Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
February 20
Christ’s Ultimate Aim
He came to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many people.
Mark 10:45 (NCV)
One of the incredible abilities of Jesus was to stay on target. His life never got off track.... He kept his life on course.
As Jesus looked across the horizon of his future, he could see many targets. Many flags were flapping in the wind, each of which he could have pursued. He could have been a political revolutionary....He could have been content to be a teacher and educate minds.... But in the end he chose to be a Savior and save souls.
Anyone near Christ for any length of time heard it from Jesus himself. "The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them" (Luke 19:10)....The heart of Christ was relentlessly focused on one task. The day he left the carpentry shop of Nazareth he had one ultimate aim--the cross of Calvary.
2 Chronicles 10
Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam
1 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites had gone there to make him king. 2 When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard this (he was in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), he returned from Egypt. 3 So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and all Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him: 4 "Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you."
5 Rehoboam answered, "Come back to me in three days." So the people went away.
6 Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How would you advise me to answer these people?" he asked.
7 They replied, "If you will be kind to these people and please them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants."
8 But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. 9 He asked them, "What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us'?"
10 The young men who had grown up with him replied, "Tell the people who have said to you, 'Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter'-tell them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist. 11 My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.' "
12 Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, "Come back to me in three days." 13 The king answered them harshly. Rejecting the advice of the elders, 14 he followed the advice of the young men and said, "My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions." 15 So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from God, to fulfill the word the LORD had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.
16 When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king:
"What share do we have in David,
what part in Jesse's son?
To your tents, O Israel!
Look after your own house, O David!"
So all the Israelites went home. 17 But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them.
18 King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, [u] who was in charge of forced labor, but the Israelites stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escape to Jerusalem. 19 So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Deuteronomy 24:14-22 (New International Version)
14 Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. 15 Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
16 Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
17 Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.
19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. 22 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.
February 20, 2009
Dying For Justice
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READ: Deut. 24:14-22
You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. —Deuteronomy 24:18
When Presbyterian clergyman Elijah Lovejoy (1802–1837) left the pulpit, he returned to the printing presses in order to reach more people. After witnessing a lynching, Lovejoy committed to fighting the injustice of slavery. His life was threatened by hateful mobs, but this did not stop him: “If by compromise is meant that I should cease from my duty, I cannot make it. I fear God more than I fear man. Crush me if you will, but I shall die at my post.” Four days after these words, he was killed at the hands of another angry mob.
Concern about justice for the oppressed is evident throughout Scripture. It was especially clear when God established the rules for His covenant people after they were released from Egyptian bondage (Deut. 24:18-22). Moses emphasized concern for the underprivileged (Ex. 22:22-27; 23:6-9; Lev. 19:9-10). Repeatedly, the Israelites were reminded that they had been slaves in Egypt and should deal justly with the underprivileged in their community. They were to love strangers (“aliens”) because God loves them, and the Israelites had themselves been aliens in Egypt (Ex. 23:9; Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:17-19).
God desires that His people affirm the supreme worth of every individual by fighting against injustice. — Marvin Williams
Open my eyes, Lord, to people around me,
Help me to see them as You do above;
Give me the wisdom and strength to take action
So others may see the depth of Your love. —K. De Haan
Standing for justice means fighting against injustice.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
February 20, 2009
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
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READ:
Arise, let us go from here —John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: "Don’t sit or stand there, just go!"
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, "Come aside by yourselves . . ." then that is meditation before Him to seek His will ( Mark 6:31 ). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don’t sit and daydream about that person all the time— you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Manageable Mandates - #5770
Friday, February 20, 2009
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A friend of mine has served on his local school board for many years. And the more demands that have been placed on schools in recent years, the more complicated the work of school boards and school officials has become. The other day one of those frustrations surfaced in our conversation. My friend said, "You know, our state keeps passing on mandates to us for things our school system has to do, but lots of times they give us the mandate without any money. They decide what we have to do, and we have to figure out how to pay for it."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Manageable Mandates."
Mandates without resources - that's got to be frustrating. Thankfully, God never gives a mandate without providing the resources to carry it out! That's important for you to know right now, especially if you sense that He's leading you to do something where you have no clue where the resources are going to come from.
Over and over our many years of serving Him, we've made 1 Thessalonians 5:24 our bottom line, and we have never been disappointed. It's our word for today from the Word of God. It simply makes this promise: "The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it." To put it simply, God will never abandon you in the middle of something that He's told you to do.
Right now your Lord may be leading you toward some uncharted territory. You're being asked to shoulder a responsibility, a burden, or a challenge that you're not sure you can handle. Good. That sounds like one of those exciting times when it will be just a little bit of you and a whole lot of God. Your promise is that if He is calling you to do something, He will actually do it through you. Your job is to stay pure and show up!
God's plan will not take you where His grace will not keep you. Maybe you can't see where the money would possibly come from to carry out what God is mandating, but God's Word teaches us that what God orders, God pays for! Or as one missionary pioneer said, "If it's God's will, it's God's bill!"
Or you may just feel personally inadequate for what God is leading you to do. Good. That gets you out of the way and it insures that God will get all the glory. The great Apostle Paul put it this way: "Not that we are competent in ourselves...but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent" (2 Corinthians 3:5). God is glorified when people who don't have what it takes are the ones He uses. We're talking like a divine takeover of you, filling you with His strength, His ideas, His words, His wisdom, His love.
He will provide the emotional resources you need, the human resources, and the financial resources. Remember, God's promise is "my God will meet all your needs, according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:19). Not according to your measly resources, but according to His unlimited resources!
So really, isn't that all you need to know as you're facing a challenge that's bigger than you are, or maybe you're even considering giving up on a calling that God has given to you. What you need to know is that your Lord will never abandon you in the middle of what He's told you to do. What God mandates, God provides for!
