Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
March 24
The Path of Righteousness
He leads me in the paths of righteousness.
Psalm 23:3 (NKJV)
It was, at once, history’s most beautiful and most horrible moment. Jesus stood in the tribunal of heaven. Sweeping a hand over all creation, he pleaded, “Punish me for their mistakes. See the murderer? Give me his penalty. The adulteress? I’ll take her shame. The bigot, the liar, the thief? Do to me what you would do to them. Treat me as you would a sinner.”
And God did. “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Pet. 3:18 NIV)….
The path of righteousness is a narrow, winding trail up a steep hill. At the top of the hill is a cross. At the base of the cross are bags. Countless bags full of innumerable sins. Calvary is the compost pile for guilt. Would you like to leave yours there as well?
Micah 1
1 The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah—the vision he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.
2 Hear, O peoples, all of you,
listen, O earth and all who are in it,
that the Sovereign LORD may witness against you,
the Lord from his holy temple.
Judgment Against Samaria and Jerusalem
3 Look! The LORD is coming from his dwelling place;
he comes down and treads the high places of the earth.
4 The mountains melt beneath him
and the valleys split apart,
like wax before the fire,
like water rushing down a slope.
5 All this is because of Jacob's transgression,
because of the sins of the house of Israel.
What is Jacob's transgression?
Is it not Samaria?
What is Judah's high place?
Is it not Jerusalem?
6 "Therefore I will make Samaria a heap of rubble,
a place for planting vineyards.
I will pour her stones into the valley
and lay bare her foundations.
7 All her idols will be broken to pieces;
all her temple gifts will be burned with fire;
I will destroy all her images.
Since she gathered her gifts from the wages of prostitutes,
as the wages of prostitutes they will again be used."
Weeping and Mourning
8 Because of this I will weep and wail;
I will go about barefoot and naked.
I will howl like a jackal
and moan like an owl.
9 For her wound is incurable;
it has come to Judah.
It [a] has reached the very gate of my people,
even to Jerusalem itself.
10 Tell it not in Gath [b] ;
weep not at all. [c]
In Beth Ophrah [d]
roll in the dust.
11 Pass on in nakedness and shame,
you who live in Shaphir. [e]
Those who live in Zaanan [f]
will not come out.
Beth Ezel is in mourning;
its protection is taken from you.
12 Those who live in Maroth [g] writhe in pain,
waiting for relief,
because disaster has come from the LORD,
even to the gate of Jerusalem.
13 You who live in Lachish, [h]
harness the team to the chariot.
You were the beginning of sin
to the Daughter of Zion,
for the transgressions of Israel
were found in you.
14 Therefore you will give parting gifts
to Moresheth Gath.
The town of Aczib [i] will prove deceptive
to the kings of Israel.
15 I will bring a conqueror against you
who live in Mareshah. [j]
He who is the glory of Israel
will come to Adullam.
16 Shave your heads in mourning
for the children in whom you delight;
make yourselves as bald as the vulture,
for they will go from you into exile.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Luke 2:8-20 (New International Version)
The Shepherds and the Angels
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."
13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told
March 24, 2009
Ordinary Days
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READ: Luke 2:8-20
Behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them. —Luke 2:9
Writer Anita Brechbill observed in God’s Revivalist magazine that “Most often the Word of the Lord comes to a soul in the ordinary duties of life.” She cites the examples of Zacharias performing his duties as a priest, and the shepherds watching their flocks. They were at work as usual with no idea that they were about to receive a message from God.
Luke describes the ordinary days when these men received their message from God: “While [Zacharias] was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, . . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him” (1:8,11). While the shepherds were “living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night . . . an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (2:8-9).
Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest said: “Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a worker can keep true to God is by being ready for the Lord’s surprise visits.”
On this ordinary day, the Lord may have a word of encouragement, guidance, or instruction for us, if we’re listening and ready to obey. — David C. McCasland
I wonder what I did for God today:
How many times did I once pause and pray?
But I must find and serve Him in these ways,
For life is made of ordinary days. —Macbeth
God speaks to those who are quiet before Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
March 24, 2009
Decreasing for His Purpose
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READ:
He must increase, but I must decrease —John 3:30
If you become a necessity to someone else’s life, you are out of God’s will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a "friend of the bridegroom" (John 3:29 ). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don’t try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone’s life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God’s will and saying, "This person should not have to experience this difficulty." Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, "You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him."
Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing. ". . . the friend of the bridegroom . . . rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease" ( John 3:29-30 ). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness-at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.
Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom’s voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34 ).
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The High Cost of Forgetting - #5792
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
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Bill Cosby did a classic comedy routine about it, and I'm not sure it's that funny, frankly. You get up and you go into the other room to get something, then you can't remember for the life of you what you went in there for until you go back and sit down. Oh, ever happen to you? That's the harmless kind of forgetfulness. But too many of us have had loved ones who, as the years went on, remembered less and less; sometimes even the people who loved them. When people's memory goes, they can become very easily disoriented; they can make some very bad decisions and even place themselves in great danger.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The High Cost of Forgetting."
For the most part, there's not much you can do about memory loss - the mental kind, that is. But there is something you can do about spiritual memory loss, because forgetting spiritually can be pretty damaging, too. It was, in fact, one fundamental reason why God's ancient people kept wandering from God, messing up their lives, and suffering God's judgment. And it's one reason we make the same kinds of mistakes.
In Psalm 106, beginning in verse 12, our word for today from the Word of God, God summarizes the unhappy history of His people then and now. "They believed His promises and sang His praise." That's the good news. "But they soon forgot what He had done and did not wait for His counsel." Now, the results were disobedience and resulting judgment. In the same psalm, God says that at other times, "They gave no thought to Your miracles; they did not remember Your many kindnesses, and they rebelled..." (Psalm 106:7) "...they forgot the God who saved them" (Psalm 106:21). Again, disastrous results.
We're all prone to quickly forget the great God we have and the amazing things that He's done for us. And like a person who loses their cognitive memory, we start to get disoriented - to wander where we never should wander - to leave God's ways and to leave God's will, and to experience the pain of God's correction and judgment or simply the painful consequences of our own wrong choices.
But unlike cognitive memory loss, there's a simple antidote for spiritual forgetting. It's called praise; regular, specific, conscious praise to God for who He is and what He's done. Praise is actually a discipline - a deliberate focusing of your thoughts on things you have to thank God for. We should wake up praising. As we're getting ready in the morning, we should train our mind and heart to be expressing thanks to God, enumerating things we appreciate about Him. Talk about getting your day off to a right kind of start! Whenever we pray, we should train ourselves to begin with praises to God before we rush to our requests. And through the day, we need to be looking for evidences of God (I call them God sightings.) all over the place and then sending up thanks to God for them.
When we stop praising God, we start forgetting God. And when we forget the kind of God we have, we start wandering, we start getting hurt, and we are much more likely to take matters into our own hands, to panic, to get impatient, to get discouraged or to get depressed. But the more you train yourself to be a "praiser," the less mistakes you're going to make - the less regrets you're going to have. You lose so much when you forget.