Bible League: Living His Word I trust in you, my God,and I will not be disappointed. My enemies will not laugh at me. Life can be trying and demanding. Life can take the best you have to offer and treat it with indifference and contempt. You want to give it your best shot, but what if your best shot falls short? There is always the possibility of disappointment. There is always the possibility that some bitter pills will have to be swallowed. Life in this dispensation can be a thankless affair that tries one's soul to the very core of its being. How will we bear up under its assaults? How will we continue to press on when disappointment looms like a specter before us? It can get worse. Not only may we have to face up to the disappointments of life, we may also have to contend with those that do not have our best interests at heart, with those that actively oppose everything we are trying to accomplish. All along the way they may be critical of what we try to do, instead of helping out. All along the way they may do everything they can to sabotage our plans and initiatives, instead of getting behind them. They say it won't work and they may do everything they can to make sure it doesn't work. They may do everything they can to make sure their original prognostications come true. How will we stand it if our enemies shower us with scorn? How will we stand it if they laugh at us? The dire possibilities are enough to make one give up the idea of doing anything. For people without God, life can make them want to pack it in altogether. Things are different, however, for people that have God in their lives, for people that put their trust and faith in Him. They're not blind. They see the dire possibilities of disappointment and enemy laughter. But they go forth anyway because they know that God is with them. Things may not work out exactly as expected, but they will work out. The enemies may still laugh, but their laughter will fall flat. God will be there and he will make sure of that. Go forth today, therefore, with the plans and initiatives the Spirit of God has placed in your heart. Don't fear disappointment and enemy laughter, for God is with you. Bible in a Year Old Testament ReadingIsaiah 24, 25, 26 Isaiah 24 -- Devastation on the Earth NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Isaiah 25 -- Song of Praise for God's Favor NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Isaiah 26 -- Song of Praise for God's Protection NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB New Testament Reading Ephesians 4 Ephesians 4 -- Unity in the Spirit; Life as Children of Light NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Reading Plan Courtesy of Christian Classics Etherial Library. Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us.Insight Paul mentions two gifts God gives when we become believers: (1) a seal of ownership to show who our Master is, and (2) the Holy Spirit, who guarantees that we belong to him and will receive all his benefits. The Holy Spirit guarantees that salvation is ours now, and that we will receive so much more when Christ returns. The great comfort and power the Holy Spirit gives in this life is a foretaste or down payment (“first installment”) of the benefits of our eternal life in God's presence. Challenge With the privilege of belonging to God comes the responsibility of identifying ourselves as his faithful servants. Don't be ashamed to let others know that you are his. Morning and Evening by Spurgeon Daniel 10:11 A man greatly beloved.Child of God, do you hesitate to appropriate this title? Ah! has your unbelief made you forget that you are greatly beloved too? Must you not have been greatly beloved, to have been bought with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot? When God smote his only begotten Son for you, what was this but being greatly beloved? You lived in sin, and rioted in it, must you not have been greatly beloved for God to have borne so patiently with you? You were called by grace and led to a Saviour, and made a child of God and an heir of heaven. All this proves, does it not, a very great and superabounding love? Since that time, whether your path has been rough with troubles, or smooth with mercies, it has been full of proofs that you are a man greatly beloved. If the Lord has chastened you, yet not in anger; if he has made you poor, yet in grace you have been rich. The more unworthy you feel yourself to be, the more evidence have you that nothing but unspeakable love could have led the Lord Jesus to save such a soul as yours. The more demerit you feel, the clearer is the display of the abounding love of God in having chosen you, and called you, and made you an heir of bliss. Now, if there be such love between God and us let us live in the influence and sweetness of it, and use the privilege of our position. Do not let us approach our Lord as though we were strangers, or as though he were unwilling to hear us--for we are greatly beloved by our loving Father. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Come boldly, O believer, for despite the whisperings of Satan and the doubtings of thine own heart, thou art greatly beloved. Meditate on the exceeding greatness and faithfulness of divine love this evening, and so go to thy bed in peace. Daily Light on the Daily Path 1 Corinthians 4:7 For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me. James 1:18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. Romans 9:16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. Romans 3:27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 1 Corinthians 1:30,31 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, • so that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD." Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, • in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. • Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 1 Corinthians 6:11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. 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. |
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