Day: February 13, 2014

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God Packed You For A Purpose

“The LORD has given them the skill to do all kinds of work.” EXODUS 35:35

You were born prepacked. God looked at your entire life, determined your assignment, and gave you the tools to do the job. Before traveling, you do something similar. You consider the demands of the journey and pack accordingly. Cold weather? Bring a jacket. Business meeting? Carry the laptop. Time with grandchildren?

Better take some sneakers and pain medication.

God did the same with you. Joe will research animals … install curiosity. Meagan will lead a private school … an extra dose of management. I need Eric to comfort the sick … include a healthy share of compassion. Denalyn will marry Max … instill a double portion of patience.

God packed you on purpose for a purpose.

from CURE FOR THE COMMON LIFE

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The Power of Love

Luke 15:11-24

At times, those of us reading Scripture in English are shortchanged by the language’s limitations. For instance, English has just one word for love, but Paul’s original letters, written in Greek, use two words. Believers are promised that God’s love will reside in them (Eph. 3:19). But we often think that refers to phileo love—brotherly concern and affection for others. Yet the truth is, the Holy Spirit shows agape love in us—a commitment to another person’s security, satisfaction, and development.

We, too, have the capacity to show the same sacrificial love Jesus demonstrated at Calvary. He subtly described the power of this love in His parable of the prodigal son. The father must have recognized that greed and wanderlust were gnawing at the young man and that denying his request for an early inheritance would lead to bitterness. So, despite personal and financial sacrifice, he gave the son his share of the estate. Then, the father waited while the prodigal learned his lesson.

No doubt that was a trying time. A good dad wants to protect his children from making mistakes. But a wise man also knows that people often must discover hard truths for themselves. Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is to get out of their way.

The prodigal son returned home dirty, contrite, and seeking a place in the servants’ quarters. What he received instead was the full force of his father’s love and instant restoration to his place as the master’s son. That is agape, and it is the kind of love that wins hearts and minds for the Lord.

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A Bag with Holes

“Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:6)

This biting description of a frustrating lifestyle, penned by one of the Jewish post-exilic prophets, is both preceded and followed by this appropriate admonition: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways” (Haggai 1:5-7). When a professing believer somehow never seems to have enough and his money bag seems filled with holes, it is time for him to consider carefully his ways before the Lord.

After all, our God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and is well able to supply all our needs. In context, Haggai is rebuking the people of Judah for tending to their own welfare and neglecting the work of God. “Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled [paneled] houses, and this house [that is, the unfinished temple in Jerusalem] lie waste?” (Haggai 1:4).

Herein is an eternal principle. Jesus said, “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things [that is, food and drink and clothing]. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:32-33). If these necessities of life are not being provided, we urgently need to consider our ways. Are God’s kingdom and His righteousness really our first concerns?

We often quote the wonderful promise “my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). But we must remember that this promise was given to a group of Christians whose “deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality,” because they “first gave their own selves to the Lord” (2 Corinthians 8:2, 5). HMM

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Search me, O God, and know my heart

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.— Psalm 139:23, 24.

AM I really what I ought to be? Am I what, in the bottom of my heart, I honestly wish to be?

Am I living a life at all like what I myself approve? My secret nature, the true complexion of my character, is hidden from all men, and only I know it. Is it such as I should be willing to show? Is my soul at all like what my kindest and most intimate friends believe? Is my heart at all such, as I should wish the Searcher of Hearts to judge me by?

Is every year adding to my devotion, to my unselfishness, to my conscientiousness, to my freedom from the hypocrisy of seeming so much better than I am? When I compare myself with last year, am I more ready to surrender myself at the call of duty? Am I more alive to the commands of conscience? Have I shaken off my besetting sins?” These are the questions which this season of Lent ought to find us putting fairly and honestly to our hearts.
FREDERICK TEMPLE.

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I beseech thee, shew me thy glory

I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. Exodus 33:18

God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. — The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth … No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God ? — When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. — Father, I will that they also, whom tbou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

2 Corinthians 4:6. John 1:14,18. Psalm 42:2. Psalm 27:8. 2 Corinthians 3:18. John 17:24.

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They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts

They shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels. Malachi 3:17

I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am: that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

I will come again, and receive you unto myself. — He shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe … in that day. — We which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. — Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.

John 17:6,9,10,24. John 14:3. 2 Thessalonians 1:10. 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Isaiah 62:3.