Not Every One

by Jimmy DeYoung - Matthew 7:21

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

For further study - Matthew 7:15-23 

 Chapter 7 of Matthew's Gospel is the last of the "Sermon on the Mount", Matthew 5, 6 & 7, which is a sermon to the Jews who were expecting the Kingdom to be set up on the earth by the Messiah, Jews who reject the fact that Jesus Christ was the long awaited Messiah. 

The Lord Jesus Christ was rejected by the Jews; however, His sermon given on the slopes of the mountains at the northern end of the Sea of Galilee was a warning that is applicable to the Jews during the time leading up to the Second Coming of Jesus and has "spiritual application" for all of us today.

 Verse 15 is a warning for today and into the future, "be aware of false prophets". In the Gospels and the Epistles, in the New Testament, over and over again we are warned of false prophets, false teachers.

In fact, Jesus, in His Olivet Discourse, a message given during "Passion Week", the week leading up to His crucifixion, Jesus said that "deception" was the most important indication of His Second Coming, Matthew 24:4,5,11 & 24.

In His Sermon on the Mount, the Lord even warned that the "false prophets" could come disguised in "sheep's clothing". These "false teachers" would be posing as believers and even as ministers, II Corinthians 11:13-15.

Notice verse 22 where Jesus reveals that these "false teachers" will preach, prophesy, in His name and do miracles, cast out devils, demons, all in the Lord's name.

The truth be known, we see what Jesus warned us of, happening today. We have a proliferation of "false teachers" and "false prophets" doing "miracles" in the name of Jesus, many of them on so-called "Christian television".

Make sure what you listen to and see happening is truly the Lord's work. Jesus says, verse 23, that these "false prophets" and "miracle workers" He does not know and He tells them to depart from Him.

This portion of the Lord's Sermon on the Mount is so important for us today as we quickly approach the time of the return of the Messiah Jesus Christ.

What we see today, that which Jesus warned us would be the case before He returned, is evidence that the Rapture, Jesus calling Christians into the heaven lies, at least seven years before His Second Coming, could happen today.

Prayer Thot: Lord, help me to use Your word of warning about "false prophets" to recognize the times in which we are living today.

How You Can Inspire Confidence from Others

by Dr. Jack Graham

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

Proverbs 28:13

A young man was coming home late one night, well after his midnight curfew. He didn’t pull into his driveway until almost 2 in the morning. So he took his shoes off, opened the door quietly, and slipped up the stairs as softly as he could.

He had almost made it to the top of the stairs when, all of a sudden, his parents’ cuckoo clock struck 2, “Cuckoo, cuckoo.” He heard his parents stirring in their room, and had the boldest idea he’d ever had. He stood there on the stairs and cuckoo-ed 10 more times!

Now that’s creative, but it’s not telling the truth. In fact, one very neglected aspect of telling the truth is admitting when you’ve made a mistake, rather than covering it up. 

Confessing when you’re in the wrong is difficult, especially when a little lie like “my dog ate my homework” or “I put those reports on your desk” can pass the blame to someone else.

But when you mess up and confess it, you not only have the reward of a clear conscience, you build rapport as an honest person among those around you. And, most importantly, you glorify God through your obedience. So admit your mistakes and show others they can trust you to be truthful!

INSPIRE CONFIDENCE FROM OTHERS BY ADMITTING YOUR SHORTCOMINGS AND SHOWING OTHERS YOU CAN BE TRUSTED TO BE TRUTHFUL.

A Pivotal Belief

by Pastor Greg Laurie

"But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again." (1 Corinthians 15:20)

I read about a person who wrote the following to a local newspaper advice columnist: Dear Uticus, Our preacher said on Easter that Jesus just swooned on the cross and that His disciples nursed Him back to health. What do you think? Sincerely, Bewildered.

The columnist replied, Dear Bewildered, Beat your preacher with a cat of nine tails with 39 heavy strokes, nail him to a cross, hang him in the sun for six hours, run a spear through his heart, embalm him, put him in an airless tomb for 36 hours, and see what happens. Sincerely, Uticus.

What sets the Christian faith apart from all other beliefs and religious systems in this world? It might come down to this: If you go to the tombs of any of the prophets on which world religions have been founded, you will find them occupied. But if you go to the tomb of Jesus Christ, you will find it empty, because He is alive. We serve a living Savior.

This is why the resurrection of Jesus is such an important message and also why it has been opposed so much throughout history. The devil knows that the Resurrection spells his defeat. He also knows that if you believe this great truth that Jesus died on the cross for your sins and rose again from the dead, it can change your life.

Not only can it change your life, but putting your faith in Him also means that you will have a new, resurrected body someday. As believers, we have this great hope that we, too, will live again.

Does Your Testimony Really Matter?

by Dr. Jack Graham

“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

Luke 8:39

It’s funny how people who’ve had life-changing experiences can talk about them as if they happened yesterday. Take a professional athlete, for example, who can describe the great championship game in detail. And old soldiers often get deeply emotional when remembering their comrade who was killed in battle 60 years ago.

When Christ comes into your life, it’s a life-changing experience. So if He really has come, then you’re going to want to tell others about it. I’m not saying you won’t ever struggle to articulate the Gospel. But the truth is that if you’re truly changed, your story of grace is going to be seared into your mind.

Now, there are some believers I know who don’t think their testimony is all that interesting. They say, “I’ve never done drugs or anything like that, so people aren’t really moved by my testimony.” Well, the same grace that saved you is the grace that saved the worst sinner. So your testimony matters!

Your testimony of the Gospel is important. That’s because it’s about God, not about you. Share it with others as evidence that your life is truly changed!

WHATEVER YOUR BACKGROUND, YOUR TESTIMONY MATTERS. SHARE YOUR STORY OF GRACE WITH AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE.

God's Plan for the Resurrection

by Dr. Charles Stanley

John 16:16-20

"A little while, and you will no longer see Me." Jesus repeated these words to His disciples several times. But He could tell by the blank stares on their faces that they did not understand what He had said.

At one point, He even overheard them debating what He meant by "You will not see me" (John 16:19). These men had been with the Lord for three years. They had laughed with Him, cried with Him, eaten with Him, and were willing to die with Him, or so they thought.

They had just entered the city of Jerusalem. And instead of being met by an angry legion of guards and protestors, they were met by palm-waving supporters shouting: "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." Yet as soon as they had settled into the upper room, Jesus broached the subject of His forthcoming death. Immediately, the mood of His followers went from one of celebration to shock and sorrow.

Often in difficult times, we cannot see beyond that moment. The resurrection was a few days away, but they could not fathom its wondrous coming.

God always provides the encouragement we need to stay the course, and Jesus did this for His disciples when He told them, "Your sorrow will be turned to joy" (v. 20). This also is God's message of hope and love for us today. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Formula for Personal Growth

by Charles Stanley
James 1:22

Growing in Christ involves far more than just attending church, tithing, and listening to a sermon. In fact, many believers do these yet remain stagnant in their walk. There are two elements necessary for us to become more like Jesus: instruction and involvement.

The first of these, learning truth, is vital to a healthy walk with God. Our Savior proved the importance of instruction by devoting much of His time on earth to it. The apostle Paul is another example, as he wrote letters to educate Christians about godliness.

So how can we gain knowledge and understanding? One of the most important and effective ways is to read the Word of God. Scripture instructs us that just as newborns crave milk, we are to desire His Word so that we might grow. I pray your spiritual thirst will become insatiable.

Yet simply listening to the truth does not mean that we've acquired it. I know many people who love attending Bible studies and expanding their knowledge base, but their lives remain unchanged. Just as today's passage teaches, we have to apply the Word to our lives. Even so, actual growth requires more than merely inputting information. It requires action. James 2:26 states, "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead."

Are we careless hearers, deceived into thinking that we're growing? Or are we listening intently and abiding in the truth? If we're truly maturing, our lives will be increasingly Christlike, and our desires will align more closely with God's heart. Make sure that you are listening and responding to His truth.

How to give your kids a full picture of God

by Dr. Jack Graham

For his anger is but for a moment,

and his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may tarry for the night,

but joy comes with the morning.

Psalm 30:5

There was a little boy who had been acting out one day. His mom had tried everything to change his behavior: she sent him to timeout, she put him in his room, and she spanked him. But the little boy kept on misbehaving, even after all that.

Finally, the mom was at her wits’ end. So she told her little boy, “If you don’t start being good, God’s going to get you!” And you know what, it worked. The little boy quieted down and was respectful the rest of the day.

Now, I know there are no perfect parents, but to say such a thing as that – to use God’s name to provoke fear in our children so they’ll obey us – is such a copout for spiritual leadership in the home. I know a man who, when growing up, only heard about God when his parents were angry with him. So they used God to incite guilt and fear. This formed false thinking about God in his mind, which he’s still working to correct to this day.

As parents, we can’t just use God to make our kids obey. We have to communicate God’s love and acceptance to our children so they have a right picture of their Heavenly Father. Show your kids who God really is by giving them a full picture of His grace and love.

SHOW GOD TO YOUR KIDS BY OPENING THEIR EYES TO ALL OF HIS ATTRIBUTES AND LETTING THEM SEE A FULL PICTURE OF HIS CHARACTER.

TWO GREAT SNARES

 By JOHN McKAY, Pastor

Scripture Reading: Proverbs 29:25; John 12:42-43
John Knox had every reason to fear men (or the women who were the Romanist Queens of Scotland). Indeed he was arrested for treason. The great Scottish reformer preached the doctrines of salvation by grace through faith in the merit of Christ's blood shed at Calvary. He denounced the mass, as idolatry. Did he fear the human powers that had killed previous reformers? He may have had some hidden fears of men, but he did not let that stop him from the work that needed to be done. As one has written of him and the reformation in Scotland, "It was the victory of the people under the leadership of a brave and true man, against the combined forces of a queen, a court, and a powerful nobility."

Surely it was not for the praise of men that he suffered slavery, exile, torment, threats, arrest, and stress. We prefer to believe that John Knox suffered for the Lord Jesus Christ. We are convinced that he did not fall into the snares mentioned in our texts.

"The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe." We should know God so well that we will not fear men. Sometimes being afraid of what men think, or will say, will deter us from saying or doing what we ought to say or do.

" ... among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him (the Lord Jesus), lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." Don't let the fear of men or the love of their praise keep you from the will of God!

"May God, Whose grace is irresistible and
all sufficient, be glorified!"

APPRECIATION, NOT DEPRECIATION

By Miles Stanford
 
"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly"


As believers we rejoice in the fact that the Lord Jesus died for us, but few are affected by the fact that He arose for us. Fewer still realize that we died and arose with Him. Learn the facts! There will be continual struggle and failure until we gain adequate understanding of the liberating truth.

"The Lord Jesus on the Cross removed the barriers which separated me from God - my guilt, my sin, the law; and He dealt with my enemies - the world, the flesh, the devil. These six things were dealt with, so that we need no longer be in bondage through fear and that we may come boldly to the throne of grace.

"Have we given a hearty assent to these things which the Lord Jesus did for us? Or have we, as we read the Word, drifted by them, taking it all for granted? Let us lay hold of that for which God has laid hold of us. Let us gird up the loins of our mind and consent to that which He did for us. Let us enter into all that which being united to Christ as our Life means. Let us rejoice in all that was accomplished for us on Calvary." - L.L.L.

"It is necessary that the truth conferred by grace should be known as a possession and the virtue of it apprehended, before there can be any walk in keeping with it. For if there be ignorance or misapprehension, the truer the conscience, the more defective is the practice." - J.B.S.

"Set your affection on things above" (Col. 3:2)

THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT ... IS JOY

By IVAN L. BURGENER, Pastor

Scripture Reading: Galatians 5:22

"But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."

"Joy" is the second of these nine manifestations of the "fruit of the spirit." These are to be virtues characteristic of the believer's life. These are "fruit" of the spirit, but of what "spirit"? Perhaps your translation seems to indicate God's "Holy Spirit" is meant because of the capitalized "S." But many translations, including the 1611 Edition of the King James Version, had no such capital here. And since the Greek language offers no help by any such rules of capitalization, we are left to the internal evidence of the text and the context to determine just what "spirit" is meant.

Help is not far to seek if we notice that the "fruit of the spirit" is in sharp contrast with the "works of the flesh" mentioned in verse 19 above. These sixteen listed works are just the start of a seemingly endless list of manifestations of the flesh, that is the "old Adamic nature." Paul cannot say of these, "against such there is no law"! The Law of Moses clearly condemned them all in its ministry of pointing out sin for what it really was. No wonder "the law was not made for a righteous man .. ,"

Our text clearly contrasts the old and new natures and calls them by the names "flesh" and "spirit" respectively. And while the law clearly condemned the "works of the flesh, that same law had nothing to say about the "fruit of the spirit" or the new nature in which the Galatian believers were to "walk." Thus will joy be one of the spiritual virtues filling our lives as we walk manifesting our new natures, being subject to God and His Word!

The Gift of Discerning of Spirits

We now look at another gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of discerning of spirits. Below are two versions of the Bible which shed some light on what this gift is:

1 Corinthians 12:10 (NKJV)
10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

1 Corinthians 12:10 (GNB) The Spirit gives one person the power to work miracles; to another, the gift of speaking God’s message; and to yet another, the ability to tell the difference between gifts that come from the Spirit and those that do not. To one person he gives the ability to speak in strange tongues, and to another he gives the ability to explain what is said.

Here is what Matthew Henry says about the gift:

To another the discerning of Spirits, power to distinguish between true and false prophets, or to discern the real and internal qualifications of any person for an office, or to discover the inward workings of the mind by the Holy Ghost, as Peter did those of Ananias, Acts 5:3.

This gift of discerning of spirits is one of the gifts that is needed most today with all the false gifts that can be found. We see above in the different texts that this gift could be to distinguish between true and false gifts, true and false prophets and true and false Christians. It can also be a gift to warn you what to stay away from. Today there are so many games, TV shows, movies, etc. that are evil but are wrapped in beautiful packaging. A lot of people don’t see the harm behind some of these things but there is evil behind them.

If you have this gift, and God may give it to you for a certain time and purpose, you may have a physical sensation or it may just be a feeling. You might just have a sense that this needs to be left alone.

No matter what the situation, if you feel the Lord giving you a sense that what you are seeing is false or evil, follow the lead of the Holy Spirit and let it be known. This is the gift of discerning of spirits.

by Dean W. Masters

The Right Way

....There is a way which seemeth right unto a man.....As the way of sin and wickedness does, it promising much carnal pleasure and myrth, there is a great deal of company in it, it is a broad road ( Matthew 7:13-14 ), and is pleasant and seems right, but it leads to destruction, so the way of hypocrite " as Pharisee that trust to his own righteousness and despises others", and even the righteousness of Christ, or however does not submit to it, but tramples upon him, and counts the blood of the covenant and wholy thing, and so is deserving of sorer punishment than the profane sinner, yet on account of his goodworks, as he calls them, fancies himself to be in a fair way for heaven, seem to be a right way.... But the end thereof are the ways of death, which lead unto eternal death, for that is the wages of sin (Rom 6:23).

THERE IS A WAY WHICH SEEMETH RIGHT UNTO A MAN --- This way refer to the blinding effects of passion and self-will, for these make a man think his own way best and most desirable . But it seems better to take as warning against following perverted or uninstructed concience. Concience needs to be informed by God's Word and ruled by God's will to make it safe guide.

BUT, THE END THEREOF ARE THE WAYS OF DEATH (Prov 5:5).--- The man is following a false light, and is led astray, and goes headlong to destruction (Rom 1:28, 1Tim 4:2)

We cannot depend upon what seems rigth to a man. We must place our trust in WHAT IS RIGHT, TO DO. For " there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is destruction.

NOW, what pathway are you following, today? Are you sure that pathway is right??? There is a way that is right, and cannot be wrong. There is a pathway, that leads to all the spiritual blessings you need.... A road that leads to heaven. Jesus said John 14:6 , "I AM the Way"
What ought to do??? we ought to be sure of every steps we take. You may be sincere.... but wrong. So, you need to be sure you are right! if you depend 100% on GOD'S WORD the Bible (Believe in Biblical salvation), then you have nothing to be worried

Idolatry Starts in the Heart

Dr. Ray Pritchard

Idolatry lies in the worshiper, not in the thing worshiped. A golden calf is not an idol by itself. Left to itself, a golden calf is just a golden calf. It becomes an idol only when we begin to worship it. It is a wrong attitude that turns something good into something bad.

• Don’t blame your car if you aren’t happy. It’s your fault that you trust in your car to give you satisfaction.
• Don’t blame your boy friend if you aren’t happy. It’s your fault that you look to him to make you happy.
• Don’t blame your spouse if you aren’t happy. No husband or wife can make you happy all the time.
• Don’t blame your boss if you aren’t happy. He’s not responsible for your happiness.
• Don’t blame your children if you aren’t happy. God never meant for you to look to them as the source of your happiness.
• Don’t blame your new house if you aren’t happy. No house can provide ultimate happiness.
• Don’t blame your church if you aren’t happy. No church can make you happy.

Happiness comes from a living relationship with Jesus Christ. He alone can satisfy the deepest needs of your life. Looking anywhere else for ultimate happiness is really just a sophisticated form of idolatry.

Never be Ashamed to Ask for Mercy

Dr. Ray Pritchard

Never be ashamed to ask for God’s mercy. If you deserved it, you wouldn’t need it. That’s why we are saved “according to his mercy” (Titus 3:5). It’s also why his mercies are “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23). His mercy is greater than your sin. He’s ready to clean up the mess you made in the last 24 hours. Lay hold of God’s mercy. There’s plenty to go around. A fresh supply just arrived from heaven this morning.

The New Immoral Morality

Dr. James Emery White

The opening line of a recent Barna Group research report was direct and to the point:
“Christian morality is being ushered out of American social structures and off the cultural main stage, leaving a vacuum in its place – and the broader culture is attempting to fill the void.”
The essence of this cultural shift is simple, but profound. You either consider truth to be something discovered or something created; something determined or something received. 
If we have been spoken into existence by God, then we know two things: that we have purpose and meaning, and that we have an outside authority.
If we have come about by chance, then there is little purpose and meaning to life except what we self-create, and that includes authority. We are our own gods. 
The cultural verdict is in, whether we say we believe in God or not:  truth is something we create – we determine – for ourselves.
This is why we can speak of things as foundational as our sexual identity as something that we identify for ourselves. Notice the language of recent “bathroom” bill conflicts: it’s about choosing the bathroom reflecting the gender you identify with. I couldn’t help but laugh at an opinion piece that said something to the effect of, “So if I am sixty and white, and decide I’m now forty and black, I am?” It’s absurd, but he was spot-on in terms of the logic.
This new moral code, as spelled out by Barna’s David Kinnaman, will sound familiar:

• The best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself.

• People should not criticize someone else’s life choices.

• To be fulfilled in life, you should pursue the things you desire most.

• The highest goal of life is to enjoy it as much as possible.

• People can believe whatever they want, as long as those beliefs don’t affect society.

• Any kind of sexual expression between two consenting adults is acceptable.

The irony is that the very same research finds that the vast majority of Americans are concerned about the moral condition of the nation (8 in 10 overall). This despite the fact that the vast majority also believe that what is right or wrong is a matter of personal experience (e.g., an idea embraced by 74% of all Millennials), with a whopping 65% believing that “every culture must determine what is acceptable morality for its people.”   
A contradiction?
Of course. It reveals that our new morality is not very moral at all. That the new moral code does not produce a moral society. We have chosen to be independent in terms of truth – to be our own gods – but are quickly finding out that we do not have much in the way of goddish virtue.
In other words, if I am god and you are god,
…then God help us.
James Emery White

One and Done

by Ann Spangler

 

Usain Bolt is the world’s fastest man. In 2008 he broke the world record for the one hundred meter run three months before the Beijing Olympics. Since then he’s dominated every competition. But that didn’t prevent the six-foot-five Jamaican from being disqualified at the 2011 world track and field championships held in Daegu, South Korea. Crouching at the line for the one hundred meter final, Bolt jumped the blocks early, which disqualified him from the race.
Fellow runners were stunned. Bolt was the latest to fall victim to a new rule referred to as “one and done.” One false start, and the favored athlete was erased from the competition. The rule was adopted to accommodate television broadcast schedules and fans who disliked waiting through countless false starts for races to begin. Prior to that, each runner had been allowed a second chance.
Fortunately for us, God doesn’t have a “one and done” rule. If he did, who on the planet would be left to run the race spoken of in Hebrews:

“Since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us” (12:1).

The truth is, God is even more familiar with our failings than we are.
And still he loves us.
That’s the miracle, the good news that’s worth celebrating every single day of our lives. If you’ve fallen prey to the lie that God couldn’t possibly forgive you for what you’ve done or how many times you’ve done it, decide today to reject it. Don’t dignify it by giving it a hearing in your heart. Instead, find a way to show God you are sincerely sorry. Commit to making amends. But rest in this truth and let it shape the race ahead: as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed your sins from you.

A Pocketful of Miracles

by Dr. Tony Evans

(Exodus 14, Psalms 3)

A lot of what God wants to do in your life won't be done until you do what He has already revealed to you.

What He asks you to do isn't always all that huge, just like Moses' move at the Red Sea wasn't all that huge. All God was asking Moses to do was to hold out his stick. That's not that huge. If Moses would just hold out his stick, then God said that He would handle the rest. He would do all of the big stuff. He would open the Red Sea, harden Pharaoh's heart, make him go in after them, and close the Red Sea back up.

But to reveal the faith within us, God often asks us to do our little thing first. Hold out our sticks. Take that step. Make the move. Have the conversation. Quit the job to stay at home. Accept the job that He has shown. Stop the habit. Curb the tongue. Go to church. Go overseas. Whatever it is that He is revealing to you, God will often wait to do His big thing until you have done what He has asked you to do.

He does this because He wants us to see Him in a way we've never seen Him before. He wants us to experience Him in a way that we've never experienced Him before. He wants us to see the connection between our act of faith and His deliverance. He wants to be more than just a Cosmic-Santa Claus with a pocketful of miracles to throw down. God wants a relationship with you. He wants you to see Him up close and personal so He puts you in a situation where He is your only solution. Where it can't be fixed if He doesn't fix it. Where it can't be reversed if He doesn't reverse it. Where it can't be solved if He doesn't solve it. Because, God says, I've let you use all of the natural options available to you, and you are still stuck. Well then, when that happens, know that you are stuck with a purpose. Look to God.

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Open Arms

He makes the barren woman abide in the house as a joyful mother of children. PSALM 113:9

Recently a young man named Ryan shared with me this very personal story:

When my sister was born, there were problems during my mom's pregnancy that made her unable to have more children. So my parents decided to pray for a miracle. They got down on their knees and prayed at the side of their bed every night for an entire year, but nothing happened. One year turned into two. Two quickly turned into three. Three turned into four.

Four years of praying. Four years of hurting. Still, nothing happened.

Right about that time, there was a young couple in high school. They had been dating for a while, but the girl said, "This isn't the guy I want to marry, and if I'm not going to marry him, I don't want to keep dating him."

So they broke up. But a short time later, she found out she was pregnant with his baby. She didn't know what to do—didn't know if she should tell her parents, didn't want them to be upset or mad or disappointed.

Finally, she just couldn't take it anymore. She broke down one night and told them. They didn't know what to do either. They already had four kids. One more mouth wasn't going to help things. . . . They started meeting with a counselor, looking at options, shedding a lot of tears, and try ing to decide what to do.

But the Lord took my parents' inability to have more kids, and He took that young couple's high-school indiscretion, and He meshed them together. On August 31, 1970, my parents, Jim and Shirley, brought me home from an adoption center.

That's how I became a Dobson.

That's the power of prayer. That's the power of adoption. And that's the power of a family.

DISCUSS

Infertility strikes so close to the heart, but talk about adoption is its redemptive response.

PRAY

Ask God to increasingly make Christian families like yours available and open—havens of hope to millions of orphans. And if you know an infertile couple, please pray for them.


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You Can be a Hero

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:12-13

Something was different about the little village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in France. Unlike most communities across the country, this town hid their Jews from the Nazis during World War II. A journalist one day wanted to see what kind of heroes would risk everything for the lives of others, so he took a trip to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon.

The journalist was floored when he arrived to find these people weren’t particularly smart or brave. But they were faithful believers in Christ who had learned from their local pastor what it meant to love others. And over time, doing what’s right just became a habit for them. So they did.

When we think about the word “hero” today, images come to mind of people who are exceptional to everyone else. But the truth is that most heroes today are astonishingly ordinary. They’re simply people who see a need and do what God would have them do to respond.

If you’ll allow God to take control in your life, determining who to help and how, He can use you just like He used the people of that humble French village. Make yourself available to Him. Love others as Jesus loves you. When you simply respond according to the Spirit of God, there’s no limit to what God can do for others through you!

Prayer Challenge

Pray and surrender yourself to God as a vehicle of His radical, heroic love for others.

Questions for Thought

Think of a time when someone showed love for you in a very big way. How did it make you feel?

What might change in your life today if you completely surrendered to God by letting His love for others impact everything you do?

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The Oldest Lie of Satan

by Neil Anderson

Deuteronomy 32:17-18

They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they have not known, new gods who came lately, whom your fathers did not dread. You neglected the Rock who begot you, and forgot the God who gave you birth.

The New Age Movement cloaks the occult in the description of New Age enlightenment: "You don't need God; you are God. You don't need to repent of your sins and depend on God to save you. Sin isn't a problem; you just need to turn off your mind and tune in to the great cosmic oneness through harmonic convergence." The New Age pitch is the oldest lie of Satan: "You will be like God" (Genesis 3:5).

This thirst for knowledge and power has lured a fallen humanity to seek guidance from mediums and spiritists, and from such occultic practices as fortune-telling, tarot cards, palm-reading, Ouija boards, astrology, magic charming and automatic writing. People all around us are ignoring the God who loves them and wants to guide their lives and are instead seeking light and peace in the kingdom of darkness. Peace can only be found in the Prince of Peace, not in the prince of darkness.

Don't be carried away by the prospect of knowledge and power which is luring so many people in our culture today away from God. People such as the devotees of Simon in Acts 8:9, 10, will continue to be astonished by those who practice New Age sorcery. Others, such as the customers of the demon-possessed slave girl in Acts 16:16-18, will contribute to the profit of those who exercise a spirit of divination. As in these examples from the early church, those who seek knowledge and power from the dark side will greatly interfere with the work of God, deceiving many by the counterfeit forces they employ. Other people will thirst after power to such an extent that they will sacrifice to the "goat demons" (Leviticus 17:7) and even sacrifice their own children to demons (Psalm 106:36-38).

Let the words of Deuteronomy 32:17, 18, sober us to the reality that even believers are vulnerable to being lured away from the knowledge and power of God by our enemy.

Prayer: Lord, I refuse to participate with the powers of darkness. You are my life and the light of my world.