Daily Devotionals – February 22, 2012
TODAY’S ENCOURAGING WORD – 2/22/2012
I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him.
–Psalm 39:7, NLT
He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.
–Psalm 40:2 NLT
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No Miracles
“And the rest, some on boards, some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that they escaped all safe to land” (Acts 27:44).
The marvelous story of Paul’s voyage to Rome, with its trials and triumphs, is a fine pattern of the lights and shades of the way of faith all through the story of human life. The remarkable feature of it is the hard and narrow places which we find intermingled with God’s most extraordinary interpositions and providences.
It is the common idea that the pathway of faith is strewn with flowers, and that when God interposes in the life of His people, He does it on a scale so grand that He lifts us quite out of the plane of difficulties. The actual fact, however, is that the real experience is quite contrary. The story of the Bible is one of alternate trial and triumph in the case of everyone of the cloud of witnesses from Abel down to the latest martyr.
Paul, more than anyone else, was an example of how much a child of God can suffer without being crushed or broken in spirit. On account of his testifying in Damascus, he was hunted down by persecutors and obliged to fly for his life. but we behold no heavenly chariot transporting the holy apostle amid thunderbolts of flame from the reach of his foes, but “through a window in a basket,” was he let down over the walls of Damascus and so escaped their hands. In an old clothes basket, like a bundle of laundry, or groceries, the servant of Jesus Christ was dropped from the window and ignominiously fled from the hate of his foes.
Again we find him left for months in the lonely dungeons; we find him telling of his watchings, his fastings, and his desertion by friends, of his brutal and shameful beatings, and here even after God has promised to deliver him, we see him for days left to toss upon a stormy sea, obliged to stand guard over the treacherous seaman, and at last when the deliverance comes, there is no heavenly galley sailing from the skies to take off the noble prisoner; there is no angel form walking along the waters and stilling the raging breakers; there is no supernatural sign of the transcendent miracle that is being wrought; but one is compelled to seize a spar, another a floating plank, another to climb on a fragment of the wreck, another to strike out and swim for his life.
Here is God’s pattern for our own lives. Here is a Gospel of help for people that have to live in this every day world with real and ordinary surroundings, and a thousand practical conditions which have to be met in a thoroughly practical way.
God’s promises and God’s providences do not lift us out of the plane of common sense and commonplace trial, but it is through these very things that faith is perfected, and that God loves to interweave the golden threads of His love along the warp and woof of our every day experience.
–Hard Places in the Way of Faith
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Little Children
Ryan Duncan, TheFish.com editor
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” – Matthew 19:14
When I was a little kid, I made an amazing discovery. I realized that if I found something I liked and asked the right person “Can I have this?” there was chance they would give it to me. This may not seem all that extraordinary to you, but trust me, to a child this was a goldmine. You see, I didn’t just ask for candy at the grocery store or stuff on TV commercials, I asked for everything. I asked other kids if I could have their toys, I asked the neighbors if I could have their dog, I think I even asked one family if I could have their house. I’m afraid I embarrassed my parents to no end, and by the time my father sat me down and explained that asking someone for all their belongings was rude and most people had stopped inviting our family over for dinner.
Kids can be a real hassle, and when you think about it, you can’t really blame the disciples for their actions in Mark 10. Take a look at the following passage,
People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. – Mark 10:13-16
Here’s the thing about children. Children are messy, children are selfish, children are ignorant, and children are incredibly self-destructive. Don’t believe me? A monkey knows better than to stick a butter knife into an exposed wall socket, but let a child have its way and they will do it twice! Despite all this however, you really can’t help but admire the oblivious, single-minded nature of a child.
If anything, Christians should try learning from their example. Too often we stop ourselves for encountering God because we are afraid we don’t fit the “Christian” criteria. Well, I’ve got news for you; we will always be children in God’s eyes: messy, crazy, self-destructive children. But as long as we make him the single focus of our hearts, He doesn’t care. So take a lesson from these little ones, pursue God recklessly and don’t pay attention to what others think, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.
Intersecting Faith and Life
Are you pursuing God with the heart of a child? Take a moment to consider.
Further Reading
Matthew 19
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A True Servant
Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments ; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.
Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet ?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter .” Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet !” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean ; and you are clean, but not all of you.” For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.” So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? “You call Me Teacher and Lord ; and you are right, for so I am. “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.
-John 13:1-15
Do you equate success with wealth, acclaim, and power? If we measured by these standards, then Jesus, who was rejected by His community and didn’t even have a house of His own, was a failure. But, of course, we know that’s not the case. So God must use something other than these worldly goals to define success. In fact, Scripture is clear that Jesus Christ is our example–we should strive to be like Him.
So, what exactly was our Savior’s mission? In today’s passage, we see the answer through His actions: He came to serve. The disciples, wanting recognition and reward, were arguing about who’d be the greatest in heaven. In contrast, Jesus took off His outer garment and performed the task of the lowliest servant: He washed the dirty feet of His followers. The next day, Almighty God was crucified by His own creation. In allowing this, He offered salvation to all–even those who nailed Him to a cross.
Jesus deserved glory but chose sacrifice and pain. And He asks that we follow His example of service. With the exception of Judas, His disciples obeyed. In fact, they all faced great difficulty and most died brutal deaths because of their faith. But they willingly walked the path of humility because of what Jesus had taught them: “The last shall be first, and the first last” (Matt. 20:16).
How do you spend your resources and time? And which topics dominate your thoughts and conversation? These are a few indicators of the driving goals in your life. You may long for worldly recognition, but God has a higher calling for His children. Ask Him to foster a servant’s attitude in your heart.
For more biblical teaching and resources from Dr. Charles Stanley, please visit www.intouch.org.
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Paneled Houses
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 1 by Os Hillman
Wednesday, February 22 2012
“Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” – Haggai 1:4
There is a crisis of grand proportions in the spiritual house of God today. The moral fiber of our world has eroded. Greed, idolatry, and pleasure are the gods of our day. And it is no different in the Body of Christ.
The prophet Haggai wrote about a people who had lost concern for the need to build God’s house because they were so focused on their own worldly needs. It is a dangerous place to get with God. When our world begins to focus around increasing our pleasure, building bigger and better homes, and failing to make what is important to God important in our own lives, this should be a warning to us.
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” He said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers’ ” (Matthew. 21:12-13).
Jesus came into Jerusalem and found the workplace believers buying and selling in the temple. As far as they knew, this was an acceptable practice in their day. Their fathers did it, and now they were doing it. It was business as usual. Jesus got angry, turned over the tables, and said that His house was a house of prayer. He found the workplace believers of the day seeing His house as a place for profit, not prayer. They had stepped into a place of complacency that was not acceptable to the Lord. When we begin to blend in with the moral condition of an ungodly world, we begin losing God’s perspective on life.
It is easy to begin blending in with our culture and to accept what is being modeled by the ungodly. God called us to be salt in a world that needs much salt. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men” (Mt. 5:13). Each of us must ask ourselves if we have lost our salt. Are we having an impact on our world? Or is our world having an impact on us? Ask God to give you a vision for how you can be salt to your world today.
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What Does It Mean To Be Biblically Balanced?
Tullian Tchividjian
I increasingly hear people talking about the need to be “Biblically balanced” and I think I’m starting to understand what they mean.
As I talk to people who speak about the need for our theology and preaching to be “balanced”, they mean that we need to spend the same amount of timetalking about everything the Bible talks about.
So, for example, since the Bible talks about what God in Christ has done andalso what we ought to do in light of what Christ has done, to be balanced we need to give both themes equal airtime. Since the Bible talks about Jesus and it talks about us, to be balanced we need to spend the same amount of time talking about both. The list could go on: since the Bible talks about x and y, to be balanced we need to talk about x and y the same amount.
But, this is NOT the balance of the Bible. While the Bible talks about a lot of things it does not give all of its themes equal airtime.
The overwhelmingly dominate message of the Bible is that God loves (and in Jesus) justifies sinners. There are tons of ways the Bible says this: the whore is made a bride, the dead are raised, the unrighteous are declared righteous, slaves are made sons, the blind see, the sick are healed, the unclean are made pure, the guilty are forgiven, sinners are saved, and so on. Obviously, no Christian denies that the Bible says more than this. But the work of Christ on behalf of sinners is clearly the emphasis of Scripture from beginning to end. What we do in light of what Jesus has done is important. But it’s not more important than (or even equally important as) what Jesus has done for us.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures…(1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
The emphasis of the Bible is on the work of the Redeemer, not on the work of the redeemed. As important as how we live is, the spotlight of Scripture is on Christ, not the Christian. As Tim Keller has said, “The Bible is not fundamentally about us. It’s fundamentally about Jesus.”
My point is simply this: to be “Biblically balanced” is NOT to allot equal airtime to every Biblical theme. To be Biblically balanced is to let our theology and preaching be proportioned by the Bible’s radically disproportionate focus on God’s saving love for sinners seen and accomplished in the crucified and risen Christ.
