Tag Archives: faith

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – No Other Savior

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“There is salvation in no one else! Under all heaven there is no other name for men to call upon to save them” (Acts 4:12).

As a young sceptic, I had difficulty believing in the resurrection, for I could not believe in the supernatural. But as I became aware of the uniqueness of Jesus and of the different quality of life that was His, I was forced to reconsider the biblical claim to His resurrection.

Since it is a matter of historical fact that the tomb in which His dead body was placed was empty three days later, I set out to discover if the tomb could have been empty on any other basis than the biblical claim that He had been raised from the dead. In my research, I learned that there were three different theories explaining the empty tomb.

First, it was proposed that He was not really dead but had fainted from the loss of blood on the cross, and that He recovered in the cool of the tomb (this notion is today expounded by certain skeptics under the name of the “swoon theory”). Second, it was conceivable that Jesus’ body was stolen by His enemies; or third, that it was stolen by the disciples.

Experience and logic have forced me to discount all three of these theories as impossibilities. First, Jesus could never have moved the stone or escaped from the guards in His weakened condition. Second, Jesus’ enemies had no reason to steal His body since they did not want to give credence to a belief in His resurrection. Even if they had stolen the body, they could simply have produced it to discount the resurrection.

Third, the disciples who deserted Jesus at His trial and crucifixion were the same men who, having seen Him after His resurrection, spent the rest of their lives telling everyone who would listen, even at the cost of their own lives, that Jesus was alive. Ask yourself this question, “Would the disciples be willing to die as martyrs propagating a lie?”

Christianity alone has a living Savior; in Him alone is salvation.

Bible Reading: Romans 10:9-13

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: Several times today, as the Holy Spirit prompts me, I will remember to thank God for the gift of His Son as my personal Savior and will tell someone else that Jesus is alive and wants to be his Savior, too

 

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Jesus Came to Serve

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Max Lucado

God’s cure for the common life includes a strong dose of servanthood. It’s a timely reminder. As you celebrate your unique design, be careful. Don’t so focus on what you love to do that you neglect what needs to be done.

A 3:00 AM diaper change fits in very few sweet spots. Visiting your sick neighbor might not come naturally to you. Still the sick need to be encouraged, and diapers need changing.

The world needs servants. People like Jesus who did not come to be served, but to serve. He chose remote Nazareth over the center-stage in Jerusalem, his dad’s carpentry shop over a marble-columned palace, and three decades of anonymity over a life of popularity.

He selected prayer over sleep, the wilderness over the Jordan, feisty apostles over obedient angels. I’d have gone with the angels, given the choice.

Not Jesus.  He picked the people. He came to serve! May we do the same.

from Lucado Inspirational Reader

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – The Circle of Our Impact

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Charles Stanley

Matthew 5:14-16

One of today’s great tragedies is that so many people live chaotic lives with no real purpose. We would expect this from non-believers, but Christians should live out the knowledge that God has a very specific purpose for each person. When we consider what He has invested in us, it is no wonder that He wants to see us bear fruit in the lives of others. We can powerfully impact those in our circle of influence, much the way a stone tossed into a pond will make expanding concentric ripples.

In today’s passage, Jesus describes believers as light and calls us to reflect Him in a sin-darkened culture. Like the moon reflecting the light of the sun, we are to let the truth and beauty of the indwelling Christ shine out through our conduct, conversation, and character. In doing so, we must put away sin because it diminishes our light, as does soot on the globe of a lantern.

Our influence on others should be purposeful rather than haphazard. We ought to ask ourselves which people we are impacting. Are we in fact making a difference in anyone’s life? The truth is, we can turn our “ripples” into powerful waves for God that affect wide circles of individuals. For instance, consider the impact of prayer. There’s no end to its possibilities—your influence can extend to the remotest places on earth when you are on your knees before the Lord.

Don’t ever underestimate the scope and circle of your influence when you are obedient to God. By following Him, you live out what it means to be the “light of the world.”

 

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — A Season For Everything

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Our Daily Bread

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To everything there is a season. —Ecclesiastes 3:1

In the 1960s, the folk-rock band The Byrds popularized the song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” It climbed to the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and gained worldwide popularity. People seemed captivated by the lyrics. Interestingly, though, except for the last line, those lyrics are from the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes.

“To everything there is a season,” proclaims the writer of Ecclesiastes, “a time for every purpose under heaven” (3:1). He then lists some of the seasons in human experience: birth and death, gain and loss, tears and laughter, mourning and dancing. Just as the seasons in nature change, so do the seasons in our lives. Our circumstances never stay the same for long.

Sometimes we welcome change in our lives. But often it is difficult, especially when it involves sorrow and loss. Yet even then we can be thankful that God does not change. “I am the LORD,” He said through the prophet Malachi, “I do not change” (Mal. 3:6).

Because God remains the same, we can rely on Him through the shifting seasons of life. His presence is always with us (Ps. 46:1), His peace has the power to guard our hearts (Phil. 4:7), and His love provides security for our souls (Rom. 8:39). —Jennifer Benson Schuldt

A mighty fortress is our God,

A bulwark never failing;

Our helper He amid the flood

Of mortal ills prevailing. —Luther

God’s unchanging nature is our security during seasons of change.

Bible in a year: Jeremiah 37-39; Hebrews 3

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Embracing Abundance

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Ravi Z

A great newspaper headline can tell as much as the article itself. A caption once confessing “India Embraces Superlatives” promptly won my attention. The article summarized the growing obsession in India with holding Guinness World Records. “How do you stand out in a land with a billion people?” the article inquired. The answers were as extreme as the superlatives themselves: longest backwards run, fastest drinker of a bottle of ketchup, smallest writing on a mustard seed, longest ear hair ever grown. “We are desperate to be acknowledged by the world as being worthy,” said a columnist for the Times of India.  ”We hunt for any signs that the external world recognizes us, and then we celebrate them.” To distinguish oneself in one of the biggest crowds in the world, embracing superlatives is imperative.

Ironically, there could not be a more common human behavior. Though India might be embracing a unique path to superlatives, the road to noteworthy is one of the oldest, most well-traveled paths in the world. We are constantly about the work of distinguishing ourselves from whatever crowd we find ourselves standing in. From increased interests in book-writing and extreme sports, to becoming one of reality television’s idols, aspirations to be the fastest or the richest or the greatest are nothing new.

But the ever-spinning world of the best and the brightest reaches well beyond personal aspirations. Thus, the best bottled water can no longer be simply from a source in Texas; it must be from the coldest waters of the highest springs of the Swiss Alps. Grocers now have upwards of 12 kinds of bottled water on their shelves, each promising a better superlative. Of course, by nature, superlatives only exist because there are less extreme talents, stars, and water by comparison. The word is derived from the Latin superlatus, which means “carried beyond.” Though it is not always clear what standard we are using for comparison, it is arguable that we are now about the business of carrying absolutely everything “beyond.” A recent report on NPR showed that the number of choices in a grocery store in 1969 was somewhere around 7,000. Walking into the average grocery store today we are confronted with 70,000 choices.  Sometimes it seems we are intent on the endless pursuit of out-doing our own superlatives.

It is in the midst of this wearying competition with ourselves and every crowd that the Christian worldview stands tall to do what it does best: not finger-wagging, not nay-saying, but extending a resonant, viable, and hopeful alternative. When Jesus proclaimed “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” he was stating something essential for the one desperate to be acknowledged as worthy. Knowing who we are without our records and superlatives, knowing that all our efforts cannot give us what we ultimately need, knowing that worth is something quite different than standing out in a crowd, is perhaps the starting point for finding life as it exists most abundantly.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

 

Alistair Begg

Alistair Begg – The Longing of the Thirsty

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Alistair Begg

For I will pour water on the thirsty land.

Isaiah 44:3

When a believer has fallen into a low, sad state of feeling, he often tries to lift himself out of it by chastening himself with dark and gloomy fears. That is not the way to rise from the dust, but to continue in it.

We may as well chain the eagle’s wing to make it fly as doubt in order to increase our grace. It is not the law but the Gospel that saves the seeking soul at first; and it is not a legal bondage but gospel liberty that can restore the fainting believer afterwards.

Slavish fear does not bring the backslider back to God, but the sweet wooings of love attract him to Jesus. This morning are you thirsting for the living God and unhappy because you cannot find him to the delight of your heart? Have you lost the joy of the Lord, and is your prayer, “Restore to me the joy of your salvation”?1

Are you conscious also that you are unproductive, like the dry ground, that you are not bringing forth the fruit that God has a right to expect of you, that you are not as useful in the church or in the world as your heart desires to be?

Then here is exactly the promise that you need: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land.” You will receive the grace you so desperately need, and you will have it in abundance.

Water refreshes the thirsty: You will be refreshed; your desires shall be satisfied. Water revives sleeping vegetable life: Your life will be restored by fresh grace.

Water makes the bud develop and makes the fruit ripen; and so by God’s grace you will be made fruitful in His ways. Whatever good quality there is in divine grace, you will enjoy it to the full. All the riches of divine grace you will receive in plenty; you shall be as it were drenched with it: And as sometimes the meadows become flooded by the bursting rivers, and the fields are turned into pools, so shall you be-the thirsty land shall be springs of water.

1 Psalm 51:12

 

 

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – Let us pray

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“But it is good for me to draw near to God.” Psalm 73:28

Suggested Further Reading: James 4:1-8

Draw near to God with living, loving prayer; present the promise, and you shall obtain the fulfilment. Many things I might say of prayer; our old divines are full of high praise concerning it. The early fathers speak of it as if they were writing sonnets. Chrysostom preached of it as if he saw it incarnate in some heavenly form. And the choicest metaphors were gathered together to describe in rapturous phrase the power, nay, the omnipotence of prayer. Would to God we loved prayer as our fathers did of old. It is said of James the Less, that he was so much in prayer that his knees had become hard like those of a camel. It was doubtless but a legend, but legends are often based on truths. And certain it is that Hugh Latimer, that blessed saint and martyr of our God, was accustomed to pray so earnestly in his old age, when he was in his cell, that he would often pray until he had no strength left to rise, and the prison attendants had need to lift him from his knees. Where are the men like these? Oh angel of the covenant, where can you find them? When the Son of Man comes shall he find prayer on the earth? Ours are not worthy of the name of supplication. Oh that we had learned that sacred art, that would draw near to God, and plead his promise. Cowper has put several things together in one hymn.

Prayer clears the sky; “Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw.”

Prayer is a heaven-climber; “Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw.”

Prayer makes even Satan quake; “For Satan trembles when he sees,

The weakest saint upon his knees.”

For meditation: Do you regard your prayer-life as a dead, boring routine? May God teach us to draw near to him and enjoy the relationship in a living and meaningful way (Luke 11:1-4).

Sermon no. 288

6 November (1859)

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Take Time to Get to Know People

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Joyce meyer

Be honest in your judgment and do not decide at a glance (superficially and by appearances); but judge fairly and righteously.—John 7:24

Today’s verse is a very clear, specific word from God to us. He tells us not to judge people superficially or by appearances.

For years I was the kind of person who made snap judgments. God seriously dealt with me about it several times, and I finally realized the danger of judging hastily and superficially.

Before we judge people, we must take time to get to know who they really are. Otherwise, (1) we can approve of someone because they appear to be something, when in fact they are not; or (2) we can disapprove of someone because of some outward appearance or action, when that individual is actually a wonderful person inside.

We all have our little quirks, our odd little actions, behaviors, and ways that are not easily understood by others. God Himself does not judge by appearances and we need to follow His example.

David would never have been chosen to be king if people had judged superficially. Even his own family disregarded him. But God saw David’s heart, the heart of a shepherd. God saw a worshipper, someone who had a heart for Him, someone who was pliable and moldable in His hand. These are qualities God values, but they aren’t always obvious at a glance.

I encourage you to seek God and let the Holy Spirit speak to you about people. He knows their hearts, and He will tell you whether to beware or pursue a relationship with them. Trust Him, not your own judgment, to lead you as you get to know people and develop relationships.

God’s word for you today: Have the same attitude toward others that you would like them to have toward you.

Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; C.H. – Solid Ground

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The foolish man built his house upon the sand (Matthew 7:26). This biblical wisdom has real world practicality. In 2010, Chile had an earthquake registering a magnitude of 8.8. Japan’s 2011 quake/tsunami combo was a whopping 9.0 on the seismic scale.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Hebrews 12:28

As much as architects work to create structures that can endure earthquakes, one of the simplest principles still stands – you must build on a firm foundation. All else is sinking sand. The author of today’s passage knew the difference between things that could be shaken and those that could not. In verse 27, he speaks of how the Almighty Father will shake the heavens and Earth to remove “things that have been made” – cars, houses, money, fame. What remains will be the kingdom of God.

Praise the Lord, for His kingdom cannot be shaken. When national policies change, and you wonder how you will fare when new laws are put into place, take heart. God and His purposes remain unchanged. Pray for stability in America – and wisdom for your leaders – in these uncertain times. Then give thanks for your citizenship in the unshakable kingdom of your Lord.

Recommended Reading: Matthew 7:24-29

 

Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – Never beyond His Reach

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For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. —Hebrews 4:15–16

Awhile back I met a man named Michael Franzese, who was once involved with the Colombo crime family. In fact, in the mid-1980s he was dubbed one of the fifty most wealthy and powerful mafia bosses. At his peak he was making $6 to $8 million a week. Then he ended up in prison.

While there, Michael came to Christ. A guard had given him a Bible, and he started reading it. He told me that he listened to our radio broadcast, A New Beginning, every day in his prison cell. Much of that time he was in a place called The Hole, which he said was even worse than solitary confinement. But it was there he would listen to the Word of God, and when he had light, he would read the Word of God. The Lord changed him, and he did something unthinkable for someone in his situation: he walked away from the mob.

Now he devotes his time to speaking and bringing encouragement to others. Here was someone who was in the mob, and the Lord got hold of him. There in that prison cell, the Lord came to Michael Franzese.

There are different kinds of prisons that people live in today. Some endure the prison of isolation in a hospital bed or convalescent home. Others may find themselves in the prison cell of mourning because of an unexpected death of a loved one.

Yet Hebrews 4:15–16 says, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Whatever pain or prison you are experiencing, the Lord is there, and He understands what you are going through. You can come to him “and find grace to help in time of need.”

 

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Louder Than Words

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Ravi Z

A wordsmith, according to Merriam-Webster, is a person who works with words; especially a skillful writer. As a part of my quest to become a wordsmith, I have subscribed to what has become one of my favorite online sites, Wordsmith.org. Each day the site sends a word of the day to my inbox. For example, the word bumbledom came into my inbox today. A bumbledom is a behavior characteristic of a pompous and self-important petty official. While I love the sound of bumbledom rolling off of my tongue, I am not sure how often I will find a use for it in my writing and speaking. But it sure is fun to drop it into conversation!

Words are the lifeblood for writers. Indeed, words are to writers, what food is for chefs. Writers spend their days imagining just the right combination of words put together in such a way that a beautiful sentence or idea emerges. When this happens, what is written can actually take the reader beyond the page creating images, pictures, colors, sounds, and smells that transport the reader to another world. Just as a chef combines the right ingredients to create a delicious dish, a skilled writer mingles words and carves out sentences to offer an experience of transcendence beyond the everyday realities of life.

Words are powerful. But there are times when words are not enough. There are mysteries that lie beyond their reach, such as when a joy experienced is too great, or sorrows are too deep as to be inexpressible. In such encounters, words seem rudimentary and inadequate. Nothing written can adequately capture the depth of what is being experienced or contemplated.

A group of early Christian teachers understood that there was a relationship between “the things that are spoken and the things that are ineffable, the things that are known and the things that are unknowable.”(1) They understood that there was a limitation of language in the face of mystery. In the contemplation of the Divine, for example, God’s essence, or ousia in the Greek, is something that could not be captured by words since God is beyond human understanding. God must do the extraordinary—divine revelation—for anything of God to be known.

Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan describes this early Christian theology as apophatic: “Theology was, at one and the same time, sublime and ‘apophatic,’ that is, based on negation. As the evangelist John had said, ‘no one has ever seen God,’ which means one could see the glory of God, but not God himself.”(2) God’s being or essence was beyond human beings. All that could be known or even spoken of was what God had chosen to reveal.

And God’s chosen means of ultimate revelation was startlingly in a person. The writer of Hebrews proclaims: “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:1-3). In the person of Jesus, who is the logos or Word of God, God is revealed.

In Jesus we receive a vision of the ineffable God. “No one has ever seen God,” the Evangelist proclaims. “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (John 1:18). What we can know about God is centrally communicated in Jesus through his life and ministry. Jesus embodied God’s saving work of redemption in his life, his death, and his resurrection. God is revealed definitively in Jesus who came to seek and to save what was lost.

As one who writes and speaks, I know the power of words.  In the defense of the gospel, a carefully crafted argument is often critical to breaking through the barriers of misinformation and misunderstanding. Yet, I am reminded that even words have limits, and people must see the gospel lived out, and must experience its power. The gospel must be embodied by those who claim to believe it. The oft-used saying attributed to St. Francis of Assisi “preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary use words” is a helpful reminder of the power of our lives in communication. And if I’m honest, embodying the gospel takes far more creative effort than simply crafting an argument or a skillful, word-smithed sentence.

The Christian tradition presents a God chiefly revealed through a person. As a result, I am challenged to consider the speech given by my life and actions just as carefully as I choose my words for an essay. For, “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). God has acted in a person, and this action speaks louder than words.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) John of Damascus as quoted in Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 31.

(2) Ibid., 32.

 

(The 5000 Post of the DDNI Blog )

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – Fast-day service: An exposition of Daniel 9:1-19

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Taken from brief exposition of Daniel 9:1-19 (This comment is on vv 10-15)

Suggested Further Reading: Psalm 85

The prophet in his prayer pleads what God has done for them, as the reason why he should bare his arm; he tells how God delivered Israel out of Egypt; and he therefore prays that God would deliver them from their present trouble. And, my brethren, not Israel itself could boast a nobler history than we, measuring it by God’s bounties. We have not yet forgotten an armada scattered before the breath of heaven, scattered upon the angry deep as a trophy of what God can do to protect his favoured isle. We have not yet forgotten a fifth of November, wherein God discovered many plots that were formed against our religion and our commonwealth. We have not yet lost the old men, whose tales of even the victories in war are still a frequent story. We remember how God swept before our armies the man who thought to make the world his dominion, who designed to cast his shoe over Britain, and make it a dependency of his kingdom. God fought for us; he fought with us; and he will continue to do so. He has not left his people, and he will not leave us, but he will be with us even to the end. Cradle of liberty! Refuge of distress! Storms may rage around you, but not upon you, nor shall all the wrath and fury of men destroy you, for God has pitched his tabernacle in your midst, and his saints are the salt in your midst.

For meditation: These stirring words, spoken at the time of the Indian mutiny, are equally true of God’s faithfulness during the worldwide conflicts of the twentieth century. But do Spurgeon’s words “We have not yet forgotten” retain any ring of truth in a nation which appears intent on moving further away from God by the day? While we may “Remember, remember the fifth of November,” few could probably explain why we do so!

n.b. Read again the text for yesterday’s reading—pray that a forgetful nation will remember and turn back to its Creator and Judge.

Part of nos. 154-155

5 November (Given on 7 October 1857)

John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Knowledge Through Faith

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John MacArthur

Knowledge Through Faith

“By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

As a man or woman of faith, you have insights into life that unbelievers can’t know. You know how the physical universe began, where it is heading, and how it will end. You know Who governs the universe and how you fit into the total scheme of things. You know why you exist and how to invest your life in matters of eternal consequence.

Unbelievers can’t possibly appreciate those things because “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14).

Some of the most basic issues of life remain a mystery to most people because they refuse God’s counsel. For example, the most brilliant thinkers have never agreed on the origin of the universe. Theirs is a futile attempt to explain what is beyond the realm of scientific investigation.

But such things aren’t beyond the realm of knowing–if a person is willing to be taught by God’s Word. For the Bible clearly states that God spoke the physical universe into existence, creating visible matter from what was non-physical or invisible (Rom. 4:17). No humans observed that event. It cannot be measured or repeated. It must be taken by faith.

Any attempt to explain the origin of the universe or the nature of man apart from God’s Word is foolhardy. The unregenerate mind, no matter how brilliant it might be, cannot fathom such things.

So never feel you have to apologize for trusting God’s Word. Let the confidence of the psalmist be yours: “I have more insight than all my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, because I have observed Thy precepts” (Ps. 119:99-100).

Suggestions for Prayer:

Read Genesis 1-2 as a reminder of the power and wisdom of God in creating the universe. From those chapters select specific things to praise Him for.

For Further Study:

Memorize Psalm 19:1. Can you think of ways that the natural creation brings glory to God? (See also Romans 1:18-20.)

 

 

 

 

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Never Go to Bed Angry

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Joyce meyer

When angry, do not sin; do not ever let your wrath (your exasperation, your fury or indignation) last until the sun goes down.  —Ephesians 4:26

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m glad this verse is in the Bible because it helps us to build character by giving us a guideline to follow in handling our anger: let go of anger before bedtime. There is only one problem. What happens when we become good and mad just before bedtime? If we become mad in the morning, at least we have all day to get over it. But when we become mad close to bedtime, we have to make a quick decision.

Why is it so bad for us to go to bed angry? I think it is because while we sleep, what we are angry about has time to get a hold on us and take root in us. But the Word says, Leave no [such] room or foothold for the devil [give no opportunity to him] (Ephesians 4:27).

This verse tells us what happens if we refuse to get over our anger by bedtime: It opens a door for the devil and gives Satan a foothold. Once Satan gets a foothold in our lives, then he can move on to a stronghold.

You may wonder, “Well, if I am mad, what should I do about it?” Get over it! You may think, “That’s easy for you to say, but you’re not in my situation.” I may not be in your situation, but you are not in my situation either. We all have different situations. If you are going to live a joyful, victorious life, you have to do so by choice and not by feeling.

In Deuteronomy 30:19 the Lord tells us, I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life. Choose life by refusing to give in to anger. Take responsibility for your anger and learn to deal with it—process it and bring closure to it, and that will relieve the pressure.

 

Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; H.L.M. – Total Gift

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Can you imagine life without God’s gift of grace? Unfortunately, many live without it. According to a survey from LifeWay Research, 47 percent of Americans feel the weight of a bad choice from their past, even though a majority believe God gives second chances. Nearly 19 percent believe God gives a second chance when a person depends only on Him, followed closely by when a person makes restitution (18 percent), does enough good (15 percent) or promises not to repeat the mistake (11 percent).

I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.

I Corinthians 1:4

Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” The work of salvation is for God’s glory and is not accomplished by human effort. Salvation is fully a gift from God!

Of course, when someone gives you a gift, you say, “Thank you.” So every day thank God for His total gift of grace in your life…and for the second chances He has given you. Thank Him also for the grace He has bestowed on this country. Then pray that the nation’s leaders will discover this priceless gift of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Recommended Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – God Reveals His Presence

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Charles Stanley

Psalm 42:1-5

How does the Lord make His presence known in the lives of His children? Although this question does not have a simple “one size fits all” answer, there are several general ways in which God chooses to reveal Himself.

For example, He may wake you from a deep sleep in the middle of the night. Many times I have sat straight up in bed, knowing for certain that Jesus was right there with me, giving me answers to some serious questions from the day. Did I see Him or hear a voice? No. But did I know He was there? Absolutely.

God also makes His presence known by giving instantaneous guidance. Each step of the way, decision after decision, He leads us where He wants us to go.

And quite often the Lord will show Himself by giving such a clear word that you know beyond any doubt that it was from Him. How many times have you been reading a Scripture passage when suddenly a light seemed to flip on in your mind? God’s Holy Spirit can bring sudden understanding of a new truth, or clearly reveal the solution to a hard decision.

Another way that God reveals Himself is through life’s tragedies. Can you think of a time when you were so sorrowful that you couldn’t even move—but then somehow found the strength and courage to go on, despite the pain? You may even have marveled at discovering your strength and wondered where it came from. It was from the One who is always within, always empowering. All we have to do is say, “Lord, I need You at this moment.” And He is there—always.

 

 

 

 

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Leap The Wall

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Our Daily Bread

Romans 12:14-21

If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. —Proverbs 25:21

Sgt. Richard Kirkland was a Confederate soldier in the US Civil War (1861–1865). When the Union’s failed charge at Marye’s Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg left wounded soldiers abandoned in no-man’s land, Kirkland got permission to help them. Collecting canteens, he leaped the stone wall and bent over the first soldier to lend assistance. At great personal risk, the “Angel of Marye’s Heights” extended the mercy of Christ to enemy soldiers.

While few of us will face an enemy on the battlefield, those who suffer can be found all around us—people struggling against loneliness, loss, health issues, and sin. Their cries, muted by our many distractions, plead for mercy and comfort, for hope and help.

Kirkland’s example of Christlike compassion put action to Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44). Paul expanded on that theme when he quotes Proverbs 25:21, “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink” (Rom. 12:20). “Do not be overcome by evil,” he instructed us, “but overcome evil with good” (v.21).

Paul’s challenge compels us to emulate Sgt. Kirkland. Today is the day for us to “leap the wall” of safety to lend comfort from God to those in need. —Randy Kilgore

Father, give me the courage to reach out to those

I may not want to reach. Show Your love

through me in ways that will bring glory to You

and true peace in my corner of the world.

Kindness is in our power even when fondness is not. —Samuel Johnson

Bible in a year: Jeremiah 32-33; Hebrews 1

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The Sovereign

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Ravi Z

For years, I never used the word “sovereign” as a noun. I knew it could be used in this way—”Like a sovereign,” writes Shakespeare “he radiates worth, his eyes lending a double majesty”—I just never did. But trial and tragedy have a way of waking us to words and realities overlooked. There was a time that whenever I closed my eyes to pray I was leveled by the image of the throne, and it was empty. And it was somewhere in the midst of this recurrent vision that I realized my neglect of the noun. Was God indeed the Sovereign who spoke and listened? I had often used the word as an adjective. But adjectives, like good moods, seem to come and go.

The prophet Jeremiah depicts a Sovereign that cannot come and go, simply because He is. For Jeremiah, God’s sovereignty is not a coat that can be taken off when all is going well or when all is going poorly. God does not cease to be the Sovereign though the world refuses to bow or “distant” seems a better adjective. And God’s words are not stripped of their sovereignty though no one is listening or no one responds. The Sovereign of all creation is always sovereign, active, and near, the prophet wants us to see; it is we who are inconsistent.

Jeremiah chapter 6 begins with an image of the Sovereign speaking to a people unwilling to listen, an honorable Judge whose words are dishonored. “To whom shall I speak?” the LORD inquires. The question is a lonely one, reflecting both the prophet who speaks and the Sovereign whose words are ignored. The inquiry also has the force of sarcasm: Why bother speaking to a people who won’t hear? But the words are not a commentary on God’s behavior; God is not throwing his hands up and suggesting the route of silence. Rather, it is a commentary on God’s words themselves, which are weighted with the compulsion to be heard. Though our ears are closed and we scorn his warnings, the Sovereign speaks and his words go forth with power. “God is always coming,” says Carlo Carretto. “God is always coming because He is life, and life has the unbridled force of creation. God comes because He is light and light cannot remain hidden.”(1) God’s decrees from the throne create and sustain the world. There is a person enthroned in every word, bidding the world’s response to every call and every sound.

Yet we listen with stubborn ears and apathetic wills. It is not a blind and stiff obedience God seeks, but a response appropriate for the Sovereign embodied in God’s words and concern for creation. The people of Israel were responding with formality in sacrifice while acting shamefully in other areas. Today we might respond the same, making nods to religion in public or private, but refusing to wholly bow to the Most High, and hence, settling for something less than real humanity. For in their failure to listen, the Israelites were losing their ability to perceive altogether. “They acted shamefully…yet they were not ashamed; they did not know how to blush,” says Jeremiah.(2) In human failure to kneel before the Sovereign of all creation, we lose something of what it means to be human.

I don’t know why the throne was empty every time I closed my eyes some years ago. Perhaps I had removed God from the throne long before sorrow hit like a roaring sea and seemed to remove everything in its wake. Perhaps God was ruling from the rooms where we needed God most. I don’t know. But the emptiness of the throne forced me to reexamine the one who inhabits sovereignty itself. Carretto’s words once again hit the gist of such examining: “The true problem is this: Is God an autonomous presence before you, like you before your friend, the bridegroom before the bride, the Son before the Father? […] Can you meet God as a person on your road and prostrate yourself before Him as did Moses before the burning bush? […] Can you experience his presence in the dark intimacy of the temple as did the prophets? In short, is God the God of transcendence, and thus the God of prayer, the God of what lies beyond things, or is He only the God of immanence, revealing Himself in the fruition of matter, in the dynamics of history, in the promise to free mankind?”(3) Is God the Sovereign you will trust at the center of all things? Upon a throne high and lofty, God asks us to look again, calls us to walk in ancient paths, and promises rest for weary souls.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1974), 3.

(2) Jeremiah 6:15.

(3) Ibid., Intro.

 

Alistair Begg

Alistair Begg – Made Perfect in Weakness

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Alistair Begg

‘For my power is made perfect in weakness.’

2 Corinthians 12:9

A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness. When God’s warrior marches out to battle, strong in his own might, when he boasts, “I know that I will overcome-my own ability and my self-confidence will be enough for victory,” defeat is staring him in the face.

God will not enable the man who marches in his own strength. He who reckons on victory by such means has reckoned wrongly, for “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.”1

Those who go out to fight, boasting of their ability, will return with their banners trailing in the dust and their armor stained with disgrace. Those who serve God must serve Him in His own way and in His strength, or He will never accept their service.

Whatever a man does, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth He casts away; He will only reap corn the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love.

God will empty out all that you have before He will put His own into you; He will first clean out your granaries before He will fill them with the finest of wheat.

The river of God is full of water; but not one drop of it flows from earthly springs. God will have no strength used in His battles but the strength that He Himself imparts.

Are you mourning over your own weakness? Take courage, for there must be a consciousness of weakness before the Lord will give you victory. Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and you are being humbled to prepare you for being lifted up.

When I am weak then am I strong,

Grace is my shield and Christ my song.

1Zechariah 4:6

 

Charles Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon – Tender words of terrible apprehension

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CharlesSpurgeon

“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” Psalm 9:17

Suggested Further Reading: Ezekiel 8:5-18

How often do you forget his presence too! In the midst of a crowd, you are conscious every one of you of the presence of man, but perhaps this very moment you are ignoring the fact that God is here. In your shop on the morrow how carefully you will take heed that your conduct is circumspect if the eye of your fellow-man is observing you. But before the presence of God, with the Eternal eye upon you, you can presume to practice the paltry tricks of trade or to do that which you would not have revealed to mortals for all the world; careful to shut the door, and draw the curtain, and hide yourselves in secret from men; strangely forgetting that when the curtain is drawn and the door is shut, God is there still. No walls can shut him out; no darkness can conceal the deed from his eye; he is everywhere and sees us in all things. Why, my hearers, we are all guilty in this respect in a measure; we forget the actual presence and the overlooking eye of God. We talk as we dare not talk if we were thinking that he heard us. We act as we would not act if we were conscious that God was there. We indulge in thoughts which we should cast out if we could but bear in perpetual remembrance the abiding presence of God, the Judge of the whole earth. Forgetting God is so common a sin, that the believer himself needs to repent of it, and ask to have it forgiven, while the unbeliever may solemnly confess this to be his crying sin, a piece of guilt to which he dare not profess innocence.

For meditation: The Christian should make a positive effort to do everything to the satisfaction of his unseen but seeing Lord (Ephesians 6:5-7). This was the principle that Joseph adopted (Genesis 39:9).

Sermon no. 344

4 November (1860)