Daily Archives: November 14, 2023

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Sins Remembered No More

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Bible in a Year:

I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.

Jeremiah 31:34

Today’s Scripture & Insight:

Jeremiah 31:27–34

I never saw the ice. But I felt it. The back end of the pickup I was driving—my grandfather’s—fishtailed. One swerve, two, three—and I was airborne, flying off a fifteen-foot embankment. I remember thinking, This would be awesome if I wasn’t going to die. A moment later, the truck crunched into the steep slope and rolled to the bottom. I crawled out of the crushed cab, unscathed.

The truck was utterly totaled that December morning in 1992. God had spared me. But what about my grandfather? What would he say? In fact, he never said a single word about the truck. Not one. There was no scolding, no repayment plan, nothing. Just forgiveness. And a grandfather’s smile that I was okay.

My grandfather’s grace reminds me of God’s grace in Jeremiah 31. There, despite their tremendous failings, God promises a restored relationship with His people, saying, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (v. 34).

I’m sure my grandfather never forgot that I’d wrecked his truck. But he acted just like God does here, not remembering it, not shaming me, not making me work to repay the debt I rightfully owed. Just as God says He’ll do, my grandfather chose to remember it no more, as if the destructive thing I’d done had never happened.

By:  Adam Holz

Reflect & Pray

How should God’s forgiveness affect how you see your failures? How can you show others grace?

Father, thank You for Your forgiveness. When I cling to my shame, help me to recall that, in Christ, You remember my sins no more.

http://www.odb.org

John MacArthur

Grace to You; John MacArthur – The Motive for True Wisdom

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 “The wisdom from above is first pure” (James 3:17).

A pure life is necessary for a wise life.

A person whose life is characterized by true wisdom will seek to be pure. The Greek word translated “pure” in James 3:17 refers to spiritual integrity and moral sincerity. It is freedom from bitter jealousy, selfish ambition, and arrogant self-promotion. Christ is the perfect example of purity (1 John 3:3).

A true believer will have pure desires. The deepest part of him desires to do God’s will, serve God, and love God. In Romans 7:15-21 the apostle Paul testifies that when he sinned, he was doing what he didn’t want to do. In Psalm 51:7 David cries out, “Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” The true believer hates his sin. Rising out of his innermost being is a longing for what is clean, pure, holy, and honest.

Purity of heart is the motive of someone who seeks to live a life of godly wisdom (cf. Ps. 24:3-4). God says he will “take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19); that new heart will be consumed with purity rather than self. You do still sin because your new heart is incarcerated in your old flesh. But your new heart fights against your flesh. That’s why Paul said, “I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members” (Rom. 7:22-23).

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). As you persevere in battle against the world, the flesh, and the Devil, be encouraged by reminding yourself that one day the fight will be finished. The apostle John said it this way: “We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2).

Suggestions for Prayer

Read Psalm 51:1-17, making David’s prayer your own.

For Further Study

According to Matthew 5:48 and 1 Peter 1:15-16, what is God’s standard of purity?

From Strength for Today by John MacArthur

http://www.gty.org/

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Stable and Mature in Christ

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 …I will not be enslaved by anything [and brought under its power, allowing it to control me].

— 1 Corinthians 6:12 (AMP)

Many people have convinced themselves that they are overly emotional people. They say, “I can’t help it. My emotions get the best of me.” If you’ve ever felt that way, let me tell you that you can be stable and mature in Christ. You don’t have to be a victim of your emotions.

No one is “just emotional”; we may have chosen to allow ourselves to be led by our emotions until doing so became a habit, but with God’s help we can change. God has given us a spirit of discipline and self-control, but we have to use it.

God gave you emotions so you could feel good and bad things, but He never intended those feelings to rule you. With God’s help, you can discipline your mind, your will, and your emotions. You can be a stable and mature Christian who follows God and not your emotions.

Prayer of the Day: Father, I come to You today asking that you guide me toward emotional stability and spiritual maturity. I want to grow up in You, Lord Jesus, amen.

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Alistair Begg

Truth for Life; Alistair Begg – Rekindling Lost Love

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I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

Revelation 2:4-5

It’s tragic to see a marriage in which the spouses have grown cold toward each other. Though they’re still together, loneliness and isolation abound. There’s a rigid, lifeless formality to it, seen in their eyes and understood in their expressions. The vibrancy and fresh discoveries that marked their early love are missing, having slipped away with the passing years.

The Ephesian church was a task-oriented, tough-minded, truth-telling fellowship, and for this they were commended (Revelation 2:2-3). But in His words to them, Jesus revealed their Achilles’ heel: though they were seeking to hold fast to the truth, they had abandoned love. One commentator writes, “If the price paid by the Ephesians for the preservation of true Christianity was the loss of love, the price was too high, for Christianity without love is a perverted faith.”[1]

Was it that they had lost their love for Christ? For each other? For the unbelieving community around them? It isn’t necessary to choose between those options. For when love for Christ is not as it should be, then our love for all else will be affected.

For those of us who are committed to doctrinal faithfulness, here is a challenging reminder that the ultimate measure of a church is found not in its programs, achievements, reputation, or doctrinal orthodoxy but in its love. Christianity, as the Puritan Thomas Chalmers eloquently put it, is about “the expulsive power of a new affection”—about falling in love with Christ, about a sense of the immensity of His pursuing, energizing, loving grace. If that love for Jesus begins to wane, we will begin to look a lot like the church in Ephesus: impressive from the outside but internally loveless. And Jesus warns that this is no small matter; removing the Ephesian church’s lampstand means removing His recognition of them as His church, His people. A loveless church is, in truth, not a church at all.

Perhaps you realize that you do not love God the way you once did. This can creep up on us so easily, our eyes growing dry, our prayers growing cold. What can we do?

Jesus says the remedy for lost love is first to “remember.” We need to recall what it was about Jesus that caused us to love Him in the first place and then use that as a spur for forward momentum. We need to restore our commitment to the things we did at first—which typically means going back to the basics. In short, we need to look again at Jesus, lifting our eyes from what we do—our programs, our efforts, our ministries—to the beauty and love of the one who died for us and who dwells in us. Love is rekindled by looking at that which is lovely. So if your love has grown cold, gaze at Jesus as He reveals Himself to you in His word—and joy and vibrancy will surely return.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Hebrews 1:1-13

Topics: Jesus Christ Love of God Loving Others

FOOTNOTES

1 G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Wipf and Stock, 2010), p 75.

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

Kids 4 Truth

Kids4Truth Clubs Daily Devotional – God Corrects His Children

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“For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” (Proverbs 3:12)

None of us likes to be disciplined. It’s not fun at all! But if you have loving parents, you know that they do not really enjoy disciplining you, either.

A little girl named Addy was once caught stealing money out of her mom’s purse. When her dad took her aside to correct her, Addy saw that her dad was crying – even while he was punishing her. At first, Addy was just sad that she had been caught. But when she saw her dad crying, she was even sadder that she had disappointed him so much by stealing.

Our Heavenly Father is disappointed, too, when His children sin. He punishes His “sons” and “daughters” because He knows that sometimes a punishment is necessary for us to learn to obey Him. He loves us and punishes us for our good, not because He enjoys disciplining us.

When was the last time you disappointed your Heavenly Father by stealing – or coveting, or dishonoring your parents, or breaking the rules at your school, or saying unkind things about another one of His children? Can you blame Him for being disappointed in you? Can you see why He has to correct you? You can trust that, if God is punishing you for disobedience, it is because you are deserving and because He is loving. He loves you too much to leave you in your sin.

God disciplines us because He loves us.

My Response:
» Do I remember that I am disappointing my Heavenly Father when I sin?
» Do I understand that God disciplines His children because He loves them?

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Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Al-Shifa hospital is no longer functioning: Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?

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Israeli tanks advanced yesterday to the gates of Gaza City’s main hospital. According to the World Health Organization, al-Shifa hospital is no longer functioning after three days without power. A Gaza health ministry spokesperson said thirty-two patients had died in the last three days, including three newborn babies, as a result.

President Biden stated yesterday that Gaza’s hospitals “must be protected.” While hospitals are granted special protection under international humanitarian law, the International Committee of the Red Cross notes that they can lose such protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons.

This is just what Israel says Hamas is doing in Gaza. It claims that the terrorist group operates its command headquarters beneath the al-Shifa complex; the Israeli military has released an illustrated map of the hospital marked with locations it claims are underground military installations. A US official with knowledge of American intelligence has confirmed this claim. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also states that Israel offered “to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we (have) no battle with patients or civilians at all,” but Hamas refused the offer.

Palestinian medical workers, by contrast, accuse Israel of mounting an all-out attack on infrastructure in Gaza to punish the population and force a surrender. Accordingly, three Palestinian human rights groups have asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel, accusing it of perpetrating genocide in its war in Gaza.

This accusation that Israel is committing genocide is common in the press, on college campuses, and at other pro-Palestinian rallies these days.

But is it true?

“Any civilian loss is a tragedy”

In December 1948, in the aftermath of the Second World War, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It defines genocide as acts intended “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.”

By this definition, Hamas is a genocidal group. Its founding charter, published in 1988, explicitly calls for the obliteration of Israel. As Bret Stephens writes in the New York Times, “had the Hamas terrorists been able to kill one hundred or one thousand times as many [Jews] as they did on October 7, they would have done so without hesitation.” He adds that Hamas’s goal is “homicidal: to end Israel as a state by slaughtering every Jew within it.”

By contrast, Israel wants to destroy Hamas, not the Palestinians. When Hamas uses civilians as human shields, their deaths are the fault of Hamas, according to Prime Minister Netanyahu: “I think any civilian loss is a tragedy . . . and the blame should be placed squarely on Hamas.”

Cultural commentator Andrew Sullivan noted: “If Israel were interested in the ‘genocide’ of Palestinian Arabs, it has had the means to accomplish it for a very long time. And yet, for some reason, the Arab population of Israel and the occupied territories has exploded since 1948, and the Arabs in Israel proper have voting rights and a key presence in the Knesset.”

He concludes: “The only people actively and proudly engaged in genocide are Hamas.” Those who march for Hamas are not opposing genocide but “defending its perpetrators.”

Supreme Court adopts a code of conduct

In other news, the US Supreme Court issued its first-ever code of conduct yesterday. According to the Court, the fifteen-page document “largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.” However, the code provides no penalties for violations of ethical standards.

This fact highlights the problem with legislating morality: if even our nation’s highest court cannot anticipate and respond to every possible ethical violation its nine members might commit, how can a nation of laws possibly legislate for every misuse of human freedom? United Nations regulations against genocide have clearly not kept Hamas from seeking and committing it. Nor have they protected Israel’s critics from falsely claiming that it is doing the same thing.

This is why the Christian gospel is so urgently needed in our post-Christian culture. Only in Christ can we become a “new creation” for whom “the old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Only Jesus can cleanse sinners so that we are “holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27).

In my latest website paper, “Are the Jews still God’s chosen people?” I relate the transforming power of the gospel to the war in the Middle East. After examining in detail the theological debate regarding Israel’s status in biblical prophecy and God’s kingdom today, I close with three biblical facts:

  1. God intends all people—Jews and Gentiles—to experience his transforming love (Ezekiel 36:26; 2 Corinthians 5:17).
  2. God wants to use all people—Jews and Gentiles—to bring the good news of his love to the world (Genesis 12:3; Acts 1:8).
  3. We should join Paul in praying earnestly for Jews who do not know Jesus to turn to him in faith (Romans 10:1).

“Faith is like a window you look through”

In light of these facts, let’s close with this truth: God’s love in Christ can change any human heart, including the terrorists of Hamas. If we think this is impossible, we just need to remember the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. The Bible records that he “was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3; cf. 22:4). Of course, that persecutor is known to the world today as Paul the Apostle.

If God could change his heart, he can change any heart.

Will you pause now to pray for God to bring the terrorists of Hamas into conviction of their sins and salvation in Christ? Ask Jesus to reveal himself to them in visions and dreams, something he is doing across the Muslim world today. And remember: it is always too soon to give up on God.

Br. Geoffrey Tristram of the Society of St. John the Evangelist notes: “It’s not great faith that you need, but faith in a great God. Faith is like a window you look through. It doesn’t matter if the window is six feet high or six inches, or just the tiniest peephole in a telescope. What matters is the God that your faith is looking out on.”

How great is your God?

Denison Forum

John Hagee

Hagee Ministries; John Hagee –  Daily Devotion

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Wild Horse Emotions

OUR EMOTIONS ARE POWERFUL. We all have them. These emotions bring flavor to our lives. But sometimes these emotions get away from us and become like wild horses—untamed and running free.

“Wild horse” emotions, if unbridled, can run roughshod through our souls, lives, and relationships. They have the power to destroy us. Yet these same “wild horse” emotions, if brought under control, can carry us to new levels of success.

Consider feral stallions—ones that have not had any human contact. They can be fiery and reactive. When  they are threatened by a rival horse, they will assert their dominance—bucking, sparring and biting to gain control. They become incredibly dangerous creatures. But introduce a predator to their domain and these strong horses become fearful and  flee. Nevertheless, even the wildest  of these horses can be tamed. Through patient training, it can grow to be calm and collected, displaying graceful strength and power. The same is true of our emotions.

As a follower of Christ, we must learn to tame our “wild horse” emotions, bringing them under submission to God. To overcome these emotions, we must learn to walk in the Spirit. In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul states, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish” 5:16-17, emphasis added.

“Wild horse” emotions are what Paul refers to in this passage as “the lust of the flesh.” They are the emotions that wage war against what we know we ought to do.

Think about a time that you have been really angry at someone. The kind of anger that has you red-faced, eye-popping, foaming-at-the-mouth, fist-waving, foot-stomping angry. Suddenly, your anger takes control and you lash out with no thought of the repercussions of your decision. That’s a “wild horse” emotion.

Each of us has our triggers that cause us to get angry, to worry, to be fearful or feel other strong emotions. There are times that these emotions are good, even godly, if for the right reason. Proverbs 1:7 tells us, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge…” The fear of the Lord is a healthy kind of fear. But there is also a spirit of fearfulness that does not come from the Lord. We may fear an economic collapse, relational discord, or for a wayward child. The fear of such things can lead us to a place that is unhealthy spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Therefore, it is important that we examine what the motivation for these emotions is before we react.

This is also why it’s so important for us to walk in the Spirit. What is the result when we are fully submitted to the Holy Spirit? We receive the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Bible tells us that “Against such [things] there is no law” Galatians 5:23.

Walking in the Spirit takes discipline. Discipline is the ability to complete with excellence that which must be done when it must be done.

So, how do we discipline our “wild horse” emotions? James, the brother of Jesus, had a thought on that when he wrote, “Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body” James 3:3. In other words, we make them obey us through discipline.

Being disciplined to live a Christian life will save you a lot of heartache and headache in this life. In the battle for self-control, the enemy is you. The war of the soul is a civil war. God gave us freedom to choose for ourselves whom we will serve. Will we bow down to the altar of “wild horse” emotions that will lead to destruction, or will we instead walk in the Spirit and choose life?

God’s Word calls us to discipline ourselves in our appetites, in our passions, in our affections, in our thoughts, in our attitudes, in our moods, in our speech, in our conduct, in our habits, in our companionships, in our amusement, in our purpose and in our marriage.

In John 8:31, Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” If you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you must abide in the Word of God. When you do what’s in the Word, when you discipline yourself to live by the words of the Bible, and when you abide in the Word of God, then you are living the life of a disciple. It is not enough to just believe; we also have to do. Jesus said, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” Luke 6:46. It is not enough to call Jesus “Lord.” We are His disciples when we do what He asks of us. Until you are doing what Jesus asks of you, you are not disciplined. You’re a wild horse doing your own thing, not advancing the Kingdom of God.

To abide in the Lord, we must be consuming the Word of God. Daily consumption leads to great spiritual health. Are you reading the Word daily? Are you building a healthy relationship with God? We need this communion with God in order to tame our “wild horse” emotions.

Paul said, “I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified” 1 Corinthians 9:26-27, ESV. There is a call of God on your life because you are God’s handiwork. You do not need to run through life aimlessly. He created you in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prepared in advance for you to do. That means there are specific things out there that will bless the Kingdom of God and fill you with contentment, and they have your name on them.

LET GO OF YOUR “WILD HORSE” EMOTIONS.

Let go of the pain in your past. Rather, be filled with the fruit of the Spirit as you abide in Christ’s calling over your life. Forgive those who have hurt you. Don’t become their prisoner, allowing them to take control of your thoughts and emotions. Rather, bring your emotions under submission to the Holy Spirit and live a life filled with peace and joy.

God wants His children to have the best of things in the worst of times. He wants you to live in peace, even when life is hectic and things aren’t going your way. God can use circumstances to build your faith, to move you into a position where you can be used mightily for the Kingdom. Trust in Him, knowing that He loves you so very much and is working all things together for your good.

WE BELIEVE THAT GREAT THINGS ARE ON THE WAY!

https://www.jhm.org

Turning Point

Turning Point; David Jeremiah – Father of Lies

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Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith.
1 Peter 5:8-9

 Recommended Reading: James 4:7

While lions no longer roam the plains of the Middle East, they did in biblical days. And Peter used the lion as a picture of Satan. Lions roar to intimidate their prey and competitors, but Satan intimidates in other, more subtle ways.

The apostle Paul pointed out that spiritual warfare is not a matter of physical armaments and conflicts, but a battle over truth—the realm of thoughts (2 Corinthians 10:3-6). That’s how Satan attacked and intimidated Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He replaced God’s truth—“You shall not eat…lest you die”—with a lie: “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:3-4). He intimidated Adam and Eve into believing a lie, and they died spiritually. Jesus said that Satan is “the father of lies” (John 8:44, NIV). His primary weapon against Christians is to persuade us to believe lies about God—that He is not good, forgiving, loving, or faithful.

When you are tempted to doubt God or His truth, you are being tempted by Satan. Resist him and stand firm in the faith.

It is the oldest stratagem of Satan to disfigure the truth by misrepresentation.
Iain Murray

https://www.davidjeremiah.org

Greg Laurie

Harvest Ministries; Greg Laurie – The Cover-Up

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But if you fail to keep your word, then you will have sinned against the LORD, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. 

—Numbers 32:23

Scripture:

Numbers 32:23 

Some years ago, I read a humorous article about someone who decided to rob a Baptist church in North Carolina. But he was more than six feet tall and weighed 235 pounds. And when he tried to escape with his loot through a bathroom window, he got stuck. It took four police officers pushing and pulling him to get him out of the window.

His sin found him out.

Moses warned the children of Israel, “But if you fail to keep your word, then you will have sinned against the Lord, and you may be sure that your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23 NLT).

He knew this from firsthand experience.

After Moses killed an Egyptian who was beating one of his fellow Hebrews, he probably thought the Hebrew people would applaud him. He may have been hoping they’d say, “That Moses is something! He’s the grandson of Pharaoh, but he risked everything to help us. He’s our new hero.”

However, things didn’t go as Moses had hoped.

The next day when he saw a couple of Hebrews fighting, he walked up and tried to settle the dispute. But one of them said, “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?” (Exodus 2:14 NLT).

Moses thought he had hidden his sin, but he suddenly realized that everyone knew. He also realized that he was in trouble. When Pharaoh heard about it, he tried to kill Moses. So, Moses fled for his life into the wilderness.

Moses lost everything: his position, his people, and his reputation. But he hadn’t lost God. He did the wrong thing in the wrong way at the wrong time. His timing was horribly off—by about forty years. Though Moses was gifted to be a leader, he wasn’t quite ready yet.

His heart was in the right place, but he went about it the wrong way. He made a huge mess for himself, and it seemed as though everyone had turned against him. But God had not turned against Moses. And what looked like the end of his life actually was the beginning of a new one.

He found a family that befriended them. He married one of the daughters in the family and ended up watching her father’s sheep. He probably thought that was where he would die.

But God had other plans. Moses was a leader in training.

It has been said that Moses spent forty years in Pharaoh’s court finding out he was a somebody. He spent forty years in the wilderness finding out he was a nobody. And then he spent forty years finding out what God can do with a somebody who realizes they are a nobody.

Are you trying to cover up something right now? Is there some secret sin in your life? If so, then just come out with it and confess it, because sooner or later, it will be exposed. Nothing is hidden from God.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie