Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
May 20
Doing What’s Right
Everyone who is a child of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world--our faith.
1 John 5:4 (NCV)
You get impatient with your own life, trying to master a habit or control a sin--and in your frustration begin to wonder where the power of God is. Be patient. God is using today's difficulties to strengthen you for tomorrow. He is equipping you. The God who makes things grow will help you bear fruit.
Dwell on the fact that God lives within you. Think about the power that gives you life. The realization that God is dwelling within you may change the places you want to go and the things you want to do today.
Do what is right this week, whatever it is, whatever comes down the path, whatever problems and dilemmas you face--just do what's right. Maybe no one else is doing what's right, but you do what's right. You be honest. You take a stand. You be true. After all, regardless of what you do, God does what is right: he saves you with his grace.
Esther 3
Haman's Plot to Destroy the Jews
1 After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles. 2 All the royal officials at the king's gate knelt down and paid honor to Haman, for the king had commanded this concerning him. But Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor.
3 Then the royal officials at the king's gate asked Mordecai, "Why do you disobey the king's command?" 4 Day after day they spoke to him but he refused to comply. Therefore they told Haman about it to see whether Mordecai's behavior would be tolerated, for he had told them he was a Jew.
5 When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. 6 Yet having learned who Mordecai's people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai's people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.
7 In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, they cast the pur (that is, the lot) in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on [f] the twelfth month, the month of Adar.
8 Then Haman said to King Xerxes, "There is a certain people dispersed and scattered among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom whose customs are different from those of all other people and who do not obey the king's laws; it is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them. 9 If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will put ten thousand talents [g] of silver into the royal treasury for the men who carry out this business."
10 So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. 11 "Keep the money," the king said to Haman, "and do with the people as you please."
12 Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman's orders to the king's satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring. 13 Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and little children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. 14 A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province and made known to the people of every nationality so they would be ready for that day.
15 Spurred on by the king's command, the couriers went out, and the edict was issued in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
John 9
Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
1As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. 4As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
6Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. 7"Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
8His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?" 9Some claimed that he was.
Others said, "No, he only looks like him."
But he himself insisted, "I am the man."
10"How then were your eyes opened?" they demanded.
11He replied, "The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see."
May 20, 2009
Restoring Spiritual Sight
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READ: John 9:1-11
The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. —Psalm 119:130
Sanduk Ruit is a Nepalese doctor who has used his scalpel, microscope, and simplified cataract surgery technique to give sight to almost 70,000 people over the past 23 years. The poorest patients who visit his nonprofit eye center in Katmandu pay with just their gratitude.
Our Lord Jesus Christ healed many of physical blindness during His time on earth. But of greater concern to Him were the spiritually blind. Many of the religious authorities who investigated the healing of the blind man refused to believe that Jesus was not a sinner (John 9:13-34). This caused Jesus to say, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind” (v.39).
The apostle Paul wrote of this spiritual blindness when he said, “If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them” (2 Cor. 4:3-4).
The psalmist said, “The entrance of Your words gives light” (Ps. 119:130). God’s Word is what will open our eyes and cure spiritual blindness. — C. P. Hia
Come to the Light, ’tis shining for thee!
Sweetly the Light has dawned upon me;
Once I was blind, but now I can see—
The Light of the world is Jesus. —Bliss
A world in darkness needs the light of Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
May 20, 2009
Taking Possession of Our Own Soul
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READ:
By your patience possess your souls —Luke 21:19
When a person is born again, there is a period of time when he does not have the same vitality in his thinking or reasoning that he previously had. We must learn to express this new life within us, which comes by forming the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5 ). Luke 21:19 means that we take possession of our souls through patience. But many of us prefer to stay at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us. We fail because we are ignorant of the way God has made us, and we blame things on the devil that are actually the result of our own undisciplined natures. Just think what we could be when we are awakened to the truth!
There are certain things in life that we need not pray about— moods, for instance. We will never get rid of moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some physical circumstance, not in our true inner self. It is a continual struggle not to listen to the moods which arise as a result of our physical condition, but we must never submit to them for a second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The problem that most of us are cursed with is simply that we won’t. The Christian life is one of spiritual courage and determination lived out in our flesh.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Freedom Line - #5833
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
I was in Cincinnati, working on the message I was going to give that night, and I had a wonderful view of the Ohio River out my hotel window. But it wasn't until I talked with an African-American brother that night that I realized the significance of that river in the history of his people's long fight for freedom. In the days of slavery, many slaves managed to run away from their slave masters, thus beginning their desperate flight for freedom. If they were captured, well, their fate could be severe punishment or worse. If they could make it to northern Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati, they were on the edge of their goal. And, once they were in what was the North, they would be helped to safety, maybe in Canada, or by those who ran safe houses on what became known as the Underground Railroad. Once I heard the history, I saw something very different as I looked out my window at the Ohio River from Cincinnati. I was thinking of slaves looking across from the bord er in Kentucky, realizing that if they could just get across that river, they would finally be free.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Freedom Line."
Not all slaves wear chains; not all slaves are sold on an auction block. Some of us who have been physically free our whole lives have never really been free on the inside, from the guilt over those mistakes in our past, from the shame over what we've been, or what we've done. Some of us know what it is to be slaves to our dark side, to our anger, our selfishness, to habits and patterns that we just seem powerless to break. You can even be a slave to religious bondages: to fears, legalisms, to the tyranny of what we feel our religion demands: so many shackles, so many slaves.
Then along comes the Liberator. His name is Jesus Christ, and He comes with what could be the very best news you have ever heard. It's recorded in John 8, beginning with verse 34, our word for today from the Word of God. First, the bad news: "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." We know that all too well - slaves to sin's power, to its guilt, to its consequences. Then comes the good news. "If the Son (that's Jesus, the Son of God) makes you free, you are free indeed": freedom from life's most vicious slave master.
There's no religion, there's no spirituality, there's no ritual that can liberate you from sin's shackles. The only One who can do that is the man who bought your freedom with His blood. Jesus said He came to give His life as a "ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). He gave His life on the cross to take the guilt and the penalty for every wrong thing you've ever done. There was no other way to break sin's hold over us and to keep our sin from condemning us for all eternity.
So for you and me, the line between spiritual slavery and spiritual freedom runs by the cross of Jesus Christ. The question is: have you ever really stepped across that line and into His waiting, forgiving, healing arms? This very day you stand on the edge of an inner freedom you have never experienced before. You cross that line when you say to Jesus, "I understand now, Lord, that you loved me so much that You died for me. You took the rap for my sin, and now I am going to give my life to the One who gave His life for me. I am Yours, Lord. I'm giving me to you. You are my only hope."
If you want to begin that relationship today; if you want to be sure you belong to Him, let me encourage you to check out our website today and I think you'll find there some things that I've tried to put down that will help lead you down the road to be sure you have this relationship. Go to YoursForLife.net.
It would be great if this day could be your personal independence day. You know the old hymn says, "He breaks the power of cancelled sin; He sets the prisoner free." That could be you today. You're at the freedom line. I'm praying that you'll step across.
