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Post by Obadiah on Jun 5, 2023 4:38:05 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 5TH
Letting God Choose
The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.
Genesis 13:14-15
Lot had lifted up his eyes and chosen for himself; now God says to the man of faith, living in his tent on the hillside, Abram, lift up your eyes. Where? Everywhere—to the north, the south, the east (the portion Lot chose), and the west. All the land is his!
This land is consistently the symbol for us of the fullness of life in the Spirit of God; the life of joy, power, love, and glory; the life of refreshing ministry to others. Surely this is what Paul longs for us when he prays, [That you] may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:18-19). This is all yours, if you are willing to let God make the choices of life for you. Lot will never know this! Nor will we, if we make our choices on the basis of what we see, relating to the materialistic, commercial standards of those about us. But if we are content to have what God gives us in life, all the fullness of Christ will be ours.
Then God said to Abram, Not only do I give this land to you, but I will fill the land with your descendants. That is, I will make you fruitful beyond belief. I will make your life one of such blessing that after you are gone, there will be those who will stand up and say, 'I received my spiritual life through that man; there came to me strength for my journey through him; he has been a great blessing to my heart and life.'
Then he said to Abram, Arise, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you. The land is all that Christ will be to us through the eternal ages to come. But God is saying to us, Don't wait for it. You don't have to wait until you die to enjoy this. You can have it now if you will possess it in Christ. Walk through the land. Possess it—now!
Wherever Abram wanted to move in that land, God opened the door for him. The whole land was his. The Canaanites and Perizzites had to move out when Abram came in. Thus, the Spirit of God declares to us in Romans 6:14: For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. Whenever you want to be free from the weakness, ruin, and power of sin, you can! The land lies open before you. Possess it!
Everyone dwells in a world exactly like that of Abram and Lot, a world in which material values constantly clamor for us to make a choice. We have only so much time to invest, and we are pressured to try to grab the best for ourselves while we can. We can say with Lot, I want what the world can offer me now. I want the cities of the plain. Or we may wait with Abram, content with our tent and altar, enjoying the blessings of the land by faith now, and waiting for God's fulfillment of all His promises in that wonderful age yet to come.
Father, give me grace to let You make these choices for me. Create in me a hunger for the fullness of the land. Make me discontented with my present possession of it, and lead me into the full knowledge of the love of Christ.
Life Application
Daily there are many choices to make. Are our choices leading us more & more into the full knowledge of the love of Christ? How does this equate with our contentment?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 6, 2023 4:53:39 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 6TH
When You Need A Friend
He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people. Genesis 14:16
The Holy Spirit would drive one thing home to our hearts through Abram's experiences in this passage. We do not lead our Christian lives in isolated seclusion—we are members of one another, and in circumstances of this nature, one Christian can often be the means of deliverance of a weaker brother or sister. There was nothing Abram could do to deliver Lot from Sodom. Sodom represented an inward choice in Lot's heart to live in the materialistic, sensualized atmosphere of Sodom. If a child of God chooses to be materialistic, sensual, commercial, and greedy for things of the world, not much can be done for him or her. Only Lot could take himself out of Sodom. But from this circumstance that threatened Lot's very life and liberty, Abram's resources were amply sufficient through prayer.
James 5:16b tells us, The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. There is a Chinese translation of that verse that is excellent: The earnest, hot-hearted prayer of a righteous man releases great power. That is certainly the case in this incident.
The prayer offered in faith, we are told in the same chapter of James, will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up (James 5:15). Many have been puzzled by this verse, but if we read the context, we see clearly that the affliction here is one that has arisen because a child of God has become involved in deliberate sin. Such a one is to call the elders of the church together and confess his or her faults, and then the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him or her up again. It is a wonderful experience, this power of prayer for someone else.
The history of the church is replete with instances of such deliverances through faithful prayer. A wise and experienced missionary leader, speaking to a group on the subject of prayer, addressed the matter of overwhelming sin that so grips the heart as to enslave the life and frustrate all activity for God. He gave some very wise words of advice. Perhaps some younger Christian, he said, may find himself in such a circumstance, and the thing he is doing is so shameful that he cannot bring himself to confess it publicly; then let him seek out some older man of God, someone he can trust, and lay the whole matter before him and ask him to pray concerning this. It is wise counsel, indeed. When Lot could not possibly help himself, Abram, separated in heart from the Sodom-like attitudes that rendered Lot so powerless, was able to lay hold of God and affect a great and mighty deliverance.
Lord, help me to stand ready to help a friend in time of need, even if it means simply being there to listen and to pray.
Life Application
Are we able to aid our brothers or sisters in Christ with helpful counsel from the Word of God? Have we engaged in faithful prayer for those in sinful circumstances?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Theophilus on Jun 7, 2023 8:06:53 GMT -8
Excellent devotion, nothing better than a good friend and Jesus calls us friend.
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 8, 2023 5:08:55 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 7TH
Praying for Your Body
Give us each day our daily bread.
Luke 11:3
Jesus begins this section of the prayer with the needs of the body. I like that! We have such distorted ideas about prayer that we often feel there is something wrong with praying about physical needs. This is a reflection of a pagan concept of life. The Greeks regarded the body as unworthy of redemption and they therefore mistreated it. They beat their bodies and tormented them. You find this philosophy widespread today, this idea that the body must be subdued by physical torment or suffering, but you never find this in the New Testament.
Prayer must begin on this level. God likes bodies. God engineered and designed them. It is perfectly proper that we pray about the need of the body. Bread here is a symbol of all the necessities of physical life. It stands for all that our physical life demands — shelter, drink, clothing — anything that the body requires. The vital concern in this area is that there be available to us an immediate unbroken supply. So this prayer moves right at the issue when it says, Give us each day our daily bread. The only limit in this prayer is that we are never to pray for a warehouse — a full supply for a year ahead. We are to pray for one day's supply.
Do we pray daily for our physical needs? Do we pray about the supply of our food, clothing, shelter, and all the physical necessities of life? Do we take time to ask God for them or at least to give thanks for them? Perhaps this has become such a familiar request in the repeating of The Lord's Prayer that we do not take it seriously. It may be that this is the most flagrant and frequent area of Christian disobedience. For, after all, our Lord meant it when he told us to pray give us each day our daily bread.
Some might argue that Jesus said elsewhere, Your Father knows that you have need of these things even before you pray (Matthew 6:8), so it is not to inform God of our needs. There are others who say it really makes little difference, whether they pray about physical things or not. They get the necessities of life regardless. Furthermore, some say there are many people who never bother to pray at all and who are eating steak and ice cream while we Christians are trying to get along on hamburgers and jello. What is the point, then, of praying?
If you want to see why, ask yourself, What happens to me when I neglect this area of prayer? If you are honest, you will see that a slow and subtle change occurs in the heart of a Christian who does not pray about material things, who does not take time to thank God for his daily supply of the necessities and the luxuries of life. What happens is that we take these things for granted, and gradually we succumb to the quite foolish delusion that we can provide these necessities ourselves. We become possessed with the incredible vanity that our wisdom and our abilities have really made these things possible. And when we begin to think that way, we find pride swells within us and a kind of blindness settles upon us, a blindness which darkens our spiritual insight, and we become moody, restless and depressed.
It is we who need to give thanks to God, it is we who must always be reminding ourselves that everything we have comes from his hand, and that any moment he can turn it off if for any reason he may choose, that it is only his grace and his goodness that keep it flowing unhindered to us. The only way that we can avoid this terrible sin of ingratitude is to pray daily for our physical needs.
Father, today I can't but echo these words the Lord Jesus taught me: Give us this day our daily bread.
Life Application
Do we take for granted the daily supply of our physical needs? Are we neglecting both petition and gratitude? Is that negligence resulting in despair? Or self-congratulation?
Daily Devotion © 2014, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 8, 2023 5:10:45 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 8TH
Faith Conquering Fear
Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness
Genesis 15:6
Paul refers to this mighty act of faith in Romans 4. He reminds us that Abraham believed God before he was circumcised, that is before he had any continual guarantee that God would do what He said. Paul infers from this that acceptance before God has nothing to do with circumcision, as the Jews were insisting. Paul says that when Abram heard God say, So shall your descendants be, that he looked up into the stars and saw their vastness and their multitude and relaxed—resting in faith upon the power of God.
If we focus our view on Abram's faith, we are going to miss the point of this whole matter. There is a sense in which we make far too much of these men of old and their faith. What mighty men of faith, we say. How tremendous to believe God against all the evidence of the circumstances around. If we only had faith like that, we could do the things they did! Then we compare our feeble faith with theirs and try to work up a feeling of faith within us until we are turned into spiritual hypochondriacs, always going about taking our spiritual temperature and feeling our spiritual pulse. It is indeed true that when God saw Abram's faith, it was reckoned to him for righteousness; but it is also true that when Abram saw God, he reckoned Him able to perform what He had promised, so he was able to rest his faith on God's adequacy.
What was it that made Abram's faith so strong? The answer is that he did not look at the difficulty so much as he looked at the One who had promised. His eye was not resting on the problems, but upon the Promiser. When he saw the greatness of God, the might and majesty displayed before him on that summer's night, he said to himself, It makes no difference how I feel or what difficulties may be involved. The Creator of that multitude of stars is quite capable of giving me an equal number of descendants.
So we read the great sentence, He believed the Lord, and he credited it to him for righteousness. This does not mean that this was the first moment that Abram was reckoned righteous before God—that is, this is not the moment of his spiritual regeneration. The book of Hebrews makes clear that when he left Ur of the Chaldees, in response to God's command, his obedient faith was also credited to him for righteousness. This incident under the stars is simply one instance out of many that illustrates the way in which God credits righteousness to the person who believes. Abram believed God about the promise of a coming son and was reckoned righteous by faith.
Today we are exhorted to believe God about the Son who has already come, and when we cease our own works and rest in helpless dependence upon that living Son, we too are counted righteous by faith. And that act of faith that first introduces us to the power of God exercised on our behalf must become an attitude of faith governing each moment of our life.
Father, teach me the folly of self-dependence and the glory of God-dependence. In every moment of fear, lead me to cast myself upon You, reckoning upon Your promise to be my shield and reward.
Life Application
Are we placing our faith in our faith? Do we recognize our faith as the eye through which we view the character and adequacy of God Himself?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 9, 2023 4:39:12 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 9TH
The Furnace And The Lamp
When the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. Genesis 15:17
This verse tells the whole story of the Christian life after conversion—a furnace and a lamp. It is the story of the nation Israel throughout its history. It is a story of affliction followed by blessing. First, Israel is in the furnace, and then the lamp is shining on them again. At the present they are in the furnace and have been for two thousand years, for they will not judge themselves. But the Scriptures say they will soon come to the place where, in the heat of the furnace, they will cry out for deliverance, and God will become a lamp to them once again.
This is the whole story of the Christian life. Once you begin to set foot on the land of Spirit-given power, you discover Jesus Christ is always a furnace or a lamp to you. When self begins to threaten, He is a furnace—burning, scorching, searing. When self is judged, He immediately becomes a lamp, flooding the whole life with radiance and glory. Have you discovered this experience? Have you found your way to this land of promise?
The one thing Abram had to do was to hunger for it. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled (Matthew 5:6). When we long for this blessing and freedom, it is translated out of the realm of theology into experience.
As you may have discovered, it is quite possible to be an expert in teaching the truths of spiritual adjustment and know nothing of the reality of it in life. It is not enough to believe in the doctrine of human depravity. There must come a time when acknowledgment is made of the slavery of self in your life, a time when you have groaned and turned in disgust from the revelation God has given you of your own heart. Only then can there come the wonderful release, the glorious deliverance, the satisfying sight of watching Canaanites flee before you. You now master habits you could not conquer before in the strength of the Lord, and a whole new land of victory lies open before you.
Begin where Abram began. Say, Lord God, how shall I know that I shall possess it? Reveal to me my own heart and Your deliverance.
Father, may I know the transforming grace of the power of the Spirit in my life. May I not be content to live on the edge of the land or to merely sojourn in it, but make me restless until I own it and possess it.
Life Application
What are two necessary factors in our Christian experience that are designed to keep us both real and radiant? Are we learning to appreciate both?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 10, 2023 4:58:19 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 10TH
It All Depends On Me
So [Sarai] said to Abram, The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her. Genesis 16:2
Sarai's difficulty was simply that all of her actions grew out of a basic philosophy, which, put very simply, says: God has told me what He wants; now the rest of it depends on me. This is the philosophy that led to all the heartache and sorrow that Abram and Sarai experienced.
You will recognize that this is a very common and widespread philosophy. We continually think and act this way in the church today. We say the reason God's work is not going forward as it should is that we are not trying hard enough. The barrenness in our experience is due to the fact we have not really put ourselves into this. Let us hold some more committee meetings and get going. It all depends on us.
We find in our Bibles what we call the Great Commission: Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation (Mark 16:15b). This is the goal God wants us to fulfill, we say; now the rest is up to us. We must plan all the strategy, raise the money and determine where it will be spent, and convince candidates that they should go.
We hear our Lord say in the first chapter of Acts, You will be my witnesses (Acts 1: 8b), and every truly Christian heart says, All right, Lord, this is what you want me to do—I will do it. We never bother to find out how He wants it done or whether He has a program to carry it out. We start out in fleshly zeal and pass out tracts to everyone we meet or corner people at meetings. When it all fails, we recognize that something is wrong, and we wring our hands and quit.
Perhaps the worst thing of all, and certainly the matter before us in the story of Abram and Sarai, is that in reading Scripture, we learn we are supposed to be conformed to the image of Christ—so we set out to start trying to be like Jesus. We make up a list of rigid rules for acceptable behavior. We work our fingers to the bone and spend hour after hour in church neglecting our family, our own life, and everything else in order to do things for the Lord. We note how the community around approves our strenuous efforts and pats us on the back for our faithful spirit. But despite all the effort and sincerity, deep in our hearts we know there is nothing but barrenness. Or, if there is fruit, it is not the kind we wanted. It is forced and unnatural, sustained only by continual effort.
This was what happened to Sarai. Note the sacrifice, the seemliness, and the appearance of selflessness. The result is fruit all right, but it is Ishmael, not Isaac—the fruit of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. In some moment of illumination we ask, Why are we so barren? Where is the impact, the power? What has become of that living vitality we see in the early Christians? It is all a result of failing to learn God's way as well as His will.
Father, how many mistakes I have made by doing this very thing that I have seen Sarai do. Lead me to the place where I recognize the folly of my flesh and the impossibility of pleasing You in its strength.
Life Application
Do we live and work in restful trust in the God who is totally adequate? Are we instead anxiously bending every effort to help Him accomplish what only He can do?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 12, 2023 5:02:28 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 11TH
The God Who Sees
[Hagar] gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: You are the God who sees me
Genesis 16:13
It is the angel of the Lord who finds Hagar. This is the first appearance of the phrase angel of the Lord in Scripture, and as we compare it with other uses, we find that this refers to none other than the pre-incarnate Christ. He says several things to her. First, Where do you come from, and where are you going? These are arresting questions. Hagar answers the first, but she has nothing to say to the second. She does not know where she is going. Where can she go? The question draws her helplessness sharply to her attention.
Then the angel says, Return and submit. This is the only way to experience the grace and blessing of God. Had she gone on wandering into the wilderness, it would have been disastrous. Both she and the child in her womb would have died. When God finds us wandering, this is always what He says: Return and submit! Submit to the circumstances you dislike, and I will work it out. To do anything else is folly.
With the command to return comes the promise of blessing. Blessing always follows obedience. I will multiply your descendants so that they will be too numerous to count. And then follows the prophecy of Ishmael's nature. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him. He will be a nonconformist, a Missouri mule—a man with whom no one can get along.
Hagar, glimpsing here something of God's omniscience and power, names Him The God Who Sees Me. This is the circumstance that gripped her. Here is a God who sees me and knows me just as I am as well as all that concerns me. So she named the well The Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.
Have you found God to be the one who lives and sees, the one who knows all about your life and your circumstances? The one who knows the past and the future and says to you as He said to Hagar, Return and submit? That is the place of promised blessing.
We are also told that this well is located between Kadesh and Bered. Kadesh means holiness, and Bered means hail or judgment. Here is the well of grace, lying between holiness and judgment. When we begin to stray from the place of God's blessing toward the certainty of judgment, God meets us on the way at the well of grace, saying, Wait a minute. I don't want to have to make this known to others. I don't want to judge you openly. I don't want to bring trial or affliction or heartache into your life to make you listen. Listen now. Return and submit so I won't have to do this. That is the well of grace. So Hagar returns, and Ishmael is born.
Dear Father, teach me that You are the God Who Sees Me, and when I run, teach me to return and submit.
Life Application
Have we caught a vision of God as the One who sees us, knows us, and intimately cares for us? Are we running to Him or away from Him?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 12, 2023 5:04:14 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 12TH
God Almighty
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. Genesis 17:1
After thirteen years of silence, God appears to Abram in a new revelation and with a new name—God Almighty. In the Hebrew it is El Shaddai, which essentially means the God who is sufficient, the all-competent God, the adequate God who knows what He is doing and how to do it. This is an indication that Abram has learned something from his recent bitter experience. God says, in effect, You have been learning for thirteen years the total inadequacy of your own efforts through Ishmael. Now learn a new thing about me. I am El Shaddai. You have discovered by sad experience how futile your plans and efforts can be without me. Now learn how capable I am to do everything that I desire to do, whenever I desire to do it.
Would that we could all discover this truth! We need desperately to recover the reality of El Shaddai, the God who is sufficient for whatever we are going through right now! This is what Abram learned.
In this new light from God came a new demand from God. Walk before me and be blameless. In the King James Version, this word blameless is translated perfect. The root meaning of the word is wholehearted. Walk before me and be perfect, wholehearted, God says, because I am El Shaddai. That is, I am all-sufficient to make you blameless. Walk before Me, therefore, and be blameless.
I remember a time when I was a boy, and I was looking through the iron bars of a large gate at a beautiful estate full of flower-bordered walks, eyeing it with a great deal of envy. Suddenly, before I saw him, another boy about my own age rushed up from the other side and gave my arms a jerk. The bump I received taught me the foolishness of trying to be on two sides of a fence at once.
This is a truth that is often brought before us in the New Testament. We are so constantly trying to serve two masters, to please self and Christ. We are quite content to serve Christ, if we can also serve self at the same time. But God says to Abram, This can no longer be permitted. You have come to the place where your dual allegiance can no longer be tolerated. Walk now before Me, appropriating what I am, and be wholehearted, be wholly on my side, be mine! This is what a circumcised life means, as we shall see in our next study. It is Christ asserting his practical lordship in our lives.
When you became a Christian, you did so by recognizing the right of Jesus Christ to be Lord in your life. You did not, of course, understand what that would involve, but you saw that His willingness to save you involved His right to control you. For a time, though you knew you were essentially different, you lived much as you did before. You made decisions on the basis of how you felt and what you wanted to do. Then the Holy Spirit begins to put on the pressure. He says to you, Stop this! or Start doing that! All He is really doing is asserting the lordship of Christ in your life. He is beginning to cut the ties that bind you to the world and the self-life within you.
Lord, I see that You are God Almighty. Teach me to submit all that I am and all that I hope for to You.
Life Application
Self-serving is really denying that our Lord is all-sufficient. Are we learning to trust His liberating control of all areas of our lives?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 13, 2023 5:05:31 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 13TH
The Circumcised Life
This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. Genesis 17:10
What a strange thing this is, literally carving in the flesh the sign of God's lordship! This is the great sign of the Jews, intended by God to be the mark of His possession, that they were God's instrument to use as a blessing among the nations. It was placed upon this particular part of the body to indicate that they were to be physically separate from the other nations. The very organ by which that separation could be violated bore upon it the mark of God's ownership. As we read the course of Jewish history, we see how this mark, intended to be the sign of humility and instrumentality, became perverted into a mark of superiority and favoritism. Those who bore it began to look on others as Gentile dogs and to be self-righteous and proud over their supposed favored position before God. Thus the spirit of anti-Semitism that troubles the world so today was born of the spirit of anti-Gentilism that preceded it. This does not justify either, of course.
Now let us remember that what was physical and literal to Abraham is intended to have spiritual significance to us. In the New Testament, we no longer read of circumcision of the flesh but of the heart. The heart is the symbol of the soul—the mind, emotions, and will, the whole personality. All believers in Christ are to bear on their hearts the sign of Christ's lordship. The total personality is to be at their disposal.
This is the meaning of heart circumcision: Believers' hearts are totally Christ's to use as He wills—all their emotions, mind, intellect, and will are dedicated and available, ready at the command of Jesus Christ to be used for His purposes. Paul says to the Philippians, We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh (Philippians 3:3 KJV). We are to have no reliance upon ourselves but rely totally upon Him. Every thought, every imagination, is brought into captivity to Christ. That is the circumcised life. Walk therefore before me, and be wholehearted, blameless. That will be a life of fruitfulness and blessing, a life that is well pleasing to God, for it all springs from the realization that the God who lives within is El Shaddai, the God who is sufficient.
Father, it is quite possible for me to give the impression that I am totally Yours, yet to be quite false to that ideal. Help me to discover the glory of the circumcised life.
Life Application
As Christ's ones we are meant to authentically bear the sign of His lordship in our total personality. Are we thinking and responding as though Jesus is alive in us?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 14, 2023 6:59:43 GMT -8
DEVOTION FOR TODAY — JUNE 14TH
God's Tests
The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Genesis 18:1
In this event God tests Abraham's heart to determine whether he is really a circumcised believer. God appears in such a commonplace way that Abraham is not aware of His identity. I've long wished for some kind of a test that could be used in Bible schools and seminaries to determine the degree of spiritual maturity the students have attained. All the tests that are commonly used reveal only the amount of information that a student has amassed. There is little that reveals the real spiritual achievement of a life.
Nevertheless, although humans have not been able to devise any such test, God is always testing us, and His testing does not come when we are warned and ready. Anyone can pass a test then. If I tell you that I am going to test you to see if you exhibit love under pressure, whether you can keep your temper when you are being irritated, and if you can be sweet when things are going wrong, you are likely to pass with flying colors.
But God never tests that way. His tests catch us unprepared, off-guard. It is when we are confronted with some simple situation that no one will know about that the tests of life really come. When you are relaxing at home and the phone rings and suddenly you are confronted with a call for help or a demand for a response—and you had planned to relax and enjoy yourself all afternoon—what happens then? That's the test.
When you are busy around the house with your hands immersed in dishwater and something is burning on the stove and the refrigerator has just quit and the sink is stopped up and you have sixteen different problems on your mind, and your child comes up and asks you a question that seems of little importance, what do you do then? That's the test.
When your neighbor or friend gets sick and somebody has to take care of the children—what do you do? What is your reaction? These are God's tests. This is the way God tested Abraham.
Isn't this the meaning of Paul's words in Romans 12? Therefore, I urge you, brothers,... to offer your bodies as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1a). It is one thing to be present in a great meeting where the Spirit is moving in evident power, and an appeal goes out to rededicate the heart, and we hear the words, Present your bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord. Under the stress or pull of that meeting we may well say, Here am I, Lord, I give my life to you. But this is never the test. The test comes when some situation occurs in daily life that forces you to face the question: Is my body really available for Him to do what He wants? Am I ready to respond to the need of the human heart right there in front of me? Am I ready to give of myself without limitation to meet a demand that comes suddenly in the course of my busy life?
Father, Your tests are always designed to strengthen and teach me. Thank You that with every test come Your resources to endure.
Life Application
Our Father knows that for His children to have sturdy and steadfast faith it must be tested. Are we aiming for His goals? How are we responding to needed tests?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 15, 2023 6:56:09 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 15TH
Laughing At The Impossible
Is anything too hard for the LORD?
Genesis 18:14
Sarah's laughter is cynical, unbelieving. If this were all of the story, we would be tempted to say that this woman is no example to follow. But over in the New Testament, in the book of Hebrews, we get the rest of the story. There, in that hall of fame of the heroes of faith, Sarah's name appears: By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised (Hebrews 11:11 RSV).
After the guests left, Sarah was still thinking about what she had heard, and the words of the Lord came home to her heart in peculiar power—especially the question God had asked, Is anything too difficult for the Lord? As Sarah thought about it, she had to face that question. She began to think of it—the Creator; the one who called out of nothing the vast world in which we live and beyond that the worlds that circle us in the limitless reaches of space; the one who sustains from day to day all the mighty, complex forces of earth, brings the sun up on time, guides the planets in their whirling courses, predicts human events and centuries later brings them to pass exactly as He promised. As Sarah began to think of the one who had said these words, she felt the full force of that question: Is anything too difficult for the Lord? And she looked beyond the contrary facts of her own life and said, Of course not. Nothing is too hard for the Lord. If He has promised, then it shall be done. Through faith she received power to conceive when she was past the age because she counted Him faithful who had promised.
What a beautiful lesson this is on the nature of faith. Faith looks beyond all the contrary circumstances to rest upon the character of the one who promised. Do not be misled by the popular delusion that faith stands by itself, that it is simply believing—anything! Faith must have a promise to rest upon. Anything else is presumption, gullibility, and folly. But when God has given a word, it is the Word of God, and it can be trusted, despite circumstance, feelings, or anything else. For is anything too difficult for the Lord?
Does it seem hard to you to be what God wants you to be? Is it hard to keep your evil nature in the place of death? It is not too hard for the Lord! Does it seem hard to you to be made sweet and gracious and forgiving and loving when down inside you know how nasty and devious and unpleasant and perverse you can be? It is hard for you, but it is not too hard for the Lord! Does it seem hard that the friend for whom you are praying should ever be converted, or the one that is now rebelling against grace can ever be changed? Is anything too hard for the Lord? Does some task that God is now asking of you seem impossible to perform? It may be hard for you, but it is not too hard for the Lord.
Lord, help me to believe in the midst of my own seeming impossible situations that nothing is impossible with You.
Life Application
When God asks something of us that seems impossible, do we lean harder on our own resources, or do we venture in faith based on His total adequacy?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 16, 2023 4:43:56 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 16TH
How Prayer Works
When the LORD had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
Genesis 18:33
This verse does not say, The Lord went his way when Abraham had finished speaking to Him. It says, When He had finished speaking to Abraham. In other words, Abraham did not quit here, God did. The verse suggests that God initiated this whole conversation with Abraham and led him along all through it, and when he had responded in fullness as God desired, God terminated the dialogue and went His way. So Abraham was not asking God to do something for him; it was God who prayed in Abraham and set the limits of the conversation.
This agrees fully with what we read in the New Testament about prayer. In Romans Paul says, We do not know what we ought to pray for (Romans 8:26b). Do you know what to pray for about yourself or anyone else? No, you do not. But, he says, the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit (Romans 8:26c-27).
Admittedly, in talking about prayer, we are treading at the edge of mystery, but through the mists, certain things are clear from this account of Abraham's prayer: Prayer makes possible, first of all, the joy of partnership. Did you ever see a little boy come into the house and say to his mother, I'm going to help Daddy!? He is filled with pride about it, and he goes out and passes up nails and holds the boards and pounds his fingers. Daddy could have done the job better by himself, but he loves to have his son help him. And the son loves it, too. There is a sense of partnership there. This is what prayer does. Through true prayer, God never moves entirely on His own. He loves to gather us in and have us help pound the nails. If we pound our fingers a little bit, He is there to soothe us.
Prayer also enables us to appropriate the character of God. Abraham is never more like God than at the moment he is praying for Sodom. His prayer did not save the city, and it was never intended to do so, but it did make Abraham manifest in his own life the mercy and the compassion of God. This is why God asks us to pray, that we might take upon ourselves something of His own character.
The third consideration: Prayer focuses the power of God on an individual place or person. Although Abraham had never mentioned Lot by name, God remembered Abraham and saved Lot (19:29). I don't know why prayer makes such a difference, but I know it does. You can plan a program, think through all the details, set up all the committees, get all the things you need, instruct everybody, and rehearse it, and at the final presentation it may fall totally flat. But if you involve others in the ministry of prayer concerning the program, though the preparations may be similar, the difference in the presentation is that it comes with power, with impact, and with full strength, and lives are changed.
Father, I see that prayer is not a means by which I dictate to You or summon You to do what my will is, but rather it is the means by which I put my shoulder to the wheel to which Your shoulder is put and am enlisted in a partnership with You in Your great endeavors on earth.
Life Application
Do we think of our prayers as opportunity to summon God to our agenda? Are we learning that true prayer is our response to God's summons to partner with Him?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 17, 2023 4:32:55 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 17TH
The Wasted Years
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city
Genesis 19:1a
The expression at the beginning of this account, sitting in the gateway of the city, is an Eastern expression that needs to be understood. This does not mean Lot was simply passing the time of day in the gate. This is a technical phrase that means he was the chief magistrate of the city of Sodom. His job was not only to give an official welcome to visitors of the city but also to investigate the nature of any strangers who might come and also to administer justice concerning any quarrels. The nearest equivalent we have today would be the office of mayor.
I want to be fair with Lot; I believe he meant to do the right thing. It is clear from the story of his life that though he wanted to get something out of Sodom, he also expected to put something into Sodom. He probably thought to himself, Well, I may do these people good. I may be able to win some of them from evil to faith. I can make money faster here than anywhere else, that's true, but I also may help clean up the city a little bit. It's a wicked place, and perhaps I can improve its moral life. When Lot moved into Sodom, this is undoubtedly what he had in mind. Before long he became the mayor of the town, the most respected man in the city, the leader of its civic life.
I would like to ask Lot a question. Lot, you made a great success out of your life. You've won your way from a nobody to the mayor of the city. You entered as an unknown, a foreigner, and you've achieved both wealth and honor here in the city of Sodom. My first question is this: How has your choice of life in Sodom affected your own inner life?
Notice the extent of the evil of this city. This is the reason God visited it in judgment. Verse 4 says that all the men of the city, both young and old, surrounded the house. All the people of Sodom were involved in homosexuality. As you read this account, you can see that Lot's reaction is disgust and shame. And this is no isolated instance; this was just a common ordinary event in Sodom. Second Peter says Lot was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) (2 Peter 2:7b-8).
This is a picture of discontent, bafflement, and frustration. Lot's soul was continuously vexed. He had tasted enough of the higher things of fellowship with God that he could never be satisfied with these sordid, ugly, obscene, and lewd things of Sodom. Where are rest and peace and quietness of heart? It is up there with Abraham in his tent under the oak tree. But here in the city of Sodom is this man Lot. What good is it to have luxuries and wealth and every material gain if the heart is continually filled with a great hunger that cannot be fed or satisfied? Lot's answer to that question must be that his own life is grievously thwarted and blighted by the life of the city of Sodom.
Lord, deliver me from wasted years where I sacrifice fellowship with You for success in the eyes of this world
Life Application
In pursuit of worldly success we can seriously damage the inner life of the soul. Do we need to re-assess our goals and invest our lives in eternal values?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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Post by Obadiah on Jun 18, 2023 5:09:59 GMT -8
A DAILY DEVOTION FOR JUNE 18TH
The High Cost Of Compromise
So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father.
Genesis 19:36
Before this incident, these two girls were physically virgins, but they were already debauched in their minds. They had long since grown accustomed to obscenity and unrestrained luridness, so, up in the cave on the mountainside, they seized the thinnest tissue of excuses, and the story ends in a foul orgy of drunkenness and incest. Lot had nothing but heartbreak and grief to show for his years in Sodom. The Lord said, For whoever wants to save his life will lose it (Matthew 16:25a). So Lot, trying to get the best out of both worlds, lost all and has become for all time the picture of the Christian who is saved, but only as one escaping through the flames (1 Corinthians 3:15b). He has nothing but wasted years to look back on and eternity ahead. When you attempt to gain the best of both worlds, you destroy others beside yourself. What was the greatest pang in Lot's heart when he awoke there in the cave in the mountains and learned all that had happened? Do you think it was grief over his lost wealth, his vanished honor, his troubled mind? Don't you think that the greatest, deepest wound of all in that man's heart was the recognition of what he had done to his loved ones in Sodom his little girls, his wife?
Your children are watching you who are parents, and they see your outward respectability, your desire to be right and to do good. But in some of you, they also see that the deepest thing in your life is to get gain or to enjoy pleasure. They see that you will quickly sacrifice a prayer meeting for a night out, that you are always willing to take a bigger salary, regardless of what it may do to the family in terms of new conditions or new circles of friends. They see that the things for which you sacrifice and are willing to skimp and save are not missions or the church or the work of God, but a new car, a new television set, nicer furniture, a longer vacation, or a pretentious home. They are watching, and they see all this.
Bit by bit these children lose interest in the Bible and church. They resolve to get ahead in the world and win the respect of Sodom no matter what moral restraint they have to throw overboard to do it. This is why we see the tragedy of Christian homes where children are turning from God. And the deep sorrow these parents will carry to their grave, the deepest sorrow of their heart, will be that, though they still have their own faith, because of their compromise, they have lost their children. This tragic story of Lot is taking place here and now, in the modern Sodom and Gomorrah in which we live.
Father, thank You for this stern but loving warning from the life of Lot. Help me to make those choices that will result in those I love seeing and wanting all that You are and all that You provide for those who follow You.
Life Application
We need always to remember we do not live in isolation. Do we weigh our choices, mindful that the direction we take has serious fall-out consequences on others?
Daily Devotion © 2006, 2023 by Ray Stedman Ministries.
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