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Denison Forum – Why are parents hiring “Fortnite” coaches for their kids?

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Fortnite is an astounding cultural phenomenon. More than 125 million people play the online video game worldwide.

Are parents worried about the violence of the game or its addictive nature? For many, the answer is no. They’re worried that their kids are losing.

So, according to the Wall Street Journal, they’re hiring Fortnite coaches for their children. One contracting site has hired out more than 1,400 Fortnite coaches since last March.

One mother explains: “There’s pressure not to just play it but to be really good at it. You can imagine what that was like for him at school.”

A car that costs more than $4 million

A 1998 Mercedes-Benz will be auctioned by Sotheby’s on August 25. It comes with its original tool chest, owner’s manuals, spare keys, and first aid kit. The starting bid is a mere $4,250,000.

Why? The AMG CLK GTR is a street-legal version of a race car that was so successful in 1998, competitions were canceled the next year “due to lack of interest from Mercedes’ competitors.” The car being auctioned is one of only twenty-five ever built.

In a similar vein, a home in Georgetown is coming on the market for $22 million. The current owner bought the property in 2008 for $11.8 million. Its claim to fame: Ted Kennedy once lived there.

According to the Historical Society of Washington, DC, Kennedy and his first wife, Joan, rented the property sometime after his election to the Senate in the 1960s. Even though the senator moved to another home many years ago and died in 2009, the Georgetown property is still identified with him.

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Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Spiritual Gifts Work Together

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Romans 12:3-8

Have you ever noticed that people in the church don’t all think the same way? When we become frustrated in our attempts to communicate with a fellow believer, we may begin to wonder whether something is wrong in our spiritual life. After all, aren’t we supposed to be a united body of Christ?

It turns out that the problem could be the result of spiritual gifting. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to every believer for the common good of the church (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). But unless we realize this, we may fail to appreciate the gifts of other believers. Then it’s easy to start harboring the opinion that everyone else should be like us.

For instance, someone with the gift of mercy might judge a believer with exhortation skills to be heartless—the exhorter may appear to value explaining the spiritual benefits of adversity over sympathizing with the hurting person. Yet both gifts are beneficial; used properly, they work together to help a sufferer see there’s hope in the hardship and comfort for endurance.

The root of division over spiritual gifts is self-focus, which can be displayed in two ways. If we think too lowly of our spiritual gift, we may become resentful or feel unimportant. If, on the other hand, we think too highly of our gift, we may believe it’s the most important one.

If you feel at odds with a fellow believer because of your differing approaches to issues in the church, stop and thank the Lord for that person and his gifting. Then pray that he will be used for the good of the fellowship and for God’s own glory.

Bible in One Year: Isaiah 40-42

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — What Is God Like?

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Read: Hebrews 1:1–10 | Bible in a Year: Job 20–21; Acts 10:24–48

The Son is . . . the exact representation of [God’s] being. Hebrews 1:3

To celebrate a special occasion, my husband took me to a local art gallery and said I could choose a painting as a gift. I picked out a small picture of a brook flowing through a forest. The streambed took up most of the canvas, and because of this much of the sky was excluded from the picture. However, the stream’s reflection revealed the location of the sun, the treetops, and the hazy atmosphere. The only way to “see” the sky was to look at the surface of the water.

Jesus is like the stream, in a spiritual sense. When we want to see what God is like, we look at Jesus. The writer of Hebrews said He is “the exact representation of [God’s] being” (1:3). Although we can learn facts about God through direct statements in the Bible such as “God is love,” we can deepen our understanding by seeing the way God would act if He faced the same problems we have on Earth. Being God in human flesh, this is what Jesus has shown us.

In temptation, Jesus revealed God’s holiness. Confronting spiritual darkness, He demonstrated God’s authority. Wrestling with people problems, He showed us God’s wisdom. In His death, He illustrated God’s love.

Although we cannot grasp everything about God—He is limitless and we are limited in our thinking—we can be certain of His character when we look at Christ.

Dear God, thank You for making a way for us to know You. Help us to grow closer to You by looking at Jesus.

Looking at Jesus shows us God’s character.

By Jennifer Benson Schuldt

INSIGHT

Jesus lived out the mission of revealing the heart and character of His Father to a world that had separated itself from Him. This aspect of Jesus’s incarnation was described in John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us” (nlt). In revealing the Father to us, we see the invisible God made visible in Jesus.

Bill Crowder

 

 

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Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – For the Weary

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Grief is a strange thing in that its memory is more characterized by what the relationship was or was not than by what characterized the death.(1) You look forward and ache over what has now been lost for the future. You look backward and grieve what never truly was and can now never be.

The award-winning author Paulo Coelho is a beautiful writer, and his lines of pure poetry are disguised as novels. His book The Witch of Portobello, a mystical story with many unusual turns, remains on my shelf, no matter where I live. I often pull it off, brush my hand across the cover, and flip it open to a page I have nearly memorized.

The story begins in Beirut, Lebanon, a country that boasts of warm hospitality, platefuls of hummus and tabouli, the Mediterranean coast, and beautiful cedars. Coelho describes his heroine, Athena, as an unusual girl who possessed a sense of spirituality from the time of her youth. She married when she was nineteen and wanted to have a baby right away. Her husband left her when the baby was still young, and Athena had to raise him alone.

During one Sunday Mass, the priest watched as Athena walked toward him to receive Communion, and his heart was filled with dread. Athena stood in front of the priest, drew her eyes closed, and opened her mouth to receive. I picture her standing there in vulnerability, asking to receive Christ’s body, given for her. She was hungry for the grace that it offered.

But he did not give it to her.

The young girl opened her eyes, terribly confused. The priest tried to tell her in hushed tones that they would talk about it later, but she would not be turned away. She persisted until she received an answer.

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Be Willing and Yielded

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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? — Romans 8:31

Adapted from the resource Ending Your Day Right Devotional – by Joyce Meyer

You do not have to depend on your own human efforts to overcome adversity and opposition or to earn favor and win promotion. When God is ready to move in your life, He will give you favor and promotion—and no devil in hell or person on earth will be able to prevent it from happening.

It doesn’t matter what people think of you. Your weaknesses and inabilities don’t make any difference to God. His criteria for using people is not their talents, gifts, and abilities. He is looking for people who are willing and yielded. God looks for availability, not ability.

Let God build you, your reputation, and your career. When the time is right, He will deliver you out of adversity, and then you’ll see the fulfillment of your dreams.

Prayer Starter: Father, I thank You that my times are in Your hands (see Psalm 31:15). Help me to keep my trust in You, knowing that all blessings and promotion come from You alone. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

 

 

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Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – He Does Such Wonders

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“I will cry to the God of heaven who does such wonders for me” (Psalm 57:2).

I cannot begin to count the times, even during just one 24-hour day, that I lift my heart in praise, worship and adoration and thanksgiving to God in heaven. I begin the day by acknowledging His lordship of my life and inviting Him to have complete control of my thoughts, my attitudes, my actions, my motives, my desires, my words; to walk around in my body, think with my mind, love with my heart, speak with my lips and continue through me to seek and save the lost and minister to those in need. Throughout the day I bring before Him the personal needs of my family. I pray for the extended family of Campus Crusade for Christ and staff and their families and for all those who support this ministry through their prayers and finances. I pray for business and professional people, that God will bless their finances as well as their lives so that they can continue to help support this and other ministries for His kingdom.

As I look through the mail, I breathe a prayer to God for some staff member, friend, associate, or supporter who is hurting, needing encouragement, strength and peace. At all of my many daily conferences, I will begin and close with a brief word of prayer claiming the promise of God-given wisdom for the matters we shall be discussing, for supernatural discernment that will enable me to see through all the intricacies of the problems presented. When the phone rings, I breathe a silent prayer and often a vocal one at the appropriate time with that person on the other end of the line who is in distress, whether from family problems or work-related difficulties.

In between, I pray alone and with others for the hundreds of different people, events and circumstances that involve the worldwide ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ and the ministry of His Body throughout the world.

Bible Reading:Psalm 57:1-11

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: Recognizing that prayer is as vital to my spiritual life as air is to my physical being, I will pray without ceasing and in all things give thanks to our God in heaven who does such wonders for me

 

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Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Heirs of the Promise

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Listen to Today’s Devotion

Heroes in the Bible came from all walks of life—rulers, servants, teachers, doctors—male, female, single, and married.  Yet one common denominator united them. They built their lives on the promises of God. Noah believed in rain before rain was a word. Joshua led two million people into enemy territory. One writer went so far as to call such saints “heirs of the promise” (Hebrews 6:17).

As God prepared the Israelites to face a new land, he made a promise to them, “Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world.  The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you” (Exodus 34:10). God’s promises are unbreakable.  Our hope is unshakable!

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Denison Forum – Tom Cruise’s most dangerous “Mission: Impossible” stunts

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My wife and I recently saw the sixth installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise. We were not alone: the film grossed $61.2 million in its first weekend.

You can’t see one of these films and not wonder if Tom Cruise does his own stunts. It turns out, he does. Or at least, the most death-defying ones.

Christopher McQuarrie directed Cruise in the two most recent Mission: Impossible movies (Rogue Nation and Fallout). He was asked by the New York Times to rank the most difficult stunts he and his star have executed. According to McQuarrie, Cruise did his own motorcycle chase scene in Fallout, sometimes “going in excess of 100 miles an hour with cars chasing him and coming at him.”

The scene in Fallout where he jumps from an airplane at 25,000 feet? Cruise actually did that. He made 106 jumps in total to film the sequence. He hung from an airplane in Rogue Nation and qualified for pilot certification so he could pilot a helicopter in Fallout.

Cruise didn’t have to do any of this, but as he and the movie cast explain, such realism makes the movies better.

Bible removed from military memorial

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Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Our Rich Home in God’s Grace

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Ephesians 1:11-14

Because of God’s grace, we are extremely wealthy people. No amount of earthly riches can compare. At salvation, God …

Freed us from sin’s power. Although the flesh remains, it no longer rules over us. As new creations indwelt by God’s Spirit, we have His power to resist temptation and to obey.

United us with our Savior. Since the moment we first believed, we’ve been living in Christ and He’s been living in us. And we are sealed in Him by the Spirit.

Made us part of God’s family. God has become our Father, and we are His adopted sons and daughters. Our spiritual family extends all over the world.

Translated us into the kingdom of light. The kingdom of darkness, which includes this world and all its unsaved inhabitants, is under Satan’s rule. (See Acts 26:18.) When someone receives Jesus Christ as Savior, his or her home becomes the kingdom of light (Col. 1:12-13). From then on, that person is a citizen of heaven, who is called to serve as Jesus’ ambassador to the unsaved (2 Corinthians 5:20).

Gave us an eternal inheritance. The precious promises of Scripture are one part of our birthright. More awaits us in heaven, where it cannot fade away or be defiled (1 Peter 1:4).

Started the sanctification process. To sanctify means “to set apart for God’s use” and “to make holy.” With our cooperation, the Spirit works to transform us into Jesus’ likeness.

When life is pressing you down, ponder the riches of divine grace. Discouragement will lift, and spiritual joy will take over.

Bible in One Year: Isaiah 36-39

 

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Sinners Like Us

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Read: Luke 15:1–7 | Bible in a Year: Psalms 54–56; Romans 3

This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Luke 15:2

I have a friend—her name is Edith—who told me about the day she decided to follow Jesus.

Edith cared nothing for religion. But one Sunday morning she walked into a church near her apartment looking for something to satisfy her discontented soul. The text that day was Luke 15:1–2, which the pastor read from the King James Version: “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”

That’s what it said, but this is what Edith heard: “This man receives sinners and Edith with them.” She sat straight up in her pew! Eventually she realized her mistake, but the thought that Jesus welcomed sinners—and that included Edith—stayed with her. That afternoon she decided to “draw near” to Jesus and listen to Him. She began to read the Gospels, and soon she decided to put her faith in Him and follow Him.

The religious folks of Jesus’s day were scandalized by the fact that He ate and drank with sinful, awful people. Their rules prohibited them from associating with such folk. Jesus paid no attention to their made-up rules. He welcomed the down-and-out and gathered them to Him, no matter how far gone they were.

It’s still true, you know: Jesus receives sinners and (your name).

Heavenly Father, we can’t thank You enough for the radical love of Your Son, who drew all of us outcasts and moral failures to Him, and made the way for us to come to You in joy and boldness.

God pursues us in our restlessness, receives us in our sinfulness, holds us in our brokenness.  Scotty Smith

By David H. Roper

INSIGHT

The parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1–7) is the first in a series of parables about lost things. It’s followed by the parable of the lost coin (vv. 8–10) and the parable of the lost son, better known as the prodigal son (vv. 11–32).

Although each of the parables is about something lost, there’s also something in each that isn’t lost—the sheep safe in the pen, the remaining coins, and the elder son at home. Yet the shepherd, the woman, and the father are not content with what they have; their concern is for that which is lost.

Is someone in your life lost and waiting to be found by the Savior? Whom can you trust to God’s loving and searching ways?

J.R. Hudberg

 

 

 

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Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Spiritual Geography

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Many years ago, I had the opportunity to travel across the country from Massachusetts to Montana. While I had often traveled across the country on family vacations, I had never driven through South Dakota. But on this trip I was able to see quite a bit of the state that makes up part of the Great Plains in the United States. Having lived near the city, I remember being struck by the vast expanses of what appeared to be uninhabited land. Rolling grasslands, without many trees, offered a view of the landscape that was as far as it was wide. I remember wondering why anyone would make a home in such a desolate place.

Several years after this trip, I read Kathleen Norris’s book Dakota and marveled at her poignant description of this land. Her memoir both enticed me and made me wary of life in the Dakotas. The opening paragraphs of her book explain why:

“The high plains, the beginning of the desert West, often act like a crucible for those who inhabit them. Like Jacob’s angel, the region requires that you wrestle with it, before it bestows a blessing… This book is an invitation to a land of little rain and few trees, dry summer winds and harsh winters, a land rich in grass, and sky and surprises.”(1)

She concludes by saying that “the land and the sky of the West often fill what Thoreau termed our ‘need to witness our limits transgressed.’ Nature, in Dakota, can indeed be an experience of the holy.”(2)

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Relationship, Not Rules

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And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. — Ezekiel 36:26

Adapted from the resource Closer to God Each Day Devotional – by Joyce Meyer

Many times, when somebody is born again, the first things they are told are: “You need to change your hairstyle, or dress differently. You have a tattoo that needs to be covered up. You’ve got an earring in the wrong place.” Their introduction to Christianity is a list of rules, things they must do, and things they must not do, according to what people think is right and wrong.

Sadly, too many times no one talks to them at all about their heart or their relationship with God. Instead it’s about all these things they have to do if they want to be part of a particular religious organization. Although God will lead us to make positive changes in our lives, He totally accepts us as we are, and we need to do the same for new Christians. Give them time, and God will lead them by giving them new desires.

Jesus died so we could have a deep, passionate, personal relationship with God. He didn’t die to give us a list of rules. He gave us something much deeper and much better—He gave us access to God so that we could be in close personal relationship with our heavenly Father.

Prayer Starter: Thank You, Lord, that You want a close, intimate relationship with me, and that You patiently change me from the inside out. Help me to remember this when I’m tempted to be too hard on myself or others. In Jesus’ Name, Amen

 

 

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Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – It All Belongs to Him

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“For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10, KJV).

Gently chiding a Christian worker for praying that God might give him a second-hand car to use in his service for the Lord, Dr. A.W. Tozer reminded the man:

“God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and the Cadillacs, too. Why not ask Him for the best?”

That same principle might apply to many areas of our lives today. If we truly believe that “according to your faith be it unto you,” then it is imperative that we trust God for greater things than normally we might.

Motive, of course, is supremely important in our asking from God. If the thing asked is clearly for God’s glory, to be used in His service, the motivation is good. If pride or any other motive plays a part in the decision, then we do well to think twice before asking great things from God.

What man owns, we do well to remember, we own under God. And God has never given to man the absolute proprietorship in any thing. Nor does He invade our rights when He comes and claims what we possess, or when He in any way removes what is most valuable to us.

God owns all things – let’s leave to Him the right to do whatever He wishes with the things He owns.

Bible Reading:Psalm 50:7-15

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: Since my receiving is “according to my faith,” I will with proper motive for His glory believe God in a large manner this day – for whatever needs may arise.

 

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Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Love the Overlooked

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Listen to Today’s Devotion

May I urge you to love the overlooked? When you talk to the lonely student or befriend the weary mom, you love Jesus. He dresses in the garb of the overlooked and ignored. “Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me,” Jesus said (Matthew 25:40).

You can do that. Don’t so focus on what you love to do that you neglect what needs to be done. Everyday do something you don’t want to do. Pick up someone else’s trash. Call the long-winded relative. Don’t be too big to do something small. 1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “Throw yourself into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.” A good action brings God’s attention. He notices the actions of his servants. He sent his Son to be one!

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Denison Forum – Marital affair could cost man nearly $9 million

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Keith King sued Francisco Huizar III for “alienation of affection,” among other complaints, after Huizar had an affair with King’s wife. King filed his lawsuit in North Carolina, one of a few states where a person can sue another person for breaking up his or her marriage.

A North Carolina judge has now ruled that Huizar should pay $8.8 million. He plans to appeal.

Meanwhile, CBS executive Leslie Moonves stands to lose as much as $300 million if the network cancels his contract. Six women are alleging that they were sexually harassed by Moonves over the years.

In other news, several states joined efforts yesterday to block a Texas man from offering instructions online for making plastic guns using 3-D printers. However, CNN reports today that more than a thousand people have already downloaded plans to print an AR-15-style assault rifle.

The weapons could never be traced if used in a crime since they have no serial number. They could slip more easily through metal detectors and would enable criminals to circumvent background checks.

What do these stories have in common? The power of words.

Words can be miraculous

Emily Dickinson: “I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word.”

Continue reading Denison Forum – Marital affair could cost man nearly $9 million →

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – True Riches

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Ephesians 1:1-8

Jesus willingly left behind His divinity and for our sake took on the limitations of human form. Second Corinthians 8:9 tells us that He became poor in order that we might have the riches of grace. As a result, we are …

Chosen. God made us part of His plan from the beginning (Eph. 1:5). He chose us to belong to Him even though we did not deserve it.

Redeemed. Jesus paid the price to redeem us from sin so that we might no longer be held in its bondage. The price of our redemption was His precious blood, shed on the cross (1 Peter 1:18-19).

Justified. We are all guilty of disobedience against God. However, when we place trust in Jesus as our personal Savior, God declares that we are justified, and He treats us as not guilty (Rom. 3:23-24).

Reconciled. Because of our sin, we were at odds with God. Through Christ, we have been brought back into a right relationship with Him (2 Corinthians 5:18).

Forgiven. God has already forgiven all our past, present, and future sins; it’s a “done deal.” Ongoing confession and repentance keep us in intimate communion with Him (1 John 1:7; 1 John 1: 9).

Freed from condemnation. The Law was given for us to understand God’s standards, our inability to keep them, and our need of a Savior. Jesus fulfilled the law, and His finished work counts on our behalf. We are, then, free to pursue holiness without fear of punishment when we fail (Rom. 8:1-4).

True riches are spiritual in nature, and grace has made us wealthy people. Let us never forget these remarkable reasons to be thankful.

Bible in One Year: Isaiah 31-35

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Overcoming Challenges

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Read: Nehemiah 6:1–9, 15 | Bible in a Year: Psalms 51–53; Romans 2

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. Nehemiah 6:15

We gathered monthly to hold one another accountable to our individual goals. My friend Mary wanted to reupholster the seats of her dining room chairs before the year’s end. At our November meeting she wittily reported her progress from October: “It took ten months and two hours to recover my chairs.” After months of not being able to obtain the materials required, or find the quiet hours away from her demanding job and her toddler’s needs, the project took merely two hours of committed work to finish.

The Lord called Nehemiah to a far greater project: to bring restoration to Jerusalem after its walls had lain in ruin for 150 years (Nehemiah 2:3–5, 12). As he led the people in the labor, they experienced mockery, attacks, distraction, and temptation to sin (4:3, 8; 6:10–12). Yet God equipped them to stand firm—resolute in their efforts—completing a daunting task in just fifty-two days.

Overcoming such challenges requires much more than a personal desire or goal; Nehemiah was driven by an understanding that God appointed him to the task. His sense of purpose invigorated the people to follow his leadership despite incredible opposition. When God charges us with a task—whether to repair a relationship or share what He’s done in our lives—He gives us whatever skills and strength are necessary to continue in our effort to do what He’s asked, no matter what challenges come our way.

Lord, please equip me with Your strength to persevere and finish the tasks You’ve given me. May my labors bring You glory.

God equips us to overcome obstacles and complete the tasks He’s given us to do.

By Kirsten Holmberg

INSIGHT

What kinds of challenges have you faced? How has God helped you to overcome them?

For further study on the book of Nehemiah, see christianuniversity.org/OT220.

 

 

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Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – The End of Hope

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In John Bunyan’s abiding allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress, hope is personified in two ways. Hopeful is the traveling companion of Christian, the story’s protagonist, along the winding journey toward the Celestial City. Hopeful was born in the town of Vanity and grew up with great expectations of the things of the fair; honor and title, ownership and ease were his great hopes. But he had suffered bitter disappointment in these pursuits and found only shipwrecks of his own optimism. In this valley of emptiness, Hopeful was able to recognize the full and solid quest of Christian. And thus, Hopeful’s drastic conversion of hope begins with pilgrimage and community.

The other character marked by hope in Bunyan’s tale is encountered near the river one must cross on foot in order to enter the Celestial City. Vain-Hope is a ferryman, who offers to ferry travelers across the River of Death so that they don’t have to cross on their own. Yet as one man discovers, it is a promise that gets him across the river, but destroys all hope of staying there. In the end, Vain-Hope is a deadly end.

With these two lucid pictures, Bunyan divides hope in two, possibly simple, but maybe wise, categories: the life-giving and the destructive. Considering all the ways in which we use the word, it seems easily an oversimplification. In the painting above, for instance, artist George Frederic Watts shows a female allegorical figure of Hope, for which the painting is titled, sitting on a globe in a hunched position, blindfolded, clutching a wooden lyre with only one string left intact. According to Watts, “Hope need not mean expectancy. It suggests here rather the music which can come from the remaining chord.”(1)  G. K. Chesterton, who was far from alone in his criticism of Watt’s image, suggested that a better title for this work would be Despair. Chesterton describes the lone string of Hope’s lyre as “a string which is always stretched to snapping and yet never snaps. . . the queerest and most delicate thing in us, the most fragile, the most fantastic, is in truth the backbone and indestructible. . . Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all its conquerors.”(2)

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – No Hope?

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Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation. — Psalm 42:5

Adapted from the resource Battlefield of the Mind Devotional – by Joyce Meyer

“What’s the use?” Jeff said to me. “I’ve tried many times to work for God and to accomplish great things. No matter what I do or how hard I work, I end up failing.”

“I vowed that I would set aside time for God every day,” Pam said. “That was my only resolution for the year.” She shrugged. “It’s now April, and I stuck with my plan for about three weeks. I never complete most of the important things in my life.”

Jeff and Pam are only two examples of people who feel hopeless. They know what they want to do, but they still don’t accomplish what they desire.

There is no one way we can explain all failures, but both of these believers had reached the place of hopelessness. They were sure they couldn’t do it. “I’ve tried before, and I failed,” they each said. They saw no point in trying again.

“Okay, so I try again and then I fail again,” Jeff said. “I already feel bad; why would I want to feel worse?”

He didn’t realize that negative thoughts and words were the cause of his own failure. Satan was there to attack and discourage him, but he did most of the work himself through an attitude of hopelessness.

Continue reading Joyce Meyer – No Hope? →

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Help for Hard Times

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“He cares for them when times are hard; even in famine, they will have enough” (Psalm 37:19).

I recall that, in the early 1930’s during the time of the great depression in America, many people experienced hard times. It was not always easy to fully appreciate the fact I know now to be true: God always cares for His children.

“When times are hard” can refer not only to the material, but also to the physical and the spiritual. And during any of these times – whether in poverty, poor health or spiritual doldrums – our great God always cares for us.

In Bible times, God often proved the truth of the assertion that He cares for His people in periods of famine. And no doubt multitudes of sufferers around the world today would attest to that fact, in spite of their suffering.

When physical suffering is involved, it is not always easy to see the hand of God. But one sure way to increase faith is to exercise the sacrifice of praise – praise to our wonderful God for the positive fact that “all things do work together for our good if we love God and are called according to His purpose.”

When spiritual poverty is concerned, we need only retreat to that time and place in our lives where we wandered away from God, whatever degree of wandering that involves, whether large or small. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Bible Reading:Psalm 37:16-22

TODAY’S ACTION POINT: At all times of difficulty in my life – spiritual, material, physical – I will look for God’s hand of blessing in the joyful assurance that He cares for me

 

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