Daily Devotionals – January 25, 2012
TODAY’S ENCOURAGING WORD – 1/25/2012
Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires.
–Psalm 37:4, NLT
Without wise leadership, a nation falls; there is safety in having many advisers.
–Proverbs 11:14 NLT
You have dealt well with your servant, O Lord, according to your word. Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments. Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word. You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. The insolent smear me with lies, but with my whole heart I keep your precepts; their heart is unfeeling like fat, but I delight in your law. It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. The law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
–Psalm 119:65-72 ESV
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Pastor Resources Daily
Previously, I wrote about Satan’s Great Desire which is to bring about disunity in your local church, somehow convincing you that the people in your church are no longer worthy of your love. I ended by giving the encouragement that God has equipped us to build and maintain this kind of unity and that all we need to do is use the tools he has equipped us with. How has he equipped us? According to Ephesians 4, he has given each of us a spiritual gift that is to be used to build unity through service to one another.
This area of spiritual gifting is noticeably Christ-centered and along the way Paul makes three big points:
First, Christ is the giver of gifts. Paul goes all the way back to Psalm 68 and shows that this Psalm speaks of the resurrected Jesus giving gifts to the people he loves. These aren’t gifts wrapped in paper that we can open and put on display, but gifts in the form of abilities we possess. Christ doesn’t toss these gifts out to Christians in a random way, but thoughtfully and deliberately gives a gift to each person as he sees fit. Christ has a plan in giving out these gifts. He is the one who determines who will receive each gift and how much of that gift each person and each community of Christians will receive.
Second, Christ gives gifts that are diverse. If we look throughout the whole New Testament we’ll find several lists of these gifts and when we put them together we find that there are at least 20 of them; there are undoubtedly many more than the ones listed. What we see is that Christ gives out diverse gifts. In this letter Paul gives a partial list and one that focuses specifically on teaching. Some Christians are given gifts of teaching and here he lists apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. The job of these teachers is not to do all the ministry or to use all the gifts, but to shepherd and teach and equip every Christian to use his own gift. These teachers are to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Why? So each one can then use his gift in a fuller, more comprehensive way.
Third, Christ’s gifts are given to bring unity through service. Paul makes a surprising statement here. He says that I am not the minister of my church; neither are the other pastors. Who are the ministers? Everyone is! The pastors are the shepherds, the equippers, the leaders, but we are all ministers. We are to do this work together.
There are profound implications to this. This brings into focus a passage like Titus 2 which instructs older women to disciple younger women—to do that work of ministry. Your pastors simply cannot disciple young women to love their husbands and children nearly as well as some of the older women can. So we need older women to do that work of ministry! Now we see that the work of visiting those who are sick or caring for those who are in need is the job of each one of us. We are all to minister to one another.
This leads us to one important application: You need to plant yourself in a local church. Why? Because you need the gifts of the Christians there and they need your gifts. There is a church that is incomplete without you and you are incomplete without that church. You do not have all that you need, all that is necessary for your growth in holiness.
Each of us needs to learn how the Lord has gifted us and each of us then needs to use our gifts to minister to one another. How do we learn how we are gifted? We serve! We just do the work of the ministry, whether that is setting up and cleaning up or visiting people in hospital or making meals or doing one-on-one discipleship, and we allow the Lord to reveal our strengths and open up opportunities. In your church you may find that you have teachers and evangelists, encouragers and discerners and servers and so many others. And that’s perfect because I’m sure you then also have people there who need to be served and people who lack discernment or people who are desperate for encouragement or people who need to respond to the gospel. There Lord has made it so that each of us has a gift designed to serve the people around us.
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Streams in the Desert
Degrees of Faith
“Let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece” (Judges 6:39).
There are degrees to faith. At one stage of Christian experience we cannot believe unless we have some sign or some great manifestation of feeling. We feel our fleece, like Gideon, and if it is wet we are willing to trust God. This may be true faith, but it is imperfect. It always looks for feeling or some token besides the Word of God. It marks quite an advance in faith when we trust God without feelings. It is blessed to believe without having any emotion.
There is a third stage of faith which even transcends that of Gideon and his fleece. The first phase of faith believes when there are favorable emotions, the second believes when there is the absence of feeling, but this third form of faith believes God and His Word when circumstances, emotions, appearances, people, and human reason all urge to the contrary. Paul exercised this faith in Acts 27:20, 25, “And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away.” Notwithstanding all this Paul said, “Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer; for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”
May God give us faith to fully trust His Word though everything else witness the other way. –C. H. P.
When is the time to trust?
Is it when all is calm,
When waves the victor’s palm,
And life is one glad psalm
Of joy and praise?
Nay! but the time to trust
Is when the waves beat high,
When storm clouds fill the sky,
And prayer is one long cry,
O help and save!
When is the time to trust?
Is it when friends are true?
Is it when comforts woo,
And in all we say and do
We meet but praise?
Nay! but the time to trust
Is when we stand alone,
And summer birds have flown,
And every prop is gone,
All else but God.
What is the time to trust?
Is it some future day,
When you have tried your way,
And learned to trust and pray
By bitter woe?
Nay! but the time to trust
Is in this moment’s need,
Poor, broken, bruised reed!
Poor, troubled soul, make speed
To trust thy God.
What is the time to trust?
Is it when hopes beat high,
When sunshine gilds the sky,
And joy and ecstasy
Fill all the heart?
Nay! but the time to trust
Is when our joy is fled,
When sorrow bows the head,
And all is cold and dead,
All else but God.
–Selected
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Fits Any Niche
By Shawn McEvoy, Crosswalk.com Managing Editor
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16
As the editor responsible for all devotional content here at Crosswalk, one of the questions I’m asked most frequently by our beloved users goes something like this:
“Your devotional offerings are great, but could you please include one for cousins of divorcees with sleeping disorders who have befriended agnostic vegetarians? Because that would be really great.”
Okay, that’s an exaggeration (but only barely). And it’s not like we dislike filling niches. We have devotionals for women, the workplace, weight loss and the list goes on. We’re continually adding to the selection and have plans for a men’s devotional, a children’s devotional, a singles devotional, and more. To an extent, we’re at the mercy of what’s well-written, theologically sound, recognizable, and most of all, available.
But when I’m asked a question like, “My fiance and I are interested in a devotional for yet-to-be-married couples living in the mid-Atlantic from different church backgrounds who are both post-millenialists. What do you recommend for us?” my answer is always the same:
Just study the Word, man.
Whether you find it here or somewhere else, locate a ministry, author, preacher, or regular old Joe/JoAnn whom God has gifted with insight into his holy scriptures, and read their take regularly. Follow that up with your own deeper individual study. Take that into praying with a spouse, accountability partner, disciple, or mentor. Join a group Bible Study. And take notes during sermons.
It’s not much more complicated than that. We sometimes make it so. We pigeonhole ourselves or our current life situation or level of belief, and so risk hindering the effective wholeness of the Word.
Besides, if there’s one thing I’ve noticed through almost a biblical generation of life, it’s that our specific situations are many times made more complex by our non-stop obsession with them, and are often made more simple by backing off and getting at them indirectly through solid study that may not at first seem related to what we are going through.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to hear which verses were blessings to folks who have gone through heartbreaks or challenges similar to what you are now experiencing. What I’m suggesting is that the Word of the Lord never returns void. And that there have been several topics I’ve tried to understand (and been disappointed in the lack of direct guidance the Bible appears to give on the subject), or several life situations I’ve wanted to study (and not known where to start or how to find others who have biblical wisdom to offer in the form of a devotional) that have been solved when I stepped away and just studied sound teaching with prayer.
One example is when, as a young man, I wanted to find everything the Bible said about the “big sins” our youth ministers were so concerned with keeping us from — sex and drinking. I shortly exhausted all the verses that dealt directly with these topics. But it wasn’t until I backed away from a focus on these issues and began more comprehensive studies of what God had to say about all things that the picture grew bigger and the reasons for abstinence, purity, sobriety, and not causing others to stumble became clear in the light of grace, righteousness, sacrifice, and ministry.
Another example is the time I was battling a crippling depression. I found few answers and little comfort in attacking the problem directly — even if there didn’t seem to be a lack of correlative verses or devos, which only would have reminded me double of the state I was in. What did help was reading other topics from the Bible, and books from established Christian authors and preachers about the Bible itself, about faith, about truth. Eventually the clouds lifted, and I was stronger for having gone through the darkness and for the overarching principles that brought me home.
Let me encourage you today not to wall yourself off from the full richness of the Word, but to seek out sound doctrine and study on general principles regularly that I promise will apply to your specifics, whether directly or indirectly, immediately or eventually.
Further Reading
A Plea to Use the Bible Every Day
How to Have a Meaningful Quiet Time
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Stop Robbing the Body of Christ
1 Corinthians 12:14-21
Every day, you get out of bed, put on clothes, and walk to the table to eat breakfast. You greet the rest of the household and maybe read the paper. A few minutes later, you drive to work at 60 m.p.h. on a strip of asphalt where other vehicles can pass by within four feet. In the first hour or so that you’re awake, your body completes thousands of complex tasks that are so routine they go unnoticed.
Our physical frame is a creation of remarkable beauty and intricacy. And while certain parts seem more attractive than others, all are useful. The body’s interdependent nature—that is, the way every part relies on other parts to perform properly—is an apt metaphor for a Christ-centered church. When believers use their gifts and talents to operate together lovingly, the whole body functions properly to the glory of God.
However, churches today are filled with people who feel insignificant. Upon seeing the successful work of others, they decide they’re not really needed or assume they haven’t got the “right” talents to make a worthwhile contribution. Those are lies from the Devil. When his misguidance succeeds—which is all too often—he manages to get one more Christian to back away in hopes that someone else will do the Lord’s work.
Hanging back instead of seeking a place to serve is a form of thievery: you’re robbing the Lord’s church—His people—of your unique contribution. Your role might be small or go unnoticed, but it is vital to Jesus Christ and to the smooth functioning of His body on earth.
For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
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Horizontal Versus Vertical
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman
Wednesday, January 25 2012
Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. – Exodus 2:12
Moses saw the pain of his people. He saw the bondage and the injustice. His heart was enraged, and he decided he would do something. He would take matters into his own hands. The result was murder. The motive was right, but the action was wrong. He went horizontal instead of vertical with God. Moses fled to the desert, where God prepared the man who would ultimately be the deliverer of a nation. But it took 40 years of preparation before God determined Moses was ready. He was a professional businessman – a sheepherder. It was during the mundane activity of work that God called on him to be a deliverer.
Moses was like a lot of enthusiastic Christian workplace believers who seek to solve a spiritual problem with a fleshly answer. The greatest danger to the Christian workplace believer is his greatest strength – his business acumen and expertise to get things done. This self-reliance can become our greatest weakness when it comes to moving in the spiritual realm. We’re taught to be problem solvers. But, like Moses, if our enthusiasm and passion are not harnessed by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will fail miserably. Peter had to learn this lesson too. His enthusiasm got him into a lot of trouble. But God was patient, just as He is patient with each of us. Sometimes He must put us in the desert for a time in order to season us so that Christ is allowed to reign supreme in the process.
Before you act, pray and seek the mind of Christ until you know it is God behind the action. Check it out with others. You may save yourself a trip to the desert.
