Daily Archives: August 1, 2018

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Spiritual Gifts Work Together

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Romans 12:3-8

Have you ever noticed that people in the church don’t all think the same way? When we become frustrated in our attempts to communicate with a fellow believer, we may begin to wonder whether something is wrong in our spiritual life. After all, aren’t we supposed to be a united body of Christ?

It turns out that the problem could be the result of spiritual gifting. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to every believer for the common good of the church (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). But unless we realize this, we may fail to appreciate the gifts of other believers. Then it’s easy to start harboring the opinion that everyone else should be like us.

For instance, someone with the gift of mercy might judge a believer with exhortation skills to be heartless—the exhorter may appear to value explaining the spiritual benefits of adversity over sympathizing with the hurting person. Yet both gifts are beneficial; used properly, they work together to help a sufferer see there’s hope in the hardship and comfort for endurance.

The root of division over spiritual gifts is self-focus, which can be displayed in two ways. If we think too lowly of our spiritual gift, we may become resentful or feel unimportant. If, on the other hand, we think too highly of our gift, we may believe it’s the most important one.

If you feel at odds with a fellow believer because of your differing approaches to issues in the church, stop and thank the Lord for that person and his gifting. Then pray that he will be used for the good of the fellowship and for God’s own glory.

Bible in One Year: Isaiah 40-42

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — What Is God Like?

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Read: Hebrews 1:1–10 | Bible in a Year: Job 20–21; Acts 10:24–48

The Son is . . . the exact representation of [God’s] being. Hebrews 1:3

To celebrate a special occasion, my husband took me to a local art gallery and said I could choose a painting as a gift. I picked out a small picture of a brook flowing through a forest. The streambed took up most of the canvas, and because of this much of the sky was excluded from the picture. However, the stream’s reflection revealed the location of the sun, the treetops, and the hazy atmosphere. The only way to “see” the sky was to look at the surface of the water.

Jesus is like the stream, in a spiritual sense. When we want to see what God is like, we look at Jesus. The writer of Hebrews said He is “the exact representation of [God’s] being” (1:3). Although we can learn facts about God through direct statements in the Bible such as “God is love,” we can deepen our understanding by seeing the way God would act if He faced the same problems we have on Earth. Being God in human flesh, this is what Jesus has shown us.

In temptation, Jesus revealed God’s holiness. Confronting spiritual darkness, He demonstrated God’s authority. Wrestling with people problems, He showed us God’s wisdom. In His death, He illustrated God’s love.

Although we cannot grasp everything about God—He is limitless and we are limited in our thinking—we can be certain of His character when we look at Christ.

Dear God, thank You for making a way for us to know You. Help us to grow closer to You by looking at Jesus.

Looking at Jesus shows us God’s character.

By Jennifer Benson Schuldt

INSIGHT

Jesus lived out the mission of revealing the heart and character of His Father to a world that had separated itself from Him. This aspect of Jesus’s incarnation was described in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us” (nlt). In revealing the Father to us, we see the invisible God made visible in Jesus.

Bill Crowder

 

 

http://www.odb.org

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – For the Weary

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Grief is a strange thing in that its memory is more characterized by what the relationship was or was not than by what characterized the death.(1) You look forward and ache over what has now been lost for the future. You look backward and grieve what never truly was and can now never be.

The award-winning author Paulo Coelho is a beautiful writer, and his lines of pure poetry are disguised as novels. His book The Witch of Portobello, a mystical story with many unusual turns, remains on my shelf, no matter where I live. I often pull it off, brush my hand across the cover, and flip it open to a page I have nearly memorized.

The story begins in Beirut, Lebanon, a country that boasts of warm hospitality, platefuls of hummus and tabouli, the Mediterranean coast, and beautiful cedars. Coelho describes his heroine, Athena, as an unusual girl who possessed a sense of spirituality from the time of her youth. She married when she was nineteen and wanted to have a baby right away. Her husband left her when the baby was still young, and Athena had to raise him alone.

During one Sunday Mass, the priest watched as Athena walked toward him to receive Communion, and his heart was filled with dread. Athena stood in front of the priest, drew her eyes closed, and opened her mouth to receive. I picture her standing there in vulnerability, asking to receive Christ’s body, given for her. She was hungry for the grace that it offered.

But he did not give it to her.

The young girl opened her eyes, terribly confused. The priest tried to tell her in hushed tones that they would talk about it later, but she would not be turned away. She persisted until she received an answer.

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Be Willing and Yielded

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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? — Romans 8:31

Adapted from the resource Ending Your Day Right Devotional – by Joyce Meyer

You do not have to depend on your own human efforts to overcome adversity and opposition or to earn favor and win promotion. When God is ready to move in your life, He will give you favor and promotion—and no devil in hell or person on earth will be able to prevent it from happening.

It doesn’t matter what people think of you. Your weaknesses and inabilities don’t make any difference to God. His criteria for using people is not their talents, gifts, and abilities. He is looking for people who are willing and yielded. God looks for availability, not ability.

Let God build you, your reputation, and your career. When the time is right, He will deliver you out of adversity, and then you’ll see the fulfillment of your dreams.

Prayer Starter: Father, I thank You that my times are in Your hands (see Psalm 31:15). Help me to keep my trust in You, knowing that all blessings and promotion come from You alone. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

 

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – He Does Such Wonders

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“I will cry to the God of heaven who does such wonders for me” (Psalm 57:2).

I cannot begin to count the times, even during just one 24-hour day, that I lift my heart in praise, worship and adoration and thanksgiving to God in heaven. I begin the day by acknowledging His lordship of my life and inviting Him to have complete control of my thoughts, my attitudes, my actions, my motives, my desires, my words; to walk around in my body, think with my mind, love with my heart, speak with my lips and continue through me to seek and save the lost and minister to those in need. Throughout the day I bring before Him the personal needs of my family. I pray for the extended family of Campus Crusade for Christ and staff and their families and for all those who support this ministry through their prayers and finances. I pray for business and professional people, that God will bless their finances as well as their lives so that they can continue to help support this and other ministries for His kingdom.

As I look through the mail, I breathe a prayer to God for some staff member, friend, associate, or supporter who is hurting, needing encouragement, strength and peace. At all of my many daily conferences, I will begin and close with a brief word of prayer claiming the promise of God-given wisdom for the matters we shall be discussing, for supernatural discernment that will enable me to see through all the intricacies of the problems presented. When the phone rings, I breathe a silent prayer and often a vocal one at the appropriate time with that person on the other end of the line who is in distress, whether from family problems or work-related difficulties.

In between, I pray alone and with others for the hundreds of different people, events and circumstances that involve the worldwide ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ and the ministry of His Body throughout the world.

Bible Reading:Psalm 57:1-11

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: Recognizing that prayer is as vital to my spiritual life as air is to my physical being, I will pray without ceasing and in all things give thanks to our God in heaven who does such wonders for me

 

http://www.cru.org

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Heirs of the Promise

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Listen to Today’s Devotion

Heroes in the Bible came from all walks of life—rulers, servants, teachers, doctors—male, female, single, and married.  Yet one common denominator united them. They built their lives on the promises of God. Noah believed in rain before rain was a word. Joshua led two million people into enemy territory. One writer went so far as to call such saints “heirs of the promise” (Hebrews 6:17).

As God prepared the Israelites to face a new land, he made a promise to them, “Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world.  The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you” (Exodus 34:10). God’s promises are unbreakable.  Our hope is unshakable!

Read more Unshakable Hope

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

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Denison Forum – Tom Cruise’s most dangerous “Mission: Impossible” stunts

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My wife and I recently saw the sixth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise. We were not alone: the film grossed $61.2 million in its first weekend.

You can’t see one of these films and not wonder if Tom Cruise does his own stunts. It turns out, he does. Or at least, the most death-defying ones.

Christopher McQuarrie directed Cruise in the two most recent Mission: Impossible movies (Rogue Nation and Fallout). He was asked by the New York Times to rank the most difficult stunts he and his star have executed. According to McQuarrie, Cruise did his own motorcycle chase scene in Fallout, sometimes “going in excess of 100 miles an hour with cars chasing him and coming at him.”

The scene in Fallout where he jumps from an airplane at 25,000 feet? Cruise actually did that. He made 106 jumps in total to film the sequence. He hung from an airplane in Rogue Nation and qualified for pilot certification so he could pilot a helicopter in Fallout.

Cruise didn’t have to do any of this, but as he and the movie cast explain, such realism makes the movies better.

Bible removed from military memorial

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