Our Daily Bread

 A Jewish leader was invited to speak at a gathering of Chirstians in hte USA who were celebrating Israel’s 50th anniversary. The rabbi saw Christians as friends of the Jews. He declared “We are safe in America not in spite of Christianity. We are safe… because of Chrisianity

The saying “You can never outgive God” may be doubted by overanxious or tightfisted people. But Paul’s letter to the Philippian believers fully supports this saying. Having just received their generous gifts to meet his needs in prison, he assured them that because of their generosity God wouldn’t allow them to suffer undue need. He told them, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19). God’s people have relied on the truth of those words ever since.

Studies show that sugar pills, or placebos, can actually alleviate symptoms if a sick person believes they are an effective medication. Some research showed that many people found them helpful even after being told the pills were placebos.

When a co-worker gave me a brochure he had received by mail, I looked at it and thought, This can’t be true. No book can do what this promises. The pamphlet was advertising a book containing 853 letters for “every conceivable personal and business need.”

In an article for Campus Life magazine, Susan Smart describes her third—and nearly last—solo flight. She had been practicing a maneuver at 5,000 feet when she lost control and her Cessna 150 began spinning wildly toward earth. After several seconds of panic, she recalled her instructor’s words: “If you ever go into a spin in a Cessna 150, just let go of the controls. It’s built to fly on its own.”

When evangelist Vance Havner was in his mid-thirties, he developed a troubling nervous disorder. Previously he had been critical of people who were experiencing this condition. He said, “For 2 years I suffered from nervous exhaustion, and I learned not to laugh at nervous people.”

It’s absurd to think we can get to heaven by our own efforts. Former pastor and longtime radio broadcaster J. Vernon McGee illustrated this truth by referring to the impossibility of jumping from the Santa Monica pier in California to Catalina Island, which is 25 miles away. McGee would say, “Now, up to the present, nobody has made it . . . . I see some people who I’m sure could outjump me. But I’ll tell you this, they won’t make Catalina. All come short.”

Every year I hear about people who have their hands and feet nailed to a cross for a brief time to imitate the crucifixion of Christ. These misguided souls may mean well, but their futile self-torture is only a tiny fraction of the Lord’s physical pain—and nothing of His deep spiritual agony.

In his book The Pursuit of God, A. W. Tozer wrote, “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned not to each other but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become unity-conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”

Do you ever wonder whether the Bible can be trusted? Scottish reformer John Knox confessed that he passed through a dark time when his soul was filled with “anger, wrath, and indignation, which it conceived against God, calling all His promises in doubt.”