Breaking the Chains

From: Our Daily Bread

  April 30, 2018  

Read: Ephesians 1:3–14 | Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 8–9; Luke 21:1–19

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians 1:7

We found our visit to Christ Church Cathedral in Stone Town, Zanzibar, deeply moving, for it sits on the site of what was formerly the largest slave market in East Africa. The designers of this cathedral wanted to show through a physical symbol how the gospel breaks the chains of slavery. No longer would the location be a place of evil deeds and horrible atrocities, but of God’s embodied grace.

Those who built the cathedral wanted to express how Jesus’s death on the cross provides freedom from sin—that which the apostle Paul speaks of in his letter to the church at Ephesus: “In him we have redemption through his blood” (Ephesians 1:7). Here the word redemption points to the Old Testament’s notion of the marketplace, with someone buying back a person or item. Jesus buys back a person from a life of slavery to sin and wrongdoing.

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In Paul’s opening words in this letter (vv. 3–14), he bubbles over with joy at the thought of his freedom in Christ. He points, in layer after layer of praise, to God’s work of grace for us through Jesus’s death, which sets us free from the cords of sin. No longer do we need to be slaves to sin, for we are set free to live for God and His glory.

Lord God, through the death of Your Son, You have given us life forever. Help me to share this gift of grace with someone today.

Jesus redeems us from the slavery of sin.

The Fruit of Joy

From: Our Daily Journey

  Apr 29, 2018  

Read:

Galatians 5:16-26
The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

I love how joy can bubble up, unbidden. It can surprise me when I walk next to a gurgling brook or when I catch a glimpse of the faces of family and friends. Even when I fret about the friend whose feelings I’ve hurt, I can seek God’s help and peace as I release to Him my anxiety and receive the gift of His joy.

The apostle Paul listed joy as a fruit of the Spirit when he wrote to the church at Galatia because it’s something the Holy Spirit brings about in a believer’s life. Paul yearned that the Galatians would experience the Spirit’s grace, because many of them were being led astray by some who wanted them to adopt various rules and regulations (Galatians 1:6-7). He didn’t want them weighed down with requirements God hadn’t established; rather, he wanted them to live out of God’s freedom, which would result in the fruit He would bring to life within them: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

We may think that Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit is exhaustive, but in naming the nine qualities, he was actually following a common Greek practice of outlining virtues and vices. He roots this list, however, in what God effects in His children, that is, how Christ living within them brings transformation and change (2 Corinthians 5:17).

We can’t demand or create joy from ourselves or from others. We can, however, ask God to give us His joy as we rest in His presence, have fellowship with others, and look with wonder at His creation around us. And we can pray that as He cultivates in us His joy that this fruit would be something sweet and refreshing we can share with others.

Give Glory To Christ The Lord

Where to Worship

From: Our Daily Journey

  Apr 28, 2018  

Read:

John 4:19-24
The time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem (John 4:21).

During a visit to Melbourne, Australia, my hosts took me on a mini-tour of the city. Along the way, they pointed out some buildings that had been converted from churches to bars. I’ve learned that this is a common practice—not only in Australia, but around the world. Troubled, I wondered what the future held for places of worship. Imagine my elation when I read of a bar that’s reversing the trend and returning to its roots as a church!

As important as physical spaces of worship are, true worship doesn’t depend on a specific kind of building or location. Jesus taught this when the Samaritan woman He’d met asked, “Why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?” (John 4:19-20). Rather than commend one location or condemn the other, Jesus replied, “Dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem” (John 4:21).

Considering that the temple and synagogues were at the center of religious life in Jesus’ day, this response must have taken the woman by surprise. Knowing this, Jesus went on to explain, “The time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. . . . For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24).

When we absorb the truth that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), we can begin to understand why worship isn’t confined to one kind of physical location. As we stand in God’s presence, filled with His Spirit, any place can become a place to experience and worship Him.

Shuddering and Wild

From: Our Daily Journey

  Apr 27, 2018  

Read:

Matthew 28:1-10
The women . . . were very frightened but also filled with great joy (Matthew 28:8).

After the cross finished its cruel work, Jesus’ bewildered friends laid His ravaged body in a cold tomb. Night fell, and an eerie silence descended. Jesus’ followers huddled in grief and confusion. What do you do when your entire world crumbles with violent implosion? What’s left when everything you thought you knew, everything you’d hoped in, lies smoldering in ashes? What do you do when God has died?

Mary Magdalene and another Mary, compelled by fierce love, went to Jesus’ grave. But nearing the tomb, their upheaval only intensified. A “great earthquake” shook the ground, and a blazing angel whose “face shone like lightning” sat atop the stone rolled from the empty tomb (Matthew 28:2-3). Even the Roman guards “shook with fear when they saw [the angel], and they fell into a dead faint” (Matthew 28:4).

The angel told the disoriented women shocking news: Jesus was alive. The Savior, bloodied and lifeless, had been laid in a grave; but then He miraculously left the tomb. Rushing from the grave to announce this impossible fact, the women were simultaneously “very frightened but also filled with great joy” (Matthew 28:8). Poet and novelist Reynolds Price describes the women as “shuddering and wild.” Fear andjoy—isn’t that a strange tandem?

There’s a kind of fear that debilitates and ravages. But when we encounter God, we discover another kind of fear: a holy trembling that evokes humility and awe. This holy fear doesn’t make us cower in terror, but it bends our hearts and hopes toward God. When we encounter the Jesus who rose from the dead and who promises to overwhelm every kind of death for us, it shakes our soul. It shakes away all the false fears, unleashing profound joy and hope.

The Supreme Climb

April 26 

By Oswald Chambers

Take now your son…and offer him…as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. —Genesis 22:2

A person’s character determines how he interprets God’s will (see Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God’s command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this traditional belief behind through the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditional beliefs that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs which must be removed– for example, that God removes a child because his mother loves him too much. That is the devil’s lie and a travesty on the true nature of God! If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of our wrong traditional beliefs about God, he will do so. But if we will stay true to God, God will take us through an ordeal that will serve to bring us into a better knowledge of Himself.

The great lesson to be learned from Abraham’s faith in God is that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter what contrary belief of his might be violated by his obedience. Abraham was not devoted to his own convictions or else he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was actually the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you directly through every barrier and right into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself. But you must always be willing to come to the point of giving up your own convictions and traditional beliefs. Don’t ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did that you are willing to do anything, even “to go …both to prison and to death” (Luke 22:33). Abraham did not make any such statement— he simply remained true to God, and God purified his faith.

Amnesia

Amnesia

From: Our Daily Bread

 April 25, 2018 

Read: Daniel 4:28–37 | Bible in a Year: 2 Samuel 21–22; Luke 18:24–43

My understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High. Daniel 4:34 nkjv

Emergency Services in Carlsbad, California, came to the rescue of a woman with an Australian accent who couldn’t recall who she was. Because she was suffering from amnesia and had no ID with her, she was unable to provide her name or where she had come from. It took the help of doctors and international media to restore her health, tell her story, and reunite her with her family.

Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, also lost sight of who he was and where he had come from. His “amnesia,” though, was spiritual. In taking credit for the kingdom he’d been given, he forgot that God is the King of Kings, and everything he had was from Him (Daniel 4:17, 28–30).

God dramatized the king’s state of mind by driving him into the fields to live with wild animals and graze like a cow (vv. 32–33). Finally, after seven years Nebuchadnezzar looked up to the skies, and his memory of who he was and who had given him his kingdom returned. With his senses restored, he declared, “I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven” (v. 37).

What about us? Who do we think we are? Where did we come from? Since we are inclined to forget, who can we count on to help us remember but the King of Kings?

Father, we are so inclined to forget who we are, where we’ve come from, and that we belong to You. Help us to remember that in Christ we are Your children—known, loved, gifted, and cared for—now and forever.

When we forget who we are, our Father cares.

A Worthy Offering

[Written by Joe Stowell for Our Daily Bread.]

Apr

24

2018

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. —Genesis 4:7

I was delighted when a mutual friend gave my neighbor a Bible. But my neighbor told me she stopped reading it because she couldn’t understand why God would be so unfair as to reject Cain’s offering. “After all,” she said, “as a farmer, he simply brought to God what he had. Did God expect him to buy a different kind of sacrifice?” Sadly, she had missed the point.

It wasn’t that God didn’t like vegetables. Rather, He knew that Cain’s offering was masking an unrighteous attitude. Cain wasn’t fully committed to God, as expressed by the fact that he wasn’t living according to God’s ways.

It’s easy to worship God on the outside while stubbornly keeping territory from Him on the inside. Jude writes about outwardly religious people who use religious activities to cover the reality of their sinful lives: “Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain” (Jude 1:11). We can faithfully serve God, sing His praises, and give sacrificially to His work. But God doesn’t want any of that without our hearts.

Does the Lord take priority over our plans and dreams? Is He worth more than the sin that tempts us? When we express to Him that He is more worthy than anything or anyone else in our lives, it’s an offering He won’t refuse.

Lord, may our worship and our praise,
From hearts surrendered to Your ways,
Be worthy offerings of love
For all Your blessings from above. —Sper

God won’t refuse a heart that is surrendered to Him.

The Secret of Peace

From: Our Daily Bread

  April 23, 2018  

Read: 2 Thessalonians 3:16–18 | Bible in a Year: 2 Samuel 16–18; Luke 17:20–37

The Lord of peace himself give you peace. 2 Thessalonians 3:16

Grace is a very special lady. One word comes to mind when I think of her: peace. The quiet and restful expression on her face has seldom changed in the six months I have known her, even though her husband was diagnosed with a rare disease and then hospitalized.

When I asked Grace the secret of her peace, she said, “It’s not a secret, it’s a person. It’s Jesus in me. There is no other way I can explain the quietness I feel in the midst of this storm.”

To trust in Jesus is peace.

The secret of peace is our relationship to Jesus Christ. He is our peace. When Jesus is our Savior and Lord, and as we become more like Him, peace becomes real. Things like sickness, financial difficulties, or danger may be present, but peace reassures us that God holds our lives in His hands (Daniel 5:23), and we can trust that things will work together for good.

Have we experienced this peace that goes beyond logic and understanding? Do we have the inner confidence that God is in control? My wish for all of us today echoes the words of the apostle Paul: “May the Lord of peace himself give you peace.” And may we feel this peace “at all times and in every way” (2 Thessalonians 3:16).

Dear Lord, please give us Your peace at all times and in every situation.

To trust in Jesus is peace.

Full redemption

By: Charles Spurgeon

“There shall not an hoof be left behind.” Exodus 10:26

Suggested Further Reading: Revelation 20:1-10

A man once wrote a book to prove the devil a fool. Certainly, when all matters shall come to their destined consummation, Satan will prove to have been a magnificent fool. Folly, magnified to the highest degree by subtlety, shall be developed in Satan. Ah! Thou trailing serpent, what hast thou now after all? I saw thee but a few thousand years ago, twining around the tree of life, and hissing out thy deceptive words. Ah! how glorious was the serpent then—a winged creature, with his azure scales. Yes, and thou didst triumph over God. I heard thee as thou didst go hissing down to thy den. I heard thee say to thy brood,—vipers in the nest as they are,—“My children, I have stained the Almighty’s works: I have turned aside his loyal subjects; I have injected my poison into the heart of Eve, and Adam hath fallen too; my children let us hold a jubilee, for I have defeated God.” Oh, my enemy; I think I see thee now, with thy head all broken, and thy jaw-teeth smashed, and thy venom-bags all emptied, and thou thyself a weary length of agony, rolling miles afloat along a sea of fire, tortured, destroyed, overcome, tormented, ashamed, hacked, hewed, dashed in pieces, and made a hissing, and a scorn for children to laugh at, and made a scoff throughout eternity. Ah! well, brethren, the great Goliath hath gained nothing by his boasting: Christ and his people have really lost nothing by Satan. All they lost once, has been re-taken. The victory has not simply been a capture of that which was lost, but a gaining of something more. We are in Christ more than we were before we fell. “Not a hoof shall be left behind.”

For meditation: Victory over Satan will be celebrated with joy (Revelation 12:10-12; Romans 16:20) but for the moment we must remain on our guard against him (1 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 2:11; Ephesians 4:27; 6:11; 1 Timothy 3:6,7; 1 Peter 5:8,9).

Don’t Hurt the Lord

April 21 

By Oswald Chambers

Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? —John 14:9

Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us— astounded at how “un-simple” we are. It is our own opinions that make us dense and slow to understand, but when we are simple we are never dense; we have discernment all the time. Philip expected the future revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in Jesus, the Person he thought he already knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be— it is now, though we look for it to be revealed in the future in some overwhelming, momentous event. We have no reluctance to obey Jesus, but it is highly probable that we are hurting Him by what we ask— “Lord, show us the Father…” (John 14:8). His response immediately comes back to us as He says, “Can’t you see Him? He is always right here or He is nowhere to be found.” We look for God to exhibit Himself to His children, but God only exhibits Himself inHis children. And while others see the evidence, the child of God does not. We want to be fully aware of what God is doing in us, but we cannot have complete awareness and expect to remain reasonable or balanced in our expectations of Him. If all we are asking God to give us is experiences, and the awareness of those experiences is blocking our way, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus, because they are not the questions of a child.

“Let not your heart be troubled…” (14:1, 27). Am I then hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If I believe in Jesus and His attributes, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to disturb my heart, or am I allowing any questions to come in which are unsound or unbalanced? I have to get to the point of the absolute and unquestionable relationship that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him. God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the freedom you receive is immediate.

Forgive As Christ Has Forgiven You

The Art of Forgiveness

From: Our Daily Bread

  April 20, 2018  

Read: Luke 15:11–24 | Bible in a Year: 2 Samuel 9–11; Luke 15:11–32

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:20

One afternoon I spent two hours at an art exhibit—The Father & His Two Sons: The Art of Forgiveness—in which all of the pieces were focused on Jesus’s parable of the prodigal son (see Luke 15:11–31). I found Edward Riojas’s painting The Prodigal Sonespecially powerful. The painting portrays the once wayward son returning home, wearing rags and walking with his head down. With a land of death behind him, he steps onto a pathway where his father is already running toward him. At the bottom of the painting are Jesus’s words, “But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion” (v. 20 kjv).

I was deeply moved by realizing once more how God’s unchanging love has altered my life. When I walked away from Him, He didn’t turn His back, but kept looking, watching, and waiting. His love is undeserved yet unchanging; often ignored yet never withdrawn.

We all are guilty, yet our heavenly Father reaches out to welcome us.

We all are guilty, yet our heavenly Father reaches out to welcome us, just as the father in this story embraced his wayward son. “Let’s have a feast and celebrate,” the father told the servants. “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (vv. 23–24).

The Lord still rejoices over those who return to Him today—and that’s worth celebrating!

Father, as we receive Your love and forgiveness, may we also extend it to others in Your name.

God’s love for us is undeserved yet unchanging.