Max Lucado Daily: Heaven Sees
“[Jesus] died so he could give the church to himself like a bride in all her beauty . . . pure and without fault.” Ephesians 5:27
From our perspective, the church isn’t so pretty. We see the backbiting, the squabbling, the divisions. Heaven sees that, as well. But heaven sees more. Heaven sees the church as cleansed and made holy by Christ.
Heaven sees the church ascending to heaven. Heaven sees the Bride wearing the spotless gown of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 1
The Genealogy of Jesus
1A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
4Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife,
7Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
8Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
10Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
11and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[a] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
12After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
13Zerubbabel the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
14Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Eliud,
15Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
17Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.[b]
The Birth of Jesus Christ
18This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[c] because he will save his people from their sins."
22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"[d]—which means, "God with us."
24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Proverbs 2
1 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,
2 turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,
3 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,
4 and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.
6 For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand what is right and just and fair--every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse,
13 who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways,
14 who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
15 whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
16 It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words,
17 who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God.
18 For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
19 None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.
20 Thus you will walk in the ways of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it;
22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it.
Starting Young
August 23, 2010 — by Dave Branon
My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, . . . you will understand the fear of the Lordz. —Proverbs 2:1,5
Addie was a bit worried. Before we all sat down for Sunday dinner, someone had started eating. That’s when our 3-year-old granddaughter said, “We haven’t prayed yet.” She was concerned that we might forget to give thanks.
Her concern was a good sign. It showed that at her young age, Addie was beginning to form one of those good habits that parents teach their children as part of their instructions for life. This little routine, for instance, helps her see the value of prayer and thanksgiving, which can be a powerful resource for her in the years ahead.
Raising children in an age of hostility toward the Christian faith is not easy. Parents wonder how best to help their little ones learn to trust the Savior and live to please Him. Proverbs indicates that a key to directing children is through purposeful instruction by parents (Prov. 1:8) on such things as listening to wisdom (2:2), seeking discernment (2:3), understanding the fear of the Lord (2:5), recalling parents’ teaching (3:1), and gaining insight (4:1). These become habitual when parents give instruction and when children “retain” those words of teaching (4:1-4).
Got kids or grandkids? It’s never too early to begin instructing them in wise living.
God gives us children for a time
To teach them how to love the Lord,
To train them in His righteous ways,
To follow and obey His Word. —Sper
The character of your children tomorrow depends on what you put into their hearts today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 23rd , 2010
Prayer— Battle in "The Secret Place"
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly —Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “. . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . .” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Making it Through the Pain - #6161
Monday, August 23, 2010
Our three-year-old grandson's been around long enough to show us that he's gonna be the one who lives on the edge, tries daring things, and is basically a physical kind of guy. Consequently, he may be on a first name basis with the folks in the emergency room. We hope not, but you know, he's already visited there more than once in his short career. The first time he got a bad cut on his lip from a fall - lots of bleeding, run to the emergency room, stitches. This medical stuff was all new to him. Oh, listen he fought it. It took four people to hold down this little tiger while the stitches were put in. It was massively traumatic for everybody involved - including my wife who was one of those E. R. wrestlers that night. The second time was when another fall caused a big cut in our little guy's chin. Lots of bleeding, run to the emergency room, stitches. Get a pattern here? Less fighting this time. Oh, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't as bad as the first time. Who knows, pretty soon he may be helping them put the stitches in!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Making it Through the Pain."
We figured out two reasons that the second time was a little less traumatic than the first time for our grandson. First, he knew from experience that the pain of this process didn't last forever. Secondly, he knew from his first time around that he got a reward when this was over - let's hear it for popsicles and stickers!
Maybe there's something we can all gain from a little boy's emergency room experiences with pain - maybe it can even help you get through the painful time that you're going through right now. What were those two things that helped you get through a process that's really hurting you? You know it won't last forever. You know there's a reward when this is over.
God's great ambassador, Paul, learned those secrets of making it through the pain, and he had a post-graduate degree in suffering - beatings, imprisonments, attacks on his reputation, death threats, excruciating physical conditions. This is a man who's got the credentials to talk to us about the great hurts of life. And he does in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
With all he's enduring, Paul says: "We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
Now, you can lose your health, your business, your marriage, you can lose people you love and still not lose heart. How? First, remember these four letters - TTSP. Yep, they stand for, "This too shall pass." Your ordeal is, in Paul's words, "momentary" and "temporary" against the backdrop of your eternity in heaven. It won't always be this way. Secondly, think about the reward for finishing your painful assignment faithfully - "eternal glory." At the end of this, you've got something really good that you will have forever. One other thing that our grandson may ultimately learn about the pain of the doctor's procedures - the purpose of the pain is to make him better. That's the purpose of yours, too. To make you more like Jesus and more of a helper and healer for hurting people who are all around you. The relatively short duration of your pain, the reward you'll get for bearing it, the good it can produce in your life - none of those take away the pain, but they make it bearable. They give it meaning, and they make you more bearable, too.
What you're going through has an end, it has a reward, and it has a point. So you don't have to fight it. The doctor who's got your case - Dr. Jesus - loves you deeply, holds you tightly, and He knows exactly what's He's doing.
