Devotional Guide For the week of April 27, 2008
TRUST
About true success
To read the Bible in one year, today read Psalms 82-84
To Know:
³When they heard this they were silenced. And they glorified God, saying,
Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance unto life.ı² (Acts
11:18)
We confuse succeeding with success. The proverb ³nothing succeeds like
success,² endorses the confusion. To many Americans, success is the
ac***ulation of dollars. To the British, success means acquiring titles.
Sometimes Christians consider themselves successful by counting converts.
The early Christians would not agree. Peter was called to account for
winning a Gentile to faith in Christ. His preaching won converts but in
the
minds of the believers a greater matter was at stake. Was Gentile faith
the
work of Peter or of God? Faith does not produce regeneration (new birth);
regeneration opens the heart to faith. It is through our witness that God
gives those that he has chosen to be his, faith to receive Christ.
To Do:
God showed Ezekiel the power in proclaiming his word. We read, ³The hand
of
the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord, and
set me down in the midst of the valley; it was full of bones.² (37:1)
These
dead bones were Ezekielıs congregation. The Lord commanded Ezekiel,
³Prophesy (preach) to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the
word of the Lord.² (37:4) Ezekiel preached as God commanded. ³So I
prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and
behold, a rattling; and the bones came together² (37:7) The bones became
living, breathing men and women. Finally God interpreted the experience to
his prophet. By preaching the word of God, Ezekiel became the instrument
to
raise Godıs people from the dead. Thus the Lord said, ³Son of man, these
bones are the whole house of Israel.² (37:11) True success before God is
faithfully testifying regarding the truth as it is in Jesus. God gives
true
success.
To Ask:
Father, give our testimony success.
04308$-04308
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