ODB: the only place to start
July 31, 2009 READ: Galatians 1:6-12 If anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. —Galatians 1:9 When a publishing company asked me to write an endorsement for a new book, I said I’d be glad to. It appeared to be a helpful effort directed to young [...]
ODJ: the untouchables
At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness (v.7).
READ: Genesis 3:6-13
Yashwant Rao’s life in Karnataka, India, included some personal vices that made him feel ashamed. Then a life-changing thing happened. Yashwant received Jesus as his Savior after a pastor in his village repeatedly and lovingly reached out to him.
Then God led this new believer to share his faith with the Dalits, or “untouchables,” the lowest of the low in the Indian caste system. In the past few years, he has seen many of these shamed people become believers in Jesus!
Shame is as old as Adam and Eve (Genesis 3). When they disobeyed God and chose to chow on what He forbade (v.6), they “suddenly felt shame” (v.7). The trust with their loving Creator had been broken. The trust they shared with each other had also been broken—remember whom Adam blamed when God confronted him? “It was the woman You gave me who gave me the fruit” (v.12).
Their shame became our shame. We became “untouchables”—poisoned by the sin of the very first man and woman. But that’s not the end of the story . . .
Much like Yashwant Rao extending his hands of mercy to the Dalits of India, God extended His grace to us. “The sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:15).
When we choose to receive Jesus’ grace and salvation, we are set free from shame. We are free to worship Him with joy. We are able to fellowship with Him—and others—with clean hearts!
If you are a believer in Jesus and have repented of your sins, the shame of your past is gone. You have been lifted up. You are no longer “untouchable,” for you have been touched by God’s cleansing grace. —Tom Felten
What are you ashamed of? How does God view your sins and failures in the light of His grace?
(Check out Our Daily Journey website!)
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Loading ...ODB: getting involved
July 30, 2009
READ: Luke 10:30-37
The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. —Psalm 111:4
Isn’t anybody going to help that poor guy?” Fred exclaimed as he and my husband, Tom, realized what had been causing traffic to creep down the busy five-lane road. A man lay sprawled between the lanes, bicycle on top of him, as vehicles simply drove around him. Fred turned on the warning flashers and blocked traffic with his car. Then both guys jumped out to help the shaken man.
Fred and Tom got involved, as did the Samaritan man in Jesus’ story in Luke 10. Like him, they overcame any reluctance they might have had to reach out to a man in distress. The Samaritan also had to overcome racial and cultural prejudice. The people we would have expected to help showed indifference to the injured man’s plight.
It’s easy to find reasons not to get involved. Busyness, indifference, and fear often top the list. Yet as we seek to follow our Lord faithfully, we will become more aware of opportunities to show the kind of compassion He showed (Matt. 14:14; 15:32; Mark 6:34).
In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus commended the man who had acted out of compassion even though it was inconvenient, difficult, and costly to do so. Then, to us He says, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). — Cindy Hess Kasper
True compassion puts love into action.
Source: Our Daily Bread
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...ODJ: the future is now (partly)
In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together (v.6).
READ: Isaiah 11:1-9
Bafaluto, a small village of three hundred in Gambia, was barely surviving. Without access to clean water, the entire population was stuck in a cycle of abject poverty, relentless disease, and hunger—until Brian Harrold and Pamela Morgan, entrepreneurs from Northern Ireland, spent a small fortune digging an 80-meter well for them. When asked what compelled him to do it, Brian responded, “Just to not do any harm in this world [is not] good enough.” Similarly, the prophet Isaiah saw the world’s disorder, and he portrayed a compelling vision of the world as God intends for it to be. In this new world, God will wipe clean humanity’s vast inequities, giving “justice to the poor” (Isaiah 11:4). In this new world, God will undo every impulse toward violence—so much that even “the cow will graze near the bear” (v.7). While such a vision echoes our hearts’ true longings, it seems fanciful and unrealistic. Are these lines from Scripture theoretical sentimentalities, or do they have concrete touchstones in our world?
God does not live in the abstract—somewhere in the foggy future. He lives in the now. While the culmination of God’s good end for His creation stands in the distance, He has already begun His work toward that conclusion. Following the Eden catastrophe, God immediately put into action His rescue through Jesus—the rescue that would be obediently modeled by God’s people. First Israel, now the church.
Paul’s letters present how we, God’s tribe, are (as one writer puts it), “an anticipatory sign of God’s healing and restorative future for the world.” Even now, our love and works of justice and proclamation of the gospel reflect God’s intention for “the earth [to] be filled with people who know the Lord” (v.9).
—Winn Collier
Where does your world most need God? How can you join His redemptive work there?
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(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Dreams
By Cora Cheung Everyone has their dreams and aspirations. Everyone knows how to dream—and wants to dream. As a child, Aaron Hotchner loved to dream. It took him somewhere else—somewhere where he belonged. His family wasn’t exactly like what most people thought it was. They thought his family had: pushy parents, an extremely well behaved [...]
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...ODB: homecoming
July 29, 2009
READ: Psalm 73:21-28
You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. —Psalm 73:24
One of my favorite pastimes as a boy was walking the creek behind our home. Those walks were high adventure for me: rocks to skip, birds to watch, dams to build, animal tracks to follow. And if I made it to the mouth of the creek, my dog and I would sit and share lunch while we watched the biplanes land across the lake.
We’d linger as long as we could, but only so long, for my father wanted me home before sunset. The shadows grew long and the hollows got dark fast in the woods. I’d be wishing along the way that I was already home.
Our house sat on a hill behind some trees, but the light was always on until all the family was in. Often my father would be sitting on the back porch, reading the paper, waiting for me. “How did it go?” he would ask. “Pretty good,” I’d say. “But it sure is good to be home.”
Those memories of walking that creek make me think of another journey—the one I’m making now. It isn’t always easy, but I know at the end of it there’s a caring Father and my eternal home. I can hardly wait to get there.
I’m expected there. The light is on and my heavenly Father is waiting for me. I suppose He’ll ask, just like my father used to, “How did it go?” “Pretty good,” I’ll say. “But it sure is good to be Home.” — David H. Roper
For the Christian, heaven is spelled H-O-M-E.
Source: Our Daily Bread
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...ODJ: bumpy roads
He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along (v.2).
READ: Psalm 40:1-8
My thoughts were miles away, when suddenly a bump in the road shook my car. As I bounced through the intersection, it occurred to me that I had missed seeing the road construction signs. And, veiled by the early morning darkness, the unevenness of the pavement had remained hidden from view. (Due to its use as a major thoroughfare, the offending street is in a perpetual state of repair.) A few days later, however, as I drove down the same road at a different location, the smoothness of the newly paved lane caused my tires to gently hum. The difference was palpable.
Isaiah 26:7 declares, “For those who are righteous, the way is not steep and rough. You are a God who does what is right, and You smooth out the path ahead of them.” The way of the Lord is always right, and He is faithful to smooth the path before us. But, much like road construction, sometimes God’s timing and methods differ from our expectations. Limited by our finite vision, we struggle to understand what He’s doing when we try to speed over the places that are still in process. Sometimes the jolt causes pain. Confused and attempting to peer into the darkness, we try to regain our bearings.
In this place of uncertainty, trust becomes essential (Psalm 40:3-4). We long for God’s peace and rest—to see the end-result of what He is accomplishing. But we easily forget that dark valleys will come up along the way (Psalm 23:4). Without trust, we will experience a weak faith. Without faith, we will continue to falter in self-effort (Hebrews 11:6).
In these places we discover, as David did, that to “wait patiently” is to find deliverance (Psalm 40:1). Whether the mire comes from our choices or the choices of others, only He can save us. Steady feet on solid ground isn’t about what we see, but who is the One we look to. —Regina Franklin
How do you respond when you experience a “bump” in the road of life? What will it mean for you to truly trust God during those times?
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...ODB: the value of friends
July 28, 2009
READ: 1 Samuel 20:12-17
Jonathan . . . loved [David] as he loved his own soul. —1 Samuel 20:17
John Chrysostom (347-407) was one of the great preachers in the early church. He was given the name Chrysostom, which means “golden-mouthed,” because of his eloquent sermons.
Here is one of his insights on the value of friends: “Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as . . . flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. . . . It would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends.”
The story of Jonathan and David illustrates the value of friendship. Though David was hunted by the demented King Saul, he drew encouragement from his friendship with Saul’s son. “Jonathan . . . loved [David] as he loved his own soul” (1 Sam. 20:17). Their relationship was characterized by trust, understanding, and encouragement. How difficult it would have been for David to endure this unjust persecution without the nourishment of friendship based in the Lord (v.42).
The ancient voice of Chrysostom and the witness of David and Jonathan are reminders of the need to nurture the friendships God has given us. — Dennis Fisher
A friend is the first person who comes in when the whole world has gone out.
Source: Our Daily Bread
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...ODJ: breaking the cycle
O Lord, how long will You forget me? Forever? (v.1).
READ: Psalm 13
My father grew up without a dad. When he was 5 years old, his father left the family and never returned. When friends later asked my grandfather whether he was related to my dad, he refused to admit that my dad was his son—disowning and declaring him to be a distant relative.
By most accounts, I also should have grown up in a broken home with a distant dad. Scripture says that the sins of the fathers are passed along to the third and fourth generations (Exodus 20:5; Numbers 14:18; Jeremiah 32:18). It’s said that molested children grow up to be child molesters; the abused become the abusers; and children with absent parents turn into parents who are unavailable for their own kids.
But I didn’t. Jeremiah 31:29-34 proclaims a new day in which the cycle of generational sin is broken. Children need not pass on the sins of their parents, for the power of the new covenant—promised in that passage and accomplished in Jesus—enables us to buck the trend of sin in our families and to begin a new cycle of love and faithfulness.
Ezekiel 18:19-20 picks up on Jeremiah’s promise and announces that “the child will not be punished for the parent’s sins,” but “the child [who] does what is just and right and keeps my decrees, that child will surely live.” If we’re victims of bad parenting, we don’t have to perpetuate it. Each of us starts fresh before God.
Not that it’s easy. My father was deeply wounded by his absent father, and his own parenting bore the scars. At times he overcompensated, trying too hard to be the perfect father in the perfect home. But I never doubted that I was loved. My father chose to absorb my grandfather’s hate rather than pass it on. He started a new cycle, and so can you. —Mike Wittmer
How is your parenting a reflection of how you were raised? What can you do to shield your family from generational sin?
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...ODB: God’s heart revealed
July 27, 2009
READ: Revelation 3:14-22
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. —Revelation 3:19
It’s easy to think of God as a divine fly-swatter, just waiting for you to land so that—whap—He can nail you for your sins. But that’s not what we see in Revelation 2-3 in His letters to the seven churches. The pattern of the letters demonstrates God’s loving heart for wayward people.
Jesus began many of these letters by affirming the good things His people had done. This shows us that when we do what is good and right, the Lord is pleased.
But Jesus is also concerned about the faults in our lives. His commendation in these letters was often followed by clear words of reproof. And while it’s not comfortable to hear Him say, “Nevertheless I have this against you” (2:4; see vv.14,20), He reveals what needs to be changed in our lives to keep us from self-deceit.
This moves us to the real heart of the matter—repentance. When the Lord told these churches to repent, He was revealing His love for wayward saints. His goal was not to condemn but to restore them to intimate fellowship with Him.
And don’t miss the fact that each letter ends with a specific promise for the “overcomers.” Clearly God desires to reward those who live lives that are pleasing to Him.
What’s He saying to you today? — Joe Stowell
Repentance restores and renews our intimacy with the Lord.
Source: Our Daily Bread
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