DAILY, WEEKEND, AND HOLIDAY INTERNET EVANGELIZE TO THE WORLD MINISTRY

  July 30 The mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it John 2:3, 4, 5 In asking for temporal blessings, true wisdom lies in putting the matter into the Lord’s hand, and leaving it there. He knows our sorrows, and, if He sees it is good for us that the water should be turned into wine, He will do it. It is not for us to dictate: He sees what is best for us. When we ask for prosperity, perhaps the thing which we should have is trial. When we want to be relieved of a “thorn in the flesh,” He knows what we should have is an apprehension of the fact that His grace is sufficient for us. So we are put into His school, and have to learn the lessons He has to teach us. W. Hay Aitken  Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).

  July 30th The discipline of disillusionment Jesus did not commit Himself unto them … for He knew what was in man. John 2:24–25 . Disillusionment means that there are no more false judgments in life. To be undeceived by disillusionment may leave us cynical and unkindly severe in our judgment of others, but the disillusionment which comes from God brings us to the place where we see men and women as they really are, and yet there is no cynicism, we have no stinging, bitter things to say. Many of the cruel things in life spring from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts; we are true only to our ideas of one another. Everything is either delightful and fine, or mean and dastardly, according to our idea. The refusal to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering in human life. It works in this way—if we love a human being and do not love God, we demand of him every perfection and every rectitude, and when we do not get it we...

  July 30: Destructive People 2 Samuel 22:1–51; Jude 1:1–16 ; Psalm 147:1–20 Some destructive people don’t realize the carnage they leave in their wake. Others intentionally cause rifts and pain, driven by selfish motives. Jude’s letter, which contains succinct prose, startling imagery, and a swift warning, is unlike anything we read in Scripture. The letter equipped early Christians to deal wisely with false teachers who had entered the church community. Today, it can provide us with wisdom to respond to some of the most difficult people and situations we encounter. The community that Jude addressed contained destructive false teachers “who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). They did not respect authority, but acted out of instinct rather than conviction: “But these persons blaspheme all that they do not understand, and all that they understand by instinct like the irrational animals, by these things they are ...

  Morning, July 30 Go To Evening Reading “And when he thought thereon, he wept.” —Mark 14:72 Some have thought that as long as Peter lived, the fountain of his tears began to flow whenever he remembered his denying his Lord. It is not unlikely that it was so, for his sin was very significant, and grace in him had afterward a perfect work. This same experience is common to all the redeemed families according to the degree to which the Spirit of God has removed the natural heart of stone. We, like Peter, remember our boastful promise : “Though all men shall forsake thee, yet will not I.” We eat our own words with the bitter herbs of repentance. When we think of what we vowed to be and what we have been, we may weep whole showers of grief. He thought about his denying his Lord . The place where he did it, the little cause that led him into such heinous sin, the oaths and blasphemies with which he sought to confirm his falsehood, and the dreadful hardness of heart drove him to d...

  Sunday, July 28, 2024 | Pentecost Tenth Sunday after Pentecost Old Testament Genesis 39:1–6a Psalm Psalm 92 New Testament 1 Corinthians 10:6–13 Gospel Luke 16:1–9   Christian Worship One Year Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2009). Sunday, July 28, 2024 | After Pentecost Proper 12 Year B First Reading & Psalm, Option I First Reading 2 Samuel 11:1–15 Psalm Psalm 14 or First Reading & Psalm, Option II First Reading 2 Kings 4:42–44 Psalm Psalm 145:10–18 Second Reading Ephesians 3:14–21 Gospel John 6:1–21   Episcopal Church (USA) Revised Common Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2016). Sunday, July 28, 2024 | After Pentecost Proper 12 Year B Old Testament 2 Samuel 11:1–15 Psalm Psalm 14 (UMH 746) New Testament Ephesians 3:14–21 Gospel John 6:1–21  Vanderbilt Divinity Library, United Methodist Revised Common Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Faith...

  July 28 Your heavenly Father knoweth Matt. 6:32 The Master judges by the result, but our Father judges by the effort. Failure does not always mean fault. He knows how much things cost, and weighs them where others only measure. Your Father! Think how great store His love sets by the poor beginnings of the little ones, clumsy and unmeaning as they may be to others. All this lies in this blessed relationship, and infinitely more. Do not fear to take it all as your own. Mark Guy Pearse  Samuel G. Hardman and Dwight Lyman Moody, Thoughts for the Quiet Hour (Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997).

  July 28th After obedience—what? And straightway He constrained His disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side.… Mark 6:45–52 . We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end. What is my dream of God’s purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process—that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It...

  July 28: I Will Laud Your Deeds 2 Samuel 19:1–43; 2 Peter 3:1–13; Psalm 145:1–21 I grew up in a family of stoics. Through example, my siblings and I were taught to keep our emotions to ourselves. Displays of excessive affection or sorrow were regarded with some suspicion, and this played out in our expressions of faith. Psalm 145 directly challenges such a mindset. The psalmist expresses why confessing God’s faithfulness is so important, especially to those we influence: “One generation will laud your works to another, and will declare your mighty deeds” (Psa 145:4). God’s mighty deeds were His redemptive acts—especially the exodus from Egypt. His greatness (Psa 145:6), His righteousness (Psa 145:7), His glory, and His power (Psa 145:11, 12) were expressed. Our praise should be centered on God’s ultimate restorative work through His Son—an act that has brought us back into intimate communion with Him. We can bring our sorrows and failures to Him: “Yahweh upholds all who are f...