Daily Scriptures and reflections [continued]

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November 26, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" Love Finds A Way | Our Daily Bread

Love Finds A Way

Read: 1 Corinthians 13:4-13

Love never fails. —1 Corinthians 13:8

Years ago I saw a cartoon that depicted a sour, disgruntled, elderly gentleman standing in rumpled pajamas and robe at his apartment door. He had just secured the door for the night with four locks, two deadbolts, and a chain latch. Later he noticed a small white envelope stuck beneath the door. On the envelope was a large sticker in the shape of a heart. It was a valentine. Love had found a way.

Only love can change a person’s heart. The Russian author Dostoevsky, in his book The Brothers Karamazov, tells the story of a hardened cynic, Ivan, and his resistance to the love of God. On one occasion his brother Alyosha, a man of deep faith who was confounded by his brother’s resistance, leans over and kisses Ivan. This simple act of love burned into Ivan’s heart.

Perhaps you have a friend who is resisting God’s love. Show His love to him or her, just as God showed love to us when He brought salvation into the world through Jesus. Shower upon others the kind of love described in 1 Corinthians 13—a love that is patient, kind, humble, and unselfish.

Authentic love is a gift from God that we can keep on giving.

Teach me to love as Thou dost love,
And let the whole world know
That Jesus Christ lives in my heart,
His glorious light to show. —Brandt

God pours His love into our hearts to flow out to others.

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November 27, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" More And More | Our Daily Bread

More And More

Read: 1 Thessalonians 3:12–4:10

May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you. —1 Thessalonians 3:12

A rallying cry often heard today in our economically challenged world is “Less and less.” Governments are called to balance their budgets. People are urged to use less energy and decrease consumption of limited resources. It is good advice that we should all heed. In the realm of faith, however, there are no shortages of love and grace and strength. Therefore, as followers of Christ, we are urged to demonstrate His love in our lives in ever-increasing measure.

In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the believers in Thessalonica, he urged them to “abound more and more” in a lifestyle that pleases God (4:1). He also commended them for their demonstration of love for each other, and called them to “increase more and more” in brotherly love (v.10).

That kind of ever-increasing love is possible only because it comes from God’s limitless resources, not from our own dwindling supply. Poet Annie Johnson Flint wrote:

His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,
His power has no boundary known unto men;
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

The apostle Paul expressed his desire for the believers: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you” (1 Thess. 3:12).

How much should we love God and others? More and more!

Our limited ability to love does not change God’s limitless power to love through us.

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November 28, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" Bookmobile | Our Daily Bread

Bookmobile

Read: Philippians 3:7-14

That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. —Philippians 3:10

Before the electronic gadgets and distractions of today, the long summer days of my boyhood were brightened each week when the bookmobile arrived. It was a bus lined with book-filled shelves that were transported from the regional library to neighborhoods so that those without transportation could access them. Because of the bookmobile, I spent many a happy summer day reading books that would otherwise have been inaccessible. To this day, I am thankful for the love of books that the bookmobile fostered in me.

Some Bible scholars say that the apostle Paul had a love of books and studied them till the end of his life. He wrote in his final letter, “Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come—and the books, especially the parchments” (2 Tim. 4:13). The books he was asking for could very well have been the Old Testament and/or some of his own writings.

I’m sure that Paul’s pursuit of knowledge was more than intellectual curiosity or entertainment. It was the pursuit of Christ that drove Paul. His goal: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil 3:10). I pray that this same pursuit will drive us today.

Heavenly Father, give me a passionate desire
to know You and Your Son. Please stir my heart
for this, the greatest of all pursuits, so that
I might grow ever closer to You. Amen.

To know Christ is the greatest of all knowledge.

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November 29, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" A Life Of Honor | Our Daily Bread

A Life Of Honor

Read: Psalm 112

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments. —Psalm 112:1

In 2010, my brothers and I celebrated our dad’s 90th birthday. We hosted an open house with great food and fellowship. In the living room, family and friends took up banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, and Irish drum to play and sing all afternoon. A big cake was prepared with this written on it in frosting: “Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord—Psalm 112:1. Happy 90th birthday, Hal.”

When I later examined Psalm 112, I was impressed with how it seemed to describe my dad—who had walked with God for more than 50 years and is now at home with Him. Dad had his own share of heartaches and faults, but his steadfast faith resulted in much blessing. This psalm tells us that blessings will fall on the man who has a reverential fear of God and who delights in His commands. In response to this growing integrity and faith, God will extend blessing not only to the believer but also to his children (v.2).

This psalm challenges us to reflect an inner reverence for God and to make continual decisions to delight in following His commands. If we do that, then as we look back on our years—no matter how many or how few—we will know that God has helped us live a life of honor.

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do His good will, He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey. —Sammis

If you honor God in your heart, He will be honored by your life.

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November 30, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" Our Prayer; God

Our Prayer; God’s Will

Read: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

I pleaded with the Lord three times that [a thorn in the flesh] might depart from me. —2 Corinthians 12:8

The handwritten prayer request was heartbreaking in its seeming impossibility: “Please pray—I have multiple sclerosis, weak muscles, trouble swallowing, increased pain, diminishing sight.” The woman’s body was breaking down, and I could sense despair in her plea for intercession.

But then came the hope—the strength that trumps the physical damage and degradation: “I know our blessed Savior is in full control. His will is of utmost importance to me.”

This person may have needed my prayers, but I needed something she had: unabated confidence in God. She seemed to present a perfect portrait of the truth God taught Paul when he asked for relief from his difficulty—what he called his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7). His quest for relief turned out to be not just a seeming impossibility; his request was turned down flat by his heavenly Father. Paul’s continual struggle, which was clearly God’s will, was a valuable lesson: Through his weakness, God’s grace could be displayed and God’s strength was “made perfect” (v.9).

As we pour out our hearts to God, let’s be even more concerned with seeking His will than we are with receiving the answer we want. That’s where the grace and the strength come from.

Dear heavenly Father, I bring to You my petitions,
but I give to You my heart. While I plead for You to
answer my prayers, I also submit to Your will so that
my heart may be strengthened and Your work be done.

We pray not to obtain our will in heaven, but to effect God’s will on earth.

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December 1, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" Do We Matter To God? | Our Daily Bread

Do We Matter To God?

Read: Isaiah 49:8-18

In an acceptable time I have heard You, and in the day of salvation I have helped You. —Isaiah 49:8

When I consider Your heavens,” wrote the psalmist, “what is man that You are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:3-4). The Old Testament circles around this question. Toiling in Egypt, the Hebrew slaves could hardly believe Moses’ assurances that God would concern Himself with them. The writer of Ecclesiastes phrased the question more cynically: Does anything matter?

I was entertaining that same doubt myself when I received an invitation to address a conference on the theme: “I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands” (Isa. 49:16).

God made this stirring declaration to people suffering through a low point in their history as Isaiah prophesies that they would be taken away captive to Babylon. Hearing this, the people lamented, “The Lord has forsaken me, and . . . forgotten me” (Isa. 49:14). To this lamentation God gave a series of promises—the Servant Songs (Isa. 42–53)—in which He sets the stage of hope for deliverance from hostile enemies. He foretells of the incarnation and sacrificial death of the Servant.

Do we matter to God? Christmas memorializes God’s answer: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (7:14).

Love brought Him down from the glory,
Love made Him come from the sky;
Love in His heart for the sinner
Led Him to suffer and die. —Anon.

The fact of Jesus’ coming is the final and unanswerable proof that God cares. —Barclay

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December 2, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" We Need Hope | Our Daily Bread

We Need Hope

Read: Colossians 1:3-14

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. —Jeremiah 17:7

Adam and Eve didn’t need hope because they didn’t lack anything they needed. And they had every reason to think that life would go on as pleasantly as it started—with every good thing that God had given them to enjoy. But they put it all at risk for the one thing the serpent said that God had withheld: the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:17; 3:5). So when the serpent came with his offer, Eve was quick to indulge, and Adam quick to follow (3:6). They got what they wanted: knowledge. But they lost what they had: innocence. With the loss of innocence came the need for hope—hope that their guilt and shame could be removed and goodness restored.

Christmas is the season of hope. Children hope for the latest popular toy or game. Families hope that everyone can make it home for the holidays. But the hope that Christmas commemorates is much bigger than our holiday desires. Jesus, the “Desire of All Nations” (Hag. 2:7), has come! He has “delivered us from the power of darkness,” bought our redemption, and forgiven our sins (Col. 1:13-14). He even made it possible for us to be wise about what is good and innocent about evil (Rom. 16:19). Christ in us gives us the hope of glory.

Praise God for the hope of Christmas!

What are the prospects for this earth?
What hope is there for man?
A world restored through Jesus Christ
In whom we see God’s plan. —D. DeHaan

Hope for the Christian is a certainty—because its basis is Christ.

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December 3, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" The Spirit Of The Age | Our Daily Bread

The Spirit Of The Age

Read: Ephesians 2:1-10

You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world. —Ephesians 2:1-2

Every age has its own thoughts, ideas, and values that influence the culture, the “spirit of the age.” It is the kind of growing consensus that morally lulls us to sleep, gradually causing us to accept society’s latest values.

The apostle Paul called this corrupting atmosphere the “course of this world.” Describing the lives of the believers at Ephesus before they encountered Christ, he said that they were “dead in trespasses and sins” and “walked according to the course of this world” (Eph. 2:1-2). This is the world’s peer pressure—a satanically inspired system of values and ideas that cultivates a lifestyle that is independent of God.

Jesus intends for us to live in the world (John 17:15), so worldly influence is nearly impossible to escape. But He’s given us His Word to so permeate our thinking that we don’t have to become conformed to the world’s values (Rom. 12:1-2). Instead, God helps us walk in His light (Eph. 5:8), in the Spirit (Gal. 5:25), in love (Eph. 5:2), in truth (3 John 4), and in Christ (Col. 2:6).

As we walk in God’s power and spend time in His Word, He gives us the strength to live according to kingdom values and not the spirit of the age.

Father, You have made us alive in Christ and now we
have a new kind of thinking that differs from the world.
Teach us Your kingdom’s values that we might
learn to walk in love. Amen.

Although Christians live in this world, their allegiance is to heaven.

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December 4, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" Open-Handed Help | Our Daily Bread

Open-Handed Help

Read: Deuteronomy 15:7-11

You shall open your hand wide to [the poor]. —Deuteronomy 15:8

A homeless man spends time in our local library. One afternoon, while I was writing there, I took a lunch break. After I finished the first half of a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich, an image of the man’s face came to mind. A few minutes later, I offered him the untouched part of my lunch. He accepted.

This brief encounter made me realize that with all that God has given me, I needed to do more to help those who are less fortunate. Later, as I thought about this, I read Moses’ instructions on providing for the poor. He told the Israelites: Do not “shut your hand from your poor brother, but . . . open your hand wide to him” (Deut. 15:7-8). An open hand symbolizes the way God wanted His nation to provide for impoverished people—willingly and freely. No excuses, no holding back (v.9). God had given to them, and He wanted them to give generously enough to supply whatever was “sufficient” for the need (v.8).

When we offer open-handed help to the poor, God blesses us for our kindness (Ps. 41:1-3; Prov. 19:17). With His leading, consider how you might “extend your soul to the hungry” (Isa. 58:10) and freely give to help others in Jesus’ name.

Grant us, then, the grace for giving
With a spirit large and free,
That our life and all our living
We may consecrate to Thee. —Murray

You may give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.

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December 5, 2012 "Our Daily Bread" Barriers And Blessings | Our Daily Bread

Barriers And Blessings

Read: John 4:27-39

Many . . . believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.” —John 4:39

What did Jesus see when He looked at the woman at the well in John 4? He saw someone who wanted acceptance and desperately needed to know she was loved. Most of all, He saw someone who needed what only He could give—a new heart.

It was no accident that the disciples had all gone to town to buy food. Surely, they would have tried to warn Jesus not to talk to this person—a woman, a Samaritan, and someone with a bad reputation.

Not being one to follow protocol, however, Jesus used this encounter to bless her with the truth of “living water” (John 4:10). In just one conversation, He broke down barriers of old hostilities, of gender bias, of ethnic and racial divides. And this woman became the first of many Samaritans to confess that Jesus was the Messiah (vv.39-42).

When she told others of her encounter with a Man who knew “all that I ever did,” she was already practicing the principle of “sowing and reaping” that Jesus was teaching His followers (John 4:35-38). Many believed that day, and later Philip, Peter, John, and others would preach in Samaria and lead many more to Christ (Acts 8:5-14; 15:3).

When we tell others of our own “encounter” with Jesus, we bless them with living water.

From sinking sand He lifted me,
With tender hand He lifted me;
From shades of night to plains of light,
O praise His name, He lifted me! —Gabriel

A faith worth having is a faith worth sharing.