Dawn 2 Dusk When the Invitation Feels Like HomePsalm 122:1 captures that moment when worship stops feeling like an obligation and starts feeling like a joy-filled response. There’s a warmth in being invited to gather with God’s people—an inner “yes” that rises because the Lord is worthy and His presence is good. The Joy of Being Called In There’s something telling about the psalmist’s reaction: not reluctance, not negotiation—gladness. That kind of joy doesn’t come from perfect circumstances; it comes from a heart that remembers who God is and what He’s done. When we’re spiritually tired, we can start treating worship like a duty we owe instead of a doorway we get to walk through. But the Lord doesn’t merely summon us to a place; He draws us to Himself. Jesus put His finger on what we’re really hungry for: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). The house of the Lord is where restless hearts learn to breathe again—not because the music is flawless or the people are painless, but because God meets His children with grace. Today, let the invitation land fresh: you’re not showing up to impress Him; you’re coming because He welcomes you. Worship as a Decision Before It’s a Feeling Gladness often follows obedience. Sometimes we wait for the right mood before we engage, but Scripture regularly flips that order: we step toward God, and our hearts catch up. “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22). Drawing near is a choice—an act of trust that says, “Lord, You are worth my attention more than my distractions.” And when the enemy whispers that gathering doesn’t matter, remember this: “And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds. Let us not neglect meeting together… but let us encourage one another” (Hebrews 10:24–25). Your presence is not just for you. God uses ordinary believers—your voice in the songs, your amen in the Word, your quiet faithfulness—to strengthen someone else. Don’t underestimate how the Lord multiplies simple obedience. The House of the Lord Shapes the Rest of the Week Worship isn’t an event you attend; it’s a rhythm that reorders your loves. When you come into God’s presence with His people, you’re recalibrated—reminded what’s true, what’s eternal, what matters most. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33). Gathering is one way we practice that seeking, putting God back in first place. It also trains you to carry God’s presence outward. The goal isn’t to leave inspired and then live unchanged; it’s to leave anchored and then live faithfully. “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you… singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Colossians 3:16). As the Word fills you, gratitude grows—and as gratitude grows, your home, your work, your conversations begin to sound different. Today, ask the Lord to make your worship more than a moment: let it become momentum. Father, thank You for welcoming me into Your presence and for the joy of gathering with Your people. Give me a willing heart to draw near, to encourage others, and to live this week shaped by Your Word. Amen. Evening with A.W. Tozer Here for Our TimeJust as those who lived in the past had the privilege of being God's people of faith then, so do we in our own day! It is good to come to the understanding that while God wants us to be holy and Spirit-filled, He does not expect us to look like Abraham or to play the harp like David or to have the same spiritual insights given to Paul. All of the former heroes of the faith are dead. You are alive in your generation. A Bible proverb says that it is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. You may wish to be Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, but remember they have been asleep for centuries, and you are still around! You can witness for our Lord today! You can still pray! You can still give of your substance to help those who are in need! In this, your own generation, give God all your love, all your devotion. You do not know what holy, happy secret God may want to whisper to your responsive heart! Music For the Soul Host and Guest in OneHe brought me to the banqueting-house, and His banner over me was love. - Song of Solomon 2:4 The entrance of Jesus Christ into the opened heart is no mere metaphor, and it is not beweakened down to the presence in the spirit of the influence of His truth, or anything of that sort. There is a deep and substantial reality in the presence within a believing heart of Jesus Christ Himself. It is the central gift and promise of the Gospel, " that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." The old question that tortured men in early days, "Will God in very deed dwell with men upon the earth?" is answered now; and we have not only a Christ that was once incarnated in the son of a virgin to look back upon, but we have a Christ who dwells in our human spirits, if we open them by faith for His entrance. He Himself is the greatest of His gifts, and where He comes there spring, at the touch of His foot, all gracious, noble, and good things in the human heart. He never comes empty-handed, but when He enters in He endows the soul with untold riches. We have also Christ’s presence as a Guest. How wonderful that is! "I will come in and sup with him." All sweet and familiar intercourse may be ours. It is even so that He, the glorious Lord, whose majesty, as revealed to John, prostrated even the disciple, who had leaned on His bosom at supper, as one dead, will bring all these splendours into this poor heart! He will come, and that as our Guest. What great and wonderful things are contained in that assurance! Can we present anything to Him that He can partake of? Yes! We may give Him our service, and He will take that; we may give Him our love, and He will regard it as an odour of a sweet smell, and as dainty and delightsome food. Christ comes to us not only as a Guest, but also as Host: - " I will sup with him and he with Me. As when they asked Him to the rustic wedding at Cana of Galilee, He came as the Guest, but presently He turned the water of earthly felicity into the wine of heavenly gladness, and was Himself the Provider of the feast. As upon that night at Emmaus, when the two wearied men asked the wearied Companion of their journey to come in and stay with them at their humble meal, and He took His place at the table as an invited Guest, but in a moment assumed the role of the Master of the house, and broke the bread and blessed it, so making their gift to Him into His to them. So when He comes into your heart, and you offer Him your poor fare, your loyalty and your love and your faith and your service, He gives you the powers and the resources to love and serve Him; and still more, He gives you Himself, the Bread of God that came down from heaven, that your soul may feed upon that, and be satisfied and glad. As when some great prince offers to honour a poor subject with his presence, and let him provide some insignificant portion of the entertainment, whilst all the substantial and costly parts of it come in the retinue of the monarch, from the palace. Spurgeon: Morning and Evening 1 Thessalonians 2:18 Satan hindered us. Since the first hour in which goodness came into conflict with evil, it has never ceased to be true in spiritual experience, that Satan hinders us. From all points of the compass, all along the line of battle, in the vanguard and in the rear, at the dawn of day and in the midnight hour, Satan hinders us. If we toil in the field, he seeks to break the ploughshare; if we build the wall, he labors to cast down the stones; if we would serve God in suffering or in conflict--everywhere Satan hinders us. He hinders us when we are first coming to Jesus Christ. Fierce conflicts we had with Satan when we first looked to the cross and lived. Now that we are saved, he endeavours to hinder the completeness of our personal character. You may be congratulating yourself, "I have hitherto walked consistently; no man can challenge my integrity." Beware of boasting, for your virtue will yet be tried; Satan will direct his engines against that very virtue for which you are the most famous. If you have been hitherto a firm believer, your faith will ere long be attacked; if you have been meek as Moses, expect to be tempted to speak unadvisedly with your lips. The birds will peck at your ripest fruit, and the wild boar will dash his tusks at your choicest vines. Satan is sure to hinder us when we are earnest in prayer. He checks our importunity, and weakens our faith in order that, if possible, we may miss the blessing. Nor is Satan less vigilant in obstructing Christian effort. There was never a revival of religion without a revival of his opposition. As soon as Ezra and Nehemiah begin to labor, Sanballat and Tobiah are stirred up to hinder them. What then? We are not alarmed because Satan hindereth us, for it is a proof that we are on the Lord's side, and are doing the Lord's work, and in his strength we shall win the victory, and triumph over our adversary. Spurgeon: Faith’s Checkbook Rules for ProsperityYes, the LORD will be with us in our holy war, but He demands of us that we strictly follow His rules, Our victories will very much depend upon our obeying Him with all our heart, throwing strength and courage into the actions of our faith. If we are halfhearted we cannot expect more than half a blessing. We must obey the LORD with care and thoughtfulness. "Observe to do" is the phrase used, and it is full of meaning. This is referred to every part of the divine will; we must obey with universal readiness. Our rule of conduct is "according to all the law." We may not pick and choose, but we must take the LORD’s commands as they come, one and all. In all this we must go on with exactness and constancy Ours is to be a straightforward course which bends neither to the right nor to the left. We are not to err by being more rigid than the law, nor turn out of levity to a more See and easy way. With such obedience there will come spiritual prosperity. O LORD, help us to see if it be not even so! We shall not test Thy promise in vain. The Believer’s Daily Remembrancer Surely I Come QuicklyWHO is this proposing to come quickly? Is it an enemy threatening us? Is it a stranger? No, it is JESUS whom we love, speaking to cheer us. It is IMMANUEL, to whom we are betrothed in righteousness, judgment, lovingkindness, mercies, and faithfulness. It is our SAVIOUR, who saved us by His death, and preserves us by His life. He will come shortly, the period cannot be far distant. He will come gladly, with delight and pleasure, to receive us to Himself. "Surely," He says, "I come quickly;" and is it not a source of joy to us, does it not excite and draw forth holy expectation? He comes to end our persecutions, to silence our complaints, to conform us to His image, to fill us with His love, to clothe us with His glory, and to bring us grace. Do we say with the church, "Amen, even so, come, Lord Jesus"? Or, are we indifferent about His coming? He says, "Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame." Let us look for, and hasten to the coming of the day of God. He comes for our redemption. His coming completes our salvation. Fly, ye seasons, fly still faster: Let the glorious day come on, When we shall behold our Master Seated on His heavenly throne! When the Saviour Shall descend to claim His own. Bible League: Living His Word "God is spirit, so the people who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."— John 4:24 ERV In the testimony of the Samaritan woman at the well we have an example of "religion" being one of the most common excuses in refusing the true God. Whether it be from a moralist such as Nicodemus or an immoralist such as the Samaritan woman, people want to justify sin by saying they are religious. "I go to church; I'm good with God" is a feeble expression of religion and they know not what they truly worship. In John 4:23, Jesus says the time has come for true worship—a reference to His deity and the way of salvation, truth, and life. And verse 24 takes the Samaritan woman's false religious theology out of the realm of time and place and makes it a matter of the heart with God. The woman was using her worship of God as a cover for her immoral life. But it was not a true worship of the heart. True worship of God will move from an action of the flesh to an expression of the heart, creating a sense of reverence and fear that will turn from immoral actions. Job is described as one who feared God and eschewed evil (Job 1:1). One's true worship of God will compel a reverent fear of God giving one a corresponding fear of evil. Jesus said, "Fear not those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). To worship God is to worship Him in "spirit and truth." To worship in spirit is to worship from the heart. Not from carnality, or a form, or a religious service or action, but in fear and sincerity from the heart. To worship in truth is to worship in and through the true way of God. True worship is not a religious activity, but rather a real relationship with God through Jesus Christ who is the only mediator between God and believers (1 Timothy 2:5). And to worship in "spirit and truth" will result in a healthy and glorious fear of the awesome God. So beloved of Christ, check your worship. Is it in spirit and truth? Make sure it is personal in relationship with Jesus Christ; spiritual in heart; intellectual; and emotional in fear and reverence. Worship that is manifested in sincere responses of adoration, praise, love, sacrifice, and obedience demonstrates a life lived in God through Jesus Christ our Lord. By Pastor David Massie, Bible League International staff, California USA Daily Light on the Daily Path Matthew 22:42 "What do you think about the Christ, whose son is He?" They said to Him, "The son of David."Psalm 24:9,10 Lift up your heads, O gates, And lift them up, O ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in! • Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah. Revelation 9:16 The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them. 1 Peter 2:7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, "THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone," 1 Corinthians 1:23,24 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, • but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Philippians 3:8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, John 21:17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Tend My sheep. 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 “And anyone who believes in God's Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn't obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God's angry judgment.”Insight Jesus says that those who believe in him have (not will have) everlasting life. Challenge To receive eternal life is to join in God's life, which by nature is eternal. Thus, eternal life begins at the moment of spiritual rebirth. Devotional Hours Within the Bible Three QuestionsMatthew 22:15-22 , Matthew 22:34-46 The Pharisees, on those last days in the temple, were in continual and bitter controversy with Jesus. They sought to trouble Him, to ensnare or entangle Him in His conversation. We may be glad, however, for the questions they asked, because they drew from Him great utterances which are of priceless value to us. First, they took counsel together and prepared a question which they thought would entrap Him whichever way He answered it. They began by praising His sincerity and truthfulness, as if to flatter Him. Then they asked, “Is it lawful to pay taxes unto Caesar, or not?” They thought He could not possibly avoid being ensnared. If He would answer Yes, He would be denounced as lacking in Jewish patriotism. If He should answer No, He would be denounced as disloyal to Rome. But He was not ensnared by their question. He knows men’s thoughts. He knew their hypocrisy and falseness, and easily baffled them. His answer lays down a great principle. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” The use of the coinage of Caesar by the people, was an admission of his rule. But there was something higher than that. God was over all, and no duty to Him must be neglected. They must be good citizens of Rome but there was a higher citizenship, and they must also be good citizens of heaven. The Sadducees came next with their question about the resurrection. They did not believe in the resurrection nor in the existence of spirits, and they thought their question would completely puzzle Him. “In the resurrection… whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all were married to her.” They thought to make the doctrine of resurrection ridiculous. The answer was wonderfully wise. They were thinking only of the earthly life but in the immortal life all will be different. In the resurrection there will be no marriage. Christ does not mean that the love which binds husband and wife together and grows into such sacredness and beauty in true marriage, shall perish in death and have no existence in the resurrection life. Love never dies it is immortal. It is only the incidents of birth, death and marriage that have no existence beyond the grave. Then a lawyer had a question to ask Jesus, “testing Him,” the record says. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” The question was a theological one that was discussed much among Jewish teachers, who were proverbially fond of splitting hairs. However, it is an important question for us, too. It is well for us to know which are the first things in life. Jesus answered promptly, “You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart.” God comes first. Nothing else in all the universe can be put before Him in true living. The first words of the Bible are, “In the beginning God.” God was at the beginning, before anything a grain of sand, the tiniest flower, the smallest thing was created. There was nothing before God. There is nothing which God did not create. But He is also at the beginning of everything of good and beauty. The same is true in every true heart. We cannot get a blessing, until we have God first. Not God first in order, merely but God first in love, in the place of confidence and trust. He must have the chief place we must love Him with all our being. It is idle to think of any other religious act or effort, until we have begun to love God. This is the beginning of all true religion. Not to love God is not to have taken the first step in a true and holy life. Then something else follows. “And the second is like unto it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love for our neighbor is second, in two ways. It must be second in place and in degree. God must be loved supremely. To love any being or anything more than God is idolatry. It will not do to preach a religion of humanitarianism and not to have first “You shall love the Lord your God.” Love to a man is second also, in the sense that it must spring out of love for God. There must be a first before there can be a second. There can be no love for our neighbor, if there is not first love for God. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19), We love our neighbor, because God loves us, and we love God and because this love warms our heart toward others. But when we truly love God we will love our brother also. There has been altogether too little stress put by the Christian Church in the past on this commandment of love to our neighbor. A careful study of the teachings of Christ, will show that He Himself insisted continually on love as the very proof and test of Christian life. We cannot get God’s forgiveness, until we forgive our fellow men. We are to love our enemies, if we would be the children of our Father. By this shall all men know that we are Christ’s disciples, because we love one another (see John 13:35). The epistles, too, are full of teachings concerning the duty of love. Paul’s wonderful thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians shows how essential love is, and then shows us the way we must live if we are indeed Christ’s. John also makes it plain to us that if we love God we will love our brother also. The claim that we love God cannot be true if it appears that we do not love our brother. “If a man says, I love God, and hates his brother he is a liar; for he who loves not his brother whom he hat seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” Jesus asked the Pharisees a question, too. “What do you think of Christ?” It was not an easy question to answer. They had very mistaken ideas about their Messiah. Many stumbled at the Messiahship of Jesus, because it was not what they were expecting. Even Christ’s own disciples did not understand the matter. The Jews were looking for a king who would reign on David’s throne an earthly monarch, a worldly conqueror. The Pharisees said the Messiah was to be David’s son. Jesus then asked them another hard question. “How then does David in Spirit, calls him Lord ?” But they had not thought about the particular Scripture to which Jesus referred. If they had, they would have had different ideas of the character and reign of their Messiah. Jesus then asked them again, “If David then calls Him Lord, how is He his son ?” No wonder that no one was able to answer Him a word after hearing this question. The question was simply unanswerable on any theory that made the Messiah an earthly monarch. It is unanswerable also on any conception of the character of Jesus which considers Him as no more than a man. If David called the Messiah his Lord, the Messiah must be Divine, the Son of God. We may worship Him, therefore, and give Him the supreme place in all our lives. It is thus, indeed, that Christ offers Himself to us in the Scriptures. He claims the supreme individual love of His followers. He who loves father or mother more than Him is not worthy of Him. He claims the place of absolute Master in the life of every man who would be His. We must obey implicitly, unquestioningly, wholly. We cannot take Christ merely as Savior, trusting in Him as our Redeemer, without at the same time taking Him as Lord, as Master, and obeying Him. What David did in calling the Messiah his Lord, is what everyone who accepts Him must do. Paul put his whole creed in a single sentence when he said of Christ; “Whose I am, and whom I serve” (Acts 27:23). The confession of Thomas should be the confession of everyone who receives Christ and believes in Him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Bible in a Year Old Testament ReadingPsalm 79, 80, 81 Psalm 79 -- They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Psalm 80 -- Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Psalm 81 -- Sing aloud to God, our strength! Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob! NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB New Testament Reading Romans 8:1-18 Romans 8 -- No Condemnation for those in Christ Jesus; We Are More than Conquerors NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Reading Plan Courtesy of Christian Classics Etherial Library. |
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