Bible in One Year: Ezekiel 37-39; 2 Peter 2
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
"By the Grace of God I Am What I Am" / Oswald Chambers
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An Introduction to Christ / Charles Stanley
An Introduction to Christ
The first chapter of Revelation gives a compact description of the Lord. In verses 4 to 8, John condenses the wonder of Jesus Christ to the bare but beautiful essentials of who He is:
Jesus Christ is the faithful witness. Jesus came to earth to more fully reveal the character and ways of the Father (John 14:9). The miracles He performed validated His claim to be the Son of God.
Jesus Christ is the first-born from the dead. The Savior bore our sins and died on the cross, was buried, and rose again on the third day. His resurrection proved that eternal life is possible for us, too, as Jesus taught in John 11:25: “He who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”
Jesus Christ is the ruler of the kings of the earth. It is the Lord who raises men to power, just as it is He who removes them (John 19:11; Rom. 13:1). Meanwhile, believers have access to a higher authority. In God’s throne room, we can beseech Him on behalf of our nations and lay claim to His promises.
Jesus Christ loves us and released us from our sins by His blood. Note the change of tense in John’s writing. The Lord’s love is ever-present, but He has freed believers from their past. Both the penalty and power of sin have been broken.
When people ask you about Jesus, introduce Him by guiding them through this mini-biography. In just a few sentences, John describes Christ’s character, divinity, and authority. The disciple was not timid about proclaiming the Lord. We shouldn’t be shy, either, when we serve so great a Savior.
Jesus is Our Bridge / Adrian Rogers
Jesus is Our Bridge
Sermon: 2314 Jesus, the One and Only
Pray Over This
“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”
Ponder This
A college student asked his pastor, “Do you think there is life on other planets?” The pastor said, “No, I don’t think so.” He said, “Then why did God go to all the trouble to make all that stuff?” The pastor said, “What trouble? It was no trouble. He spoke and it was so. The only trouble that God ever had was bloody Calvary.”
When Jesus died, He didn’t just speak and say, “Be forgiven.” No, by the blood of His cross He paid the sin debt and became both the just and the justifier of those who believe in Him. Your sin will be pardoned in Christ or punished in Hell, but it will never be overlooked. God is holy and knew for us to be reconciled with Him, there must be shedding of blood for the cost of our sin. There is a chasm of sin that separates man from God. But Jesus has reconciled us—He built the bridge that spans the chasm. Jesus is the One and only. He is the One who reveals the Father, He is the One who rules the universe, and He is the One who reconciles the lost. I am so glad that I can tell you He is my Savior and Lord, and I love Him with all my heart, and I want you to do the same.
Do you take sin seriously? Why or why not? What evidence does your life give to support your answer?
How has the work of Jesus changed your life?
Practice This
Share with someone today how Jesus has changed your life.
Warning Sounds / ODB
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Holy and Disciplined / David Jeremiah
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Wisdom from the Psalms / November 30
God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle.
Larry had to face the fact: His surgery was less than three days away, and he was scared. He'd hardly been sick a day in his life, and now he was preparing to go under the knife for heart surgery. Nothing had ever prepared him for something like this. He lay back and closed his eyes and began to pray. As he did, an image came into his mind. He was dressed as a soldier, and the surgery ahead was a foe to defeat. But, Larry didn't stand alone. God was with him, and beside the awesome image of God, the foe didn't look large at all. When Larry ended his prayer, he opened his eyes with a renewed sense of hope and a heart that was strangely calm. The Lord had prepared him for battle, and Larry felt that it was already won.
Prayer: Lord, I put my trust in You. As I face the challenges of everyday life, help me to remember that You stand with me, supplying my strength and my courage. Amen.
Let the Lord Choose for You / Greg Laurie
Let the Lord Choose for You
He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is! (Deuteronomy 32:4NLT)
Have you ever drunk something so foul that you couldn’t finish it, like milk that you didn’t realize was already spoiled?
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus bowed down and prayed, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39 NKJV).
The cup that Jesus gazed into was something that turned His stomach. But it wasn’t a literal cup; it was a cup of suffering. Our Lord recoiled from the knowledge that He—someone who was sinless, perfect, and pure—would have to take upon Himself everything that was sinful, imperfect, and impure.
Jesus had never spent a moment out of fellowship with the Father, but soon He would have to bear all the sins of the world. Jesus knew what was going to happen. He knew that Judas would betray Him, His disciples would abandon Him, and Peter would deny Him. And He knew about the whipping, the crucifixion, and all the rest.
Jesus didn’t want to drink this cup, but He knew He had to. There was no question that it was going to be very difficult for Him, to say the least. He was going to face the full wrath of God against all sin.
But look at what it accomplished. It brought about our salvation. Because of what Jesus did, because He drank that cup, we can call upon His name. Although it was difficult, it was necessary for the attainment of the ultimate goal.
Jesus gave us a model of what to do in times of uncertainty. He prayed, “Not as I will, but as You will.” We are not going to know the will of God in every situation. In those times when we don’t know the will of God, will we let Him choose for us? We must never be afraid to place an unknown future into the hands of a known God.
God Hears Our Cries / Alistair Begg
God Hears Our Cries
The people of Israel groaned because of their slavery
and cried out for help … And God heard their groaning,
and God remembered his covenant.
The promise of food had encouraged Jacob and his family to leave their famine-stricken land and relocate to Egypt with Joseph. For a time, everything was terrific. But their experience took a turn for the worse when a new king came to power. He didn’t like the idea of Israel’s people growing in stature and number, so he put them to work, ruthlessly enslaving them. Their lives were filled with tears and bitterness.
The people of God still had His promises, but those promises seemed empty. It had been easy to trust God when they were free and well-fed. It was far less easy when they were enslaved. In the long, long years of oppression, some must have said to themselves, I think that God has forgotten His promise. I am not at all sure that He is really going to do what He said. Yet despite this, they called out to God, desperately seeking rescue.
God had not forgotten, and His answer came. God heard their cry; He heard their groaning, and in response He implemented a rescue operation. God would not leave them in their misery. He was going to fulfill His purposes for His people and set them free from slavery. He “remembered his covenant”—which is not to say that His promises to Abraham had slipped His mind but that now, at exactly the right moment (though no doubt not as soon as His people would have chosen), He moved to keep His covenant to His people.
This is what God’s people need to be reminded of now, just as they did then: God hears our groaning, God knows our circumstances, and He will act. Not one of His promises will fail. Indeed, when we are at a loss for words in our distress, we discover that the Holy Spirit even intercedes for us through our prayerful groanings (Romans 8:26-27). That’s the level of God’s concern for each of us and the depth of His determination to do eternal good for His people.
When your soul’s cries seem to go unheard—when you begin to wonder if anyone truly cares—recall who God has revealed Himself to be, in Egypt and supremely in His Son:
Why should I feel discouraged,
Why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely
And long for heav’n and home,
When Jesus is my portion?
My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
Civilla D. Martin, “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” (1905).
Keep crying out for deliverance. God hears, He cares, and He works on your behalf.
Mark 5:21-43
How to Deal with Anger Graciously / Senior Living
How to Deal with Anger Graciously
A hot-tempered man stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel. - Proverbs 15:18
Many years ago, a senior executive of the then Standard Oil Company made a wrong decision that cost the company more than $2 million. Everyone at the company knew the executive’s career was likely over. And most of the executives were finding various ways of avoiding the company’s president, John D. Rockefeller, lest his wrath descend on their heads.
There was one exception, however. He was Edward T. Bedford, a partner in the company who kept his appointment with Mr. Rockefeller. When he entered the office, he saw Rockefeller at his desk busily writing with a pencil on a pad of paper.
Across the top of the page was written “Points in favor of Mr. _______.” There followed a long list of the guilty executive’s virtues, including a brief description of how he had helped the company make the right decision on three separate occasions that had earned many times the cost of his recent error.
It can sometimes be easy to lose your temper. That’s because so often, reactions to events tend to be just that—reactions—instead of responses. But if you take how you want to react, think it through, and consider the perspectives of others, you’ll be much more inclined to respond biblically than react angrily.
Prayer Challenge:
Ask God to reveal to you in times of anger how you can respond rather than react. Pray that He would help you see others with a biblical perspective and that you would have a forgiving spirit when dealing with conflict.
Ready for Battle / Spurgeon
Ready for Battle
… Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon.
And the dragon and his angels fought back.
War always will rage between the two great sovereignties until one or the other is crushed. Peace between good and evil is an impossibility; to pretend otherwise would signal a victory for the powers of darkness. Michael will always fight; his holy soul is vexed with sin and will not endure it. Jesus will always be the dragon's foe, and not in any quiet sense but actively, vigorously, with full determination to exterminate evil. All His servants, whether angels in heaven or messengers on earth, will and must fight; they are born to be warriors. At the cross they enter into a covenant never to make a truce with evil; they are a warlike company, firm in defense and fierce in attack. The duty of every soldier in the army of the Lord is every day, with all his heart and soul and strength, to fight against the dragon.
The dragon and his angels will fight back; they are incessant in their onslaughts, prepared to use every kind of weaponry. We are foolish to expect to serve God without opposition: The more zealous we are, the more we can expect to be attacked by the ruffians of hell. The church may become lazy, but her great antagonist does not; his restless spirit never allows the war to pause; he hates the woman's seed and would happily devour the Church if he could. The servants of Satan share a great deal of the old dragon's energy and are usually an active crew. War rages all around, and to dream of peace is dangerous and futile.
Glory be to God, we know the end of the war. The great dragon will be cast out and forever destroyed, while Jesus and those who are with Him will receive the crown. So let us sharpen our swords tonight, and ask the Holy Spirit to make us ready for the conflict. Battle was never so important, and the crown never so glorious. Every one to their positions as warriors of the cross, and may the Lord tread Satan under your feet shortly!
Thanksgiving With Meaning / Billy Graham
Thanksgiving With Meaning
It is the custom of many Christians to bow their heads in public places and give thanks for the food that has been placed before them. I have had scores of waiters and waitresses tell me that when we bowed our heads, it was the first time they had ever seen that happen in their restaurant.
Millions never pause to give a word of thanks to God for the food provided. Few homes have a moment of thanksgiving at the beginning of the meal or at any other time of the day. Even at Thanksgiving time only a minority will pause and give thanks to God.
Thanksgiving is recognition of a debt that cannot be paid. We express thanks, whether or not we are able otherwise to reimburse the giver. When thanksgiving is filled with true meaning and is not just the formality of a polite “thank you,” it is the recognition of dependence.
Daily Prayer
Almighty God, You have given me real life through Jesus Christ. My soul praises You.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
John 10:10 ESV
Free of Stress / Chuck Swindoll
Free of Stress
You and I could name things, specific things that we've gone through in the last several years that make no logical sense whatsoever . . . but that's okay. We can't figure them out.
But let me assure you, God is at work doing His mysterious plan (mysterious to us), which defies human logic.
So quit trying to make it humanly logical. Trust Him.
Do you realize what a peaceful life you can live if you decide to live like this? Do you realize how relaxed you can be, how free of stress?
Honestly.
It's so helpful for me to remind myself: He is the One who is unfathomable. He is unsearchable.
I'm neither.
Daily Blessings November 30
Daily Blessings
“I will overturn, overturn, overturn it—and it shall be no more, until he comes whose right it is; and I will give it him.” - Ezek 21:27
“Destruction! Destruction! I will surely destroy the kingdom. And it will not be restored until the one appears who has the right to judge it. Then I will hand it over to him.” Ezekiel 21:27
There is one then to come, “whose right it is;” there is a King who has a right to the throne, and to the allegiance of his subjects; a right to all that they are and to all that they have. But whence has he gained this right? “Until he comes whose right it is.” It is his right then, first, by original donation and gift, the Father having given to the Son all the elect. “Here am I,” says Jesus, “and the children that you have given me.” “All that the Father gives me shall come to me.” Then, so far as we are his, Jesus has a right to our persons; and in having a right to our persons, he has, by the same original donation of God the Father, a right to our hearts and affections.
But he has another right, and that is by purchase and redemption, he having redeemed his people with his own blood, having laid down his life for them, and thus bought and purchased them, and so established a right to them by the full and complete price which he himself paid down upon the cross for them. This twofold right he exercises every time that he lays a solemn claim to any one of the people whom he has purchased. And this claim he lays when the blessed Spirit comes into the soul to arrest and apprehend a vessel of mercy, and bring it to his feet, that he may be enthroned as King and Lord in its affections.
For be it remembered, that the possession of the heart with all its affections is his right; and “his glory he will not give to another;” his property he will not allow to pass into other hands; he is not satisfied with merely having a right to the persons of his dear people, he must have their hearts; and in exercising his right to their affections, he will reign and rule supreme, allowing no rival, admitting no co-operation with SELF in any shape or form, but he himself to be established as King and Lord there.
Then where is the soul before he comes into it in power, in sweetness, in beauty, in preciousness? What and where is it? A heap of ruins. And no man ever knew much of the preciousness of Christ, whose soul was not a heap of ruins, and in whom self had not been overturned and cast to the ground. No; no man ever ardently panted that the Lord of life and glory should visit his heart with his salvation, should come in the power of his resurrection, in the glory of his righteousness, in the preciousness of his presence; no man ever spiritually desired, sighed, cried, groaned, sued, and begged for the manifestation of Christ to his soul, who was not a ruined wretch before God, and in whom self had not been overturned so as to be a desolate heap, so overthrown that all the power of man could not put any one stone in its place, or rebuild the former edifice.
In God, Not Out of Trouble / Streams
In God, Not Out of Trouble
And seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the Lord: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest - Jer 45:5
A promise given for hard places, and a promise of safety and life in the midst of tremendous pressure, a life “for a prey.” It may well adjust itself to our own times, which are growing harder as we near the end of the age, and the Tribulation times.
What is the meaning of “a life for a prey”? It means a life snatched out of the jaws of the destroyer, as David snatched the lamb from the lion. It means not removal from the noise of the battle and the presence of our foes; but it means a table in the midst of our enemies, a shelter from the storm, a fortress amid the foe, a life preserved in the face of continual pressure: Paul’s healing when pressed out of measure so that he despaired of life; Paul’s Divine help when the thorn remained, but the power of Christ rested upon him and the grace of Christ was sufficient. Lord, give me my life for a prey, and in the hardest places help me today to be victorious. —Days of Heaven upon Earth
We often pray to be delivered from calamities; we even trust that we shall be; but we do not pray to be made what we should be, in the very presence of the calamities; to live amid them, as long as they last, in the consciousness that we are, held and sheltered by the Lord, and can therefore remain in the midst of them, so long as they continue, without any hurt. For forty days and nights, the Saviour was kept in the presence of Satan in the wilderness, and that, under circumstances of special trial, His human nature being weakened by want of food and rest. The furnace was heated seven times more than it was wont to be heated, but the three Hebrew children were kept a season amid its flames as calm and composed in the presence of the tyrant’s last appliances of torture, as they were in the presence of himself before their time of deliverance came. And the livelong night did Daniel sit among the lions, and when he was taken up out of the den, “no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God.” They dwelt in the presence of the enemy, because they dwelt in the presence of God.
The Choice to Love / Max Lucado
The Choice to Love
Click below to listen to today's devotional
We don’t like to talk about hell, do we? In intellectual circles the topic of hell is regarded as primitive and foolish. It’s not logical. “A loving God wouldn’t send people to hell.” So we dismiss it.
The doctrine of hell, however, is not one developed by Paul, Peter, or John. It is taught primarily by Jesus himself. And to dismiss it is to dismiss the presence of a loving God and the privilege of a free choice. He leaves the choice to us. He invites us to love him. He urges us to love Him. He came that we might love Him. To take that choice from each of us, for him to force us to love him, would be less than love. God explains the benefits, outlines the promises, and articulates very clearly the consequences. And then, in the end, he leaves the choice to us.
Tuesday, November 29, 2022
The Supremacy of Jesus Christ / Oswald Chambers
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Discovering Our True Identity / Charles Stanley
Discovering Our True Identity
Many Christians are experiencing an identity crisis. They know they’re saved, but they don’t really know what to think about themselves. Let’s take a little test. Do you consider yourself a sinner saved by grace or a saint who occasionally sins? Both statements are true, but the first one dwells on your past identity, whereas the second focuses on the Lord’s perception of you.
If you are a believer, God’s Word says that you are a saint (v. 2). But too many of us still see ourselves as the same old sinner, who’s been forgiven and patched up and yet is basically unchanged inside. But the Lord says anyone in Christ “is a new creature; the old things passed away” (2 Cor. 5:17). That’s what being born again is all about. We can never go back to the way we were.
The solution to this identity crisis is to change the way we think about ourselves. If we don’t, we’ll rely on how we feel, and Satan will bombard us with reminders of our failures and sins. He wants to keep us focused on being a sinner, because he knows that the recognition of our sainthood will lead us to live like saints. We’ll be motivated and empowered to obey God, and the Devil will lose his foothold in our lives.
Jesus didn’t come just to save you from hell; He wants to live His life through you. In Christ, you have a new identity which has replaced your old one. If you will focus on who you are now, your actions will follow, and you’ll experience the enjoyment of a victorious Christian life.
Responding to the Glory of God / Adrian Rogers
Responding to the Glory of God
Sermon: 1973 Soon Coming of Our Lord, Part 2
Pray Over This
“And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.’”
Ponder This
Sometimes we come into church and pray nonchalantly saying, “Lord, show up here today. Reveal to us Your glory and Your majesty.” Imagine if one day God answered that prayer and boom, the back door opened, and He came down that aisle in the same way John saw Him in Revelation. Imagine, His hair glistening, whiter than snow. His face with a Shekinah glory, brighter than the sun. His feet glowing as if in a furnace. He comes, and His voice is deafening. He’s wearing regal robes, and He begins to walk down the aisle. What would you do? Would you ask Him your biggest question or give Him a hug? You’d fall on your face before Him, would you not? That’s what John did.
When you truly see the Lord Jesus as He is, it will bring your full submission. The Apostle John fell before Him prostrate as an acknowledgment of His lordship. Have you surrendered everything to Jesus? When we truly see the glory of God, it will bring us to full submission, giving us reverence for Him and great assurance.
- What are some things you struggle with putting under the full submission of God?
- How does knowing who God is change the way we respond to Him?
Practice This
Take some time to silently reflect and focus on the glory of God.
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