Daily Devotional: August 30

    

  
Sundown is Coming

⁹ “This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
¹⁰ your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
    as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And lead us not into temptation,^[a]
    but deliver us from the evil one.^[b]’

¹⁴ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

 

Matthew 6:9-15

       GOLDIE BRISTOL didn’t learn of the rape and brutal murder of her twenty-one-year­old daughter until she received a blunt telegram from the coroner. It read: “Your daughter Diane-we have her body. How do you want it disposed of?” After the fu­neral, God led the family to pray for Diane’s killer. He was caught, and Goldie re­ceived permission to go to the federal prison. There she looked the man square in the face and said, “I forgive you.”
       What makes someone like Goldie Bristol forgive a man who brutally raped and killed her daughter? Goldie knows that forgiveness isn’t just for people you feel like forgiving. God says to forgive everyone who hurts you.
        Say that again? Yes, God calls you to forgive anyone who has angered you, hurt you, abused you, or offended you. That covers anyone and everyone, but he wants you to start with those closest to you-your parents and your siblings. You might carry bitter feelings toward parents because of divorce, abuse, alcoholism, or aban­donment-physical or emotional. But no matter how bad a situation was or is, God can still use it for your good. And you need to forgive your parents.
       Knowing God’s command to forgive doesn’t make forgiveness easy, especially when someone has severely wronged you. But God means forgiveness to be given, extended, or received immediately. Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 4:26 “Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry.” The Bible, notice, doesn’t forbid you to get angry. It says, rather, to control your anger. The length of time between the hurt and the extending of your forgiveness often indicates the strength of your walk with God.
       One wise caution: When you deal with others, you need to forgive them or ask forgiveness of them whenever it can help, bless, or encourage the other person. Sometimes, however, an immediate confession doesn’t exactly encourage the other person-he or she isn’t emotionally ready for it. You might put the issue on hold in your own life for few days and then deal with the other person.
Remember this: Forgiveness cuts both ways. You might be able to think of a pile of people who have wronged you. But you wrong others, too. Tape this phrase inside your locker: “When I refuse to forgive, I am burning a bridge that someday I will need to cross.” More often than you can imagine, you are going to need forgiveness from someone else.

REFLECT: Is there someone you need to forgive today? Do you need to ask someone to forgive you? Take care of it before sundown.

 

PRAY: Talk to God about people you need to forgive-or people you need to ask for forgiveness.

Daily Devotional: August 29

 

Not Getting What We Deserve

 

 

⁸ The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
    slow to anger, abounding in love.
⁹ He will not always accuse,
    nor will he harbor his anger forever;
¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve
    or repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
    so great is his love for those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

¹³ As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
¹⁴ for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.

 

Bible Reading: Psalm 103:8-14

 

      HALF OF understanding forgiveness is knowing what it isn’t. More on that next time. The other half is knowing exactly what it is. Check out these definitions-at least one of them will make sense to you:

       Forgiveness means “to erase, to forego what is due” … “to give up resentment”… “to wipe the slate dean, to release from a debt, to cancel punishment” … “to per­sonally accept the price of reconciliation” … “to give up all claims on the one who has hurt you and let go of the emotional consequences of that hurt.” Forgiveness not only means you say the words “I forgive you” but that you also let go of your wounded emotions.

     Forgiving is an action. It doesn’t allow you to sit around and wait for the person who walloped you to say, “I was wrong; will you forgive me?” Just as Jesus died for you while you were still a sinner (see Romans 5:8), forgiving means you take the first step in healing a relationship.

     Forgiving also means you “give up or give away.” It means you give up the right to get even-no matter how good revenge would feel. Forgiving means you give mercy instead of demanding justice.

If you don’t like that approach to life, ponder this: It wouldn’t be smart to pray for justice in your relationship with God, because his justice would wipe you out. What you want to ask for is his mercy, the stuff that allows you to be forgiven in spite of your sin.

      It works the same way in your human relationships. The world tells you to hate. God says to love. The world says you are entitled to revenge. God says to forgive.

     Why? Because God wants you to forgive in the same way he forgives you-com­pletely and continually. To the Colossians, Paul wrote, “God has purchased our free­dom with his blood and has forgiven all our sins” (verse 1:14). In Hebrews 10, we discover that Christ’s forgiveness was “once for all time” (verse 10). Once he had of­fered himself as the sacrifice for sin, “he sat down at the place of highest honor at God’s right hand” (verse 12).

     God doesn’t forgive you because of something you’ve done but because of who Jesus Christ is and what he accomplished for you through the cross. That’s your model for forgiving others. You don’t forgive because the person who hurt you has changed or begged for your forgiveness, but because you have a Christ like readiness to simply forgive.

 

REFLECT: Are you a forgiving person?

PRAY: Ask Christ to share his heart of forgiveness with you today

Daily Devotional: August 28

 

 

 

The Oil of Relationships

 

³⁶ When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. ³⁷ A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. ³⁸ As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

³⁹ When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.”

⁴⁰ Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Tell me, teacher,” he said.

⁴¹ “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,^[a] and the other fifty. ⁴² Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

⁴³ Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”

“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

⁴⁴ Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. ⁴⁵ You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. ⁴⁶ You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. ⁴⁷ Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

⁴⁸ Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

⁴⁹ The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

⁵⁰ Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

 

Luke 7:36-50

 

“I DON’T think I can ever forgive him after what he said. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“She asked me to forgive her, and I said I would. But I can’t.”

“She’s dead now. She can’t apologize-so I won’t forgive her.”

 

        You live in a culture saturated with stored-up grudges, resentments, bitterness, and broken hearts. When people don’t take time to confront and mend those hurts ­when they cling to attitudes like the ones you see in those sad statements above ­they rip apart relationships. They break up the closeness God intends between Chris­tians. They dull the cutting edge of the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals. And they split families, friends, youth groups, and churches.

        Forgiveness works like oil in relationships. It reduces friction and allows people to get close to each other without overheating.

         If you don’t sense a forgiving heart in someone, you won’t ever be truly open and vulnerable to him or her. You know that an unforgiving person won’t give you half a chance to develop a deep, lasting, and close relationship. And if you aren’t a forgiving person-no matter how smart, talented, or downright good-looking you might be-you won’t develop the close relationships you want. When you aren’t able to forgive, even little conflicts blow your friendships to bits.

But once you learn to forgive others who wrong you, your relationships grow strong. You can talk openly and meaningfully. If someone can love you despite your faults and accept you even when you have wronged them, you can’t help but become even better friends.

        Your know-how in handling this one skill-forgiveness-Iargely determines how you handle conflicts in your relationships. Ask yourself:

Do I accept each situation where forgiveness is necessary as an opportunity to strengthen relationships and develop my own character?

Do I study the needs of people who hurt me and try to understand them?

Do I know that God will deal fairly with my offender if that person needs pun­ishment-and that it’s not my job to punish him or her?

Do I choose to thank God for each difficult experience and allow his love and grace to grow in me as a result?

        When you want to learn how to forgive, Christ is your model. His forgiveness was absolute and immediate. Think about it: He even forgave the men who crucified him! So when you feel tempted to rip someone’s head off, be like Christ: Forgive.

 

REFLECT: How skilled are you at forgiving-and receiving forgiveness?

PRAY: Ask God to help you learn the crucial habit of forgiveness.

 

Josh McDowell

Azle Youth Service

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Daily Devotional: August 27

 

Levels of Love

²⁶ At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.

²⁷ The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. ²⁸ “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”

²⁹ Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!

 

 Acts 5:26-29

 

        JEN IS A Christian, but her parents aren’t. When Jen’s dad tells her to lie about her age so she qualifies for a cheaper preteen fee for a summer soccer camp, Jen refuses.
Big question: Isn’t she supposed to obey her parents no matter what? Isn’t she shattering the fifth commandment, the one that says, “Honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12)?
Not really.
       Look at it this way: Jen doesn’t suppose that “honor your father and mother” wasn’t meant for her. She doesn’t say, “Forget you! My dad wants me to be a liar.  He’s a cheat. I don’t ever have to listen to my parents again!” Because of the bad spot her dad placed her in, she’s making an exception, suspending the law of obeying par­ents in order to follow God’s higher law of truthfulness.
Jen’s situation is just like when a jumbo jet takes off. As the plane lifts off, it doesn’t break the law of gravity, it merely overrides it for a while. Gravity is still at work. It comes back into play when the pilot throttles down and gets ready to land, just like Jen works hard to obey her parents every time she can-all the times their demands don’t conflict with God’s commands.
       Loving God more than people doesn’t mean that you love God instead of people. Sometimes loving God means you love a human authority in your life with a tough love-a love that takes a firm stand against evil. Love doesn’t mean you cave in to someone’s sinful wishes. Love means you act for that person’s best, and sometimes the best you can do for someone is to resist his or her sin.
An example: When you were small, your parents knew it would be nuts to give you everything you wanted. You begged for cake and ice cream at every meal. Or you insisted on playing with steak knives. Your parents didn’t love you any less by saying “No!” to all those requests and requiring that you bend to their wishes. Whether you understood it or not, they knew they had your best interests at heart. Sometimes you might have to get tough with people to truly love them. Think about this: Loving God the most helps you love others the best.
       Love has two levels-love for God and love for people. Those two levels of love might conflict, but they never contradict. And when they conflict, the lower law to love people always yields to the higher law to love God.

REFLECT: When has someone you’re supposed to obey asked you to do something you knew you shouldn’t do? How did you solve the conflict?

PRAY: Lord, help me love the people in my life completely-and love you supremely.

Daily Devotional: August 26

 

 

When Authorities Clash

 

3 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, ² to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

 

 Titus 3:1-2

         CHECK OUT these statements. Do they slip out of your mouth easily?

“I wish the principal would give me detention more often.”

 

”I’m really happy I got caught copying answers off the math whiz who sits next to me in algebra.”

      If you’re like most people, you squirm when someone in charge of your life lays down a rule you’re forced to follow or catches you when you’re doing what you shouldn’t. But most days you probably also recognize that authorities usually act for your good. The Bible challenges you as a Christian to show love for leaders-from the head of your home to the head of your country-by submitting to their authority. Pe­ter writes, “For the Lord’s sake, accept all authority-the king as head of state, and the officials he has appointed” (1 Peter 2:13-14). Submission clearly means obedi­ence.
Still, even when you build a habit of respectfully obeying civil authorities, you might face situations where your loyalty and obedience to authorities clashes with your bigger love and allegiance to God. Back in the New Testament, the apostles found they had to disobey Jewish authorities and declare; “We must obey God rather than human authority” (Acts 5:29).
     Whenever you have to choose between love for God and love for people, love for God always wins. Your only right choice is to love and obey God rather than govern­ment. But here’s the tough news: Doing the right thing won’t always spare you from negative consequences, a fact you can learn from even a quick glance at Scripture and church history. “Some were mocked, and their backs were cut open with whips,” the author of Hebrews reports. “Others were chained in dungeons. Some died by stoning, and some were sawed in half; others were killed with the sword” (Hebrews 11:36-37). Countless first -century Christians were fed to the lions because they loved God more than they loved the Roman emperor.
      You likely won’t face a choice with life-and -death consequences, but your love for God might cost you a job when you won’t lie for your boss. Or a friend, parent, or teacher might reject you for putting God first. When you have to make those hard choices and face tough consequences, you can cling to the Bible promise that “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28).

REFLECT: Are you facing any situations right now where love for God and love for people are in conflict?

 

PRAY: Ask God to strengthen you to make the right choice.

 

Josh McDowell

Daily Devotional: August 23

 

The Christian’s No-Brainer

³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 

Matthew 25:34-40

 

       I ONCE SPENT a summer teaching at Arrowhead Springs, Campus Crusade’s former headquarters down in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California. During that summer, my family and I lived in Blue Jay, a little town up in the mountains beside beautiful Lake Arrowhead. So every day I drove down the mountain twice-once in the morning and then again after lunch. 

       It’s hot in the San Bernardino Valley during the summer, with temperatures of­ten breaking the 100-degree mark. During my trips up and down the mountain, I of­ten saw cars pulled over to the side of the steep, winding road to the summit-hoods open, steam belching from their radiators. It was soon apparent to me that my teach­ing ministry for God was pretty hollow if I didn’t do something to help the poor stranded motorists. All my talk about loving God was meaningless if I didn’t show love for these people in need.

       So I came up with a plan. I kept four large water jugs filled and stowed them in my trunk. Whenever I came across an overheated car on my daily drive on the mountain, I pulled over and offered to fill the radiator with water. People were over­joyed at the offer and grateful for the help. Once the radiator was full, I offered a copy of my book More Than a Carpenter and talked to the motorists about Christ. It was one of the best summers of ministry I have ever experienced.

Love isn’t an option for Christians. It’s a command. God is love, and people born of God must express his love. Jesus said, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35).

       Love always goes two directions at once. When you love people in Christ’s name, you are also loving God. Jesus taught that when you minister to anyone in need of love and care, you are ministering to him (see Matthew 25:34-40). And when you truly love God, you will also inevitably love people. Like John wrote, “If some­one says, ‘I love God,’ but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we have not seen? And God himself has commanded that we must love not only him but our Christian brothers and sisters, too” (1 John 4:20-21).

       You can’t get around it: Love is part of your life as a Christian. Anyone who doesn’t love both God and people dares not take the name Christian.

 

 

REFLECT: What obvious, practical thing can you do to share God’s love with people? What is right within your reach?

PRAY: Sometimes you might be blind to clear opportunities to show love. Ask God to open your eyes.