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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — A Difficult Place

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Our Daily Bread

Acts 8:4-8,26-35

I will never leave you nor forsake you. —Hebrews 13:5

When a sudden change in technology made his job obsolete, a highly trained scientist found himself working in a fast-food restaurant. One evening after our Bible study he described the situation as difficult and humbling. He said, “One good thing I can say is that the young people there seem very interested in my faith.” A member of the group responded, “I admire you for being humble. I know your faith must have something to do with it.”

Like my acquaintance, Philip may have wondered why God would pull him off an assignment in Samaria (Acts 8:4-8) and plop him in the middle of the desert (v.26). But then he found that the Ethiopian needed help understanding the Scriptures (vv.27-35), and his place made sense.

When Jesus promised He would never leave us alone (Matt. 28:20; Heb. 13:5), He meant in the hard times as well as in the good times. Our mission in the difficult seasons of life is to work or serve remembering we are doing it for God, and then to watch as God works to accomplish His purposes.

Look for God in your difficult place and discover what He’s doing in and through you there. —Randy Kilgore

Disappointment—His appointment,

No good thing will He withhold;

From denials oft we gather

Treasures of His love untold. —Young

What’s better than answers to our why questions? Trusting a good God who has His reasons.

Bible in a year: Ecclesiastes 4-6; 2 Corinthians 12

 

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Hard Way To Strength

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Our Daily Bread

2 Corinthians 12:1-10

My strength is made perfect in weakness. —2 Corinthians 12:9

Diamonds are beautiful and valuable gemstones, but their beginning is common carbon—black, dirty, and combustible. Through years of intense heat and high pressure, they become pure and strong. This makes them a good metaphor for spiritual strength; God uses intense outside forces to rid us of impurities and to perfect His strength in us.

God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, says the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:9). I wish this were not true because I hate being weak. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments taught me more than I ever wanted to know about physical weakness. Then a minor event plunged me into a state of emotional weakness that caught me off guard. After losing 3 feet of hair and being bald for nearly a year, one bad haircut should not have been a big deal. But it was, and I felt silly for being so weak. Some of us are able to create an illusion of strength and self-sufficiency. But sudden loss of health, employment, or a treasured relationship is a startling reminder of our total dependence on God.

When we experience the fiery furnace of suffering—whether physical or emotional, whether persecution from without or humiliation from within—God’s loving purpose is to make us pure and strong. —Julie Ackerman Link

God uses testing in our lives

To rid us of impurity

And teach us that our strength’s in Him

And not in self-sufficiency. —Sper

Suffering is the fire that God uses to purify and strengthen us.

Bible in a year: Psalms 16-17; Acts 20:1-16

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Strength out of Weakness

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“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9, KJV).

On thousands of occasions, under all kinds of circumstances, I have found God’s promise to be true in my own experiences and in the lives of multitudes of others.

Charles Spurgeon rode home one evening after a heavy day’s work. Feeling very wearied and depressed, he suddenly recalled the Scripture, “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

Immediately he compared himself to a tiny fish in the Thames river, apprehensive lest its drinking so many pints of water in the river each day might drink the Thames dry. Then he could hear Father Thames say, “Drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient for thee.”

Then he pictured a little mouse in Joseph’s granaries in Egypt, afraid lest its consumption of the corn it needed might exhaust the supplies and it would starve to death. Then Joseph would come along and sense its fear, saying “Cheer up, little mouse, my granaries are sufficient for thee.”

He thought of himself as a mountain climber reaching the lofty summit and dreading lest he might exhaust all the oxygen in the atmosphere. Then he would hear the Creator Himself say, “Breathe away, O man, and fill thy lungs ever. My atmosphere is sufficient for thee.”

“Then,” Spurgeon told his congregation, “for the first time in my life I experienced what Abraham must have felt when he fell upon his face and laughed.”

What kinds of needs do you have today? Are they needs for which our heavenly Father is not sufficient? Can you trust Him? Is there anyone who has proven himself to be more trustworthy?

Bible Reading: II Corinthains 12:1-10

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: In every type of need, burden and problem I face today – whether my own or that of someone else – I will count on the sufficiency of Christ to handle it, and to enable me to live supernaturally.

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – The Last Enemy

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The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. —1 Corinthians 15:26

When someone loses a loved one, there is a place for mourning. The depth of our sorrow is an indication of the depth of our love. But there is also a place for rejoicing if that loved one is a believer because we know we will see him or her again.

Even Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus as he saw the devastating power of death. Death is an enemy, and 1 Corinthians 15:26 tells us, “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.”

No one wants to die. No one looks forward to death. But we all will die, and we want to have put our faith in Christ before we enter into eternity. However, there is something we need to remember about heaven.

Paul the apostle, when he went to heaven and came back to earth, tried to put his experience into words. He could find only one word that helped him describe it, and that was “paradise” (see 2 Corinthians 12:4). It is an interesting Greek word that actually refers to the royal garden of a king. Think about the most beautiful garden you have ever seen or the most amazing sight you have ever laid eyes on. That was the depiction of heaven Paul gave. He was saying, “I don’t really have the words, but it was like a paradise.”

As Pastor Adrian Rogers put it, “The God who sculpted the wings of the butterfly, blended the hues of the rainbow, and painted the meadows with daffodils is the same One who made heaven.”

In heaven all questions are answered, all tears are dried, and all pain is gone. Heaven is pure bliss. That is why Paul said that he longed to be there. Heaven is far, far better than earth.

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Charles Spurgeon – Christ manifesting himself to his people

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“Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” John 14:22

Suggested Further Reading: 2 Corinthians 12:1-10

I was reading a short time ago of a Mr Tennant. He was about to preach one evening, and thought he would take a walk. As he was walking in a wood he felt so overpoweringly the presence of Christ, and such a manifestation of him, that he knelt down, and they could not discover him at the hour when he was to have preached. He continued there for hours, insensible as to whether he was in the body or out of the body; and when they waked him he looked like a man who had been with Jesus, and whose face shone. He never should forget, he said, to his dying day, that season of communion, when positively, though he could not see Christ, Christ was there, holding fellowship with him, heart against heart, in the sweetest manner. A wondrous display it must have been. You must know something of it, if not much; otherwise you have not gone far on your spiritual course. God teach you more, and lead you deeper! “Then shall ye know, when ye follow on to know the Lord.” Then, what will be the natural effects of this spiritual manifestation? The first effect will be humility. If a man says, “I have had such and such spiritual communication, I am a great man;” he has never had any communications at all; for “God has respect unto the humble, but the proud he knoweth afar off.” He does not want to come near them to know them, and will never give them any visits of love. It will give a man happiness; for he must be happy who lives near to God. Again: it will give a man holiness. A man who has not holiness has never had this manifestation. Some men profess a great deal; but do not believe any man unless you see that his deeds answer to what he says.

For meditation: The above account may be a blessing or a temptation to you! If we seek experiences for their own sake, Satan will ensure that we get some; our business is to seek to know Christ more and more (Philippians 3:10; 2 Peter 3:18).

Sermon no. 29

10 June (1855)

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Joyce Meyer – Christ Is the Power

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And God also selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, . . . so that no mortal man should [have pretense for glorying and] boast in the presence of God. —1 Corinthians 1:28–29

“But to those who are called, . . . Christ [is] the Power of God and the Wisdom of God” (Corinthians 1:24). When God calls us to do something, He enables us to do it. Remember, God uses inadequate people to do important things because that way He gets the glory.

So if God calls you to do something today that seems too big for you to handle, Christ will give you the power and the wisdom that you need to do it. God has said to each of us, “My strength and power are made perfect (fulfilled and completed) and show themselves most effective in [your] weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

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Responding to Suffering By Charles F. Stanley

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A hurricane wreaks havoc and devastation on a coastal town. Economic hardship pushes families out of their homes. Yet another school shooting leaves young people dead. Perhaps you’ve wondered, “God, why don’t You prevent these tragedies? Why all this suffering?”

The truth is that God could intervene. The Bible teaches that He is sovereign, no matter what happens. But many times, He chooses to allow people the freedom to destroy life, or He lets nature devastate an entire region. As believers, what should our response be when adversity, unexpected tragedy, or suffering comes?

Reaffirm your position in Christ. Remind yourself of who you are and what you have in Him. It helps to do this out loud. You can say something like this:

I know that I am a child of God. I am saved. I have become united with Christ. I am sealed with the Holy Spirit. My eternal destiny is determined, and nothing can change that. The Lord will never leave me nor forsake me. Nothing can touch me apart from what my heavenly Father allows. All things will work together for my good since I love God and have been called according to His purpose in Christ.

The truths listed in the paragraph above are essential to maintaining the right perspective on adversity. Self-esteem and confidence in God are usually the two things most affected by tragedy. In moments of despair, you need a strong dose of truth to relieve your troubled heart and set your feet on the immovable foundation of scriptural reality. Then you are ready to . . .

•Ask God to remove adversity from your life. This is where we usually begin, but it is best to ask after we have gained perspective. In 2 Corinthians 12:8-9, Paul pleaded for his struggle to be removed. Although God did not answer that request, He didn’t chastise the apostle for it. Neither will He be displeased by your request. Even your prayer for mercy is an expression of dependence and faith.

•Reaffirm the promise of God’s sustaining grace. The Lord may not choose to remove adversity from your life immediately. In that case, it’s important for you to rely on His grace—not your own abilities. People who try to endure suffering in their own strength collapse under the weight of it all. Admit from the start that you do not have the power to withstand the pressure. Cry out to God for mercy. He will hear you. His grace will be sufficient moment by moment to get you through.

•Thank God for this unique opportunity to grow spiritually. You must look for the Lord’s part in your adversity, or you’ll miss it. You are not simply to endure suffering; you are to grow and mature through it. The best way to develop this attitude is to thank Him every day for the spiritual growth in your life.

•Receive adversity as if it were from God. Most of the time, you don’t know for sure who’s behind your suffering, and believe it or not, the source of your adversity makes little difference. God has a purpose for each difficulty He allows.

When you respond to adversity as if it were from Satan, the tendency is to fight it. When trouble lingers, you may begin to doubt God. So, as long as the Lord accomplishes His purpose through adversity in your life, receive it as from Him. And remember, God’s grace is sufficient for you (2 Cor. 12:9).

•Read and meditate on passages of scripture that describe adversity faced by God’s servants. Read the story of Joseph, or look at the way God provided for Abraham when he was left with undesirable land. Imagine how foolish Noah felt while building the ark. The Bible contains illustration after illustration of God’s faithfulness in adverse circumstances.

Fill your mind with these truths. Ask God to open your eyes to the human side of these characters so you can identify with their pain and sorrow. Then, dwell on Christ’s promise to care for those who love Him (Matt. 6:25-34.) Just as He was faithful to men and women in the Bible, He will also demonstrate His faithfulness to you.

Suffering is unavoidable. It comes without warning and can shatter or strengthen us. The outcome hinges on our response, not the nature of our adversity. If your heart’s desire is to see God glorified through you, hard times will not leave you without hope.

—Adapted from “How to Handle Adversity,” by Charles F. Stanley

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Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

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Morning   “My grace is sufficient for thee.” / 2 Corinthians 12:9

If none of God’s saints were poor and tried, we should not know half so well the consolations of divine grace. When we find the wanderer who has not where to lay his head, who yet can say, “Still will I trust in the Lord;” when we see the pauper starving on bread and water, who still glories in Jesus; when we see the bereaved widow overwhelmed in affliction, and yet having faith in Christ, oh! what honour it reflects on the gospel. God’s grace is illustrated and magnified in the poverty and trials of believers. Saints bear up under every discouragement, believing that all things work together for their good, and that out of apparent evils a real blessing shall ultimately spring–that their God will either work a deliverance for them speedily, or most assuredly support them in the trouble, as long as he is pleased to keep them in it. This patience of the saints proves the power of divine grace. There is a lighthouse out at sea: it is a calm night–I cannot tell whether the edifice is firm; the tempest must rage about it, and then I shall know whether it will stand. So with the Spirit’s work: if it were not on many occasions surrounded with tempestuous waters, we should not know that it was true and strong; if the winds did not blow upon it, we should not know how firm and secure it was. The master-works of God are those men who stand in the midst of difficulties, stedfast, unmoveable,–

“Calm mid the bewildering cry,

Confident of victory.”

He who would glorify his God must set his account upon meeting with many trials. No man can be illustrious before the Lord unless his conflicts be many. If then, yours be a much-tried path, rejoice in it, because you will the better show forth the all-sufficient grace of God. As for his failing you, never dream of it–hate the thought. The God who has been sufficient until now, should be trusted to the end.

 

 

Evening  “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house.” / Psalm 36:8

Sheba’s queen was amazed at the sumptuousness of Solomon’s table. She lost all heart when she saw the provision of a single day; and she marvelled equally at the company of servants who were feasted at the royal board. But what is this to the hospitalities of the God of grace? Ten thousand thousand of his people are daily fed; hungry and thirsty, they bring large appetites with them to the banquet, but not one of them returns unsatisfied; there is enough for each, enough for all, enough for evermore. Though the host that feed at Jehovah’s table is countless as the stars of heaven, yet each one has his portion of meat. Think how much grace one saint requires, so much that nothing but the Infinite could supply him for one day; and yet the Lord spreads his table, not for one, but many saints, not for one day, but for many years; not for many years only, but for generation after generation. Observe the full feasting spoken of in the text, the guests at mercy’s banquet are satisfied, nay, more “abundantly satisfied;” and that not with ordinary fare, but with fatness, the peculiar fatness of God’s own house; and such feasting is guaranteed by a faithful promise to all those children of men who put their trust under the shadow of Jehovah’s wings. I once thought if I might but get the broken meat at God’s back door of grace I should be satisfied; like the woman who said, “The dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the master’s table;” but no child of God is ever served with scraps and leavings; like Mephibosheth, they all eat from the king’s own table. In matters of grace, we all have Benjamin’s mess–we all have ten times more than we could have expected, and though our necessities are great, yet are we often amazed at the marvellous plenty of grace which God gives us experimentally to enjoy.

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Greg Laurie – Staying Usable

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Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me—2 Corinthians 12: 9

Do you think having a vision of heaven might make you a little arrogant? Imagine sitting around with a group of people who were talking about where they went for vacation. We went to Hawaii. . . . We went to Tahiti. . . . We went to Italy. . . .

The apostle Paul could say, “I went to heaven.”

“No, no! Where did you go, Paul? Really.”

“Heaven—I went to heaven.”

“Yeah? What was it like?”

“I can’t really explain it. But it was better than where you went.”

So that Paul would not be filled with pride, God allowed adversity into his life to keep him humble and usable. Writing about this experience, Paul said,

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:8–10)

God may allow hardship in the life of a Christian. In Paul’s case, it was “a thorn in the flesh” (see 2 Corinthians 12:7). We don’t know what this thorn in the flesh was, exactly. Whatever it was, Paul asked the Lord to take it away three times, and three times He said, “My grace is all you need.” God allowed this hardship in Paul’s life to keep him usable in His kingdom. And he was very usable.

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A Tangible Place – Greg Laurie

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I do know that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell. That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses—2 Corinthians 12:3–5

Periodically books are written in which people claim to have had visions of heaven. But there is an instance of someone’s writing about heaven that we know is legitimate. The apostle Paul went there, and he wrote a few verses about it in 2 Corinthians 12.

Certainly a topic as exciting as this would have merited its own book, with a title and byline such as The Book of Heaven by the Apostle Paul. He could have told us all about it. But he didn’t.

That is not to say there are no descriptions of heaven in the Bible, because the apostle John spoke at great length about heaven in the book of Revelation and gave us descriptions of it that are a little bit difficult, quite frankly, to wrap our minds around.

But all Paul would say about heaven was, “I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell” (2 Corinthians 12:4).

The word “paradise” that Paul used here appears three times in the New Testament. The first time we see it is when Jesus spoke to the criminal on the cross next to Him and said, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

Another time it is used is in Revelation 2:7, to describe our future dwelling place. It is sometimes translated as the royal garden of a king, which means there was no verbiage to really do justice to the meaning of the word. There was really nothing you could say to express it.

But here is the thing we need to know: Heaven is a tangible place, not a state of mind. The King James Bible uses the word heaven 582 times in 550 different places. Heaven is a real place.

 

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A Means for Growth – Greg Laurie

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Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow—James 1:2–3

When we experience suffering in our lives, we naturally want the pain to go away. But sometimes God can do things through our pain that cannot be accomplished in any other way. Alan Redpath said, “When God wants to do an impossible task, he takes an impossible individual and crushes him.”

James wrote, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing” (James 1:2–4).

Sometimes the Lord will turn a disability into an ability. Sometimes He will take a weakness and turn it into a strength.

If you are trying to get stronger physically, you need to use your muscles. When you work out, you are essentially breaking your muscles down to build them back up again.

In the same way, God may allow hardship into our lives to make us stronger in our faith.

Here is what the apostle Paul said when he asked God to take away his thorn in the flesh, but God said no: “Each time He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

We always want things to go reasonably well. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want hardship. But that hardship may be the best thing for us.

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Worth It All – Greg Laurie

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That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong—2 Corinthians 12:10

Sometimes as believers we can be spiritual lightweights. At the first indication of a hardship or difficulty, we fold like stack of cards. We say, “I didn’t sign up for this. I don’t want difficulty; I just want to get along with everyone.”

But if you are a true follower of Christ, there will be suffering in your life. Here is a description of what it was like for the apostle Paul:

I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea. I have traveled on many long journeys. I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not. I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights. I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food. I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. (2 Corinthians 11:23–27).

Like Paul, if you are going to be used of God, then you are going to be attacked. If you are a real Christian, it will cause some friction. If you are a real Christian, you will face opposition.

I am not trying to paint a portrait of Christianity that is undesirable; I am just being honest as I describe what it means to follow Christ. And it’s worth it all.