Tag Archives: Jesus

Every Man Ministry

Every Man Ministry – Kenny Luck -Love Demands a Choice

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Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.  ––Luke 9:23-24

The wisdom of our Father in heaven is truly amazing when we look at His Word and the way it is laid out, regarding the sequence of thought He uses to convey His love for us.

When we look at the beginning of Genesis we see how He shows that love demands a choice. He gives Adam and Eve a chance to experience good and evil to show that there is no love without choice. We often condemn the way God has set up his plan when we see all the hurtful, negative, painful things in life. We have maybe thought or heard others ponder this question. God’s love is not recognized without the presence of choice.

Later in the book of Genesis we see Abraham is given a choice to stay or leave his homeland. Then we are exposed to the next four books of the Bible showing us God’s deliverance of His people from Egypt. It is interesting to consider this thought.  Would we have ever considered the word faith or the risk that it demands if we would have no need to use the word?

The term “incompetent incompetence” has been used to describe the lowest level of intelligence.  This is a person who doesn’t understand that he doesn’t understand.  Do you understand that you need something or someone to deliver you from a life that contains emotional, physical, and relational pain, or are you the god of your life?

Let me quickly add that I believe we all slip into self-godship at times—where we take the reins and attempt to do a job that only God is qualified to do: run our life in a healthy, productive way. It’s the old North Star analogy: without the magnetic pull that is Christ—the lodestone of our life—we will always drift off course. Always. He is our North Star—the constant in a world of chaos. But … and it’s a big but … we have to make that God-of-our-lives choice each and every day. Sometimes many times each day—or hour!

In essence, faith is simply the best choice out of millions of choices. We make the “big choice” for Jesus when we give our lives to Him and ask Him to be our Lord and savior. We then make literally hundreds of thousands of choices on that road between here (this earthly life) and there (our eternal home).

What top three choices sit before you today? How can you best choose God’s path in each of those choices? Make a habit of always, always trusting the Holy Spirit to lead you to the best choices.

Thank You, Father, that You have chosen to reveal Your wisdom and love to me and for the joy of sharing it with others.

 

 

Every Man Ministries

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread – Running for Jesus

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Bible in a Year :

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, . . . they will still bear fruit in old age.

Psalm 92:12-14

 

Today’s Scripture & Insight :

Titus 2:1-5

When people think about the 100-meter dash, current world-record holder Usain Bolt might come to mind. But we can’t forget about Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins. In 2021, Julia crossed the finish line before all other runners to win the 100-meter dash in the Louisiana Senior Games. Her time was a bit slower than Bolt’s 9.58 seconds—just over 60 seconds. But she was also 105 years old!

There’s a lot to like about a woman who’s still running sprints at her age. And there’s a lot to like about believers in Jesus who never stop running the race with Him as their goal (Hebrews 12:1-2). The psalmist says this about the faithful in the later stages of life: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, . . . they will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green” (92:12-14).

Older believers who follow this kind of standard can find further instruction in the apostle Paul’s letter to Titus. Seasoned men are to be “sound in faith, in love and in endurance” (Titus 2:2), and senior women are “to teach what is good” (v. 3).

There’s no call for older believers to stop running the race. Maybe not the way Julia does on the track, but in ways that honor God as He provides the strength they need. Let’s all run the race to serve Him and others well.

By:  Dave Branon

Reflect & Pray

What are some things you can do to reach others for Christ and help them grow in faith? How can you encourage other believers to serve as they can?

Dear Jesus, thank You for every day you give me. No matter my age, help me to strive to run the race for Your honor.

 

 

http://www.odb.org

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Cast Your Care

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All the days of the desponding and afflicted are made evil [by anxious thoughts and forebodings], but he who has a glad heart has a continual feast [regardless of circumstances].

Proverbs 15:15 (AMPC)

Do you have something in your life that you could be very worried about and very anxious about if you didn’t decide not to be? Most people do, and if you don’t have something today you might have something tomorrow or the next day. That’s not being negative, it’s just saying that life is real and you never know exactly what is going to come your way. But we do know God and we don’t have to live in fear. He is with us and He’s on our side.

I had a lot of bad things happen to me in the early years of my life, and I got to the point where I was afraid that bad things would happen. Proverb 15:15 calls that “evil forebodings,” which means you have this sense that you are waiting for the next disaster. I’ve learned instead of doing that to expect something good to happen in my life and to expect it on purpose.

You can choose your own thoughts. You don’t have to just think whatever falls in your head. You can cast out wrong things and choose right thoughts. Faith starts in our hearts, a gift from God, but it is released through our thinking and speaking right things. When we have a problem, we can either do what the devil wants us to do and worry about it and get anxious and try to figure things out on our own, or we can do what God wants us to do and think about the promises in His Word.

The Bible teaches us to cast all of our care on God because He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7).

Throughout our married life, every time we’ve had a problem in our house, Dave has had one answer: “Cast your care.” It’s not wrong to see our problems, but we need to tell them where they stand in relation to God. Worry sees the problem, but faith sees the God Who can handle the problem.

Prayer of the Day: Father God, with Your help, I cast my cares on You. Help me replace worry with faith, and trust in Your promises. Help me to expect only good things to happen in my life, amen.

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Hurricane Milton intensifies to Category 5 on direct path for Florida

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Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a Category 5 storm yesterday. The center of the monster storm could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay region, which has not seen a direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century. Forecasters are warning of the highest storm surge ever predicted for the region.

Ahead of the devastation that is likely tomorrow, I want to think with you about some faith questions as we seek hope in these hard days.

If every wrong chess move can be replayed

The English poet John Keats called our fallen planet a “vale of soul-making.” Yesterday I suggested that God uses natural disasters to show us our need to “seek the Lᴏʀᴅ and his strength” (Psalm 105:4) and to grow in holiness as a result.

Inherent in this worldview is the claim that some suffering is necessary for spiritual maturity, much as a kite needs wind to climb higher. When Paul was afflicted with a “thorn in the flesh,” for example, he chose to “boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

It is also true (though not in the case of innocent suffering) that much evil in the world is the consequence of misused free will. As C. S. Lewis notes in The Problem of Pain, “The possibility of pain is inherent in the very existence of a world where souls can meet. When souls become wicked they will certainly use this possibility to hurt one another; and this, perhaps, accounts for four-fifths of the sufferings of men.”

God must allow the consequences of freedom or we are not free. If every wrong chess move can be replayed, we have no game. The law of gravity cannot function if it is countermanded every time someone falls.

But why must this be so?

Responding to the “utopia thesis”

Philosophers Antony Flew and J. L. Mackie proposed the “utopia thesis,” claiming that an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God could create a world in which people are free and grow to full spiritual maturity without the presence or necessity of evil and suffering. We cannot understand how he might do so, but we’re not God.

One response is that even God is not obligated to do what is logically impossible, such as making a rock so big he cannot move it or two mountains without a valley in between. It is illogical that even he could create a utopia in which humans are truly free but they never misuse such freedom.

But here’s my problem with this response: such a “utopia” is precisely how the Bible describes heaven.

Revelation 7 pictures “a great multitude that no one could number . . . crying out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (vv. 9–10). Worship, our expression of love and adoration for God, is the central activity of heaven. But love must be a choice, which requires freedom of will even in heaven.

At the same time, we are assured that in heaven, “death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4a). Since “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), it’s hard to see how there can be sin in heaven without death as a consequence. Or how “there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4b NASB) while sin is present.

So, if we will experience a “utopia” one day in which we are free but sin and suffering do not exist, why not now?

“I believe; help my unbelief!”

Mystery is part of the Christian faith. We wonder, for example, how God can be three yet one, Jesus could be fully God yet fully man, and the Bible can be divinely inspired yet humanly written.

In the same way, I do not know an explanation for our suffering world that is free from all questions and mystery. But let me ask you this: Do you truly believe that our God is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful? Then by definition, he must always know what is best for us, want what is best for us, and therefore do what is best for us.

Now we have a choice: We can view his nature through the prism of events, or view events through the prism of his nature. I choose the latter with the prayer, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). All the while knowing that there are truths in this world God cannot reveal to me because I am unable to comprehend them (1 Corinthians 13:12).

But this world is not all there is.

Max Lucado quotes a friend who says, “Everything will work out in the end. If it’s not working out, it’s not the end.” While the “utopia” of heaven raises questions about earth, it also offers wonderful assurance about life beyond this life. As Paul declared,

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).

How can we have the same confidence?

“When we can reach beyond our fears”

Henri Nouwen observed: “We are fearful people. We are afraid of conflict, war, an uncertain future, illness, and most of all, death.” This is problematic because “this fear takes away our freedom and gives society the power to manipulate us with threats and promises.”

However,

When we can reach beyond our fears to the One who loves us with a love that was there before we were born and will be there after we die, then oppression, persecution, and even death will be unable to take our freedom. Once we have come to this deep inner knowledge—a knowledge more of the heart than of the mind—that we are born out of love and will die into love, that every part of our being is deeply rooted in love, and that this love is our true Father and Mother, then all forms of evil, illness, and death lose their final power over us and become painful but hopeful reminders of our true divine childhood.

Will you “come to this deep inner knowledge” today?

Tuesday news to know:

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Those who understand God’s sovereignty have joy even in the midst of suffering, a joy reflected on their very faces, for they see that their suffering is not without purpose.” —R. C. Sproul

 

Denison Forum

Days of Praise

Days of Praise – Lo, I Come

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by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

“Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.” (Hebrews 10:7)

These marvelous words (in Hebrews 10:5-7) are an interpretive quotation from Psalm 40:6-8, which in turn was being cited prophetically as the testimony of the eternal Son of God as He prepared to leave heaven and “the bosom of the Father” (note John 1:18) to descend to Earth to become also “the Son of man,” with no “where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).

He first took up residence on Earth in the womb of Mary, then in a manger, then a house in Bethlehem, then somewhere in Egypt until the death of King Herod, who had tried to kill Him, then in the home of his foster father in a despised village, then eventually on a cross on which His enemies would impale Him, and finally for three days in a borrowed tomb.

And all this, amazingly, was to do the will of His Father in heaven, which He fully understood would include the terrible death on the cross. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again” (John 10:17).

We can never comprehend such love—only believe it and receive it. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Now we can testify with Paul that “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God [His faith, not ours!], who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

But anyone who ignores that love should note this sobering truth: “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18). HMM

 

 

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

My Utmost for His Highest

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers – Come to Me

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Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. — Matthew 11:28

Isn’t it humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus? As long as we have even the tiniest bit of spiritual rebellion inside of us, we long for God to ask us to do something grand and important. Instead, he tells us to do something infinitely simple: “Come.”

Think of all the things you won’t come to the Lord about. If you want to know how spiritually real you are, test yourself with these words: “Come to me.” In every degree to which you are not real, you will argue rather than come; you will go through sorrow rather than come; you will do anything rather than present yourself, just as you are, to your Lord.

“Come to me.” When you hear these words, you know that a change must happen inside you before you will come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do. He will show you that you must take an axe to the thing that is preventing you from getting through to the Lord. You will never get any further until you do. The Holy Spirit will locate the one unmovable thing in you, but he won’t budge it unless you let him.

How often have you come to God with your requests and had the feeling that you’d achieved your goal, only to come away with nothing? And yet all the time, God has stood with outstretched hands, not only to take you but so that you will take him. Think of the invincible, unconquerable, untiring patience of Jesus as he says, “Come to me.”

Isaiah 30-31; Phil 4

Wisdom from Oswald

The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success.My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L

 

 

https://utmost.org/

Billy Graham

Billy Graham – How to Love

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These things I command you, that ye love one another.
—John 15:17

How are we to love? We are to love as God loves us . . . we are to show acceptance and appreciation . . . [to] accept each other as God accepts us. Too many parents refuse to accept and appreciate their children for what they are. That is why a million American children ran away from home last year. A team of Yale researchers has concluded that the majority of these runaways were attempting to escape an unhappy family situation. They yearned to be appreciated.

The causes of delinquency, we are told, are broken homes, poverty, lack of recreational facilities, poor physical health, racism, working mothers, and so on . . . The experts never seem to mention the lack of love, or the lack of faith in God. Yet these are the two most important elements for an adolescent’s successful maturity.

How long has it been since you praised your children instead of criticizing them? David prayed for Solomon and daily praised him, and we are to praise our children daily. Praise your wife. I have found that praise goes a lot further than criticism. Everybody needs to be appreciated.

Find answers on how to be a godly parent or mentor. 

Lea este devocional en español en es.billygraham.org.

Prayer for the day

It is so easy to criticize those close to me; but Lord, give me Your unreserved love so that they may know how deeply I appreciate them.

 

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GuidePosts

Guideposts – Devotions for Women – Love Your Life

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For anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his.—Hebrews 4:10 (NIV)

Reflect on the above verse and recognize the gift of today. Enjoy your cup of tea or coffee in the morning, feel the sun on your face and listen to the whistles and trills of birds singing. Recognize that the richest part of your life is spent with God and in gratitude, for the glorious gifts He showers on you.

Lord, I am present with You, loving my life and feeling so blessed that I am here.

 

 

https://guideposts.org/daily-devotions/devotions-for-women/devotions-for-faith-prayer-devotions-for-women/

Every Man Ministry

Every Man Ministry – Kenny Luck -Reality and Temptation 

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If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell.  ––Mark 9:43 NKJV

We all know this guy (or gal): They frequently say the right words but do the wrong things. Over and over. You know, it’s that friend you counsel on the phone for an hour, earnestly trying to give them godly advice. Three days later they repeat the very same behavior you’d just discussed with them. And then a few days after that, you repeat the entire conversation. Sin. Confess. Repeat.

It’s like Ground Hog Day, but without witty Bill Murray and lovely Andi McDowell. It’s frustrating if you are the person giving the help and advice. It’s humiliating for the person caught in the sin cycle they just can’t seem to break out of. For the advice-giver, after a while it just feels like you are pouring water into a broken vessel that never gets patched up. The water just keeps flowing out the bottom.

The hard truth: amputate sin like a cancer. Be ruthless with it and unapologetic. If you don’t, it will metastasize and come back, fester, and eventually kill you. That’s certainty.

The hard truth: spiritual actions speak far louder than words. They are the ultimate marker and maker of spiritual integrity. If you love someone, you seek alignment of your life to their priorities. Think about that. That’s a real relationship, anything else is fantasy. In the scenario above, the “repeat sin offender” (that’s you and me at one point or another) has to face the hard fact: No one is going to fix you but you with God’s help. Period.

The hard truth: thoughts, motive, and intentions reveal who we really are, and behaviors only confirm it. The tip of the iceberg is what people see. The mass below the waterline is what God sees. You can quit acting righteous and start being righteous.

The hard truth: earth is not heaven. We should expect loss and grief. Yet we should anticipate God’s redeeming our grief and fulfilling His purpose in it. Though full redemption of suffering may not come in this lifetime, earth’s worst cannot escape God’s best.

The hard truth: the motions might be right, but if the motivations are out of alignment, you might as well drop the charade. Playing church is playing with fire.

If you are stuck in the sin cycle, don’t give up hope—which is exactly what the enemy wants you to do. And remember: If you don’t quit, you win.

Father, only You can expose my true motives; help me listen intently.

 

 

Every Man Ministries

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread – Bibles in the Back Seat

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Bible in a Year :

“Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord Almighty.

Zechariah 4:6

Today’s Scripture & Insight :

Zechariah 4:1-7

Andrew’s Volkswagen stopped, and the guards walked over. He prayed as he had many times in the past: “God, when You were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, please make seeing eyes blind.” The guards searched the car, saying nothing about the Bibles in the luggage. Andrew crossed the border, taking his cargo to those who couldn’t own a Bible.

Andrew van der Bijl, or Brother Andrew, relied on God’s power for the seemingly impossible task God had called him to—taking the Scriptures to countries where Christianity was illegal. “I’m an ordinary guy,” he said, emphasizing his limited education and lack of funds. “What I did, anyone can do.” Today, his organization, Open Doors International, serves persecuted believers in Jesus worldwide.

When Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, faced the seemingly impossible task of rebuilding the temple after the Jews returned from exile, he was discouraged. But God reminded him not to rely on human power or might, but on His Spirit (Zechariah 4:6). He encouraged him through a vision given to the prophet Zechariah of lamps supplied with oil from nearby olive trees (vv. 2-3). Just as the lamps could burn because of the continual supply of oil, Zerubbabel and the Israelites could do God’s task by relying on His continuous supply of power.

As we rely on God, may we trust Him and do what He calls us to do.

By:  Karen Huang

Reflect & Pray

How can you rely on God’s Spirit? How might the vision of the olive trees supplying the lamps with oil encourage you?

Holy Spirit, please help me to rely on You.

 

 

http://www.odb.org

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Choose Liberty

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…You were washed clean (purified by a complete atonement for sin and made free from the guilt of sin), and you were consecrated (set apart, hallowed), and you were justified [pronounced righteous, by trusting] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the [Holy] Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:11 (AMPC)

As a believer, you are free to do anything you please: All things are legitimate [permissible—and we are free to do anything we please], but not all things are helpful (expedient, profitable, and wholesome) (1 Corinthians 10:23 AMPC).

God trusts you with liberty because He has also given you a new heart full of desire to please Him. You don’t have to struggle against immorality and sin when you allow Him to fill you with His Spirit each day. As a born-again, Spirit-filled believer, you have been given the liberty to lead a good life.

Choose today what is wholesome, edifying, and constructive.

Prayer of the Day: Father God, thank You for filling me with Your spirit every day. Thank You for the freedom to live a good life, according to Your will, amen.

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Denison Forum

Denison Forum – “The year that shattered the Middle East”

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A reflection on crisis and the power of faith

A year ago today, Hamas launched the worst massacre in Israel’s history, murdering 1,195 people and taking 251 hostages. The last twelve months have been what the Economist calls “the year that shattered the Middle East.”

Despite the horrors of war and the tragic loss of life that have ensued, the past year has seen significant progress for Israel:

  • The Israeli people are more unified in fighting their enemies: fully 80 percent support the current offensive against Hezbollah, for example.
  • The IDF has largely decapitated Hezbollah and destroyed many of its missiles, significantly degrading what had been Iran’s strongest proxy in the region.
  • Israel’s army chief said yesterday that Israeli forces had defeated the military wing of Hamas. The terror group’s hoped-for “axis of resistance” against Israel has not come to its defense.
  • Iran has been largely ineffectual in its attacks on Israel, staging two missile launches that caused little damage to the Jewish state.

However, there is also cause for grave concern:

  • Nearly forty-two thousand people have been killed in Gaza, and around 70 percent of the area’s housing stock has been destroyed. Over half of Gaza’s population has lost a relative; some three-quarters have been displaced at least three times during the war.
  • Palestinians’ support for violence in the West Bank has grown from 35 percent in September 2022 to 56 percent in September this year.
  • The ongoing wars are significantly harming Israel’s economy: GDP is shrinking year-on-year; the prolonged absence of so many reservists is harming businesses; and railway stations have been forced to close for lack of security guards.
  • The threat of terrorism persists: On October 1, more Israelis were killed by two Palestinians who attacked a commuter rail station in Jaffa than were harmed by 180 Iranian missiles. Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, early this morning and launched another attack on Tiberias.
  • Israel’s direct conflict with Iran could escalate into a regional war that eventually involves the US on its side and China, Russia, and North Korea with the Iranians. As Israeli forces degrade its proxies, Iran may turn to developing nuclear weapons in response.
  • The conflict could spawn terrorism in the US as well: The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are warning that a “variety of actors” could commit acts of violence here in response to today’s anniversary.

Millions of unexploded bombs

In light of all the challenges in the news and our daily lives, let’s ask: Does God want us to be happy or to be holy?

Today’s terrible anniversary comes as millions in the American Southeast are reeling from one of the deadliest hurricanes of the modern era, with another threatening storm on the way. The World War II bomb that recently exploded in Japan was one of millions of unexploded bombs around the world and serves as a parable for our trying times: There always seems to be another crisis waiting to erupt.

According to Peggy Noonan’s latest Wall Street Journal column, “Americans feel surrounded by crises—inflation, the Mideast, Vladimir Putin, AI’s gonna eat your brain and no one’s gonna stop it, China. You can see this in the right track/wrong track numbers, which continue underwater—the whole country fears we’re on a losing slide in a dangerous world.”

If God primarily wants us to be happy, he doesn’t seem to be doing his job very well. But there’s more to the story.

The word happiness comes from the Old Norse word hap, which means “chance, luck, fortune, or fate.” It is based on happenings and is thus transient. We are happy depending on whether our team won or lost, the current state of the stock market, and a variety of other transient factors.

Paradoxically, pursuing happiness often leads us to make compromises with our character that harm us and others, thus reducing our happiness.

By contrast, holiness (from the German heilig, meaning “whole” or “sacred”) is not transient but transforming. Pursuing holiness often leads us to make changes in our character that mature us and bless others, thus increasing our holiness.

If the world is a “vale of soul-making”

If God intends us to be holy, this world makes much more sense. As I explain in my latest website article, God and Hurricane Helene: Thinking biblically about natural disasters, this is not the world as God originally created it. Rather, we live on a broken planet where natural disasters are an inevitable consequence of the Fall (cf. Genesis 3:17–19; Romans 8:22).

However, the God who redeems all he allows uses even these disasters—not to make us happy, but to help us be holy.

Paul observed: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4). The second-century theologian Irenaeus accordingly suggested that God uses our fallen world to grow us spiritually. And, as C. S. Lewis noted in The Problem of Pain, “If the world is indeed a ‘vale of soul-making,’ it seems on the whole to be doing its work.”

Now you and I have a choice.

Scripture calls us to “seek the Lᴏʀᴅ and his strength; seek his presence continually!” (Psalm 105:4). When we face the crises of life, God wants us to “remember the wondrous works that he has done” (v. 5) and trust our unchanging and loving Father to do the same today.

But we can also respond to crises by doubling down on self-reliance. Rather than trusting our Lord, we can seek to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), trusting our frailty and finitude over his omnipotent power and omniscient wisdom. We can exchange holiness for happiness—and forfeit both.

The famed missionary Jim Elliot noted,

“God always gives his best to those who leave the choice with him.”

Will you experience his best today?

Monday news to know:

*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.

Quote for the day:

“Obedience is the key that opens every door.” —C. S. Lewis

 

 

Denison Forum

Days of Praise

Days of Praise – The Brightness of His Rising

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by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

“And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.” (Isaiah 60:3)

This beautiful Messianic prophecy in the Old Testament book of Isaiah compares the coming of Christ to the rising of the sun.

The rest of this chapter in Isaiah seems to stress His coming in glory at the future end of the age (e.g., “the LORD shall be thine everlasting light,” Isaiah 60:20), but our text verse had at least a precursive fulfillment when the Gentile wise men from the east came to Bethlehem to honor Jesus soon after His birth.

Other Messianic prophecies used a similar metaphor. For example, there is Malachi 4:2: “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”

Christ Himself made the same comparison. “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). He would not serve as the light for only the Jews; He is also the light of the whole world!

The theme of global light through Christ is often found in the Old Testament. “I the LORD…will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles….It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isaiah 42:6; 49:6).

It will all be perfectly and eternally fulfilled in the New Jerusalem, “for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it:…for there shall be no night there” (Revelation 21:23-25). HMM

 

 

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

My Utmost for His Highest

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers – Reconciliation

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God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. — 2 Corinthians 5:21

Sin is a fundamental relationship. It isn’t wrongdoing; it’s wrong being. Sin is deliberate and emphatic independence from God. The Christian religion bases everything on the radical, singular nature of sin. Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin. The heredity of sin in humankind was the first thing Jesus Christ addressed. Because we have ignored this in our preaching, the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.” The revelation of the Bible isn’t that Jesus Christ took upon himself our sins, but that he took upon himself the heredity of sin, which no human being can touch. God made his Son to “be sin” so that any sinner could “become the righteousness of God.”

The Bible reveals that our Lord bore the sin of the world by identifying himself with sin, not by sympathizing with it. He deliberately took the whole massed sin of humankind and placed it on his own shoulders; he bore that sin in his own being. By doing this, he redeemed all of humanity, rehabilitating it and putting it back where God designed it to be. Now, thanks to what Jesus Christ did on the cross, anyone can enter into union with God.

Human beings cannot redeem themselves. Redemption is God’s work, and it is work that has already been done; it’s finished and complete. How individuals experience redemption is a question of their individual choices. A distinction must always be made between the revelation of redemption, which applies equally to all, and the conscious experience of salvation in an individual’s life.

Isaiah 28-29; Philippians 3

Wisdom from Oswald

The emphasis to-day is placed on the furtherance of an organization; the note is, “We must keep this thing going.” If we are in God’s order the thing will go; if we are not in His order, it won’t. Conformed to His Image, 357 R

 

 

https://utmost.org/

Billy Graham

Billy Graham – Forever Linked

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. . . this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.
—John 4:42

History, philosophy, theology, and—in many centers of learning—even the sciences are being studied to discover what they have to say about Jesus Christ. The records of the Early Church are being reexamined for their testimony to Him. Archaeologists are digging to discover new evidence.

Some say that Jesus Christ is a myth, and He never existed in history. Others say that He was merely a man, that there was nothing supernatural about His birth, and that His resurrection was a hallucination. Others talk about a Christless Christianity. Some say that no matter what one thinks about Christ, it does not affect Christianity. They are wrong!

Christianity is forever linked with the Person of Christ. Carlyle recognized this when he said, “Had this doctrine of the deity of Christ been lost, Christianity would have vanished like a dream.” The historian Lecky remarks, “Christianity is not a system of morals, it is the worship of a Person.”

Read more: The Resurrection: Myth or Mystery?

Lea este devocional en español en es.billygraham.org.

Prayer for the day

Lord Jesus, You are the living Christ whom I love and revere.

 

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GuidePosts

Guideposts – Devotions for Women – God Is with You

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The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.—Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)

Sometimes, despite close relationships and knowing that God is near, life can make you feel alone. When your heart is heavy with loneliness, remember that God is always by your side. Ask Him to give you the strength to be vulnerable to others and open with your feelings. Trust that He is guiding your path.

Lord, even though I know You are with me, sometimes it’s hard to feel Your presence. Help me remember I am never truly alone.

 

 

https://guideposts.org/daily-devotions/devotions-for-women/devotions-for-faith-prayer-devotions-for-women/

Every Man Ministry

Every Man Ministry – Kenny Luck – Where Honor Is Due (Day 5)

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Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.  ––Exodus 20:12

For some of us, the concept of honoring our mother and father is a tough one. What if you had an abusive mom and absentee dad? Or vice versa? Or perhaps you were raised in a single-parent household and your other parent just wasn’t around for part—or all—of your life.

Yeah. Pause here … I am sincerely sorry that if as a child (and teen, and adult) you did not have that which God would have deeply wanted for you: parents who loved you and honored their duties to raise you in a positive way. I don’t want to skip over such trauma, or seem glib in today’s reading.

What I am talking about—which is a running theme here—is about you grasping ahold of honor as God intended it, and for you to understand two key ideas about this whole “honor your mother and father” thing (which is one of the 10 Commandments, of course).

  1. God calls us to extend honor and respect to our father and mother, as well as our elders (those who have gone before us chronologically and in experience and wisdom).
  2. We can honor those who never honored us, because it is the Holy Spirit who does the act, rather than anything we need to gin up inside us.

You may say, “So Kenny, how do I honor a Dad who beat my mom, abandoned us kids, and never took any interest in our lives?”

First, by forgiving them. (Don’t quit reading yet. Hear me out.) Very, very tough to do, I know. Don’t do it alone—work through the anger and trauma with a professional (e.g., a psychologist, therapist, or trained counselor) and share the burden of your process with a spouse, pastor, or friend. Why forgive? It will free you from the anger, which subsequently will eradicate any power that parent still has over you. (That’s one dense paragraph—a subject for entire books. Here’s two I recommend: Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers by Drs. Leslie Leyland and Jill Hubbard, and Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa TerKeurst).

And whether or not your parents are alive or dead, honor is still active and available. It doesn’t mean you forget what they did to you, or don’t still have a lot of negative emotions. It simply means you invite God into the process and the Holy Spirit is allowed to do His work through you.

This is a big one. I get it. Far be it for me to oversimplify something as complex as the parent-child relationship. I DO know, however (from personal experience), that when we anguish and wrestle with this issue and invite the Holy Spirit into the pain, over time (sometimes a LONG time), the bitterness subsides and we begin to see our parents as God sees them. That’s a miracle for sure.

Lord, You know my feelings toward my parents. I surrender them both to You today—all the good and all the bad—and ask that You help me honor them as You desire.

 

 

 

 

Every Man Ministries

Every Man Ministry

Every Man Ministry – Kenny Luck – Where Honor Is Due (Day 4)

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 Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.  ––1 Peter 2:17, NKJV

One of my favorite scenes in Band of Brothers is when Major Winters runs into his old nemesis, Captain Sobel, the man who made Winters’ life miserable during basic training. Both men are now gripped in the intense days following D Day, pressing the advantage against the Nazis. Maj. Winters has now eclipsed Cpt. Sobel in both rank and stature, and for it, Sobel hates him. So much so that when Sobel walks past him, he does not salute him (as he should).

Winters calls out Sobel and says: “Captain Sobel, you salute the rank, not the man.”

Whether it’s your boss, the “inept” ump at your daughter’s softball game, or the police officer who pulls you over for going 30 in a 25 zone, as God’s men we need to remember Major Winters’ words: We salute (i.e., honor, respect) the rank (position) when we struggle to respect the man or woman (in his or her condition).

Look, I get it. There is no shortage of rudeness and disrespect in our culture, which makes it really hard to bite one’s tongue, swallow the saucy comeback, and take the higher position. No, it does not mean we let people roll over us. But for far too long, men have mistaken kindness (born from knowing our position in Christ) for weakness (being misjudged for taking the higher road in a prickly situation).

The beautiful thing about notching decades off your life calendar is that you get time to make mistakes and (the best part!) grow from them. It gets easier to turn the other cheek IF we keep our focus fixed on our position rather than our condition. Don’t let the enemy fool you into thinking that verbal attacks, low blows, and harsh words toward those who have wronged you make you the “stronger” person. Rather than screaming at the men about to stone the woman caught in adultery, Jesus knelt in the sand and doodled (well, we don’t know what he wrote—probably something profound). He then stood up and said, “He among you who is without sin can cast the first stone.” That’s quiet strength. That’s working the situation from position.

Father, it’s really hard for me to not lash out at the “fools in this world.” Please give me patience in my position!

 

 

 

Every Man Ministries

Every Man Ministry

Every Man Ministry – Kenny Luck -Where Honor Is Due (Day 3)

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The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. –Psalm 146:9

Ruth was tired. It had been a long night. Heck, it had been a long past few years. It was just her mother-in-law, Naomi, and her sister-in-law, Orpah, now. Their three husbands were dead. There’s famine in Ruth’s native Moab, and it’s time to make a move. After a restless night, they set off for Naomi’s home town: Bethlehem. Then something happens along the road. Naomi changes her mind; her daughters-in-law are better off staying home, in their country, and finding new husbands, she says. Orpah agrees and heads back to Moab.

Ruth’s response, though, changes the trajectory of her life—and lays down the tracks for the lineage of both King David and Jesus Himself. She tells tired and burned out Naomi:

Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me. ––Ruth 1:16-17

Ruth operates from her position as a child of God, while Naomi is operating out of her condition as a poor, tired widow. When we function in position, we gain margin—emotionally, spiritually. Ruth had the margin to see the situation as God saw it: a new pathway to fulfilling His destiny for her. That is why Ruth could choose Naomi despite all the negative conditions. Ruth has zero material prospects: In ancient Israel, to be a widowed, shekel-less foreigner typically meant you were an outcast in society. But Ruth sees through spiritual lenses that focus on her God rather than her goods.

Ruth teaches us how to honor those who perhaps have not honored us. How? By seeing them positionally as God sees them, rather than seeing them conditionally through our emotional/human lenses. David did it with Saul. Jesus did it with Peter.

Is it tough to take the actions of honor—respect, patience, deference? It can be, especially when there’s zero reciprocity. So we take a deep breath, surrender the situation to God, and then choose the “high road” of honor. That’s God’s way. What the world see as conditional weakness, the Father deems positional strength.

Father, help me accept people for who they are in You, rather than how I see them.

 

 

Every Man Ministries

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread – A Christlike Response

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Bible in a Year :

When they hurled their insults at [Jesus], he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

1 Peter 2:23

 

Today’s Scripture & Insight :

1 Peter 2:21-25

George was working on a construction job in the heat of the Carolina summer sun when someone living nearby walked into the yard where he was working. Clearly angry, the neighbor began to curse and criticize everything about the project and how it was being done. George received the verbal blows without response until the angry neighbor stopped yelling. Then he gently responded, “You’ve had a really hard day, haven’t you?” Suddenly, the angry neighbor’s face softened, his head dipped, and he said, “I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you.” George’s kindness had defused the neighbor’s wrath.

There are times when we want to strike back. To give abuse for abuse and insult for insult. What George modeled instead was a kindness seen most perfectly in the way Jesus bore the consequences of our sins: “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).

All of us will face moments when we’re misunderstood, misrepresented, or attacked. We may want to respond in kind, but the heart of Jesus calls us to be kind, to pursue peace and display understanding. As He enables us today, perhaps God could use us to bless someone enduring a hard day.

By:  Bill Crowder

Reflect & Pray

What makes it so easy to strike back at others for their unkind words? How can you be more intentional about showing kindness to those who are unkind to you?

Caring Father, please help me to find in You the strength, grace, and wisdom to display the heart of Jesus.

 

 

http://www.odb.org