A Revival for God’s Glory / Adrian Rogers

A Revival for God’s Glory

Matthew 6:10

Sermon: 2311 – A Prayer for America

Pray Over This

“Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Matthew 6:10

Ponder This

Why do you want revival? Do you want it for your own sake? Do you want it for your family’s sake? Do you want it for your denomination’s sake? Do you want it for your church’s sake? Do you want it for your nation’s sake, or do you want it for God’s sake? Is our prayer the one Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth…”?

It’s not that God is not concerned about our personal needs. We can pray for our daily bread. We can pray about our trespasses. But first, we are to pray for the glory of God. When we begin to pray for the glory of God, God moves in. But God has said clearly that He will not share His glory with another. (See Isaiah 42:8.)

• What comes to mind when you hear the word revival?
• When you pray, are you most often seeking God’s glory or something of your own?

Practice This

Make a list of things to pray that will be for God’s glory. Use this list each morning to continually put your focus back on Him.

 

Unchanging God / ODB

 

Unchanging God God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. James 1:12 nlt READ James 1:2–8, 12–18 An iconic photo shows the tread of a boot against a gray background. It’s astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s footprint, which he left on the moon in 1969. Scientists say that footprint is likely still there, unchanged after all these years. Without wind or water, nothing on the moon gets eroded, so what happens on the lunar landscape stays there. It’s even more awesome to reflect on the constant presence of God Himself. James writes, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). The apostle puts this in the context of our own struggles: “When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy” (v. 2 nlt). Why? Because we’re loved by a great and unchanging God! In times of trouble, we need to remember God’s constant provision. Perhaps we might recall the words of the great hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”: “There is no shadow of turning with thee; / thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not; / as thou hast been thou forever wilt be.” Yes, our God has left His permanent footprint on our world. He will always be there for us. Great is His faithfulness. By Kenneth Petersen What kind of troubles are you facing today? How does understanding God’s unchanging presence help you in your struggles? Dear God, I’m discouraged because of these hardships of late. I worry about how things will turn out. Yet I know You’re there and will provide. Help me to rest in that assurance.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT The letter of James is written to “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (James 1:1). “Twelve tribes” alerts the reader that the recipients are Jewish. Everything we know about ancient Israelite culture, society, and identity applies to the readers. “Scattered among the nations,” identifies them as immigrants who were dispersed because of persecution. Perhaps forced, perhaps not. They were living in a place and among a people that were not their own. They were the minority group, culturally and religiously. Phrases like “trials of many kinds” (v. 2) take on new significance when we think about the kinds of trials an ethnic and religious minority might face. J.R. Hudberg

The Conquering Grace / David Jeremiah

 

The Conquering Grace Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? Job 2:10   How many question marks arise in your soul? There are more than two hundred of them in the book of Job. Almost every chapter is filled with questions, and many of them are by Job himself, who was described as the most righteous person on earth (Job 1:8). His first question, however, demonstrated how his faith survived the darkness: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (NIV)

Recommended Reading: Job 2:1-10

Jesus warned us that we fill face troubles in this world, but be of good cheer! For He has overcome the world and all its troubles (John 16:33). He does all things well and works all things for good. We often cannot understand what God is doing in our own or someone else’s life or why. Yet Christ is working in deep areas of our life beyond human eyesight and also in deep patterns of providential circumstances. When we can’t answer “Why?” we can certainly remember “Who.” We can place full trust in the Sovereign God who is always in control.    Faith is the conquering grace; this is what gives the victory; this is what crushes this tremendous foe…. How does faith overcome the world? By leading the believer to the cross of Jesus. Octavius Winslow

Two Choices Before Us / Greg Laurie

 Two Choices Before Us

Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you? (Psalm 85:6NLT)

No country lasts forever. Rome once was the reigning superpower on earth, with the most powerful military anywhere. But before Rome collapsed externally, it collapsed internally.

In The Complete Story of Civilization Historian Will Durant said of Rome, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within. The essential causes of Rome’s decline lay in her people, her morals, her class struggle, her failing trade, her bureaucratic despotism, her stifling taxes, her consuming wars.”[PPS1] 

The difference between Rome and the United States is that we initially built this nation on a Judeo-Christian foundation. But we have strayed dramatically from the original vision of our Founding Fathers that produced this place we call the United States of America.

I think we would do well to look at the soul of our nation right now. What once was freedom of religion seems to have become freedom from religion. Our society has succeeded in getting God out of our schools, out of our sporting events, out of our public places, and out of our workplaces.

But here’s what we need to remember. The freedom we enjoy today is built on the foundation of absolute truth. And when you remove that foundation, this freedom actually can turn into anarchy.

People in our nation are saying they don’t like the idea of things that are right and things that are wrong. They don’t want to live by those standards anymore. Instead, they want to live according to moral relativism so they can choose their own truths.

The United States of America, like every other nation on earth, has its days numbered. We need divine intervention. We need God’s help. My belief about the future of our nation is that we have two choices before us: one is judgment and the other is revival.

If we do not have revival, then I think judgment is inevitable.

Power to Overcome / Ann Graham Lotz

Power to Overcome

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.

1 John 5:4, niv

Praise God for the glorious dawn of His story! He is separate from and greater than Creation, yet He chose to humble Himself and become part of it when He took on the form of a man. And as Man, the One Who is greater than Creation submitted Himself to it—to the heat of the day, the cold of the night, the storms on the sea. On occasion, His deity was revealed when He calmed the sea or cleansed the leper or gave sight to the blind or raised the dead, but for the most part of thirty-three years, He lived in subjection to the very things He had created. Why? So that you and I might have the power, through faith in Him, to overcome the empty, broken, sinful, bitter, meaningless, lonely, helpless, fearful, weak, religious, and hopeless world of which we are a part. 

Set Free / Max Lucado

 

Set Free

Click below to listen to today's devotional

SET FREE 

Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversized and rude, unhealthy fear is unwilling to share the heart with happiness. Do you ever see the two together? Can one be happy and afraid at the same time? No. Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors. Wouldn’t it be great to walk out?

What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, and doubt, what would remain? Can you imagine a life with no fear? “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).

Bible in One Year: July 3

 Bible in One Year: Job 25-27; Acts 12

The Concentration of Personal Sin / Oswald Chambers

 

The Concentration of Personal Sin Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips… ISAIAH 6:5 When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, “Oh yes, I know I am a sinner,” but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind’s attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence. This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone’s life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, “I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong,” but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah’s vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was “a man of unclean lips.” “He touched my mouth with it, and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged’ ” (Isaiah 6:7). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated. Bible in One Year: Job 25-27; Acts 12

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self–assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth.

The Believer's Purpose / Charles Stanley

 The Believer's Purpose

Galatians 5:13

God has a purpose for your life. If that weren't true, He'd have taken you home to heaven at the moment of salvation. Do you ever wonder why He left you here?

The Lord intends to influence others through you. Our purpose is to be a vessel through which Christ overflows to others--touching those who hurt and desperately need a Savior. Once we are saved, Scripture teaches, our involvement is threefold.

First, we love others. Jesus clearly stated that this was one of the two greatest commandments (Matt. 22:38-39).

Second, we share the good news of salvation (Acts 1:8). Some travel across the world to spread the gospel, while others teach neighbors across the street. The Holy Spirit will direct us to the right people if we are willing to obey.

Third, we serve in a variety of ways, like helping those in need, sharing our resources, and lifting others in prayer. Jesus is our perfect example of all three. His entire life was marked by caring for people--both those who loved Him and those who did not. In fact, the Bible teaches that He humbled Himself and became like us, willing to give up His life for our redemption. There is no greater love; there is no greater act of service.

Scripture clearly defines the believer's purpose. Aligning ourselves with God's intentions for His children--loving others, witnessing, and serving-- bring us great satisfaction. In fact, we're still on earth not merely to hear more teaching but to act on it and share with others what we learn.

Do You Pray with Zeal? / Adrian Rogers

 Do You Pray with Zeal?

Daniel 9:3

Sermon: 2311 – A Prayer for America

Pray Over This

“Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.”

Daniel 9:3

Ponder This

Have you ever “set your face” in prayer? Have you ever desperately sought the Lord? Many of us could not even remember what we prayed for this morning or last night. We rattle off our little prayers, like “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But have you really set your face to prayer?

What’s important is not the arithmetic of your prayers—how many prayers you pray. It’s not the rhetoric of your prayer—how eloquent or beautiful it may be. It’s not the geometry of your prayer—how long your prayer may be. It is not the emotion of your prayer—how sweet and juicy your prayer is. It’s not the logic of your prayer—how argumentative your prayer is. It is the faith and fervency of your prayer that gets to God. We’re too often guilty of playing church. We witness without tears. We pray without fasting. Is it any wonder that we sow without reaping and we have so little power in our lives? It’s time for a change.

• When was the last time you prayed with the zeal described in today’s devotion?
• What keeps you from this kind of prayer on a regular basis?

Practice This

Spend devoted time in prayer today. Don’t spend your time seeking to drum up zeal for God. Instead, spend your time praying for the right heart and motivation in prayer. Ask God to give you His concerns as your own.

Love Your Neighbor / ODB

 

Love Your Neighbor Love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19:18 READ Leviticus 19:9–18 It was just a fun game at youth group, but it held a lesson for us: rather than switching neighbors, learn to love the ones you have. Everyone is seated in a large circle, except for one person who stands in the middle of the circle. The standing person asks someone sitting down, “Do you love your neighbor?” The seated person can answer the question in two ways: yes or no. He gets to decide if he would like to swap his neighbor with someone else.  Don’t we wish we could choose our “neighbors” in real life too? Especially when we have a colleague whom we can’t get along with or a next-door neighbor who loves to mow the lawn at odd hours. More often than not, however, we have to learn to live with our difficult neighbors. When the Israelites moved into the promised land, God gave them important instructions on how to live as people who belonged to Him. They’re told to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), which includes not spreading gossip or rumors, not taking advantage of our neighbors, and confronting people directly if we have something against them (vv. 9–18). While it’s difficult to love everyone, it’s possible to treat others in loving ways as Jesus works in and through us. God will supply the wisdom and ability to do so as we seek to live out our identity as His people. By Poh Fang Chia Who are the “neighbors” you find hard to get along with? How can you love them better? Father, please help me to reflect Your love to those around me—even the difficult ones. For further study, read Healing a Broken Relationship.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT Leviticus 19 contains the only Old Testament reference to “love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 18), a fundamental teaching in the Bible. In the New Testament, when an expert in the law asked, “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36), Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And He continued, “The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (vv. 37–40). Paul said the commandments are “summed up in this one command” (Romans 13:9) and are “fulfilled in keeping [it]” (Galatians 5:14). Our love for God is evidenced in our loving treatment of our neighbors. Alyson Kieda

Confession and Restoration / David Jeremiah

 

Confession and Restoration Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.  Psalm 51:1   People are often heard to exclaim, “Oh, that is just perfect!” when referring to a gorgeous vista in nature, a beautiful painted or photographed portrait, or a delicious dessert. But as often as we use the word perfect, we know there is no such thing. And that is definitely true of human beings. As Scripture says, “For all have sinned” (Romans 3:23).

Recommended Reading: Psalm 32:1-5

Even godly characters like David—a man after God’s own heart (Acts 13:22), a man who wrote numerous psalms of worship to God—failed to live a perfect life. His adulterous affair with Bathsheba, complicity in the death of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, and concealing of his sins marred an otherwise imitable life. But the redeeming part of David’s imperfect life is the mercy and forgiveness he found when he confessed his sins to God. He wrote an entire psalm about his confession and restoration (Psalm 51). And therein lies the lesson from David’s imperfection for us. First John 1:9 serves as a one-verse summary of Psalm 51: If we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us. Don’t imitate David’s failures; do imitate his response.   The beginning of repentance is the confession of guilt. John Calvin

God’s Warning System / Greg Laurie

 God’s Warning System

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. (Hebrews 12:11 NLT)

I’ve flown in a lot of different planes, from big ones to very small ones. And something that all planes have is a warning system that alerts the pilot when something is going wrong.

In the same way, if you’re a child of God, then you will sense the conviction of the Holy Spirit when you begin to cross a line. Your conscience is the warning system God has built within you.

We find the infrastructure for our beliefs in the pages of Scripture, and God’s Holy Spirit works through our conscience to give us a sense of what is right and wrong. Thus, when we begin to do something that isn’t right, the Holy Spirit, through our conscience, tells us that it’s wrong.

Additionally, because we’re God’s children, the Bible says that God will discipline us. So, when we start to go astray, when we do something that is wrong, the Holy Spirit is there, lovingly yet firmly saying, “Don’t do that.”

But here’s the problem. If you’re not a believer, then you won’t sense any conviction at all. You will go out and do whatever you want to do, and your heart will be so hardened that you won’t even care.

Here’s what the Bible says about this: “If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all” (Hebrews 12:8 NLT).

If there is something you’ve been doing that you know is wrong, if God’s Holy Spirit has been telling you to stop but you’ve found a way to justify it, then I have one word for you: repent.

To repent means to change your direction. Stop doing what you’re doing, because if you don’t stop, your heart will grow more and more hardened. God is warning you for your own good.

The Keeper / Ann Graham Lotz

The Keeper

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

Hebrews 1:3, niv

With His unlimited power, the Living Logos of God not only created all things but even today He still sustains “all things by his powerful word.” Who do you know who says he doesn’t need God? Think about it for a moment!

Our planet is ninety-three million miles away from the sun. If the sun were any closer to earth, we would burn up. If it were any farther away from earth, we would freeze.

Our planet tilts exactly 23 degrees on its axis, giving us four sea-sons a year. If it tilted at any other angle, we would have massive continents of ice.

And Who keeps all this in perfect order? Who keeps Earth from getting sucked into some gigantic black hole, or planets from spinning out of control, or stars from falling from the sky? The answer is none other than the Living Logos of Almighty God. If He can keep the universe in order, He can keep your life and mine in order, too.