Zondervan Inspire

Surely I Will Help You Now

From the Editor: In these times of trouble, it's good to know that God is there for us.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

This morning may each of us hear the Lord Jesus speak to us, saying, "'I myself will help you.' It's a small thing for Me, as your God, to help you in your time of need, especially when you consider what I’ve done for you already. What! Not help you? I bought you with My blood. What! Not help you? I died for you, and if I've already done what is greater, will I now not do what is less? Help you? This is the very least I will ever do for you, for I have done much more for you in the past and will do much more for you in the future.

"Before the world began I chose you and made the covenant for you. I set My glory aside and become a man for you, and then I laid down My life for you. If I did all this, surely I will help you now...." —Charles Spurgeon. Read More from This Book

 

From Look Unto Me: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon by Jim Reimann

 

The Righteous Have a Refuge

From the Editor: It’s so important for us to die to self and live for God no matter what the cost.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

Though wickedness may flourish for a time, it is ultimately true, as Scripture assures us, that "when calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous have a refuge" (Proverbs 14:32).

As I ponder God's words of protection, I ask for a deeper kind of confidence in God's ability to watch over me and those I care about. May I without anxiety leave the decision of whether he will protect my body or only my soul in his loving, all-powerful hands. And may my confidence in his watchful care free me from fear so I can be flexible and faithful whatever God asks. Read More from This Book.

 

From The Tender Words of God by Ann Spangler

 

Jesus Invites Us to Die

From the Editor: Today’s photo illustrates death to the old self and rising up in new life—what baptism symbolizes. Rob’s teaching in this DVD also makes me think of Ephesians 4:22-24 and Galatians 2:20.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

Do you ever find yourself telling a story in a particular way to make yourself look better? Like, you emphasize certain details and leave other details out. You twist the story ever so slightly in your favor. For many of us this impulse is so deep within us. We've been doing this for so long we're not even aware that we're doing it.

What would it be like to be free from all that? Jesus invites that part of us to die—the part of us that always has to be right, the part of us that always has to be better, the part of us that always has to look good—Jesus invites that part of us to die. Watch a Video Clip

From NOOMA® Tomato 022—Rob Bell

by Flannel

The Life of Heaven

What would have happened if the rich man had served Lazarus and healed his sores (see Luke 16:19-31)? What would have happened if he had ripped down the gate separating them and stooped low to help the beggar? What would have happened if he had served Lazarus with the gifts he had been given?

The rich man would have entered into a relationship with Lazarus. He would have allowed Lazarus to lean on him for provision. In a profound way, the rich man would have assumed the role that Jesus reserved for one of the great men of Israel’s past. The rich man would have found himself in the place of Abraham with Lazarus the beggar at his side. It is this kind of interdependence that matters to God, and this is rightly seen as the life of heaven.

From Seven: The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes

by Jeff Cook

Any comments or testimonies today?

Living in the Shadow of Death

In the concentration camp I lived near a crematorium for months. I was living in the shadow of death. I did not know beforehand that they would release me a week before they would kill all the women my age. It was a human error and a miracle of God.

When you face eternity, and that was what was happening to me, you see everything so clearly. Here I was weak and sinful, and there was the Devil, much stronger than me, much, much stronger than me. But there was Jesus, much, much stronger than the Devil. And together with Him, I was more than a conqueror.

From I Stand at the Door and Knock: Meditations by the Author of The Hiding Place 

by Corrie Ten Boom

Any comments or testimonies today?

all right

After the death of her husband to cancer, Madeleine L'Engle writes, "We do not have to understand God's ways, or the suffering and brokenness and pain that sooner or later come to us all. But we do have to know in the very depths of our being that the ultimate end of the story, no matter how many aeons it takes, is going to be all right." Embracing mystery brings peace.

From When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't

by Matt Rogers

Any comments or testimonies today?

good

If God would want anyone to live, surely [my friend] Baker qualified. Surely a man with a mission like Baker's would not be bested by leukemia. Surely a smile like his doesn't die easily. Yet Baker is dead. And his grave ought to give unrest to us all and shake us from our arrogance. If Baker could die, so can, and will, we all. None of us can be complacent. None of us is "safe." It should give us pause to think that one so full of life is gone—and so quickly.

The world that is does not permit a guarantee of protection. Evil and its counterpart, death, do not allow for that possibility. And if I demand from God what he has not promised, I risk corrupting my faith with bitterness and resentment when God fails to come through as I feel he should. I will never experience God as good in my pain if I am forever suspicious of his having allowed my pain in the first place. Baker knew physical safety was no guarantee. Thus, he was never angry at God. Rather, he experienced God as deeply, wonderfully good, right to the end.

From When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't

by Matt Rogers

Any comments or testimonies today?

primary

You will have trouble (John 16:33): Jesus said this as part of his farewell address to his disciples, and he apparently meant it, because all but one of the apostles were killed for following Jesus. Faith certainly was not a shield against trouble for them.

"I tell you, my friends," Jesus says, "do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has the authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him"
(Luke 12:4-5).

As best I can tell from his words, Jesus seems to say we have too small a goal. We crave physical protection when something greater, of more value, is at stake. Our souls, that part of us which is eternal, which isn't dust and returning to dust, should be our primary concern.

From When Answers Aren't Enough: Experiencing God as Good When Life Isn't

by Matt Rogers

Any comments or testimonies today?

The Deadline Most of Us Try to Ignore

I'm continuing my walk through the the award-winning book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey.

From the book:

"As Paul sat in a Roman prison, reflecting on all the hardships he had endured, death loomed as a welcome relief. At least he would be with Christ, which is far better. At least his 'eternal glory' would outweigh all the troubles. At least he would get a new body, healed of stripes and bruises. He had one prayer, that 'Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.' Paul had found a way to fulfill Jesus' command, 'do not worry about your life.' He had come to terms with mortality and had no obsession with physical health. He realized that the time we spend on earth, with all its joys and griefs, triumphs and failures, is mere preparation. Paul was ready to die.

"For everyone death involves a process of letting go. Attachments, relatives, friendships, possessions, identity — everything that defines life for us, we let go in death. For a person in hospice, the deadline most of us try to ignore forces itself into view. For the Christian, death also involves an anticipation of new beginning.

"We let go bodies that have served us, not perfectly but well enough, in exchange for new bodies. We let go a known life, touched with grace and pleasure but also evil and pain, in exchange for the promise of a life perfected. We let go the muddle of doctrine and wavering faith in exchange for sure knowledge at last. And during the rest of life we prepare for that exchange."

Any comments or testimonies today?

Z

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Counting the Cost

I've been working my way through the award-winning book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey. I say, "Working my way through..." because it's not a book you can read quickly—there's much on which to meditate. For example:

“Charles Edward White, a college professor in the state of Michigan, spent several terms as a visiting professor at the University of Jos in Nigeria. While there he visited a missionary graveyard in a quiet garden beside a chapel on Nigeria’s Central Plateau. Most of the graves, he noticed, were small: two- and three-foot mounds to accommodate child-sized coffins. Thirty-three of the fifty-six graves, in fact, held the bodies of small children. The tombstones went back as far as 1928, and old-timers in the mission could tell him the stories of only the most recent deaths.

“Professor White listened to these and other accounts of missionaries who had come to Nigeria in full awareness of the dangers, and of their children who had no such choice and succumbed to those dangers. He imagined the sorrow of households that no longer heard the happy cries of a three-year-old, that lost a first-grader just as she was learning to read.

“‘The only way we can understand the graveyard at Miango,’ White concluded, ‘is to remember that God also buried his Son on the mission field.’

“For a missionary couple who stand beside a mound of earth in a garden in Nigeria, no logical explanation of unanswered prayer will suffice. They must place their faith in a God who has yet to fulfill the promise that good will overcome evil, that God’s good purposes will, in the end, prevail.”

We're called to follow Jesus at the cost of all we hold dear. I have to ask myself, "Am I willing to follow Him no matter the cost?" If I'm going to be a follower, I must (see Luke 9:23-24).

Any comments or testimonies today?

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