Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb.—Job 38:8 (ESV)
The ocean, with its vastness and depths, is a testament to God’s limitless power and authority. Envision the ocean in your mind’s eye and let it humble you, reminding you of your place in His grand design. Stand in awe of His greatness.
Dear God, as I reflect on the wonders of Your creation, I am reminded of Your unending love.
I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded. Exodus 31:6
Today’s Scripture
Today’s Devotional
After I joined the board of trustees of a seminary, the long-term leader announced his retirement. I found myself among those tasked with searching for a new president. Together, we amassed a daunting list of qualifications. How would we find someone to fulfill such a complicated and vital role?
I wondered the same as I read God’s specifications for the tabernacle’s lampstand to be crafted of pure gold, with flower-like cups and almond flowers and six branches (Exodus 25:31-36). And the courtyard was “to have curtains of finely twisted linen, with twenty posts and twenty bronze bases and with silver hooks and bands on the posts” (27:9-10). Who could fulfill such assignments?
God answered, “I have chosen Bezalel . . . and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills . . . to engage in all kinds of crafts” (31:2-5). God also said, “I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you” (v. 6).
Where do we turn to fill a vacant role for a high-level leader, a volunteer at church or to orchestrate an event? To the God who calls and equips His people. God laid out an ambitious design for His temple. Then He chose and equipped His people to implement it. God’s answer to His plans is God’s people.
Reflect & Pray
How have you seen God gift people to do His work? What has He equipped you to do?
Holy God, I look to You to choose and equip the people needed in my life, my church, and in my place of work.
Today’s Insights
Having given Moses a series of instructions for the people of Israel, God now begins to show him how these will be carried out (see Exodus 31:1-11). Many of these commands included plans for work that must be done. God equipped the people with the appropriate skills to complete His work, and Bezalel and Oholiab were to lead much of that effort.
According to scholar John D. Barry, Bezalel’s name can be literally interpreted “in the shadow of El [God]”—another way of saying that his gifts came from God. Barry notes that El was an older name for the Supreme Being, not the name of Yah that had only recently been revealed by God to His chosen people. Similarly, Oholiab’s name means “father is my tent.” This is fitting, as he would be designing the tent of meeting (see Exodus 26). As He did with Oholiab, God also enables us to accomplish the tasks He gives us.
For as in one physical body we have many parts (organs, members) and all of these parts do not have the same function or use, so we, numerous as we are, are one body in Christ (the Messiah)…Having gifts (faculties, talents, qualities) that differ according to the grace given us, let us use them….
Romans 12:4-6 (AMPC)
Just as our body parts are all different, we are also different from one another. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to be anyone other than who you are. God was able to do very little with or through me until I stopped trying to be some other person and became content with being me.
I tried to be the homemaker my neighbor was, but gardening and making my family’s clothes just wasn’t me. I tried to be soft-spoken like my pastor’s wife, but that didn’t work either. I tried to be more relaxed and easygoing like Dave, but that was difficult also. After years of frustration and failure, I finally realized that I had to be “me,” because everyone else was already taken! God wasn’t going to help me be someone else because He had created me the way He wanted me to be.
We all need to make improvement in some areas of our lives, but we must be the people God created us to be, and that means we’ll always be a little different than most of the other people we know. God obviously loves variety, and He wants us to enjoy ourselves and not compare ourselves with other people.
Prayer of the Day: Father, help me embrace the person You want me to be. Help me enjoy myself and live free from the tyranny of comparison.
Last night, President Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask a court for the release of all relevant grand jury testimony from the prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi responded that she is “ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
Mr. Trump has been under intense pressure after the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a two-page memo last week stating that Epstein left no “client list” of those involved in his abuse of underage girls. The department also stated that no further evidence would be released and no additional charges would be brought against third parties.
However, only 3 percent of those surveyed are satisfied with the amount of Epstein information that has been released; in another survey, 63 percent disapprove of the Trump Administration’s handling of the issue. House Republicans agreed last night to lay the groundwork for a potential vote calling on the DOJ to release material from its investigation of Epstein.
In totalitarian countries, this wouldn’t be an issue. What people want to know about their government doesn’t affect their government.
According to a recent report, 72 percent of the world’s population—5.7 billion people—live under authoritarian rule. When I traveled in Russia and China, I was told to assume that the government was bugging my hotel room and listening to my conversations. In my many trips to Cuba, I had to be careful never to criticize the Communist Party, or the pastors and churches we served would face persecution after we left.
But America is founded on the belief that “all men are created equal” and that our government should therefore be “of the people, by the people, for the people.” As a result, we are free to criticize our leaders and seek transparency in their actions.
Why are Americans so generous?
People are responding to the Central Texas floods with a massive outpouring of financial support and personal engagement. This should not surprise us: Americans are by far the most generous people in the world. Our annual private philanthropy as a percentage of GDP is twice that of Canada, four times that of the UK, and fifty times that of China.
What explains this?
According to theologian Peter J. Leithart (PhD, University of Cambridge), the Great Awakenings and other revival movements “fundamentally shaped the shape of the church” in America. This emphasis on the individual’s relationship with God stood apart from institutional Christendom with its clergy-driven liturgical collectivism.
In Leithart’s view,
Revivalism is the main source of the uniquely vibrant social activism of American Christianity. Temperance, urban renewal, prison ministry, abolitionism, and education reform were all energized by awakenings. . . . Thanks to revivalism, Americans donate a larger portion of their money to charities than any other people on the planet. . . .
Without revivalist Christianity, America would have rolled over and succumbed to secularism long ago. Without the unchurchy American church, we’d be so much more like Europe.
Religion is still at the heart of American generosity today:
The First Great Awakening and the birth of America
Now we have a choice to make.
The revivalism that has produced sacrificial generosity has also shaped the larger American culture. For example, the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and 1740s made a huge impact on colonial society, encouraging the notions of individual rights that became embedded in our Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.
But absent spiritual renewal, our individual rights become ends rather than means. We engage in political activism to advance political agendas but confine our service to secular outcomes. We climb the ladder of individualistic faith only to kick it out from beneath us.
The reason is simple: Our innate desire to help those in need is a reflection of our creation in the image of the God who is love (Genesis 1:27; 1 John 4:8). However, our created character is deeply at odds with our fallen nature and our quest to be our own god at the expense of others (Romans 3:23; Genesis 3:5).
The good news is that Jesus can not only forgive our sins but remake our sinful hearts (2 Corinthians 5:17) so that we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). His Spirit will produce the selfless character of Christ in every Christian who truly wants to be like their Lord.
Then, the more we become like Christ, the more altruistically and sacrificially we serve others as he serves us. The more secularized our culture becomes, the more urgent and unique our service. And the more we attract others to the Source of our differences.
Worshipping in my high school auditorium
When I was a teenager, I joined the Christian Student Union at my very secular high school. We met before class in the balcony of the auditorium, where we would pray and sing worship choruses. One especially inspired me: “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
Over the decades and across the six continents I have traveled, I have yet to witness a more powerful way to change the culture.
Have you?
Quote for the day:
“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.” —Mother Teresa
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by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.
“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.” (Proverbs 30:5)
When the inspired writer of Proverbs testified here that God’s Word is “pure,” he did not use the usual word for, say, moral purity or metallic purity. Instead, he asserted in effect that every word of God had been refined and purified, as it were, in a spiritual furnace, so that any and all contaminants had been purged out, leaving only the pure element.
The same truth is found in the great psalm of the Scriptures (Psalm 119). “Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it” (Psalm 119:140). David used the same word in another psalm, where it is translated “tried” in the sense of “tested for purity.” “As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him” (Psalm 18:30). The word for “buckler” in this verse is the same word translated “shield” in our text. Thus, God equips Christians with a perfect shield against the weapons of any foe, because “His way is perfect” and “every word” in Scripture has been made “pure” before the Spirit of God approved its use by the human writer.
This surely tells us that the human writer of Scripture (that is, Moses or David or John or whomever), with all his human proneness to mistakes or other inadequacies, was so inspired by the Holy Spirit that whatever he actually wrote had been purged of any such deficiencies. Thus, his final written text was made perfectly “pure,” free from any defects. This control applies to “every word” so that we can legitimately refer to the Scriptures as inspired and inerrant throughout.
As the apostle Paul stressed, our spiritual armor in the battle against evil is “the shield of faith” and “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:16-17). HMM
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. —Acts 9:5
Saul of Tarsus was transformed in an instant from a strong-willed, intense Pharisee into a humble, devoted slave of the Lord. How was such a change possible? Only by the miracle of the redemption.
There’s nothing miraculous about the things we can explain. We command what we are able to explain; consequently, it’s natural for us to seek to explain. What Saul experienced on the road to Damascus had no logical explanation, and neither did the choice he made afterward: to live in total obedience to Jesus Christ.
Obedience isn’t natural, nor is disobedience necessarily sinful. There’s no moral virtue in obedience unless a higher authority belongs to the one who commands. Sometimes, refusing to obey is an act of self-liberation. If one person says to another, “You must” or “You will,” it breaks the human spirit and its loyalty to God. A person is a slave for obeying unless behind the obedience lies a recognition of a holy God. Too often religion loses sight of God and becomes all about obeying rules. Many souls begin to come to God when they stop being religious, because the human heart only has one master, and that isn’t religion but Jesus Christ.
When Jesus Christ appears to me, I’m in danger if I say, “I won’t.” Jesus will never insist on my obedience, but if I refuse to obey, I’ve begun to sign the death warrant of the Son of God in my soul. When I stand face-to-face with Jesus Christ and say, “I won’t,” I’m backing away from the re-creating power of his redemption. If I come to the light, it’s a matter of indifference to God’s grace how abominable I am. But if I refuse the light, woe to me. “Everyone who does evil hates the light. . . . But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light” (John 3:20–21).
Wisdom from Oswald
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.So Send I You, 1330 L
Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee . . .
—Deuteronomy 26:11
Often the Church has banged away negatively at evils without reminding us that God is tremendously interested in our finding a satisfying way of life here and now. We Christians have talked so much of the negative side of Christian experience that we have forgotten to emphasize the positive, joyous, thrilling, and victorious experience of daily fellowship with Christ. God declared that things will not satisfy. God satisfies! This is the secret of soul-satisfaction: Let your soul delight itself in fatness. Remove the obstructions, tear down the barriers, and let your soul find the fulfillment of its deepest longings in fellowship with God.
Prayer for the day
There are no words to describe my gratitude to You, my Lord and Savior, for Your loving kindness. Accept my praise and love.
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.—Galatians 1:10 (NIV)
At some point in your spiritual journey, you may face a dilemma—whether to seek the acceptance of others or follow God’s calling. It’s important to remember that your relationship with God is personal, and it’s not shaped by what the world thinks. Stay true to your inner voice. By striving to please God, you will discover your true purpose.
Dear Lord, help me find my true purpose in serving You.
There need be no poor people among you. Deuteronomy 15:4
Today’s Scripture
Today’s Devotional
The members asked why their church was buying a steeple. Was this the best use of God’s resources? What about feeding the poor? The pastor replied that the funds came from donors and needed to be spent as they wished. “Besides,” he quoted Jesus, “you will always have the poor among you” (John 12:8).
The pastor quickly apologized for his flippant, out-of-context remark, which led me to wonder, What was Jesus’ context? Six days before His death, a woman anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume. The disciples were disgusted. Why wasn’t this perfume sold to help the poor? Jesus replied by quoting Deuteronomy 15:11: “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” (John 12:8).
Jesus often cited Deuteronomy, so He knew what was written a few sentences earlier: “There need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you . . . , he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 15:4-5). Perhaps this was another reason for Jesus’ rebuke. Poor people existed only because Israel hadn’t obeyed God’s instructions. Now the poor were being used to distract from Jesus—the true Israelite who would fully obey to the end.
We need not choose between Jesus and the poor. We love people best by loving Him most, and loving Him most inspires us to love others best.
Reflect & Pray
How do you help those less fortunate? How does the life of Jesus and the things He taught inspire you to share with those in need?
Dear Jesus, You’re beautiful and worthy of all my praise.
For further study, read Missing the Mission: Disciples in an Age of Abundance.
Today’s Insights
In the first century bc, the Jews practiced what was known as prozbul, where a lender could transfer a personal loan to an institution or bank, making it exempt from the law of debt forgiveness in Deuteronomy 15. This attempted to encourage rich Jews to continue lending to the poor because it meant they’d still get their money back.
In the New Testament, Jesus often spoke about money and challenged His disciples to live radical lives: “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back” (Luke 6:35). When we love Christ, He helps us to love those in need.
And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.
Mark 6:11 (NIV)
Feeling rejected or unwanted is difficult and painful, but it happens to all of us at times. As part of the human race, we have to realize that not everyone will always like us or accept us. When others reject us, we have a choice to make: We can let it hurt our feelings, make us feel bad about ourselves, and wallow in it, or we can shake it off and not allow it to bother us.
Today’s scripture is an instruction Jesus gave His disciples when He sent them to preach and minister in various towns. Knowing they wouldn’t be welcome everywhere, He prepared them in advance to deal with the rejection they’d face. In today’s language, He’d say to “shake it off!” He didn’t want them to let rejection upset them but to forget about it and keep moving forward.
Jesus’ advice to His disciples years ago is exactly what we need to follow today. When people reject us, ignore us, exclude us, aren’t pleased with us, don’t like us, or don’t accept us, we can shake it off and keep moving forward. We can do this because we are secure in God’s total and unconditional love and acceptance.
When an insect lands on your arm, you simply shake it off. You don’t keep thinking about it for hours, weeks, or years. But rejection can be so painful that we feel it for a very long time. Don’t let that happen to you. Next time someone rejects you, shake it off!
Prayer of the Day: When I feel rejected, Lord, help me shake it off, remembering that You love me and accept me unconditionally.
A paradoxical way to confront our fears in faith
This Washington Post headline is just what we didn’t need to hear: “The states that could be hit by a tropical storm this week.” The story informs us that “a tropical storm may form in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, bringing the potential for heavy rain, flash flooding, and severe thunderstorms from Louisiana to Florida.”
In other news, a giant swarm of earthquakes recently struck Southern California near a major fault line that could unleash the infamous “Big One,” decimating the West Coast. The earthquakes were just a few dozen miles from several active fault lines running through California, including the San Andreas fault.
And there’s this headline: “A 100 ft ‘mega tsunami’ could hit the US at any moment. And that’s only the beginning.” The Cascadia Subduction Zone, a massive fault line stretching from northern California to British Columbia, could trigger a colossal earthquake and accompanying tsunami that would kill more than thirteen thousand people and cause $134 billion in damage.
The fiction of proximity compassion
All of this on the heels of the devastating Central Texas floods seems like too much to take in. It feels safer to believe that the potential tropical storm in the Southeast wouldn’t strike where I live in Texas. Nor would the Big One in California or the Cascadia quake.
My reaction is a form of what could be called “proximity compassion,” our innate response of heightened empathy for that which comes closest to us. If my grandchildren were missing in the Camp Mystic floods, I would not be writing articles about them—I would be there doing all I could to help find them. You would do the same.
On one hand, this is a necessary way of filtering the fallen world. If we mourned every death as if it were a family member, we would be incapacitated. If we feared and prepared for every potential natural disaster as if it were about to strike us personally, we’d do little else.
On the other hand, proximity compassion is largely a fiction. If major floods strike the Southeast, they’ll affect the rest of us in everything from air travel to roads to shipping and services. The “Big One” or the Cascadia quake would decimate our national economy, affecting the entire country for many years to come.
Not to mention our innate solidarity with our fellow humans. As John Donne wrote,
Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind.” Ultimately, I dull my compassion for those I do not know at the risk of my compassion for those I do.
I believe there is a better way to respond to the inevitable consequences of life on this fallen planet.
Circles, an arrow, and dots
When I taught philosophy of religion at various seminaries, we always spent time on three ways civilizations have visualized history:
I would then associate the Western, linear view of history with biblical teaching, reminding us of the narrative from creation and fall to redemption in this world and glory in the next. One consequence of this worldview, whether we consider the existence and providence of God or not, is the innate belief that what we do today prepares the way for tomorrow.
Such a mindset is vital to progress in nearly every dimension of human endeavor. Scientific and medical breakthroughs in the present lead to better lives in the future. Conversely, preparing for diseases and disasters before they strike can often prevent them from occurring or mitigate their effects.
But here’s where our linear view of life steers us astray: it teaches us that we can prepare for what cannot be prepared for.
“Worry is like riding in a rocking chair”
You and I cannot prevent pancreatic cancer, ALS, or a host of other diseases. We cannot prevent and often cannot predict tornadoes, flash floods, or a host of other natural disasters. We cannot predict earthquakes or tsunamis, or do much to prevent their consequences.
But admitting our frailty and finitude in the face of an unpredictable future runs counter to our linear confidence in inevitable progress and the power of human resolve. So, when we cannot predict or prevent disasters, we worry about them. When we cannot protect our children from harm, we fear for them.
All the while, we subconsciously believe we are at least doing something about dangers we cannot otherwise do something about.
Since we cannot do this with every potential disease or disaster, we also practice proximity compassion, focusing our worries and fears most fully on those dangers that affect us most directly.
Of course, none of this actually changes our fallen world.
I once saw a cartoon in which the character is swaying back and forth in a rocking chair above the caption, “Worry is like riding in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
Exchanging an arrow for a throne
A better approach is to abandon our linear belief in inevitable progress through human effort for a different model, one that replaces a line representing history with a throne representing eternity.
When we make Christ our king each day, we enthrone the only One who can see the future better than we can see the present. We trust the only One whose omnipotence can counter any challenge and meet any need. We depend upon the only One who “is” love and who can only want our best.
With regard to our fears for the future, we ask him to show us how to prepare for what only he can see, then trust the rest to his providential grace. As we work, he works. And we know that we are doing all we can while partnering with the One who can do what no one else can.
Said differently, this article is a long way of encouraging us each day to accept our Father’s invitation:
The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:5–7).
Are you “anxious” about “anything” today?
by Daryl W. Robbins
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
Longsuffering is an attribute of God that is often mentioned in Scripture. It is not one of the easier attributes that we would like to acquire in our efforts to be Christ-like. We would much prefer to be blessed with love, joy, or even peace. But there it is, right in the middle of the “fruit of the Spirit” list: longsuffering (Galatians 5:22-23).
God does not expect something of us that He has not Himself modeled. Before the great Flood, God was longsuffering while the Ark was being built (1 Peter 3:20). During the Exodus from Egypt, God’s longsuffering was tested by the discontented children of Israel (Exodus 14:11-12; Numbers 20:3). In the wilderness, they tested Him to the point that He considered doing away with them and starting over with a new group of people (Deuteronomy 9:13-14).
Longsuffering helps build hope within a believer. “We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:3-5).
How do we cultivate this quality of longsuffering? First, acknowledge a knowledge higher than our own (Isaiah 55:8), then wait on the Lord (Psalm 27:14). God would not have us suffer for no good reason. There is a goal in mind: to grow us closer to His likeness every day. Let’s learn from the examples set forth in Scripture and not be “stiff-necked” but have faith in God’s process.
“Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:8). Stay the course and rejoice. It’s getting closer every day! DWR
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words. —1 Corinthians 2:4
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the highest abilities. When he says that he didn’t use “wise and persuasive words” in delivering the gospel, he isn’t speaking out of self-deprecating humility. He’s saying that if he’d tried to impress people with his talent when he preached the gospel, he would have veiled the power of God. Paul knew that belief in Jesus is a miracle produced by the redemption—by the sheer, unaided power of God—not by making fancy speeches.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to follow Paul’s example. If we are going to preach the gospel, we must practice a special kind of fasting—not from food but rather from eloquence and impressive diction, from everything that might hinder the word of God coming through us to reach others. The power of the redemption does flow through the preaching of the gospel, but we have to recognize that this power is never due to the personality or the eloquence of the preacher.
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20). Preachers are representatives of God. We are commissioned to present his gospel, not human ideals. If it’s only because of my charisma that people desire to be better, they’ll never get anywhere near Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching will end in making me a traitor to Jesus, because I will prevent the creative power of his redemption from doing its work. “And I,” said Jesus, “when I am lifted up . . . will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).
Wisdom from Oswald
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
God is our refuge and strength, a tested help in times of trouble.
—Psalm 46:1 (TLB)
Scripture tells us that God tempts no one. Temptation always comes from the devil. God will test us and allow us to endure the temptation, but the devil does the tempting. How do we overcome it? A little girl once told her method. “When the devil comes knocking at the door,” she said, “I don’t answer it. I send Jesus to the door.” And that is exactly the way to take care of it. Send Jesus to the door!
Prayer for the day
Lord Jesus, help me to remember the power of Your holy name!
“No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”—John 8:11 (NIV)
When you are haunted by past mistakes, remember that Jesus offers you a second chance. His mercy is an opportunity to move forward and start anew. His forgiveness is complete. Embrace this gift, and let it lead you forward.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your forgiveness and for second chances.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2
Today’s Scripture
Today’s Devotional
“Did you grow up around here?” It was difficult to answer my dental hygienist’s question because her teeth-cleaning tools were still inside my mouth. She explained that in 1945, our city became the first in the world to add fluoride to public drinking water. Thought to prevent cavities, the treatment doesn’t require much: just 0.7 milligrams of fluoride to a liter of water. Its positive effects are obvious to a trained professional. But, I had no idea, I’d been drinking it all my life!
The things we consume every day can affect us over time. That applies not only to food and drink but also to entertainment, friends, and social media messages. The apostle Paul cautioned, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). While the Holy Spirit is making disciples of Jesus to be more like Him, the process takes a lifetime. Our habits can help or hinder His work. It’s not always easy to recognize what we’re consuming, but we can ask the one who’s rich in “wisdom and knowledge” to show us (11:33). Wisdom and discernment help us “test and approve what God’s will is” (12:2), while considering ourselves with “sober judgment” (v. 3).
Whatever He might be asking us to add to or remove from our daily lives is worth the price. All things are “from him and through him and for him” (11:36). He knows best.
Reflect & Pray
What’s one habit that reveals the Holy Spirit’s work in your life? What’s one that might be hindering His work?
Holy Spirit, thank You for working in and through my life.
Check out this simple prayer you can use to connect with the Holy Spirit.
Today’s Insights
When interpreting Scripture, the key words are often nouns and verbs because they tend to contribute the most to the understanding of the text. In Romans 12:1-3, however, a case could be made that the key word is therefore. This word indicates that we understand what follows is based on what has preceded it. “Therefore . . . in view of God’s mercy” (v. 1) tells us that the practical exhortations that follow are rooted in God’s great grace and forgiveness, which have been thoroughly explained in chapters 1-11. When we consider the greatness of God’s love that’s been poured out over our lives through the gift of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, no command of Scripture should seem grievous. In fact, as Paul says, offering our lives as “a living sacrifice” is our “true and proper worship” (12:1). We can ask the Holy Spirit to show us how to worship God with our lives and how to exhibit Christlike habits.
And therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing] to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for his victory His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!
Isaiah 30:18 (AMPC)
This verse has become one of my favorites, and it has often been a source of encouragement to me when I’ve had hard times. The Living Bible paraphrases the verse like this: “Yet the Lord still waits for you to come to him, so he can show you his love; he will conquer you to bless you, just as he said. For the Lord is faithful to his promises. Blessed are all those who wait for him to help them.” Let’s think of the implication of the promise. God waits for us. As I think of that promise, it staggers my mind. The Creator of the universe and the Giver of all life has chosen to wait for us—waits for us to come to our senses, waits for us to respond to His love, waits for us to turn to Him for help.
That’s a staggering thought. God wants to show us love.
Perhaps as much as anywhere else, Satan attempts to build a mental stronghold right there. When we contemplate God’s love for us, many of us can’t take it in. We can only think of our failures, our shortcomings, and dozens of other reasons why God shouldn’t love us.
That reminds me of a kind man I’ve known for many years. One day he took care of a situation for me that he didn’t have to. I was surprised and deeply touched. “You are probably the kindest man I know,” I told him.
He stared at me in shock. “Me? Kind? Oh, I can be mean-spirited and cruel,” he said. For several minutes, he explained to me that he couldn’t possibly be a kind man. “I live with myself all the time, and I see all my defects.”
“Maybe that’s the trouble,” I told him. “You see your defects so clearly, you don’t see your caring, compassionate qualities. You discount all those things.”
He never could accept that he was kind. I also used the word gentle and that surprised him, too.
Perhaps that’s how it is with many of God’s people. We are so absorbed by our failures and all the wrong things we see about ourselves, it’s hard to believe that God wants to bless us. If we read, “God wants to punish you,” we wouldn’t have trouble saying, “Yes, that’s what I deserve.” But how would we answer if someone said, “God wants to bless you”? We probably would say, “I don’t deserve that.”
How many of us believe we are entitled to God’s blessings? We want the good things. We want God to love us, encourage us, bless us, and give us victory, but to say we deserve the blessings may be more than we are willing to accept.
Why do we struggle over the concept of deserving? Our tendency is to think that we have to do something to earn the blessings . . . that we have to be good enough or faithful enough. We miss the point of God’s powerful, gracious love. Our blessings from God are not a result of our goodness. They are the result of God’s goodness.
We are entitled to God’s blessings for only one reason: because we are His children. It’s just that simple. Those of us who are parents grasp that concept with regard to our children. We brought them into the world, and they deserve our love. We freely give them our love before they do anything good or bad. They deserve our protection and all the good things we choose to give them. They don’t deserve those things because they’ve done something to earn them, but simply because they are our children.
Satan loves to trip us up on this one. As soon as we think it is right for us to be blessed, he points to our weaknesses or our failures. God points to our relationship. That’s the difference.
Prayer of the Day: Gracious and loving God, thank You for being willing to bless me. Even though the devil tries to make me feel undeserving, please remind me that I am Your child and You are my Father. My relationship to You makes me deserving, and I thank You for that in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Why God’s omnipotence is good news in hard places
The funerals for those who died at Camp Mystic and other Central Texas flood locations are being held and are breaking the hearts of everyone who attends and many who are praying for those who attend. Not to mention those grieving for more than one hundred flood victims who are still missing at this writing.
Many of us are struggling with the perennial question: Since God created the natural world and can intervene whenever he wishes, why didn’t he prevent this tragedy? However, I’d like to take a moment to look at the natural world from a different perspective, one that I hope can offer hope for our hurting hearts.
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets
My thoughts are prompted by this headline in today’s news: “Astronomers discover giant alien planet 35 times more massive than Earth hiding in a known star system.”
They named the newly found exoplanet Kepler-139f. Despite its giant size, it had evaded detection until now. One of the co-authors of the study reporting the discovery added, “It is likely that many planetary systems host unseen worlds, especially in their outer regions.”
Scientists now estimate that there are 100 sextillion planets in the universe. To put that number in numeric terms, they believe there are 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets like ours, many of them many times larger than Earth.
But they are only a small part of the galaxies in which they reside. And scientists estimate that there are between six and twenty trillion galaxies in the universe. (Let’s not pass over “trillion”—there are one thousand millions in a billion and one thousand billions in a trillion.)
If all of this “boggles your mind,” so to speak, that’s my intent.
Why the Greeks had so many gods
Like you, I am frustrated and grieved whenever God does not intervene in the natural world to prevent natural disasters and tragedies. But let’s not overlook the fact that he can.
The Judeo-Christian tradition is unique among world religions in its emphasis on a single deity who not only created the universe but also interacts with it today. Most religions known to history are polytheistic, comprised of deities limited to specific realms or locations. The Greeks and Romans had their god of the sea, for example, but he had limited agency in wartime over their god of war.
This is why they had so many gods. When a specific need arose, it was important to identify the particular deity who could help and then find a way to persuade them to act.
Even monotheistic religions such as Islam typically emphasize the sovereignty and distance of God over his personal engagement with humans. And none but Christianity dares to suggest that the God who made the universe then entered it so he could enter our lives today.
But this is just what the New Testament assures us:
All of this encourages us to say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).
Three reasons to pray
None of this tells us why our Father does not always intervene in nature as we wish he would. But it does assure us that he can. And it therefore encourages us to continue to pray for such intervention when the need arises.
But you might be asking: If we cannot be sure that God will do what we ask, why ask? Let’s consider three responses.
One: Prayer positions us to receive whatever grace chooses to give.
Because God honors the free will he gives us, he will enter the door of our lives only when it is opened to him (Revelation 3:20). This is why Scripture says, “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).
Two: Prayer connects us with God as one of the primary ways his Spirit molds us into the character of Christ (Romans 8:29).
Right now, you and I are thinking about God. If we were praying, we would be talking to him. Such a connection enables him to shape and sanctify us by the transforming power of his Spirit. Prayer does not change God, but it is a powerful means by which he changes us.
Three: Prayer enables us to respond to crisis as the body of Christ.
While you and I cannot do miracles, we can be the means by which miracles are done as we pray and then engage in the world (cf. Acts 3). And we can be the hands and feet of Jesus by which he weeps with those who weep and comforts those who mourn. When we pray, his Spirit directs us, empowers us, and works through us for God’s glory and our good.
All of this is possible because our Father is the omnipotent Lord we have been discussing in this article. And all of it is relevant because he loves us as much right now as when he sent his Son to die for us.
All of God there is, is in this moment.
Why is this good news for you today?
by John D. Morris, Ph.D.
“O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20-21)
Paul exhorted his disciple, Timothy, and by extension exhorts us, to “keep” (literally to guard or preserve) that which was placed in his trust. The context implies that the entire teaching of Paul is in mind, as well as Timothy’s position of ministry.
Not only was he to preserve truth, but he actively was to “avoid” error. Systems of thought were available that masqueraded as “science” (literally “knowledge”). These systems were not merely neutral but were in opposition to the truth.
There can be no doubt that godless humanism (particularly as it finds its false scientific justification in evolution and uniformitarianism) has been responsible for the loss of faith in many professing Christians. Much of what is called “science” in universities today could better be described as “profane and vain babblings.”
But today’s students are not alone in their error. Back in the 1800s, when uniformitarianism, and later evolution, were first being championed by only a small minority of scientists, theologians led the way to their broad acceptance. Rushing to embrace Charles Lyell’s principle of uniformity and the concept of an old earth while still holding on to a charade of biblical authority, theologians proposed the tranquil flood and local flood concepts. Likewise, theologians proposed theistic evolution, the day age, and gap theories to accommodate evolution, and their theological grandchildren enjoy the majority voice at most evangelical seminaries today.
It is time that Christian laity as well as those standing in our pulpits today regain “that which is committed to [their] trust” and avoid “science falsely so called.” JDM
Ask and it will be given to you. . . . How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! —Matthew 7:7, 11
Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those who have his Spirit. Through the simple argument of these verses, he urges us to keep our minds filled with the idea of God’s control behind everything, which means that the disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek. Jesus wants us to learn this way of reasoning: “God is my Father. He loves me. I will never think of anything he will forget. Why should I worry?”
Fix your mind on the idea that God is there. Once your thoughts are settled on this line, it becomes as easy as breathing to recall that your heavenly Father is behind everything that happens. Even when perplexities and difficulties press in on you, remembering the “much more” of your Father comes naturally and without effort. Before when troubles arose, you sought help from other people. Now, the notion of divine control is so powerfully formed in your mind that you go directly to God.
There will always be moments when God’s guidance is not at all obvious, moments when he does not lift the darkness. But trust him. Jesus said that God will appear at times like an unkind friend, but he is not (Luke 11:5–8). He will appear at times like an unnatural father, but he is not (vv. 9–13). He will appear at times like an unjust judge, but he is not (18:1–8). Keep the idea strong and growing in your mind that nothing happens unless God wills it. Rest in perfect confidence in him and learn to pray from this place of certainty. Prayer is not only asking; it is cultivating the frame of mind in which asking is perfectly natural. “Ask and it will be given to you.”
Wisdom from Oswald
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
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