Listen as a Disciple (and other devotionals)

Today's Reading: Job 28:1-22; Acts 13:1-25

Today's Thoughts: Listen as a Disciple

The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. Isaiah 50:4

Do you ever find yourself knowing deep within the depths of your heart that God wants to bring about change, and even though you have been the one praying for it, you aren’t ready when He is ready to answer your prayer? Well, that happened to me today.

In the mornings, I spend time reading the Bible, praying on my knees and worshiping. Then I allow time for silence so that the Holy Spirit can minister to me in the quietness. Sometimes that’s all there is…quietness, which in itself is such a blessing before the day begins. But this morning’s quietness was different. This morning the Lord wanted to impress something on my heart that I didn’t want to hear. My quiet time was cut short by my choice this morning. But the Lord didn’t quit, and right before I left the house, I got a strange impression that I was going to have to face something that I was refusing to hear from the Lord. And that is exactly what happened. Within two hours of my devotional time and one hour from the impression, I heard things that I wished I had heard first in the presence of the Lord. And then I found myself repenting to Him and shocked that it was actually going to come about. Foreknowledge would have eased my heart regarding this matter.

God’s intention is always for our best. We all have to remember that God does nothing without revealing His plans to His servants, the prophets (Amos 3:7). He desires to include us in His plans and He even places those desires within our hearts first. God wants to give to us whatever we ask in Jesus’ name to bring Him glory, as He fulfills the desires He has placed within our hearts. If we are in His Word and quiet in worship before Him, we can also be included when He unfolds His plans. Today, take time to just be still before Him and listen. Quiet your heart and allow His heart to minister to you. And I am sure that your day will go better than mine did today.

~Daily Disciples Devotional~

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America's Only Hope

"Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?"

—Psalm 85:6

What is the future of the United States of America? Are we doomed to just go the way that so many other once-great nations have gone? Is America headed to the ash heap of history? Are our greatest days behind us, or could they still yet be ahead? Is there any hope for America?

No one can answer those questions with any certainty, but we know this much: America is not the superpower of the last days. The greatest nation on earth is conspicuous in her absence from the world stage in the end-times scenario given to us in the Bible. America is not the first, nor will it be the last, nation to rise and fall. Every nation's days are numbered; America is no exception.

Rome was once the mightiest empire on the face of the earth. But she collapsed internally before she was conquered externally. We as a country can be diligent to guard against enemies on the outside, but we would be wise to look within.

Historian Will Durant, in his book on Rome's history, Caesar and Christ, said, "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The essential causes of Rome's decline lay in her people, her morals. . .."

The difference between Rome and the U.S. is that we were founded on Judeo-Christian values. We've strayed from the original vision of our founding fathers, the vision that produced "America."

What was once "freedom of religion" has now become "freedom from religion." We have succeeded in getting God out of our schools, sporting events, public venues, and workplaces. Instead of Christmas, when we should focus on Jesus, we have Happy Holidays and Winter Solstice. Instead of Good Friday and Easter, we have Spring Break. It seems to me that America has gone out her way of late to turn from God. But America needs God's intervention.

We saw many turn to the Lord after 9/11. Remember those prayer vigils on street corners and packed churches? Remember the members of Congress spontaneously singing "God Bless America"? These memories give me hope that there could be at least one more great revival in America's future.

If we do not have revival, I do believe that judgment is inevitable. Peter Marshall, former chaplain to the U.S. Senate once said, "The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration."

God was able to turn the very wicked nation of Nineveh around in the days of Jonah. We know there have been some great spiritual awakenings in our history as well. Let's pray that America will turn back to God in these last days.

~Greg Laurie~

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To me, to live is Christ. (Philippians 1:21)

I wonder very often if the fact that our tremendous knowledge about Christ, our tremendous doctrinal apprehension, failing to lead us into triumphant joy, failing to result in something of this contagious spirit of triumph that was about Paul, does not imply that it is something which is not Christ personally with which we are occupied and taken up. We are getting to know Christ purely by a book knowledge, and a Conference knowledge, an address knowledge, an historic knowledge; that really, apart from our Conferences, our books, our studies, our addresses, and all these things; in the secret place, in the secret history back of it all, we are not living on Christ Himself, and out from Christ, and knowing Christ. So much of our Christian life is a matter of teaching, of things about Him.

We recognise the simplicity of that word, but we are quite sure that you understand what we mean, because you have known a very great deal about Christ in doctrine, and then you have discovered something of the Lord Himself, and you have discovered the tremendous difference. There is nothing more uplifting than to come into a personal experience of the Lord, a knowledge of the Lord, in a living way, to have Christ ministered to your heart by the Holy Spirit. Then you discover that there is something there which is more than all your suffering, and which makes suffering worthwhile, and which robs suffering of its deadly sting. It is Christ. Paul lived on Christ: “For me to live is Christ.” Now, what might have been put afterward? For me to live is to be able to go to meetings! For me to live is to be able to have fellowship with other believers! If I am cut off from them I cannot live! If I cannot go to the meetings I cannot live! You can put in anything else: For me to live is to have encouragement in the work, to see results for my labours! You can cover a great deal of ground, if you are going to cover the ground of our demands in order to be triumphant. But Paul looked out, and he saw his work being injured, damaged, outwardly destroyed, his old friends being alienated and led to doubt and suspect him. Oh, he saw enough to take the heart out of any man at the end of such a life, but he did not say: “for me to live is to see my life work standing as a monument, intact; to have all my old friends faithful and around me; to know that my message has had universal acceptance and appreciation!” No! “For me to live is (when all these things, and many others, have gone) Christ!”

~T. Austin-Sparks~

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I take my good works and my bad works!

(Thomas Guthrie, 1803-1873)

I remember reading the response of a godly man, when on his deathbed, to his friends who spoke of themany good works he had performed. 

"Good works! good works!" said the dying man, "I take my good works and my bad works, and cast them into one heap out of my sight, and turn to my only hope--the Cross of Christ!"
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Hosea 10:1-2

(1) Israel empties his vine;
He brings forth fruit for himself.
According to the multitude of his fruit
He has increased the altars;
According to the bounty of his land
They have embellished his sacred pillars.
(2) Their heart is divided;
Now they are held guilty.
He will break down their altars;
He will ruin their sacred pillars.

New King James Version   Change your email Bible version

One would think that, if altars are increased during a period of prosperity, as verse 1 states, then religion must be flourishing. Indeed, religion was flourishing! Amos, Hosea's contemporary, clearly reports this in his book. However, what was flourishing was not the religion God gave throughMoses but idolatry. Notice in verse 2 that God accuses Israel of having a heart that is divided.

Ironically, commentaries have divided opinions over what the Hebrew word translated "divided" means. Most modern translators render this word as either "false," "deceitful," or "faithless." None of these are wrong, including "divided," because the Hebrew word indicates "smoothness." It all depends on the context in which it is used. It can also suggest "flattering," which ought to give us a clue that it describes people who "talk the talk but do not walk the walk." Notice Isaiah 29:13:

Therefore the LORD said, "Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men. . . .

Isaiah lived just before Amos and Hosea. However, he was a prophet to Judah primarily, whereas the other two men were prophets to Israel—the ten northern tribes. What Isaiah says agrees with what Hosea says. These people were flattering God with their tongues, but their hearts were not really in what they were doing. Reverence for God, then, was merely an intellectual accommodation intended to appease Him. They acted as if God could not see right through them! It shows how far off-base and carnal they were in their thinking.

They used the name of God frequently, undoubtedly claiming that they trusted Him, just as we do today. All of our coins and paper money read, "In God We Trust." Yet, these people filled the nation with lying, stealing, murder,adultery, fornication, coveting, Sabbath-breaking, and idolatry, all the while giving Him lip service with their mouths—talking the talk but not walking the walk. This is why God says, "Your heart is divided. It is deceitful. You talk so smoothly, but your heart is false."

~John W. Ritenbaugh~