Lord, hear our prayer:
Father, most glorious Lord, we have come to give you thanks and praise. We have come to worship you. Father, we praise you that we can know you. We have come to thank you for the world that is a picture of your love. We have come to praise you for games to play and friends to play with; for things to learn and books to read; for Jesus, who makes your love real. It’s in his name we give you thanks and glory.
Amen.
THE more a nation’s divorce rate increases, the more God regards the situation as a national scandal. That seems to be the import of Malachi’s words concerning divorce (Malachi 2:14-16). Apparently a substantial number of husbands in postexilic Judah were “dealing treacherously” by divorcing their wives. This treachery involved a retraction of their marriage vows, but it also represented treachery against the Lord.
What provoked this skyrocketing divorce rate? The books of Ezra and Nehemiah tell of those two leaders challenging the men of the land to “put away” the wives that they had married from among the Canaanites and other peoples of the land (Ezra 9; 10; Nehemiah 13:23-27). These divorces were regarded as a means of national cleansing and a return to the covenant.
But is it possible that this policy of dissolving mixed marriages helped to create a jaded attitude about divorce? Could it have contributed to a climate in which divorce became an easy alternative even when both partners were Jewish, evidence of which we continue to see in Jesus’ day (Matthew 19:3-9)?
Malachi, a contemporary of Ezra and Nehemiah, spoke clearly about God’s attitude: The Lord hates divorce! (Malachi 2:16). The prophet warned the people to “guard yourselves in your spirit.” A casual attitude toward divorce was a symptom of a problem with one’s heart attitude toward the Lord. Loyalty to Him was what counted.
Saturday August 3, 2024
2 Corinthians 3:18
We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,
just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
When it comes to radical spiritual transformations, it’s easy for us to think of saints like the apostle Paul (from persecutor to protector of the church), John Newton (from slave trader to pastor), and Nicky Cruz (from street thug to street evangelist). But the truth is, every follower of Jesus has been transformed.
Before you met Jesus, you were something that needed radical transformation—what the Bible calls a “natural” man or woman (1 Corinthians 2:14). You may have been polite, friendly, generous, and well educated—hardly someone who appeared in need of transformation. But in God’s eyes, the need was readily apparent. Only God can see the fallen human nature that does not know how to give glory to the Creator. If you think for a moment about your life before and since meeting Jesus, you’ll see the transforming work only God could accomplish.
Whether the changes are subtle or significant, they are the work of the Holy Spirit within you, reproducing the life of Jesus (Romans 8:29). Don’t forget today to thank God for the changes He has made.
Even though he had been a priest for twenty-eight years, Martin Luther, who fell away from the priesthood and the Catholic faith, never revealed anything he had heard in confession.
He left the Church, married a nun, preached and wrote against the Catholic Church and everyone and everything in it, but he never told a single thing he had heard in confession.
From Last Lesson: So we have this problem, justice saying, “No,” and love saying, “Yes.”
WE cannot solve this problem, because we have no analogy in our own life that can begin to compare with this act of God on Calvary. I may say to my child, “Now if you do this or do that, I am going to spank you. I’m going to use the razor strap on you.” But when he comes in after having disobeyed me, he knows how to handle dad. He manufactures a couple of tears, his lip begins to tremble, and instead of getting the rod, I pick him up in my arms and hug and kiss him, and forgive him. By doing so, however, I have made myself a liar. I have violated my promise. I have said that I would punish him, and I did not do it. I have broken my promise of punishment.
Now, beloved, God cannot do anything of that kind because He is unchangeable. He Himself has said, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). He also said, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). He must punish the sinner with an infinite punishment, which means that it would take man an eternity to pay the price.
There is, however, also love, just as powerful, just as infinite, because all of God’s attributes are equal. It says, “No, if justice acts, then love will be violated.” Now how is this problem going to be met? The sinner cannot meet it, and so God comes and says, as it were, “I will pay man’s debt myself in the person of a sacrifice, even my Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,” who alone is able to meet this problem.
Think now of God passing between the sacrifice while Abram is asleep and helpless. There you have a picture of Calvary. Because He was infinite God, He could pay the infinite penalty for man. Thus we have the smoking furnace, God satisfied, in the sacrifice of these bleeding animals, while Gods love also is fully satisfied on the basis of this same sacrifice. “Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other” at Calvary. God’s justice fully satisfied in the death of His Son, God’s wrath met, and at the same time His love fully gratified on the basis of the sacrifice of an innocent substitute. Abram himself should have lain there on the altar; that was his proper place. Instead God permitted him to kill an innocent substitute. Then He stood between the pieces of the sacrifice and made His covenant of pure grace; He joined hands as it were with Himself, for the salvation of Abraham. When it is done, He seems to say, “Now, Abram, wake up; I have good news for you.” We are not surprised that immediately after this incident we read:
“On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram” (Genesis 15:18).
Lord, hear our prayer:
Father, we thank you that we can come to you just as we are. We praise you that you know us completely. We do not have to pretend; you know what we are really like. We thank you that you still love us. We praise you that in Jesus you shared all that this life means to us. We thank you that through him we can enter the heaven of your love. We are glad that you know the things that hurt us. We thank you for understanding our fears. We praise you that we never need to feel unloved, unwanted, unnecessary. We give thanks in Jesus’ precious name.
Amen.
Thinking, praying, reading, studying the Bible – when we do these things, we are reflecting on the Word of God. To reflect is to contemplate and/or consider, and God wants us to deeply reflect on His Word so that we can better understand Him.
My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:19.
What a source—“God!” What a standard—“His riches in glory!” What a channel—“Christ Jesus!” It is your sweet privilege to place all your need over against His riches, and lose sight of the former in the presence of the latter. His exhaustless treasury is thrown open to you, in all the love of His heart; go and draw upon it, in the artless simplicity of faith, and you will never have occasion to look to a creature-stream or lean on a creature-prop.
~ C. H. MACKINTOSH
Friday August 2, 2024
Luke 12:36
You yourselves be like men who wait for their master,
when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes
and knocks they may open to him immediately.
Jesus is waiting for the day when he is to return.
He takes for granted that all His real friends are doing likewise. This runs like a red thread through all His sayings about His second advent.
If I understand Jesus correctly, to await the return of the Lord is one of the signs that we are true friends of Jesus.
Are we awaiting His return?
Or has something gone to pieces within us, as a result of which the day which Jesus looks forward to with rejoicing has become distant and unreal?
I remember from the time that I was a lad how we children looked forward with joy to the return of faith and mother when they had been away. But I remember also that there were times when I did not look forward with joy. I had not behaved properly. I can still remember the anxiety I felt when I heard the sound of the wagon in the distance.
Nothing is harder for Jesus to bear than that His return has become a thing to be feared. There are many who did wait for His return years ago, but who no longer do so.
One awaits with joy those whom one loves.
At the railway station we see the station master. He is all ready; the flyer can come whenever it will. But whether it comes or not makes little difference to him.
But look at old Anne over there. She is listening for the train and asking about it. For she is waiting for it. Andrew, her son, is coming on that train. And she has not seen him for twenty years.
“Bear through the night
Your well-trimmed light,
Speed forth to join the marriage rite.”
As people once bound to sin and destined for death, our ability to approach God personally—to call Him our Father—should astound us. Yet we sometimes forget to pray. We can take it for granted that He looks out for our every need.
The concept of approaching God as Father would have been a radical concept for the Roman community. In his letter to the church there, Paul discusses how our former lives without God were nothing but slavery to sin and death, the wages of sin. Christ’s work has set us free from this trajectory:
“For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself confirms to our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer together with him so that we may also be glorified together with him” (Romans 8:15-17).
Paul’s audience would have used the term “Abba! Father!” only within immediate family relationships. To call God “our Father” would have been a shocking paradigm shift—especially for Jewish believers. However, Christ’s sacrifice made this relationship possible. He paid our debt and repaired the rift. Because of His work, and because we share in His Spirit, we also share in His relationship with the Father. We can call out to God, just as Jesus did. And the Father cares for us, just as He cares for His Son.
We may forget our intimate relationship with God, yet the Spirit continues to work within us to bring our lives into accordance with this relationship with the Father. Pray for insight and gratitude for your new position because of Christ. When you call on God, relate to Him as a child would to a loving father—bringing all to Him and knowing He understands you and knows what is best for you.
Lord, hear our prayer:
Lord, we thank you for our health and strength; for the healing and help we receive when we are ill. We thank you for those who love us; for those who share our lives. We praise you for Jesus; for showing just how much you really love us; for his life, death and resurrection; for the promise that through his Holy Spirit he is always with us. Forgive us that we find it so hard to trust you, so difficult to love each other, so easy to let you down. Forgive us, and make us new in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
Thinking, praying, reading, studying the Bible – when we do these things, we are reflecting on the Word of God. To reflect is to contemplate and/or consider, and God wants us to deeply reflect on His Word so that we can better understand Him.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me. – Philippians 4:13.
O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.
~ PHILLIPS BROOKS
Thursday August 1, 2024
Matthew 11:1
Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples,
that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities.
He comes where He commands us to leave.
If when God said ‘Go,’ you stayed, because you were so concerned about your people at home, you robbed them of the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach; as long as you would not obey, you were in the way. Watch where you begin to debate and to put what you call duty in competition with your Lord’s commands. ‘I know God told me to go, but then my duty was here’; that means you do not believe that Jesus means what he says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to.
“Master, … let us make three tabernacles.”
Are we playing the spiritual amateur providence in other lives? Are we so noisy in our instruction of others that God cannot get anywhere near them? We have to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us in regard to His Son, He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration, and we will not let Him. When we are certain of the way God is going to work, He will never work in that way any more.
He works where He sends us to wait.
“Tarry ye . . . until . . .” Wait on God and He will work, but don’t wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see an inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual hysterics to wait on God? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told.
These are phases of His ways we rarely recognize.
Those of us who have purchased a home know the frightening feeling of closing day—“Am I signing my life away? Am I binding myself to this building forever?” Imagine, on top of those feelings, knowing that the place you’re buying is about to be overrun by a foreign nation and may no longer belong to you. That’s what the prophet Jeremiah experienced.
Yahweh tells Jeremiah that his cousin will arrive with an offer to purchase a field. So when Jeremiah’s cousin shows up, Jeremiah views it as Yahweh’s will that he purchase the land, and he does (Jeremiah 32:1-12). Meanwhile, Jeremiah knows that the Babylonians are coming and that they will overrun the land of God’s people, including the land that he has just purchased. This is not a reckless act; this is a moment of faith. Jeremiah seizes the opportunity to proclaim Yahweh’s faithfulness.
Turning to his assistant, Baruch, Jeremiah remarks in front of everyone witnessing the purchase:
“Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Take these deeds, this deed of the purchase, the sealed one, and this opened deed, and you must put them in an earthenware jar so that they may be kept preserved many days.’ For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land’ ” (Jeremiah 32:14-15).
Each of us has moments when we must do what no one else will do—and that includes saying what others are not willing to say. What “land” is God asking you to buy, and what is He asking you to proclaim about it?
Lord, hear our prayer:
Wonderful and glorious God! Thank you for the peace, hope, joy and courage with which you have filled our lives and for the gratitude with which you have flooded our hearts. We thank you and we praise you and we worship you, for you alone are worthy. We ask that, by the Holy Spirit, you will take all that we have brought, our hymns, our words and our prayers, and transform it through his powerful presence into joyful celebration that is worthy of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. In the name of Christ the Lord.
Amen.
Thinking, praying, reading, studying the Bible – when we do these things, we are reflecting on the Word of God. To reflect is to contemplate and/or consider, and God wants us to deeply reflect on His Word so that we can better understand Him.
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. – Philippians 4:11.
He who realizes that he is where God wants him to be, and that he has what God wants him to have, will be contented with his lot and his store, whatever they are; but he who fails to realize this truth would never be contented though he were the most favored man in all the world.
~ COLTON
Wednesday July 31, 2024
2 Corinthians 7:5
We were afflicted at every turn.
Why should God have to lead us thus, and allow the pressure to be so hard and constant?
Well, in the first place, it shows His all-sufficient strength and grace much better than if we were exempt from pressure and trial. “The treasure is in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.”
It make us more conscious of our dependence upon Him. God is constantly trying to teach us our dependence, and to hold us absolutely in His hand and hanging upon His care.
This was the place where Jesus Himself stood and where He wants us to stand, not with a self-constituted strength, but with a hand ever leaning upon His, and a trust that dare not take one step alone.
It teaches us trust. There is no way of learning faith except by trial. It is God’s school of faith, and it is far better for us to learn to trust God than to enjoy life.
The lesson of faith, once learned, is an everlasting acquisition and an eternal fortune made; and without trust even riches will leave us poor.
We like to think of ourselves as autonomous. Our modern culture champions freedom and the right to pursue happiness. But if we apply the concept of rights when we think about faith, following Christ can feel like religion, dogma, rules—a type of bondage that requires us to think and behave in ways that make our autonomous selves bridle.
Paul looks at the issue differently:
“Do you not know that to whomever you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to whomever you obey, whether sin, leading to death, or obedience, leading to righteousness?” (Romans 6:16).
He uses another analogy in his letter to the church in Rome—one that draws on the practice of the slavery within his own culture—to highlight the opposite view. If we live without God, he says, we have a debt that binds us. We are a slave to sin, and it’s the type of bondage that leads to death.
Yet, there is hope. Although we were slaves to sin, we can be redeemed from that slavery. Christ has paid the debt we incurred. He has set us free and brought us into a new bondage—not one that binds to death, but one that binds us to Him in life. If we believe this is true and put our trust in Him, we are no longer slaves.
As redeemed people, we’re called to a new life. While we once charted our own independent path—one that led to death—we can turn and follow a path that leads to sanctification and eternal life, a path that God charts just for us. While our path required a toll—death—Christ has paid that toll so we can walk in new life:
“The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Lord, hear our prayer:
Wonderful and glorious God! We thank you that you fill our hearts with your hope and our lives with a sense of expectation; that you heal our wounds and wipe away our tears; that you excite us with your grace and overwhelm us with your mercy; that in Christ’s life, death and resurrection you have demonstrated your victory over death and despair and given us the assurance that nothing, but nothing, can bring an end to your loving-kindness towards us or separate us from your love. Thank you that you bring us through every time of pain, brokenness and anxiety; that we can speak to others of your love in total confidence of its reality and its power to make all things new. In the name of Christ the Lord.
Amen.
Thinking, praying, reading, studying the Bible – when we do these things, we are reflecting on the Word of God. To reflect is to contemplate and/or consider, and God wants us to deeply reflect on His Word so that we can better understand Him.
Whatever is true . . . whatever is pure . . . think about these things. – Philippians 4:8.
If we look down, then our shoulders stoop. If our thoughts look down, our character bends. It is only when we hold our heads up that the body becomes erect. It is only when our thoughts go up that our life becomes erect.
~ MCKENZIE
Tuesday July 30, 2024
Philippians 2:12
Your own salvation.
I know some who greatly need to look to their own salvation. I refer to those who are always criticizing others. They can hardly go to a place of worship without observing their neighbor’s dress or conduct. Nobody is safe from their remarks; they are such keen judges and make such shrewd observations. You faultfinders and talebearers, look to ‘your own salvation’. You condemned a minister the other day for a supposed fault, and yet he is a dear servant of God who lives near his Master; who are you, sir, to use your tongue against such a one as he? The other day a poor humble Christian was the object of your gossip and your slander to the wounding of her heart. Oh, see to yourself. If those eyes which look outward so piercingly would sometimes look inward, they might see a sight which would blind them with horror. Blessed horror, if it led them to turn to the Saviour who would open those eyes afresh and grant them to see his salvation. I might also say that in this matter of looking to personal salvation, it is necessary to speak to some who have espoused great public designs. I trust I am as ardent a Protestant as any man living, but I know too many red-hot Protestants who are little better than Romanists, for though the Romanists of old might have burnt them, they would certainly withhold toleration from Romanists today, if they could; and therein I see not a pin to choose between the two bigots. Zealous Protestants, I agree with you, but yet I warn you that your zeal in this matter will not save you, or stand in the stead of personal godliness. Many an orthodox Protestant will be found at the left hand of the Great Judge.
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FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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