Dawn 2 Dusk When Letting Go Becomes LivingMatthew 10:39 presses right into the tension we try to manage: the more we clutch our life on our own terms, the more it slips through our fingers. Jesus isn’t calling us to self-hatred or passivity—He’s calling us to a different kind of life, one found on the other side of surrender. Dying to Win We spend a lot of energy “saving” ourselves—protecting our image, preserving comfort, controlling outcomes, curating security. But Jesus exposes the trap: what we call saving can actually be slow spiritual loss. When I insist on being my own rescuer, I might stay in charge, but I’m not truly free. Paul puts words to this daily tension: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). This is not a one-time moment; it’s a daily decision. And Jesus makes it plain: “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). The cross isn’t decorative—it’s the end of self-rule and the beginning of real life. What Are You Trying to Protect? Be honest: what feels like “life” to you right now? A relationship you don’t want to lose, a plan you don’t want interrupted, an identity you don’t want questioned, a habit you don’t want challenged. Sometimes we call it wisdom or caution, but underneath it is fear—fear that obedience will cost too much. Yet Jesus doesn’t take from us to leave us empty. He calls us to trust the Father’s heart: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). And when you’re tempted to play it safe, remember the warning and the promise: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). What you’re protecting might not be life at all—it might be the very thing shrinking your soul. Finding Life in His Hands Losing your life for Jesus can feel like stepping off a ledge. But you’re not stepping into emptiness—you’re stepping into Someone. Jesus is not asking you to gamble; He’s asking you to entrust. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). The safest place for your life is not in your control—it’s in His care. And here’s the shock: surrender doesn’t end joy; it opens it. Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness” (John 10:10). Fullness comes when your life is no longer a frantic project you must maintain, but a gift you receive and offer back. Today, you can stop negotiating and start following—because the One who asks for your life is the One who gave His for you. Father, thank You for giving true life in Your Son; help me surrender what I’m clinging to and obey You today with courage and joy. Amen. Evening with A.W. Tozer Being ChurchIf we could bring together in one huge directory a list of all the organizations, great and small, that exist throughout the earth for the promotion of special interests we would be astounded at the number of them. Almost everything that human beings do or can do has its organization, association, society or guild to focus attention upon it and promote its ends. Some of these are good, some are bad, most of them are just neutral; but each one, however boring or comical it may appear to those who are not interested, has its starry-eyed devotees who live for it alone and who derive their keenest pleasure from their preoccupation with it. In the midst of all this there is one group of persons whose absorbing interest is, or should be, God. That group is the Church. The Church is born out of the gospel and that gospel has to do with God and mans relation to God. Christianity engages to bring God into human life, to make men right with God, to give them a heart knowledge of God, to teach them to love and obey God and ultimately to restore in them the lost image of God in full and everlasting perfection. Music For the Soul A Dark FearIf Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? - Psalm 130:3 To "mark iniquities" is to impute them to us. The word in the original means to watch - that is to say, to remember in order to punish. If a man be regarded by God’s eye through the mist of his own sins, they turn the bright sun of God’s own light into a red-hot flaming ball of fire. Like a man having to yield ground to an eager enemy, or to bend before the blast, every man has to bow before that flashing brightness, and to own that retribution would be destruction. Do we not all know that our characters and our lives have been, as it were, distorted; that our moral nature has been marred with animal lusts, and that ambitions and worldly desires have come in and prevented us from following the law of conscience? Is not that very conscience, more or less distorted, drugged and dormant? And is not all this largely voluntary? Do we not feel, in spite of all pleas about circumstances and "heredity," that we could have helped being what we are? And do we not feel that, after all, if there be such a thing as God’s judgment and retribution, it must come on us with terrible force? That is what the Psalmist means when he says that if God be strict to mark iniquities there is not one of us that can stand before Him; and we know it is true. You may be a very respectable man; that is not the question. You may have kept your hands clear from anything that would bring you within the sweep of the law; that has nothing to do with it. You may have subdued animal passions, been sober, temperate, chaste, generous - a hundred other things. Granted, of course! Ah! gross, palpable sin slays its thousands; and that clean, white, respectable, ghastly purity of a godless, self-complacent morality, I do believe, slays its tens of thousands. And you, not because your goodness is not goodness of a sort, but because you are building upon it, and think that such words as those of the Psalmist, go clean over your heads - you are in this perilous position. Oh, dear friend! will you take ten minutes quietly to think over that verse, "If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? " Can I? Can I? Is it not true that, deep below the surface, contentment with the world and the things of the world, a dormant, but lightly slumbering, sense of want and unsatisfied need, lies in your souls? Is it not true that it wakes sometimes at a touch; that the tender, dying light of sunset, or the calm abysses of the mighty heavens, or some strain of music, or a line in a book, or a sorrow in your heart, or the solemnity of a great joy, or close contact with sickness and death, or the more direct appeals of Scripture and of Christ, stir a wistful yearning and a painful sense of emptiness in your hearts, and of insufficiency in all the ordinary pursuits of your lives? Spurgeon: Morning and Evening Isaiah 53:10 He shall see his seed; he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Plead for the speedy fulfilment of this promise, all ye who love the Lord. It is easy work to pray when we are grounded and bottomed, as to our desires, upon God's own promise. How can he that gave the word refuse to keep it? Immutable veracity cannot demean itself by a lie, and eternal faithfulness cannot degrade itself by neglect. God must bless his Son, his covenant binds him to it. That which the Spirit prompts us to ask for Jesus, is that which God decrees to give him. Whenever you are praying for the kingdom of Christ, let your eyes behold the dawning of the blessed day which draweth near, when the Crucified shall receive his coronation in the place where men rejected him. Courage, you that prayerfully work and toil for Christ with success of the very smallest kind, it shall not be so always; better times are before you. Your eyes cannot see the blissful future: borrow the telescope of faith; wipe the misty breath of your doubts from the glass; look through it and behold the coming glory. Reader, let us ask, do you make this your constant prayer? Remember that the same Christ who tells us to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," had first given us this petition, "Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Let not your prayers be all concerning your own sins, your own wants, your own imperfections, your own trials, but let them climb the starry ladder, and get up to Christ himself, and then, as you draw nigh to the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, offer this prayer continually, "Lord, extend the kingdom of thy dear Son." Such a petition, fervently presented, will elevate the spirit of all your devotions. Mind that you prove the sincerity of your prayer by laboring to promote the Lord's glory. Spurgeon: Faith’s Checkbook True Heart-EnergyThis is, practically, a promise that, by diligent meditation and the giving up of our whole mind to our work for the LORD we shall make a progress which all can see. Not by hasty reading but by deep meditation we profit by the Word of God. Not by doing a great deal of work in a slovenly manner, but by giving our best thought to what we attempt, we shall get real profit. "In all labor there is profit" but not in fuss and hurry without true heart-energy. If we divide ourselves between God and mammon, or Christ and self, we shall make no progress. We must give ourselves wholly to holy things, or else we shall be poor traders in heavenly business, and at our stocktaking no profit will be shown. Am I a minister? Let me be a minister wholly and not spend my energies upon secondary concerns. What have I to do with party politics or vain amusements? Am I a Christian? Let me make my service of Jesus my occupation, my lifework, my one pursuit. We must be in-and-in with Jesus, and then out-and-out for Jesus, or else we shall make neither progress nor profit, and neither the church nor the world will feel the forceful influence which the LORD would have us exercise. The Believer’s Daily Remembrancer I Shall Not WantTHIS was David’s conclusion, from the belief that the Lord was his Shepherd. If we are the sheep of Christ, He will supply us. He has all things in His possession, the silver and the gold are His, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. His private mark is upon all. All spiritual blessings are in His possession also; and He has a kind, tender, and liberal heart. He will give. He has engaged to supply, conduct, protect, and present His flock upon Mount Zion. He has promised to be to us, do for us, and bestow upon us, all that our circumstances require. His conduct towards His flock in old times is a sufficient guarantee. Whenever were the righteous forsaken, or His sheep left neglected and unheeded? Did David ever want? Few passed through greater changes, or severer trials; yet upon his dying bed he tells us, he had all his desire. If you belong to Christ, you may safely conclude, "I SHALL NOT WANT." Your fears are follies; your anxieties are groundless; your forebodings are sinful; you have a God to provide for you, and you ought to rejoice. "My God," says the apostle, "shall supply all your needs, according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." What want shall not our God supply From His redundant stores? What streams of mercy from on high All arm almighty pours! Bible League: Living His Word For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.— Colossians 3:3-4 ESV If you're a Christian, then you have died. The old you, the spiritually sinful you, has died. That part of you died on the cross with Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:20). Although it tries to revive and take control again, it can never completely succeed. This is because the new you that was spiritually raised with Christ Jesus from the dead (Colossians 3:1), the new you in whom Christ Jesus lives (Galatians 2:20), the new you in whom the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16), is who you are now. The old man no longer characterizes the Christian. It can never have you back again. Our verse for today tells us that your life, meaning your new spiritual life, is "hidden with Christ in God." What does this mean? It means that the spiritually new you has a source that goes beyond anything you are in yourself. That's why the Apostle Paul can say, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20). Although this can't be seen, its effects can be seen. The spiritually new you is radically different from the spiritually old you and the spiritually discerning can see the difference. Although your new life is hidden, it will not stay hidden forever. A day is coming when it will be revealed for all to see, even those who do not have spiritual discernment. It's the day when Jesus Christ returns. It's the day when His rule and reign are finally made public. On that day you will appear with Him and be publicly revealed with Him (1 Thessalonians 3:13). At that time, the new you will be more than a spiritual reality hidden with Christ that only the spiritually discerning can see. It will be a public reality that all will see—and it will be glorious. No doubt, you long for that public revelation. You long for the vindication it implies. The doubters and the scoffers will finally be forced to admit what they have missed. To their dismay, they will finally see what you have seen all along. Daily Light on the Daily Path Luke 18:8 "I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?"John 1:11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 1 Timothy 4:1 But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 Timothy 4:2-4 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. • For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, • and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. Mark 13:32,33 "But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. • "Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come. Luke 12:37 "Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them. Titus 2:13 looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org. Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion Hear my cry,for I am very low. Rescue me from my persecutors, for they are too strong for me. Insight Have you ever felt that no one cared what happened to you? David had a good reason to feel that way, and he wrote, “Hear my cry, for I am very low.” Challenge Through prayer we can pull out of our tailspin and be reminded that God cares for us deeply. Devotional Hours Within the Bible God’s Thinking of Us“How precious also are your thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with you!” We like to know that people are thinking about us. Even a postal card coming in the mail some morning from a friend far away, saying only, “I am thinking of you,” brings you a strange uplift. You were sick for a time and could not see your friends, and one day a rose was sent up to your room with a card and a message of love. How it cheered you! Someone was thinking of you. You were in sorrow, and a little note came in with just a verse of Scripture, a word of sympathy, or a “God bless you!” and a name. It was almost as if an angel from heaven had visited you. Somebody was thinking of you. You have not forgotten how it helped you. “How precious also are your thoughts unto me, O God!” This means God’s thoughts of us. They are precious. In one of the previous verses of the Psalm, the poet tells us that God knows all our thoughts. Here he tells us of God’s own thoughts He thinks of us thinks of us with love. The root of the word rendered “precious” is weighty. God’s thoughts are weighty, like gold. Then they are without number that is, God does not think of us merely once in a lifetime, or now and then but continually. “How great is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand.” God thinks about us. “How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God!” The Bible teaches unmistakably, that God cares for us. A scientific writer not long ago declared that the greatest discovery of the twentieth century would be the discovery of God, and that then will it be known that God does not care. It would be terrible if this should prove to be true. If God never thinks about you, if you have no place in His heart, this would be a dark world for you. But we do not need to wait for a new discovery of God in this twentieth century. The discovery has been already made and God does care! His name is Father. Can one be a father and not care for his child! Jesus came to reveal God to us, and He tells us over and over that God loves us, thinks about us, provides for us, hears our prayers. Not only are we in God’s thoughts but He thinks about us as individuals, not merely as a race. The teaching of the whole Bible is that God knows us individually. There was only one sheep that had strayed from the fold but the shepherd missed that one, thought about it, and sought it over the hills. The Psalms abound in expressions like these: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” “He leads me .” ”I sought the Lord and he answered me .” ”When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” “When I awake I am still with you.” No matter where you awake, you will find God bending over you. This is the drift of the whole Bible. It is not God and the human family, not God and a nation but God and the individual. The Good Shepherd calls His own sheep by name. The Father never forgets one of His own children. Though you are cast on a bare rock in the sea, and no friend in the world knows where you are you are in God’s thought. He is watching and caring. Though you are carrying today some secret grief or trouble, of which no one on earth can know He knows. He sympathizes. He is thinking of you. In one of the earlier verses of our Psalm, the poet says to God, “You understand my thoughts afar off.” Your most secret thoughts are known in heaven. Jesus is touched even with the feeling of our infirmities. In all your afflictions, He is afflicted. It is just as if there were only one person in the world and you were that one. He is thinking of you today as if He had only you to think of, in all the world. “How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God!” Could anything be more precious, more comforting, more strengthening, more uplifting; than to know that God really cares, that whatever your need or trouble, He is thinking about you? If you actually believe this, all your trouble will be light, and life’s meaning will all be changed for you. Providence is full of illustrations of God’s special thought for His children. In an address made in Glasgow before an Insurance and Actuarial Society, James Byers Black told the story of the escape of the one man who survived the Tay Bridge disaster, some years ago. This man left the train when it stopped for a moment at Fort Street station, just before it started on its journey to death. His hat had blown off and he followed his impulse to run after it. At that instant the train moved off and the man was left standing alone at the little wayside station, on a dark and tempestuous night. Within a very few minutes, the train had crashed through the broken bridge and had carried seventy-four people everyone on board down to death in the remorseless waters of the Tay River. The man whose hat blew off was the sole survivor of that night’s tragedy. It would be interesting to know this man’s subsequent history. Why was he spared? What work was there for him to do? If we could understand the mystery of Divine Providence, no doubt we would learn the reason why God thought of this man and kept him off the ill-fated train. We call this a special providence. Someone once asked George Macdonald if he believed in special providences. He said, “Yes in the providences but not in the special .” He believed that we were always meeting providences. Not now and then, in some remarkable instances but in every event and occurrence, there is a Divine Providence. God is always on the field. Our life is full of God. We do not usually see His hand but He is never absent. There are no accidents, no chances in life. God thinks of us continually, and watches over all our movements. We call it a providence when there is a disaster on the railway and we are not hurt. Is it any less a providence when the train runs with no disaster, and we are uninjured? One man asked thanks to be given in a meeting, because his horse stumbled on the edge of the precipice and he escaped being dashed to death. Another man asked to be included in the thanksgiving, because he passed on the same road and his horse did not even stumble. Not only does God deliver us in danger but He guards from danger! Every man is immortal until his work is done. “How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God.” I am glad I do not have to plan and direct my own life. God thinks upon me! God’s thoughts for our life, may not always be our thoughts but they are always the right and the best thoughts. There is a verse in Isaiah which I always read with deep reverence. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” It is God’s thoughts we want for our life, rather than our own thoughts. Of course, God’s thought for us is higher than ours; that is, wiser, better, safer than ours. He is infinite in knowledge, and sees the end from the beginning. We will all assent to this as a truth, and also as a theory of life. But when we come to the acceptance of God’s thought, His way, His plan, instead of our own, sometimes we fail. We think that we could plan better than God has planned. We are not willing to accept His thought for our life. What just now, would you make different if you were directing your life! You would leave out some disappointments, perhaps. You would not have this year’s pinching times, if you were changing things to your own mind. But would it be better that way! Perhaps the best things in your whole life have come out of the things you would omit if you were planning! When we say, “How precious are your thoughts unto me, O God!” we should be ready to accept these thoughts, to believe in them, to yield ourselves to them. Have you ever thought what a glorious thing it is to have God’s plan for your life, to know that He thought about you before you were made, and then made you according to His thought? It is a wonderful truth. No wonder that George Macdonald said he would rather be the being God made him to be than the most glorious creature he could think of. No possible human plan for your life could be half so high, so noble, so beautiful as God’s thought for you. This is true, not only for the plan of our life in general but of each, detail of it. We are coming all the while to certain experiences which so break into our thought for our life, that we are startled and say, “Surely this cannot be God’s thought for me.” Sometimes we have pleaded with God to withhold from us something some sorrow, some loss, some pain which seemed to be impending, and we did not get our request. That impending affliction came to us in spite of our prayers. What really happened? God’s perfect thought for our life at that point went on, instead of our lower thought. And that was best! Our desire should always be that God’s thought shall be realized, and not ours. This should be our prayer in the most intense moments of our life. One tells of an unanswered prayer. There had been the most passionate pleading for something without which it seemed that the friend’s life would be most incomplete. It appeared that it would be nothing less than disaster to have the request not granted. But if it was God’s thought for the life, it would have been no disaster. The disaster, then, would have been the granting of the request! “My ways are higher than your ways; and my thoughts than your thoughts.” When will we learn this ? God’s thoughts for us are always good, always right. Jeremiah, in comforting the exiles in captivity, said: “Thus says Jehovah, After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says Jehovah, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you hope in the days to come.” God’s thought for His people in the captivity was peace, good, blessing. When you are passing through some great sorrow, some overwhelming loss, some sore trial, God’s thought for you always is peace, good, blessing. It seems to me that if we would only believe this, if we would only be sure of it, whatever the experiences may be, nothing ever could disturb us. Of course, we cannot understand things, and we cannot see how good can be in our Father’s thought for us when all seems so destructive, so ruinous. But here is the divine word for it, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says Jehovah, thoughts of peace and not of evil.” Then we have the experience of the past. Has it not been always so? God never had a thought toward any child of His that was not a thought of peace. He always means good, even in the most painful trials. The cross of Christ was a thought of God, and you know what infinite blessing the cross gave to the world. Every disappointment of yours is a thought of love, if you understood it. Bible in a Year Old Testament ReadingJudges 8, 9 Judges 8 -- Zebah and Zalmunna Taken; Gideon's Ephod and Death; 40 years of Peace NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Judges 9 -- Abimelech Conspires to Become King, Falls after 3 Years; Shechem; Abimelech NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB New Testament Reading Luke 8:22-56 Luke 8 -- Parables of the Sower and Lamp; Jesus Calms the Storm, Heals the Demoniac, Raises a Dead Girl NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Reading Plan Courtesy of Christian Classics Etherial Library. |
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