Max Lucado Daily: Who Can We Trust
We can come before God’s throne where…we can receive mercy and grace to help us when we need it. Hebrews 4:16
Don’t we need someone to trust who is bigger than we are? Aren’t we tired of trusting the people of this earth for understanding? Aren’t we weary of trusting the things of this earth for strength? A drowning sailor doesn’t call on another drowning sailor for help… He knows he needs someone who is stronger than he is.
Jesus’ message is this: I am that person.
Trust Me.
Luke 21
The Widow’s Offering
1 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. 3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. 4 All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times
5 Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 6 “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
7 “Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?”
8 He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. 9 When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
10 Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
12 “But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. 13 And so you will bear testimony to me. 14 But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. 15 For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. 17 Everyone will hate you because of me. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 Stand firm, and you will win life.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Luke 10:38-42
At the Home of Martha and Mary
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Too Busy To Know God?
October 13, 2011 — by Randy Kilgore
She had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. —Luke 10:39
One day when I was waiting to board a plane, a stranger who had overheard me mention that I was a chaplain began to describe to me his life before he met Christ. He said it was marked by “sin and self-absorption. Then I met Jesus.”
I listened with interest to a list of changes he had made to his life and good deeds he had done. But because everything he told me was about his busyness for God and not his fellowship with God, I wasn’t surprised when he added, “Frankly, chaplain, I thought I’d feel better about myself by now.”
I think the New Testament character Martha would have understood that stranger’s observation. Having invited Jesus to be a guest at her home, she set about doing what she thought were the important things. But this meant she couldn’t focus on Jesus. Because Mary wasn’t helping, Martha felt justified asking Jesus to chide her. It’s a mistake many of us make: We’re so busy doing good that we don’t spend time getting to know God better.
My advice to my new airplane friend came from the core of Jesus’ words to Martha in Luke 10:41-42. I said to him: “Slow down and invest yourself in knowing God; let His Word reveal Himself to you.” If we’re too busy to spend time with God, we’re simply too busy.
Savior, let me walk beside Thee,
Let me feel my hand in Thine;
Let me know the joy of walking
In Thy strength and not in mine. —Sidebotham
Our heavenly Father longs to spend time with His children.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
October 13th, 2011
Individual Discouragement and Personal Growth
. . . when Moses was grown . . . he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens —Exodus 2:11
Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After he launched his first strike for God and for what was right, God allowed Moses to be driven into empty discouragement, sending him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared to Moses and said to him, ” ’. . . bring My people . . . out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ’Who am I that I should go . . . ?’ ” (Exodus 3:10-11). In the beginning Moses had realized that he was the one to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in his individual perspective, but he was not the person for the work until he had learned true fellowship and oneness with God.
We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and yet when we start to do it, there comes to us something equivalent to Moses’ forty years in the wilderness. It’s as if God had ignored the entire thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged, God comes back and revives His call to us. And then we begin to tremble and say, “Who am I that I should go . . . ?” We must learn that God’s great stride is summed up in these words— “I AM WHO I AM . . . has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). We must also learn that our individual effort for God shows nothing but disrespect for Him— our individuality is to be rendered radiant through a personal relationship with God, so that He may be “well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). We are focused on the right individual perspective of things; we have the vision and can say, “I know this is what God wants me to do.” But we have not yet learned to get into God’s stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Collapse Of a Two-Legged Bridge - #6459
Thursday, October 13, 2011
When a bridge collapses it's always inconvenient, and sometimes it's tragic. Some years ago, I remember a bridge on the New York throughway near Albany, collapsed. It collapsed actually, under the pressure of heavy floodwaters, and several vehicles plunged into that raging river and it took their occupants to their death. Now it isn't always that tragic, but whenever a bridge is out, and you've probably driven somewhere and suddenly you saw that sign "Bridge out." You go, "Oh great!" And whenever a bridge is out it just makes it much more difficult to get from one point to another. In fact, sometimes that bridge is the only way to get there. Oh, and sometimes the bridge is a person.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Collapse Of a Two-Legged Bridge."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God is from 2 Corinthians 5:19-20. This is the words of the Apostle Paul. Here's what he says: "God has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." Now when you hear these verses I hope you get a mental picture. There's a great chasm, on one side is Jesus, on the other side I want you to picture someone who's close to you; someone who as far as you know does not yet know your Christ. Think about a lost person maybe somebody who lives right near you, who you drive by all the time or walk past, it could be somebody who works near you; you see them almost every day, somebody you go to school with, someone you're on the phone with or on the Internet with a lot, could be a family member, someone in a carpool with you. But they're on the other side.
Now the word here is reconciliation. We have the ministry, the responsibility, the trust of reconciliation. God has committed to us the message of and the ministry of reconciliation. What does that mean? It means that their needs to be a bridge from that person to Jesus across that chasm. Guess who the bridge is? The two-legged bridge is you. Now in that mental picture, is this person you know about moving toward Jesus because of you or are they as far from Him as they've ever been, and maybe they've known you for years? Is it possible that that person's bridge to Jesus has collapsed?
Sometimes it means you're just so busy. "I've got so many things to do in my life, I never get around to talking to you about Jesus", but the days become weeks, and the weeks become months, and the months become years, and the years become never, and they become lost forever. Sometimes it's fear, but the greatest fear shouldn't be of being rejected by that person.
Our greatest fear should be if that person I care about will be lost forever. Sometimes it's the pressure, the peer pressure that makes me start doing things that make them wonder if being a Christian is really anything that different. I'm confusing them. I'm keeping them from Jesus because I'm not a whole lot different from the people who don't know Him.
I remember the morning I woke up and heard on my clock radio that a young girl I'd gone to high school with - I was a freshman in college at the time - she'd been murdered as a college freshman. I thought back over all those conversations we had about everything except Jesus. Oh, I was the bridge, but the bridge was out. I collapsed for her, and I can't help but wonder if somewhere in the quarters of eternity someone we knew on earth won't cry out to us, "Why didn't you tell me? You knew about this all the time. We talked about everything. Man, why didn't you tell me about Christ?"
The good news is there's still time. Jesus is standing on one side with outstretched arms; that person you care about is restless in their heart where they are on the other side. What they need is a bridge, and that bridge is you.
