Precept Austin

Daily Devotionals

REDEEM THE TIME - Youtube Recording on Redeeming the Time given by myself (Bruce Hurt) to men's ministry -- Slides that go with talk  Related article on Redeem the Time. 

Below are links to several devotionals to aid your Quiet Time with the Lord. 

"And I (JESUS) say to you, make friends (aorist imperative see need to depend on the Holy Spirit to obey) for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness (not that money is evil, but because it is often used for evil), so that (purpose or result) when (not "if") your earthly possessions are gone, you will be welcomed (dechomai = THEY WILL PUT THE "WELCOME MAT" OUT FOR YOU IN GLORY!) into the eternal homes." (Luke 16:9+)

NLT Paraphrase - "I tell you, use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. In this way, your generosity stores up a reward for you in heaven".

Comment by John MacArthur - In relation to others, Jesus exhorted His hearers to make friends for themselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so called because it belongs to this unrighteous, passing world. Unbelievers, like the unrighteous manager (Lk 16:1-8+), often use money to buy earthly friends. Believers, on the other hand, are to use their money to evangelize and thus "purchase" heavenly friends. The wealth of unrighteousness, being an element of fallen society’s experience, cannot last past this present life (cf. Luke 12:20+). When it fails, the friends believers have gained through investing in Gospel preaching will welcome them into the eternal dwellings of heaven. Those friends will be waiting to receive (ED: WITH "OPEN ARMS") them when they arrive in glory because through their financial sacrifice for reaching the unconverted they heard and believed the Gospel.The Lord calls for Christians to use their money for eternal purposes to produce a heavenly reward.

Why Should You Consider Interceding for the Hidden People Group Below? 

  1. Jesus taught us that "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few." (Mt 9:37+) - Will you be a worker for the Lord of the harvest? Will you obey His command to "beseech (aorist imperative) the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” (Mt 9:38+)?
  2. You are in effect entering the mission field with your intercessory prayers. "With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints (including those of the hidden people groups who will become saints - see Rev 5:9+ below) (Eph 6:18+) 
  3. You are obeying Jesus' command to "Store up (thesaurizo in present imperative see need to depend on the Holy Spirit to obey) for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for (term of explanation) where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Mt 6:20-21+) (Where is your [my] heart beloved?)
  4. You will rejoice with Paul for those precious souls in this hidden people group who accept Christ as their Savior for they will be your "hope or joy or crown of exultation...in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His coming. For you are our glory and joy." (1 Th 2:19, 20+)
  5. You will shine like the stars for "those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever." (Da 12:3+)
  6. You can be confident God will answer your prayer for Rev 5:9+ says Jesus was "slain, and purchased for God with (His) blood men from EVERY tribe and tongue and people and nation."
  7. If these Biblical truths are not sufficient motivation to redeem the precious time then take a moment and Read the longer answer. 

RECOMMENDATION - HERE IS AN EXCELLENT PRAYER GUIDE FOR UNREACHED PEOPLES, RELATIVES, NEIGHBORS, FRIENDS, ENEMIES! -

"Prayer works! Prayer is work! Prayer leads to work! Prayer is the work!"

Scripture that you can pray for all the peoples of the world including the lost in your world, your sphere of influence! This is a wonderful Biblical tool. And the apostle John reminds us that our prayers in the present transcend time for he writes in Rev 8:3+ that "the prayers of all the saints (ARE) on the golden altar which was before the throne!" Beloved, store up for yourself some treasure in Heaven! (Mt 6:20+) The R.O.I. (Return On Investment) is "out of this world!" Below is a sample prayer from this guide...

Lord Most High, You are awesome. You are the great King over the ______. May the ______ sing praise to you for you are King of all the earth. You reign over the ______. You sit on Your holy throne. PSALM 47:2, 6-8

These devotionals are provided to encourage your daily devotional time reading the "pure milk  of the Word" (1 Peter 2:2+ = a vital verse because intake of the pure word is an absolute essential for spiritual growth or progressive sanctification) and are not meant to replace your personal time reading God's "Word of Life" (Philippians 2:16+) and "Word of Truth, the Gospel." (Colossians 1:5+) Our prayer is that you would...

Let the word of Christ richly dwell+ (present imperative calling for dependence on the Holy Spirit to obey) within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16+)

Remember that letting the Word of Christ richly dwell within you produces the same fruit as being continually filled with the Spirit (Eph 5:18+ (See chart comparing effects). Be filled is also a present imperative command calling for reliance on the Holy Spirit to give you the desire and the power - Php 2:13NLT+)

NOTE: For a short synopsis of the Hidden People Group of the day, click the picture to go to Joshua project entry for that group. 

 

 

Daily Light on the Daily Path

February 1

Morning

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him

WE walk by faith, not by sight.-- We love because He first loved us.--And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. -- In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise -- God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

If someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Jesus said to him, because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed. -- How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! -- Trust in the LORD forever, for in GOD the LORD, we have an everlasting Rock -- And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

1Pe 1.8. 2Co 5.7.--1John 4.19.--

1Jn 4.16.--Ep. 1.13.--Col. 1.27.

1Jn 4.20. Jn 20.29. Ps 2.12--Is 26:4 - 1Jn 3:3

Evening

Jehovah tsidkenu:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

ALL of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.

I will come with the mighty deeds of the Lord GOD. I will make mention of Thy righteousness, Thine alone -- I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God for He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Bring out the best robe and put it on -- To her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… in order that I may gain Christ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith -- He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Je 23.6. Is 64.6. Ps. 71.16.--Is 61.10.

Lk 15.22.--Re 19.8. Php 3.8, 9. -- 2Co 5:21

Spurgeon's Morning and Evening

February 1

Morning

“They shall sing in the ways of the Lord.”

Psalm 138:5

The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the Cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture which gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyan describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross, he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing—

“Blest Cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be The Man that there was put to shame for me!”

Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud thy transgressions, and as a thick cloud thy sins; they shall not be mentioned against thee any more for ever.” Oh! what a sweet season is that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been set at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of his constant lovingkindness leads them to say, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” See to it, brother, that thou magnifiest the Lord this day.

“Long as we tread this desert land, New mercies shall new songs demand.”

Evening

“Thy love to me was wonderful.”

2 Samuel 1:26

Come, dear readers, let each one of us speak for himself of the wonderful love, not of Jonathan, but of Jesus. We will not relate what we have been told, but the things which we have tasted and handled-of the love of Christ. Thy love to me, O Jesus, was wonderful when I was a stranger wandering far from thee, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Thy love restrained me from committing the sin which is unto death, and withheld me from self-destruction. Thy love held back the axe when Justice said, “Cut it down! why cumbereth it the ground?” Thy love drew me into the wilderness, stripped me there, and made me feel the guilt of my sin, and the burden of mine iniquity. Thy love spake thus comfortably to me when, I was sore dismayed—“Come unto me, and I will give thee rest.” Oh, how matchless thy love when, in a moment, thou didst wash my sins away, and make my polluted soul, which was crimson with the blood of my nativity, and black with the grime of my transgressions, to be white as the driven snow, and pure as the finest wool. How thou didst commend thy love when thou didst whisper in my ears, “I am thine and thou art mine.” Kind were those accents when thou saidst, “The Father himself loveth you.” And sweet the moments, passing sweet, when thou declaredst to me “the love of the Spirit.” Never shall my soul forget those chambers of fellowship where thou has unveiled thyself to me. Had Moses his cleft in the rock, where he saw the train, the back parts of his God? We, too, have had our clefts in the rock, where we have seen the full splendours of the Godhead in the person of Christ. Did David remember the tracks of the wild goat, the land of Jordan and the Hermonites? We, too, can remember spots to memory dear, equal to these in blessedness. Precious Lord Jesus, give us a fresh draught of thy wondrous love to begin the month with. Amen.

Faith's Checkbook by C. H. Spurgeon

February 1

Never Despair

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. (Malachi 4.2)

Fulfilled once in the first advent of our glorious Lord, and yet to have a fuller accomplishment in His second advent, this gracious word is also for daily use. Is it dark with the reader? Does the night deepen into a denser blackness? Still let us not despair: the sun will yet rise. When the night is darkest, dawn is nearest.

The sun which will arise is of no common sort. It is the Sun—the Sun of Righteousness, whose every ray is holiness. He who comes to cheer us, comes in the way of justice as well as of mercy, comes to violate no law even to save us. Jesus as much displays the holiness of God as His love. Our deliverance, when it comes, will be safe because righteous.

Our one point of inquiry should be—"Do we fear the name of the Lord? Do we reverence the living God and walk in His ways?" Then for us the night must be short; and when the morning cometh, all the sickness and sorrow of our soul will be over forever. Light, warmth, joy, and clearness of vision will come, and healing of every disease and distress will follow after.

Has Jesus risen upon us? Let us sit in the sun. Has He hidden His face? Let us wait for His rising. He will shine forth as surely as the sun.

J.H. Jowett's Daily Meditation

February 1

THE SOUL IN PRISON

“Bring my soul out of prison!” —Psalm 142:7

TOO, have my prison-house, and only the Lord can deliver me.

There is the prison-house of sin. It is a dark and suffocating hole, without friendly light or morning air. And it is haunted by such affrighting shapes, as though my iniquities had incarnated themselves in ugly and repulsive forms. None but the Lord can bring me out.

And there is the prison-house of sorrow. My griefs sometimes wrap me about like cold confining walls, which have neither windows nor doors. It seems as though a fluid sorrow can congeal into a cold, hard temperament, and hold me in its icy embrace. And none but the Lord can bring me out.

And there is the prison-house of death. I must perforce pass through the gate of death. Shall I find it a castle of gloom, or is there another gate through which I shall emerge into the fair, sweet paradise of God? My Master is Lord of the road! And He tells me that death shall not be a castle of captivity, but only a thoroughfare through which I shall pass into the realm of eternal day.

J.R. Miller's Year Book

February 1

"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." Genesis 9:11

Science now explains so many things, which devout people in the past loved to look upon as the very acts of God, that some have begun to wonder whether after all our Father really has anything to do with nature. But what is nature? It is God's handiwork. The powers that work so mightily in earth and air—God put there. Can these powers be greater than he who lodged them in his works? We need never fear that any scientific discovery shall show us a universe without a God. We know, too, that the God who controls all the forces and energies of nature, holding all in his hands—is our Father!

During a great flood, when houses, barns, outbuildings, and fences were swept away in the wild current, some men in a skiff saw a baby's cradle borne along in the stream. Rowing to it, they found in it, sleeping as quietly and sweetly as it had ever slept in its mother's bosom, a little baby. So, in the wildest floods of earth, God cares for his little ones. He is Lord of all the forces of nature. Not a drop of water, even in angriest billows, ever breaks away from the control of God! Natural law! Yes—but natural law is only the leash of divine control which is held firmly in the hand of God. No wild tempest ever sweeps beyond the "Hitherto" of our Father!

Our Daily Walk by F. B. Meyer

February 1

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth."-- Joh 18:37.

THIS WAS our Lord's answer to Pilate's inquiry, and to a certain extent each of us may appropriate His words. Wordsworth's immortal lines suggest that we stood before God to receive our commission, ere we became clothed with this body of humiliation. Whether or not the poet is right in his surmise, that "not in utter nakedness or forgetfulness do we come from God, who is our Home," we need not argue. It is enough that God, who hates nothing that He has made, sent us forth to realise an ideal, to fulfil a purpose, to bear witness to some phase of Truth! Shall we not ask ourselves, as in His Presence, whether we are fulfilling the Divine purpose of what the Apostle calls "our high calling"? (Phi 3:14).

God created each soul with a purpose. The potter takes in hand a lump of clay with a distinct design. He means, when he places it on the horizontal wheel, to make of it a vessel to adorn a temple or palace, or he has in mind to serve some household use. The revolving wheel on the one hand, and his skilful manipulation on the other, will evolve and complete his purpose. "Cannot I do with you, as this potter? saith the Lord."

"Thou hast made me and fashioned me. Thou didst choose the time and circumstances of my birth, my parentage and heredity, my mental equipment and my physical frame. From the first Thou didst know the constitution of my body, which Thou didst fashion in secret, and curiously work in the lowest places of the earth."

To our humble challenge: "Why hast Thou made me thus?" God does not always give an audible reply. His answer is often voiceless, it steals in upon the soul insensibly, and we know that we are fulfilling His purpose. If you are engaged in some unwelcome task, which evidently is your duty; if you are shut up as companion with some uncongenial charge; if you are called to minister to people who seem unresponsive or unsympathising, ask that the Saviour and you may be yoked together, that His Will may be done through you, that His love and kindness may bear and forbear in you, and that you may witness to the truth, as it is in Jesus.

PRAYER

O God, some of us shrink from our life-work, from those with whom we have to associate, from unwelcome toil and irksome tasks. Enable us to see Thy plan, and to trust Thee who art working out Thy plan in our lives. May the love of Christ constrain us no longer to live unto ourselves, but to Him. AMEN.