DOES GOD REALLY CARE ABOUT THE POOR?

Today's promise: God helps those who help the poor

Does God really care about the poor?

Who else protects the poor and needy from those who want to rob them?

Psalm 35:10 NLT

As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord is thinking of me right now.

Psalm 40:17 NLT

He will rescue the poor when they cry to him; he will help the oppressed, who have no one to defend them.

Psalm 72:12 NLT

"I'll just have to go blind"

A man was having a lot of trouble with his eyes. His doctor examined him and recommended the name of another doctor he should visit, saying, "I would advise you to go at once and take plenty of money with you, for it's going to cost a lot."

The man had eighty dollars in the bank, so he got his money and went to see the other doctor. After examining him, the doctor said, "I never accept less than five hundred dollars for this particular operation."

"Well, then," said the man, "I guess I'll just have to go blind, because I have only eighty dollars."

But the good doctor said, "There is one other way to solve our trouble. You don't have enough to pay the bill, and I can't charge you as little as eighty dollars, but there is another way open to us — I will do the operation for nothing." And that is just what he did.

adapted from a story by Kenneth N. Taylor, quoted in 1001 Great Stories and Quotes by R. Kent Hughes (Tyndale House) p 180

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

DOESN'T GOD CARE THAT I'M POOR?

Today's promise: God helps those who help the poor

Doesn't God care that I'm poor?

But to the poor, O Lord, you are a refuge from the storm. To the needy in distress, you are a shelter from the rain and the heat. For the oppressive acts of ruthless people are a storm beating against a wall, or like the relentless heat of the desert. But you silence the roar of foreign nations. You cool the land with the shade of a cloud. So the boastful songs of ruthless people are stilled.

Isaiah 25:4-5 NLT

Stay away from the love of money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, "I will never fail you, I will never forsake you."

Hebrews 13:5 NLT

Can anything separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?…No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

Romans 8:35-37 NLT

All the silver

In his book, The Life of Johnson, James Boswell describes how Johnson would frequently give all the silver in his pocket to the poor, who watched him, between his house and the tavern where he dined. Johnson would walk the streets at all hours and said he was never robbed, for the rogues knew he had little money, nor the appearance of having much.

Quoted in 1001 Great Stories and Quotes by R. Kent Hughes (Tyndale House) pp 176-77

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

IS GOD NOT HEARING YOU?

Today's promise: God is faithful to those who love Him

Is God not hearing you?

Why are you crying out to me? Tell the people to get moving!

Exodus 14:15 NLT

When God waits

There are a lot of why questions that we lift up to God. Every day people are looking to heaven and crying out in frustration, "Lord, why aren't you doing something about this? Why is this happening to me?" We saturate the airwaves with the why questions of life.

I'm convinced that God has one answer for almost every one of those questions. He says, I'm just waiting on you.

When Moses and the Israelites stood on the edge of the Red Sea watching the Egyptian army close in on them, they cried out to God in fear. They began praying that God would somehow rescue them. And look what God said: "Tell the people to get moving!" (Exodus 14:15). To paraphrase, "I'm just waiting for you."

Too often we spend our days waiting for a miracle. When trouble comes, we cry out to God for help. When things don't move fast enough, we blame God for taking his time. And all the while God is saying to us, I haven't gone anywhere. I'm just waiting on you.

And what is it that God is waiting for? Often he is waiting for us to lay aside our own agenda and trust him.…Whenever God waits, he waits for a purpose.

And when we finally come to our senses and do the thing that we know he wants us to do, he moves with a vengeance. The Red Sea parts, and things start to happen.

From a devotional thought by Frank M. Martin in Embracing Eternity (Tyndale House) p 289)

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

HOW DOES GOD SHOW HIMSELF TO YOU?

Today's promise: God is faithful to those who love Him

How does God show Himself to you?

To the faithful you show yourself faithful; to those with integrity you show integrity. To the pure you show yourself pure, but to the wicked you show yourself hostile. You rescue those who are humble.…As for God, his way is perfect. All the Lord's promises prove true.…

Psalm 18:25-27,30 NLT

Faithful and dependable

A hot morning shower, a fresh cup of coffee. The lights in your kitchen and bathroom. What would you do if you were deprived of the basics of your dependable morning routine? Many of us would start shutting down. It's easy to take hot water and electricity for granted. The same is true of faithful love. It's easy t o take for granted the person who is always there to listen to your problems. It's easy to take for granted the person you run to when you're frustrated or in trouble. It's even easier to take for granted God's faithful care for you and your family. Every day God sustains the world in which we move and live. He provides food, clothing, and opportunities for employment. Most important, he showers love and concern on us every day. Our God is a faithful God. He is entirely dependable.

That same type of faithful and dependable love is the foundation of every strong relationship. Love is cheap if it's given only when things are going fine. Our love for others must be consistent and dependable.

Adapted from Praying God's Promises for My Marriage by Jon Farrar (Tyndale House) pp 24-25

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

IT'S ALWAYS A NEW DAY

Today's promise: God is faithful to those who love Him

It's always a new day

The unfailing love of the Lord never ends!…Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.

Lamentations 3:22-23 NLT

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father,
There is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy Faithfulness!
Great is Thy Faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided —
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Thomas Obadiah Chisholm

Astonishing gratefulness

Insurance agent Thomas O. Chisholm certainly had his share of disappointments in life. His health had been fragile, forcing him to resign as a Methodist minister after only one year of service. But he enjoyed writing and submitted his poetry to various Christian magazines. Sometimes he got rejection slips, sometimes acceptances, but he seldom received any money. He earned his meager living selling life insurance.

When he was seventy-five, he wrote, "My income has not been large at any time due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me on until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant-keeping God and that He has given me many wonderful displays of His providing care, for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness."

From The One Year Book of Hymns (Tyndale House) entry for October 15

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

WHAT DOES FREEDOM MEAN TO YOU?

Today's promise: God is faithful to those who love Him

What does freedom mean to you?

What joy for the nation whose God is the Lord, whose people he has chosen for his own.

Psalm 33:12 NLT

"I will cause your descendants to become as numerous as the stars, and I will give them all these lands. And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed. I will do this because Abraham listened to me and obeyed all my requirements, commands, regulations, and laws."

Genesis 26:4-5 NLT

The source of liberty

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances — to choose one's own way.

Victor Frankl

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For Americans, July 4 has special meaning as we celebrate Independence Day. There will be parades and picnics and fireworks. It is a day to celebrate freedom — and to recognize God as the true source of freedom and blessing for any nation.

So much of our freedom today seems bound up in a world driven by material possessions, yet those who died for the liberty we enjoy often did so to obtain or preserve freedoms of conscience — speech, religion, assembly, among others. And much of the blessing we enjoy today began with the promise God made to Abraham.

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House

HOW IS YOUR PRAYER LIFE?

Today's promise: Our prayers bring us into God's presence

How is your prayer life?

The Lord is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness. The Lord is close to all who call on him, yes, to all who call on him sincerely. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cries for help and rescues them.

Psalm 145:17-19 NLT

Then Saul said, "Let's chase the Philistines all night and destroy every last one of them." His men replied, "We'll do whatever you think is best." But the priest said, "Let's ask God first."

1 Samuel 14:36 NLT

The next morning Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray.

Mark 1:35 NLT

Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 NLT

About this week's promise

The most universally practiced yet least understood of human experiences, prayer is one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith. Its simplest definition is communication with God. Yet so often we approach prayer like a one-way telephone conversation, forgetting that God also wants to speak to us. Prayer appears nearly on every page of the Bible as the very essence of a faith relationship with the living God.

From the TouchPoint Bible (Tyndale House) p 1246

Content is derived from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation and other publications of Tyndale Publishing House