Max Lucado Daily:Put Life Into Your Own
Jesus said, “The load I give you to carry is light. (Matthew 11:30)
It’s a good weight, a sweet debt. Go ahead–test it. Visit people in the hospital. See if you don’t leave happier than when you entered.
Teach a class for kids. See if you don’t learn more than they do. Dedicate a Saturday to helping the homeless. You’ll discover this mystery:
As you help others face their days, you put life into your own.
And life is exactly what many people need! Galations 6:4 instructs us to “Make a careful exploration of who you are.” Check your vital signs. If something comes easy for you, identify it. Does something stir you? If something brings energy to your voice, conviction to your face, and direction to your step–isolate it. Embrace it!
Nothing gives a day a greater chance than a good wallop of passion!
From Great Day Every Day
2 Kings 14
Amaziah King of Judah
14 In the second year of Jehoash[c] son of Jehoahaz king of Israel, Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah began to reign. 2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Jehoaddan; she was from Jerusalem. 3 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not as his father David had done. In everything he followed the example of his father Joash. 4 The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.
5 After the kingdom was firmly in his grasp, he executed the officials who had murdered his father the king. 6 Yet he did not put the children of the assassins to death, in accordance with what is written in the Book of the Law of Moses where the Lord commanded: “Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.”[d]
7 He was the one who defeated ten thousand Edomites in the Valley of Salt and captured Sela in battle, calling it Joktheel, the name it has to this day.
8 Then Amaziah sent messengers to Jehoash son of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, with the challenge: “Come, let us face each other in battle.”
9 But Jehoash king of Israel replied to Amaziah king of Judah: “A thistle in Lebanon sent a message to a cedar in Lebanon, ‘Give your daughter to my son in marriage.’ Then a wild beast in Lebanon came along and trampled the thistle underfoot. 10 You have indeed defeated Edom and now you are arrogant. Glory in your victory, but stay at home! Why ask for trouble and cause your own downfall and that of Judah also?”
11 Amaziah, however, would not listen, so Jehoash king of Israel attacked. He and Amaziah king of Judah faced each other at Beth Shemesh in Judah. 12 Judah was routed by Israel, and every man fled to his home. 13 Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash, the son of Ahaziah, at Beth Shemesh. Then Jehoash went to Jerusalem and broke down the wall of Jerusalem from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate —a section about four hundred cubits long.[e] 14 He took all the gold and silver and all the articles found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace. He also took hostages and returned to Samaria.
15 As for the other events of the reign of Jehoash, what he did and his achievements, including his war against Amaziah king of Judah, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? 16 Jehoash rested with his ancestors and was buried in Samaria with the kings of Israel. And Jeroboam his son succeeded him as king.
17 Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah lived for fifteen years after the death of Jehoash son of Jehoahaz king of Israel. 18 As for the other events of Amaziah’s reign, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?
19 They conspired against him in Jerusalem, and he fled to Lachish, but they sent men after him to Lachish and killed him there. 20 He was brought back by horse and was buried in Jerusalem with his ancestors, in the City of David.
21 Then all the people of Judah took Azariah,[f] who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah. 22 He was the one who rebuilt Elath and restored it to Judah after Amaziah rested with his ancestors.
Jeroboam II King of Israel
23 In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. 24 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. 25 He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea,[g] in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.
26 The Lord had seen how bitterly everyone in Israel, whether slave or free, was suffering;[h] there was no one to help them. 27 And since the Lord had not said he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.
28 As for the other events of Jeroboam’s reign, all he did, and his military achievements, including how he recovered for Israel both Damascus and Hamath, which had belonged to Judah, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Israel? 29 Jeroboam rested with his ancestors, the kings of Israel. And Zechariah his son succeeded him as king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 1 Corinthians 12:18-27
18 God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be. 19 If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body? 20 As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.
21 The eye can't say to the hand, "I don't need you!" The head can't say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22 In fact, it is just the opposite. The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can't do without. 23 The parts that we think are less important we treat with special honor. The private parts aren't shown. But they are treated with special care. 24 The parts that can be shown don't need special care.
But God has joined together all the parts of the body. And he has given more honor to the parts that didn't have any. 25 In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.
27 You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it.
My Buddy William
July 5, 2012 — by Dave Branon
The members should have the same care for one another. —1 Corinthians 12:25
As we got off the bus at a home for mentally and physically challenged children in Copse, Jamaica, I didn’t expect to find a football player. While the teen choir and the other adult chaperones dispersed to find kids to hug, love, and play with, I came upon a young man named William.
I’m not sure what William’s medical diagnosis was, but he looked like he probably had cerebral palsy. I had grabbed a football before getting off the bus, so I tossed it gently to William, who dropped it.
But when I picked it up and put it into his hands, he slowly manipulated it until he had it just how he wanted it. Then, leaning back against a railing for balance, William tossed a perfect spiral. For the next 45 minutes, we played toss and catch—he tossed, I caught. William laughed and laughed—and stole my heart. On that day he had as much impact on me, I’m sure, as I did on him. He taught me that we are all needed as a part of Christ’s body, the church (1 Cor. 12:20-25).
People often dismiss others who are different from themselves. But it is the Williams of the world who teach us that joy can come when we accept others and respond in compassion. Is there a William in your world who needs you to be his buddy?
Lord, help us to see how much we need each other
in our Christian walk. May we show Your love
to others who are different than us. Give us an
open heart to learn. Amen.
We need one another in order to be who God wants us to be.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 5, 2012
Don’t Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass —Psalm 37:5
Don’t plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him— that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don’t plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? “Love . . . thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don’t plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled . . .” (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command— “Let not. . . .” To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
A Light In Titanic's Dark Night - #6649
Thursday, July 5, 2012
There's just something about the Titanic. Yes, the ship sank, but it seems like our fascination with it is unsinkable. And that includes me. There are so many stories; so many life lessons. But in the many moving stories of that horrible, haunting night, there's one that just blows me away. One passenger - John Harper: A man whose life and choices during those three fateful hours still give me goose bumps.
John Harper was a Scottish pastor, a widower with a six-year-old daughter, a man who'd been invited to preach at Chicago's prestigious Moody Memorial Church. It was April 1912. And it just so happened that a ship - the new world wonder, named Titanic, was sailing for America. John Harper booked passage for himself, along with his daughter Nina and her aunt.
Later, passengers would report that John was seen often, talking about Jesus with fellow passengers. He would gently inquire, "Are you saved?" He cared deeply about whether folks had ever asked Jesus, God's Rescuer from heaven, to save them from the penalty for their sin. None of those passengers had any idea how close they were to eternity. Well, John watched the glorious sunset on the evening of April 14 and commented, "It will be beautiful in the morning." By morning some 1,500 Titanic passengers would be in eternity.I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Light In Titanic's Dark Night."
At 11:40 that night, the unsinkable ship sideswiped that iceberg, tearing open six plates on her hull. John Harper quickly realized the Titanic was going down. He made sure his precious daughter was in her aunt's arms as he put her in Lifeboat 11 and told her, "I will see you again someday." And then he turned to "rescuing."
As the great ship went under, he ended up in the 28-degree water in a lifejacket. And witnesses reported that John was swimming feverishly from person to person, asking about their relationship with Christ. When one man told him he was not "saved," this man of God gave him his lifejacket and then swam to tell another man about Jesus.
Now, fast forward a few years to a Titanic survivors meeting in Hamilton, Ontario, and this is where I start to lose it. A young Scotsman, one of only six people taken alive from the water, stood to his feet to tell his story, and here's what he said.
"I am a survivor of the Titanic. When I was drifting alone on a spar that awful night, the tide brought Mr. John Harper of Glasgow, also on a piece of wreck near me. He asked, 'Man, are you saved?' I replied, 'No, I am not.' 'Then believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,' he said."
The story didn't end there. He went on, "The waves bore him away; but strange to say brought him back a little later, and he said, 'Are you saved now?' I said, 'No, I cannot honestly say I am.' Once more, John said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.' Shortly after, he went down. And there, alone in the night, and with two miles of water under me, I believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I am John Harper's last convert." That's so powerful; so convicting!
John Harper knew that wherever he was, in his hometown, on an ocean voyage, in the middle of a stunning tragedy, facing death, he was always as it says in our word for today from the Word of God, 2 Corinthians 5:20, "Christ's ambassador, imploring people on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."
Now, what about me? Do I understand that my position is my rescue assignment; that circumstances are just God's tool to position me to help some people go to heaven?
This "angel of the Titanic," as some have called him, did what all rescuers do. He abandoned himself to save others. How many times has thinking about myself kept me from speaking to someone about Jesus? I cry out with the Apostle Paul, "Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should" (Ephesians 6:20).
You know, in a sense, we're all passengers on a ship that's going down. And those of us who've been saved by Jesus know how the people around us can be saved, too. And if we tell them, as John Harper said. For them, "it will be beautiful in the morning."
