is in you and me, God Himself planted in us in the form of a seed the day we accepted Christ (see Colossians 2:10). Over time and through life’s experiences, the seeds of Christ’s character begin to grow and produce the fruit of His Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23). I have found that it is virtually impossible to operate in any of the other eight fruit of the Spirit unless we are exercising self-control. How can you and I remain patient, for example, in the midst of an upsetting situation unless we exercise restraint? Or how can we walk in love and believe the best of someone after they have repeatedly hurt us unless we use the fruit of self-control?

Continue reading Joyce Meyer – Reminders →

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – A New Creature 

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“As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10-12, KJV).

At the conclusion of one of my messages at a pastor’s conference, a pastor stood to take issue with me concerning a statement that I had made. I had said that there is a great hunger for God throughout the world, and that more people are now hearing the gospel and receiving Christ than at any time since the Great Commission was given almost 2,000 years ago.

“How can you say that,” he objected, “when the Scripture clearly teaches that no man seeketh after God?”

“That is exactly what the Bible teaches,” I responded, “and I agree with the Word of God 100 percent, but do not forget that – though in his natural inclination man does not have a hunger for God – the Holy Spirit sends conviction and creates within the human heart a desire for the Savior.”

As Jesus put it, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me, draws him” (John 6:44, NAS). There are three things that we can learn about the human race from this passage. First, no one is righteous. Second, no one understands the things of God; and third, no one seeks God. What a contrast between what man is like in his natural state and what man becomes at spiritual birth when he is liberated from the darkness and gloom of Satan’s kingdom and ushered into the light of God’s glorious kingdom through Jesus Christ. That man becomes a new creature. Old things are passed away and behold all things become new.

What a contrast between the natural and the supernatural. The natural man must depend upon his own resources, his own wisdom, to find meaning and purpose in his life, inevitably resulting in a life of conflict, discord and frustration. But the one who trusts in God has the privilege of drawing upon the supernatural resources of God daily; resources of joy, peace, love; resources that provide meaning and purpose, assurance of eternal life.

Most people live lives of quiet desperation in self- imposed poverty because those of us who know the truth of the supernatural are strangely silent. God forgive us.

Bible Reading: Romans 3:13-20

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: With God’s help I refuse to remain silent any longer, but will seek to proclaim “the most joyful news ever announced” (Luke 2:10-11), to all who will listen in order that others may join me in living the supernatural life.

 

http://www.cru.org

Today in the Word

Moody Global Ministries – Today in the Word – THE BRILLIANCE OF CHRIST

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REVELATION 1:9-18

Charles Wesley wrote “Morning Hymn”: “Christ, whose glory fills the skies, / Christ, the true, the only light, / Sun of Righteousness, arise, / Triumph o’er the shades of night: / Day-spring from on high, be near: / Day-star, in my heart appear. . . . Visit then this soul of mine, / Pierce the gloom of sin, and grief, / Fill me, Radiancy Divine, / Scatter all my unbelief, / More and more thyself display, / Shining to the perfect day.”

The light and glory of God the Father is displayed as well by God the Son! Today’s reading from Revelation contains echoes from the prophet Ezekiel’s vision that we saw yesterday. We have explored light in the Bible as it relates to the Father; next, we’ll consider passages about light relating to the Son.

The island of Patmos was a Roman penal colony, about 50 miles southwest of Ephesus. John was in exile there, but as with the Jewish exiles in Ezekiel’s day, God remained very present. One Sunday, the Holy Spirit gave John a vision of the risen and exalted Christ.

Light is a key metaphor and visual feature in the description (vv. 12–16). There are seven lampstands and seven stars, representing seven churches and their angels. Christ’s hair is white like snow, indicating wisdom and dignity. His eyes are like blazing fire, meaning He sees all. His feet are like glowing bronze, representing strength. His “face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance” (v. 16), signifying not only glory and power but also love and favor (see Num. 6:24–26).

In the vision’s climax, Christ announced His identity as the Living One, the Alpha and the Omega, and the conqueror of death and hell (vv. 17–18).

APPLY THE WORD

Did you know that Christ has over 300 names or titles in Scripture? Two good books on this topic are Names of Christ, by T. C. Horton and Charles E. Hurlburt, and Names of Jesus, by A. B. Simpson (from a classic nineteenth-century sermon series). Both are available from Moody Publishers and can be found online or at your Christian bookstore.

 

http://www.todayintheword.org

Words of Hope

Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Strength to Move Past Our Failures

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Read: Luke 22:54-62;

Acts 2:36-41

But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter . . . And [Peter] went out and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:60-62)

Have you ever known people who are outspoken? They are not afraid to say what’s on their mind and may pride themselves on being the only honest folks in the room. Though honesty is admirable, people speaking without thinking are like bulls in a china shop. You can bet that they are going to cause some damage.

Out of all the disciples, Peter was probably the most vocal and to the point. He was quick to give his opinion and to let you know when he didn’t agree. So, it was no surprise that when Peter was told he would deny Jesus, he was quick to reject it. Later, however, it happened. Peter had failed Jesus, and his words left an ugly mark.

Whether we’re soft-spoken or outspoken, we all fall short of where we want to be. The true test of our character depends on what we do after we make a mistake. Judas Iscariot and Peter both betrayed Jesus, but Judas’ sorrow led to death, whereas Peter’s sorrow led to repentance and life (2 Cor. 7:10). We can stay down and wallow in self-pity, or we can reach out to God and ask for his strength to help us recover (Prov. 24:16). —Ericka Loynes

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the strength to get back up when we fail.

 

https://woh.org/