Daily Devotionals – January 26, 2012 Prayer Request – Please pray for the Liu family for healing, peace and understanding. Pat Liu passed away last night, a major loss to all that knew him!
Such a sad day…. Pat Liu passed away last night, please pray for Peggy Liu and their children. This is absolutely heartbreaking…… Such a big loss to the cycling community. We will miss you Pat! He was a great man, great father, and great friend and if you only new him as cyclist, the best sprinter around! Bell lap, Bell lap….
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TODAY’S ENCOURAGING WORD – 1/26/2012
Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
–1 Thess. 5:17-18, NLT
Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others.
–Proverbs 12:15 NLT
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The Priesthood of Believers
9 And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals ; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God ; and they will reign upon the earth.”
Revelation 5:9-10
According to Scripture, the believer’s citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). In other words, we’re not going to be citizens of an eternal kingdom; we already are.
What’s more, every person who professes Jesus Christ as Lord is part of God’s priesthood. In the ancient Israelite culture, priests were the privileged servants of Almighty God. They carried out all the tasks related to keeping the Law and preserving the spiritual well-being of the people. They cared for the temple, offered sacrifices, and interceded on behalf of the community.
When John says in Revelation 1 that you and I are priests, he is placing us among the ranks of a people set apart as God’s servants. It is a blessing and calling to worship the Lord, to adore and honor Him, and to ensure that all glory is given to His name. Our duties also include interceding on behalf of others.
The one priestly task we do not have to do is perform sacrifices. God Himself offered the final sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, when His Son died in our place. Our part is to bear witness to the breadth and depth of His love for all people. Once you grasp the fact that God looks on His children—every one a former slave to sin—with unconditional devotion, you can’t keep quiet about it.
Believers are special in the eyes of their God and King. We are a sacred people and a holy order. What are you doing with your life? As a believer, you are not your own anymore (1 Cor. 6:19). You are a priest and a privileged servant of the Most High God.
For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
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Training in the Fruit of the Spirit
Jason Pankau and John Donovan
“Train yourself in righteousness.” (1 Tim 4:8)
We might think of training in righteousness in terms of becoming more intentional about two things — praying and practicing – praying to receive more of the fruit of the Spirit and then practicing love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Let’s consider training in regard to love. Consider the experience of a salesman of our acquaintance who was meeting continually with strangers, and who decided to focus more on trying to see everything from their perspective. In due course, he found that he had truly developed an ability to care, quite apart from whether he succeeded in his sales effort. This experiment led to other successful efforts to be more intentional about loving those around him.
What about joy? Can we train ourselves in joy? Standing out prominently in the Old Testament among the things that God hates is “murmuring,” or complaining. There is no suggestion that the causes of murmuring never really existed, but it is clear that the relationship with God requires that the attitude of ingratitude should be replaced by an attitude of thanksgiving and praise. In other words, it’s a decision, not a mere response to natural circumstances.
Joy can be intentional. When St. Paul was being held in a dungeon at Philippi, his situation surely couldn’t have been a natural cause for celebration. But in the Acts of the Apostles we read that St. Paul was rejoicing and singing. God seemed to be allowing such events in his life to train him to trust, while he was training himself in what we might call “righteous rejoicing.” It is not recorded whether he felt the actual emotions of joy, but it is a verifiable fact that such feelings will follow a firm intention to act as if one already had them. He made the choice to rejoice.
This applies as well to peace and patience. A great Quaker writer, Hannah Whitall Smith, reported that she prayed for more patience and that just after her prayer her cleaning lady broke a valuable piece of china. To Smith, this seemed like God granting her an immediate opportunity to exercise the gift that He was more than willing to bestow. Her acceptance of this was her way of training herself in the art of living under God and above circumstances.
In another situation, a friend of ours took a job in an office where the boss turned out to have the temperament that ranged from volatile to over-the-top volcanic. Our friend wasn’t typically the object of these tirades, which were usually poured out over the telephone line. Still, he found his inner state to be a foaming cauldron most of each day — at least before it dawned on him that he could train himself in God’s peace. This he did each morning before work by soaking himself in certain scriptures, reading them very slowly. In addition, when the ordinary inconveniences of life occurred, such as traffic delays, he formed the habit of drawing on God’s peace. As a result, his emotions at the office became, in the words of the novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, “like the ticking of a clock in a thunderstorm.”
Let’s resolve this week to pray and practice, that is, to pray for the fruit of the Spirit to be made manifest more obviously in our lives and then to put into practice we know He wants us to have.
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Passing The Test
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman
Thursday, January 26 2012
The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors – to David. – 1 Samuel 28:17b
When God anoints a person, a pattern of testing appears to take place at specific times in the leader’s life. God often takes each leader through four major tests to determine if that person will achieve God’s ultimate call on his or her life. The person’s response to these tests is the deciding factor in whether they can advance to the next level of responsibility in God’s Kingdom.
Control – Control is one of the first tests. Saul spent most of his time as king trying to prevent others from getting what he had. Saul never got to the place with God in which he was a grateful recipient of God’s goodness to him. Saul was a religious controller. This control led to disobedience and ultimately being rejected by God because Saul no longer was a vessel God could use.
Bitterness – Every major character in the Bible was hurt by another person at one time or another. Jesus was hurt deeply when Judas, a trusted follower, betrayed Him. Despite knowing this was going to happen, Jesus responded by washing Judas’ feet. Every anointed leader will have a Judas experience at one time or another. God watches us to see how we will respond to this test. Will we take up an offense? Will we retaliate? It is one of the most difficult tests to pass.
Power – Power is the opposite of servanthood. Jesus had all authority in Heaven and earth, so satan tempted Jesus at the top of the mountain to use His power to remove Himself from a difficult circumstance. How will we use the power and influence God has entrusted to us? Do we seek to gain more power? There is a common phrase in the investment community, “He who has the gold rules.” Jesus modeled the opposite. He was the ultimate servant leader.
Greed – This is a difficult one. Money has the ability to have great influence for either good or bad. When it is a focus in our life, it becomes a tool of destruction. When it is a by-product, it can become a great blessing. Many leaders started out well – only to be derailed once prosperity became a part of their life. There are thousands who can blossom spiritually in adversity; only a few can thrive spiritually under prosperity.
As leaders, we must be aware when we are being tested. You can be confident that each one of these tests will be thrown your way if God calls you for His purposes. Will you pass these tests? Ask for God’s grace today to walk through these tests victoriously.
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God is Waiting Upon Us
“And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you…blessed are all they that wait f or him” (Isa. 30:18).
We must not only think of our waiting upon God, but also of what is more wonderful still, of God’s waiting upon us. The vision of Him waiting on us, will give new impulse and inspiration to our waiting upon Him. It will give us unspeakable confidence that our waiting cannot be in vain. Let us seek even now, at this moment, in the spirit of waiting on God, to find out something of what it means. He has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of His children. And you ask, “How is it, if He waits to be gracious, that even after I come and wait upon Him, He does not give the help I seek, but waits on longer and longer?”
God is a wise husbandman, “who waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it.” He cannot gather the fruit till it is ripe. He knows when we are spiritually ready to receive the blessing to our profit and His glory. Waiting in the sunshine of His love is what will ripen the soul for His blessing. Waiting under the cloud of trial, that breaks in showers of blessings, is as needful. Be assured that if God waits longer than you could wish, it is only to make the blessing doubly precious. God waited four thousand years, till the fullness of time, ere He sent His Son. Our times are in His hands; He will avenge His elect speedily; He will make haste for our help, and not delay one hour too long.
–Andrew Murray
