Daily Archives: December 20, 2023

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Forgiveness and Forgetting

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Bible in a Year :

I am he who blots out your transgressions . . . and remembers your sins no more.

Isaiah 43:25

Today’s Scripture & Insight :

Isaiah 43:18–25

Jill Price was born with the condition of hyperthymesia: the ability to remember in extraordinary detail everything that ever happened to her. She can replay in her mind the exact occurrence of any event she’s experienced in her lifetime.

The TV show Unforgettable was premised on a female police officer with hyperthymesia—to her a great advantage in trivia games and in solving crimes. For Jill Price, however, the condition isn’t so much fun. She can’t forget the moments of life when she was criticized, experienced loss, or did something she deeply regretted. She replays those scenes in her head over and over again.

Our God is omniscient (perhaps a kind of divine hyperthymesia): the Bible tells us that His understanding has no limit. And yet we discover in Isaiah a most reassuring thing: “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions . . . and remembers your sins no more” (43:25). The book of Hebrews reinforces this: “We have been made holy through . . . Jesus Christ . . . [and our] sins and lawless acts [God] will remember no more” (Hebrews 10:10, 17).

As we confess our sins to God, we can stop playing them over and over in our minds. We need to let them go, just as He does: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” (Isaiah 43:18). In His great love, God chooses to not remember our sins against us. Let’s remember that.

By:  Kenneth Petersen

Reflect & Pray

What regrets do you harbor in your memory and play over and over again? How can you give them to God and release the past?

Dear God, thank You for forgiving and forgetting my sins.

http://www.odb.org

John MacArthur

Grace to You; John MacArthur – Throwing out the Anchor

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“For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (Heb. 2:1).

God’s Word is the anchor that will prevent people from drifting past the harbor of salvation.

While English explorer William Edward Parry and his crew were exploring the Arctic Ocean, they needed to go further north to continue their chartings. So they calculated their location by the stars and began a treacherous march.

After many hours they stopped, exhausted. After taking their bearings, they discovered they were now further south than when they started! They had been walking on an ice floe that was traveling faster south than they were walking north.

That is similar to the situation people who continue rejecting Christ find themselves in. Therefore Hebrews 2:1 says, “We must pay closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.”

Why would anyone knowingly reject Christ? He came into the world as God incarnate, died on a cross to forgive our sins, paid our penalty, showed us divine love, and gives us blessing and joy beyond imagination.

The Greek words translated “pay much closer attention to” and “drift away from” both have a nautical usage. The first means “to tie up a ship” and the second can be used of a ship that has been carelessly allowed to drift past the harbor because the sailor forgot to attend to the steerage or chart the wind, tides, and current. Hebrews 2:1 could be translated: “We must diligently anchor our lives to the things we have been taught, lest the ship of life drift past the harbor of salvation and be lost forever.”

Most people don’t deliberately turn their backs on God; they almost imperceptibly slip past the harbor of salvation and are broken on the rocks of destruction. Be sure you warn those you know who might be slipping past that harbor.

Suggestion for Prayer

Ask God to strengthen your resolve when you know you need to confront someone regarding his or her relationship with the Lord.

For Further Study

Memorize Proverbs 4:20-22 as your own reminder of how important it is to hold on to God’s Word.

From Drawing Near by John MacArthur

http://www.gty.org/

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Stop Diluting Your Joy

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 …I say these things while I am still in the world, so that My joy may be made full and complete and perfect in them [that they may experience My delight fulfilled in them, that My enjoyment may be perfected in their own souls, that they may have My gladness within them, filling their hearts].

— John 17:13 (AMPC)

We have joy, but we will not experience it fully unless we stop doing things that dilute or hinder it. The devil tries to make us joyless, but we do not have to let him succeed. Here are five simple ways to keep your joy today.

First, remember that your thoughts are very important. Don’t worry, fret, or be anxious about the future. Instead of reasoning, which leads to confusion, trust God.

Second, don’t become entangled or meddle in other people’s business. We all have enough to attend to, and we should not waste our time in situations that do not concern us. Learn to pick your battles, and don’t make a big deal out of little things.

Third, learn to forgive quickly for your own sake. And when you sin, be quick to repent and don’t waste time feeling guilty about something God has forgiven and forgotten. Fourth, be positive in your thoughts, words, and attitudes—and your joy will overflow.

Finally, live one day at a time. God gives us grace for each day, but not until that day comes, so go ahead and enjoy today fully.

Prayer of the Day: Father, I’m sorry for the joyless days I have spent because of wrong thoughts and attitudes. Forgive me and teach me how to experience full joy in You. Thank You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Alistair Begg

Truth for Life; Alistair Begg – Wonder and Mystery

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“Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus …” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.”

Luke 1:31, Luke 1:34–35

It is not Jesus’ birth which is so remarkable but His conception. When the angel announced that although she was a virgin, Mary would have a baby who would rule the entire universe, she simply asked the sensible question: “How?” And with that question we arrive at the very heart of the Christian story.

How was this child to be conceived? God was going to make it happen. He would do it. The language of being “overshadowed” reminds us of God’s divine presence being symbolized to the Israelites by a great cloud (Exodus 40:34-38). The conception, in other words, would be supernatural, able to be accomplished by God alone.

As Paul worked through the theology of the incarnation, he wrote, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). He emphasized that the Redeemer had to be human so that He would be of the same nature as those whom He came to save: a man dying for mankind. But it was equally imperative that the Redeemer should be perfectly holy, because no sinful person could effect atonement for the sins of others. He had to be Immanuel—God with us—and He had to be man.

The early Christians hammered out the incarnation’s implications and came up with ways to describe the one who was conceived by the Spirit in Mary’s womb, coming to the convictions that have passed down to us in the early creeds. Our spiritual forefathers identified the wonder of the incarnation, bowed before the mystery of it, and affirmed that Jesus was, and remains, very God and very man.

The idea that God would supernaturally invade this world shouldn’t surprise or discomfort us. It takes a supernatural invasion of God into individuals’ lives, after all, to bring them to living faith, just as God sovereignly worked a miracle in Mary’s womb in order to bring us the Redeemer. Jesus told Nicodemus that unless someone is born from above—a birth brought about by God through His Spirit—they would not see God’s kingdom (John 3:3). If we have been brought to salvation, it is only because God has done it. You did no more to save yourself than Mary did to become pregnant with your Savior. The “How?” of salvation is always answered only by “God did it.”

So, bow today before the wonder and mystery of God taking on flesh. And bow today before the wonder and mystery of God redeeming you. For that, no less than the virgin birth of the Son of God, is the supernatural work of God.

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

Luke 1:26–38

Topics: Christ’s Birth Incarnation of Christ Salvation

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 Sent the Knowledge of Salvation

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“And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.” (Luke 1:76-78)

Before opening gifts at Christmastime, many families have the tradition of reading the Christmas story as it is told in Matthew 1 or in Luke 2. But the first chapter of Luke is a very interesting introduction to Luke’s second chapter. In Luke 1, God records the story of how Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, was born. John was to come before Jesus (John was born six months before Jesus), and his purpose in life was to foretell (tell everyone ahead of time) that salvation was coming and that remission (forgiveness) of sins was coming – in the form of Jesus Christ Himself.

Zacharias, John’s father, was a priest. He knew very well that the sacrifical system that the Jews followed back then was supposed to be a picture of their faith in a coming Christ, a Messiah Who would come to bring them redemption, once and for all. John’s birth was a miracle, because both of his parents were very old – too old, humanly speaking, to have children. But Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit when John was born, and he prophesied what God had to say about John: “And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us.” (Luke 1:76-78)

As John grew older, he began to preach the message he was born to preach. He told the people that God was sending His Messiah (the Christ, the Anointed One) to save repentant sinners. God used John to give the gift of the knowledge of salvation. He sent John ahead of Jesus to prepare the way for Jesus – to prepare the way of salvation.

People who listened to John and followed his teachings identified themselves with him by being baptized. Their baptism represented their belief that they needed to repent of their sins in preparation for the coming Christ, Who was going to bear those sins away (get rid of those sins) by His own righteousness. When Jesus came along and began His public ministry, the very first thing He did was to come to His cousin John and be baptized. Why did Jesus, Who lived a sinless life, want to be baptized with a baptism that showed His agreement that repentance of sins was necessary? Well, Jesus was going to take the sins of repentant sinners upon Himself. And He wanted His righteousness put on those sinners’ accounts. So He identified Himself with sinners by being baptized and agreeing publicly with John.

The people who listened to and followed John the Baptist still could not see the full picture of Who Christ was and why He came – but God used John to point the way. Here was the son of a priest who had been helping to sacrifice lambs in the temple for years. Here was John, preaching in the wilderness and pointing at Jesus Christ and saying, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world…. Behold the Lamb of God!” (John 1:29b and 36)

When Zacharias prophesied over his newborn son, he spoke of God’s tender mercy as the reason why God had sent the knowledge of salvation and remission of sins. God’s whole plan of redemption is an amazing gift, and He mercifully sent messengers and prepared the way for Christ’s arrival. Because of John’s message, we can know better how to respond to Jesus Christ, the only Savior of sins.

In tender mercy, God sent John to prepare the way for Christ and publish the message of what Christ would do for His people.

My Response:
» Have I ever thought much about John the Baptist being a part of God’s plan for salvation?
» Have I repented of my sins and trusted in Christ as the One Who can bear them away?
» Am I truly grateful to God for His merciful provision for the remission of sins?

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Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Why we love holiday movies: A reflection on the source of true joy

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I must begin with a confession: I’m not a big fan of Christmas movies. I’d rather watch football over the holidays and catch up on novels. In fact, I had not seen Elf, consistently ranked among the best Christmas movies, until our grandkids recently asked to watch it with us. I now understand why it’s so popular. But I’m not changing my mind about the predictability and “cheese” factor of many holiday movies.

It turns out, that’s why they’re so popular.

Dr. Pamela Rutledge, a media psychologist and director of the Media Psychology Research Center, explains: “You would almost be disappointed if they weren’t a little cheesy and predictable, because that’s why you’re there. You’re there to have a feel-good movie. This lowers stress, and it reinforces feelings of hope and renewal and all of those things that Christmas is supposed to bring.”

The good news that can be bad news

Dr. Rutledge is obviously right about our need for “hope and renewal” these days.

North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile this week that has the range to strike anywhere in the mainland United States. The CDC is warning that hospitals and emergency rooms could be forced to ration care by the end of this month as COVID-19 hospitalizations rise while influenza and RSV cases remain high.

The volcanic eruption in Iceland, the deadly earthquake in China, and the powerful storm in the northeastern US are reminders of our finitude and frailty. The ongoing Houthi attacks on international commerce illustrate the susceptibility of the global economy to terrorists.

There is much about the world that is not in our power to change. Which of these stories can you impact through your personal influence and capacities?

The good news—which can be bad news as well—is that the resources most foundational to American democracy are as much within our grasp as when our nation was founded.

“We must not sink into pagan materialism”

Speaking in 1926 to commemorate the 150th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, President Calvin Coolidge concluded:

[The Declaration] is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.

As one example of these “altar fires,” consider our first president’s warning: “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

The “father of our country” also believed that “the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality.” And he asked, “Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?”

“Though the fig tree should not blossom”

Both presidents were echoing biblical principles proclaimed twenty-five centuries earlier when God warned the sinful Babylonians: “Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity!” (Habakkuk 2:12). In response, he announced his ultimate purpose: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lᴏʀᴅ as the waters cover the sea” (v. 14). Everything God did then and everything he does now is a means to this end.

This is not because the Lord is a divine egotist. To the contrary, for God to seek the glory of anyone above his own would be for him to commit idolatry. Similarly, for us to glorify anyone above the Lord commits the same sin and forfeits all God can do in lives that are fully yielded to his purposes.

Now you and I have the privilege and the responsibility of choosing to think biblically and act redemptively. We can “cultivate the reverence” for “the things which are holy” that is foundational to our national virtue and thus to our “permanent felicity” under God. During this Advent week of joy, no matter how challenging our circumstances, we can then say with the prophet of old:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lᴏʀᴅ; I will take joy in the God of my salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17–18).

In what—or whom—will you “take joy” today?

Denison Forum

Turning Point

Turning Point; David Jeremiah – The Birthday of a King!

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 “…and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
Luke 2:20

 Recommended Reading: Matthew 1:20-23

Some people knew him as an accomplished organist who made New York’s St. Michael’s Church vibrate with intensity every Sunday morning. Others knew him as a compassionate worker with disabled children and the founder of a school for underachievers in East Orange, New Jersey. Today we know him as the composer who gave us one of our greatest Christmas carols: William H. Neidlinger.

Neidlinger was born on July 20, 1863, in Brooklyn, New York. He studied in London and Paris, and he taught in Chicago and New Jersey. He was a choral conductor, voice teacher, poet, and organist. A creative editor of songbooks, primarily for children, he was also a pragmatic musical theorist on methods and education. Above all, he was a composer.

While the specifics of the creation of “The Birthday of a King” are unknown, we can guess that it might have been written or children—as his volume of children’s songs was a standard resource for early educators in the latter years of the nineteenth century.

As Neidlinger sought to teach children about the gift of music, God, too, continually seeks to teach His children. We are taught of how the heavens rejoiced and the angels cheered at the birth of our Savior. For Jesus wasn’t born by accident. He entered this world at a preordained moment to fulfill an eternally planned strategy for redeeming the human race. What a birthday celebration that must have been!

We are taught that Christmas is the celebration of the moment the Eternal God entered into humanity through the womb of a virgin—history’s greatest miracle of conception and birth. The reason Christmas captures our attention is that we have the sense that God Himself is being born—born so that we may be born again in Him. In light of these teachings, how can we also not rejoice and focus on the joy that appeared that first Christmas night?

As we inch closer to the birthday of our Savior, write out, as a family, a list of the things you are joyful for. Although it may be hard amongst the busyness of the season, take some time to sit down and really contemplate what “joy” is in your life. Perhaps you’re joyful for good health, a new job opportunity, or an impending graduation. Whatever falls on your list, thank God for it all.

Alleluia! O how the angels sang. Alleluia! How it rang!
And the sky was bright with a holy light, ’Twas the birthday of a King

https://www.davidjeremiah.org

Greg Laurie

Harvest Ministries; Greg Laurie – The Best Life There Is

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 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. 

—John 1:14

Scripture:

John 1:14 

When we revisit the Christmas story, the problem is that we can become so familiar with it that we become indifferent toward it. In time, new things become old things. And Christmas can become an old story for us.

But let’s not miss the entire point of Christmas.

The story doesn’t really start in Bethlehem; it starts long before, in another time and place. The time was eternity, and the place was Heaven. Before there was a planet called Earth, before there were Adam and Eve who ate forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and brought the curse of sin upon humanity, a decision was made in Heaven.

The decision was that God would have to become a man and die on our behalf.

John 1:14 says, “So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son” (NLT). And Revelation 13:8 describes Him as “the Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made” (NLT).

God had His own timetable. Galatians 4:4–5 tells us, “But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” (NLT).

That is what we celebrate at Christmas: that God sent His Son to this earth. Jesus was God in human form, Immanuel. It’s a magnificent story. From a literary standpoint alone, these words touch us deeply. But this is more than just great literature. This is the truth about how God came to Earth.

Specifically, Jesus came to a little village called Bethlehem. The Scriptures foretold His birth, saying, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel, whose origins are in the distant past, will come from you on my behalf” (Micah 5:2 NLT).

Because Joseph and Mary were of the lineage of King David, they went back to David’s boyhood home. God moved human events to accomplish His purposes. He moved Caesar Augustus to declare a census, which brought Joseph and Mary from their hometown of Nazareth to the village of Bethlehem.

Things also were in place around the globe. At this point historically, all the nations of the world had been united under one system of imperial government. Rome had bludgeoned the world into submission, vanquishing its enemies.

With the absence of conflict, people concentrated on literature, philosophy, art, and religion. They were probing and searching. It was as though something was in the air—and it was. The time was just right. God was sending His Son.

Jesus came to bring us the meaning and purpose of life. In fact, He said, “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10 NLT). Medical science seeks to add years to our lives, but only Jesus Christ can add life to our years.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie
Days of Praise

Days of Praise – The Triune Comforter

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by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

One of the titles of the Holy Spirit, especially as used in the King James Version, is His beautiful identification as “the Comforter.” The Greek word is parakletos, meaning literally “one who is called alongside to help.” A familiar verse is John 14:26: “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.” He is our teacher, our guide, our helper, our Comforter.

The same word is also translated “advocate,” meaning an attorney for the defense. In this capacity, it is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. “And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). Though we are guilty and lost sinners, He takes our side before the Judge, pleading the sacrificial offering of His own blood for our sins, and we are saved (1 John 2:2).

Even the Father is our “paraclete,” according to the verses cited above. He is “the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” (Greek paraklesis), and as we pray to our heavenly Father, He indeed does provide great consolation in every hour of trouble and sorrow.

Thus, each person of the Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—serves as Comforter (“paraclete”) to the believer, as needed, who also has access to the “comfort of the scriptures” (Romans 15:4). But there is still another “comforter.” Each believer receives such comfort so that we ourselves “may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” HMM

https://www.icr.org/articles/type/6