HOW WELL ARE YOU RUNNING THE RACE?

Today's promise: God has conquered all our enemies

How well are you running the race?

Remember that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize. You also must run in such a way that you will win. All athletes practice self-control. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step. I am not like a boxer who misses his punches. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what I should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27 NLT

Running the Race

As he watched athletes training for and competing in their games, Paul saw an illustration of the struggles and victories of the Christian life. Although our final victory over death through Christ is always assured, we must strive for daily victory over the issues and temptations we face now.

We discipline ourselves, not in order to earn salvation, but to experience the joy and victory God intends for us now!

Look hard at your spiritual life. Are you vigorously participating in the game, barely keeping pace, or merely watching from the stands?

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

ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT LOSING YOUR FAITH?

Today's promise: God has conquered all our enemies

Are you concerned about losing your faith?

Can anything ever 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? (Even the Scriptures say, 'For your sake we are killed every day, we are being slaughtered like sheep.') No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39 NLT

We are God's People

"We are not babes in the woods — we are God's people and, no matter how it looks now, we are going to inherit this earth and rule it. The devil may be prince of this world, but the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and He will set up His kingdom and His people will be in charge of it." 

Vance Havner

Quoted in 1001 Great Stories and Quotes (Tyndale House) p 420

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

WHY DO WE LIE?

Today's promise: Lies will be exposed

Why do we lie?

"There was also a man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles, but he claimed it was the full amount. His wife had agreed to this deception.

Then Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some money for yourself. The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us but to God."

As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. …

About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what happened. Peter asked her, "Was this the price you and your husband received for your land?"

"Yes," she replied, "that was the price."

And Peter said, "How could the two of you even think of doing a thing like this — conspiring together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Just outside that door are the young men who buried your husband, and they will carry you out, too.…"

Acts 5:1-9 NLT

Holding back

"The sin Ananias and Sapphira committed was not stinginess or holding back part of their money; they were free to choose whether or not to sell the land and how much to give. Their sin was lying to God and God's people by saying they gave the whole amount while they were holding some back for themselves, trying to make themselves appear more generous than they really were. This act was judged harshly because dishonesty and covetousness are destructive in a church, preventing the Holy Spirit from working effectively."

from the TouchPoint Bible with commentaries by Ron Beers and Gilbert Beers (Tyndale) p 949

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

WHAT'S WRONG WITH A LITTLE PLAGIARISM?

Today's promise: Lies will be exposed

What's wrong with a little plagiarism?

"I hate and abhor all falsehood, but I love your law."

Psalm 119:163 NLT

Kidnapping of the Brainchild

"In an essay for Time magazine, Lance Morrow writes about "kidnapping the brainchild":

book critic for a newspaper plagiarized an old essay of mine. Someone sent the thing to me. There on the page, under another man's name, my words had taken up a new life — clause upon clause, whole paragraphs transplanted. My phrases ambled along dressed in the same meanings.…It argued and whistled and waved to friends. It acted very much at home. My sentences had gone over into a parallel universe, which was another writer's work.…The thoughts were mine, all right. But they were tricked up as another man's inner life, a stranger's…

The Commandments warn against stealing, against bearing false witness, against coveting. Plagiarius is kidnapper in Latin. The plagiarist snatches the writer's brainchildren, pieces of his soul…

The only charming plagiarism belongs to the young. Schoolchildren shovel information out of an encyclopedia. Gradually they complicate the burglary, taking two or three reference books instead of one. The mind (still on the wrong side of the law) then deviously begins to intermingle passages, reshuffle sentences, disguise raw chunks from the Britannica, find synonyms, reshape information until it becomes something like the student's own. A writer, as Saul Bellow has said, "is a reader moved to emulation." Knowledge transforms theft. An autonomous mind emerges from the sloughed skin of the plagiarist."

Lance Morrow, "Kidnapping the Brainchild,", Time, 3 December 1990, 126. Quoted in 1001 Great Stories and Quotes by R. Kent Hughes (Tyndale) p 133

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

COME TO YOUR SENSES

Today's promise: Lies will be exposed

Come to your senses

"When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, 'At home even the hired men have food enough to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger!"

Luke 15:17 NLT

Resisting forbidden fruit

"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is the first volume of C. S. Lewis's famous Chronicles of Narnia series, which features four British children during World War II who are magically transported into the world of Narnia. There they are given the heroic task of helping to undo the curse cast by an evil witch, which has kept the land frozen in a perpetual winter.

Soon after arriving in Narnia, Edmund is separated from the other children and encounters the White Witch. She offers him a magical candy that he finds addicting; eating it puts him under her power. With deadly accuracy Lewis paints a picture of the way sin affects us. It doesn't announce itself as sin; it draws us in with something that seems pleasant and comforting but becomes addictive, blinding us to what is good and attracting us to what is evil.

The charms of the magical candy eventually wear off. The turning point comes when Edmund is finally moved to compassion for someone besides himself. The story echoes the parable of the lost son, who succumbs to sin and then comes to his senses, repents, and returns home to his overjoyed father."

adapted from How Now Shall We Live? Devotional by Charles Colson (Tyndale) pp 625-26

With the movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe available, now is a good time to read this classic tale and some of the many helpful books about it, including Walking Through the Wardrobe by Sarah Arthur (Tyndale, 2005)

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

STAYING PURE

Today's promise: Lies will be exposed

Staying pure

"How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word and following its rules. I have tried my best to find you — don't let me wander from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you."

Psalm 119:9-11 NLT

Piling on

In the game of football it's called "piling on": You're already down when suddenly you get pummeled again by your opponent. In real life it's called spiritual warfare, and it's often disguised. You're suffering through a hard time when suddenly the enemy comes at you with what actually looks like relief.

Ah, how vulnerable we are in such moments! After all I've had to endure lately, I think I deserve a little break! How easy it is to rationalize! Would it really be so wrong for me to ________? Why not?

Of course, this is the nature of temptation. On the front end, sin looks "heavenly." On the back side, it is always hellish and makes bad situations worse.

Our only hope is in living out the promise that God's Word can keep us from sin. By filling our hearts and minds with the truth of God's Word, we are able to recognize the enemy's lies. That is how we stay pure in hard, tempting times (see Matthew 4:1-11). It is how we avoid Satan's deceptive attempts to hit us again when we're down.

Praying God's Promise:
God, when I hide your Word in my heart, I can keep from sinning! Grant me the wisdom to seek you and to hide your Word in my heart. I need discernment to apply your truth to everyday situations, especially when I am going through difficult times.

from Praying God's Promises in Tough Times by Len Wood (Tyndale) pp 170-71

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

A TWO-WAY STREET

Today's promise: God forgives all sins, no matter how big

A two-way street

"Come now, let us argue this out," says the Lord. "No matter how deep the stain of your sins, I can remove it. I can make you as clean as freshly fallen snow. Even if you are stained as red as crimson, I can make you as white as wool."

Isaiah 1:18 NLT

"Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves 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 situation referred to in these verses is what we call a "two-way street." We move in humility and repentance toward God, against whom we have sinned. In turn, God moves toward us with forgiveness and restoration. When we obey God, he will send blessing. And when we disobey God, we have the option of humble repentance. Blessings can flow again if our repentance is genuine and not merely a ploy to get "back on God's good side."

This two-way principle is also at work in all our human relationships. When sin has damaged a relationship, we can be restored through honest repentance, met with forgiveness. Sometimes, both parties must repent and forgive, because the fault is shared.

from the TouchPoint Bible with commentaries by Ron Beers and Gilbert Beers (Tyndale) p 381

For more on this week's promise, check out these Tyndale resources:

Radical Forgiveness by Julie Ann Barnhill - for Women (2004)
Forgiven by Karen Kingsbury - Fiction (2005)
Why Sin Matters by Mark McMinn (2004)

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