Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
May 11
Victory Over Death
Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your pain?
1 Corinthians 15:55 (NCV)
The fire that lit the boiler of the New Testament church was an unquenchable belief that if Jesus had been only a man, he would have stayed in the tomb. The earliest Christians couldn't stay silent about the fact that the one they saw hung on a cross walked again on the earth and appeared to five hundred people.
Let us ask our Father humbly, yet confidently in the name of Jesus, to remind us of the empty tomb. Let us see the victorious Jesus: the conqueror of the tomb, the one who defied death. And let us be reminded that we, too, will be granted that same victory!
Ezra 3
Rebuilding the Altar
1 When the seventh month came and the Israelites had settled in their towns, the people assembled as one man in Jerusalem. 2 Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests and Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, in accordance with what is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. 3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the LORD, both the morning and evening sacrifices. 4 Then in accordance with what is written, they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles with the required number of burnt offerings prescribed for each day. 5 After that, they presented the regular burnt offerings, the New Moon sacrifices and the sacrifices for all the appointed sacred feasts of the LORD, as well as those brought as freewill offerings to the LORD. 6 On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD, though the foundation of the LORD's temple had not yet been laid.
Rebuilding the Temple
7 Then they gave money to the masons and carpenters, and gave food and drink and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so that they would bring cedar logs by sea from Lebanon to Joppa, as authorized by Cyrus king of Persia.
8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak and the rest of their brothers (the priests and the Levites and all who had returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work, appointing Levites twenty years of age and older to supervise the building of the house of the LORD. 9 Jeshua and his sons and brothers and Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Hodaviah [a] ) and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers—all Levites—joined together in supervising those working on the house of God.
10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the LORD, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the LORD, as prescribed by David king of Israel. 11 With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD :
"He is good;
his love to Israel endures forever."
And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. 12 But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. 13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
John 13:31-35 (New International Version)
Jesus Predicts Peter's Denial
31When he was gone, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. 32If God is glorified in him,[a] God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
33"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
May 11, 2009
The World Is Watching
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READ: John 13:31-35
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. —John 13:35
My friends were serving in a ministry that was directed mainly to Christians when an opportunity came for them to change jobs and touch the lives of thousands of nonbelievers. They decided to make what they believed to be an exciting change.
Many people, even some who didn’t personally know them, were shocked and accused them of seeking fame and fortune in the world. But believing that Jesus came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), they decided to pursue what they considered an even greater opportunity to serve the “lost” in their community.
They said later, “Some Christians were so cruel to us, and wrote hateful e-mails. Our new non-Christian friends were kinder to us than our fellow Christians. We didn’t understand that, and were hurt deeply.” They told me that their desire was to follow God’s directive to be “salt” and “light” in the world (Matt. 5:13-14).
When someone we know is making a decision or change, it can be helpful to ask about his or her motives. But we can’t fully know another’s heart. We don’t want to “bite and devour” our fellow Christians (Gal. 5:15), but instead to love them in a way that others will know we are Jesus’ followers (John 13:35). The world is watching. — Anne Cetas
We join our hearts and hands together,
Faithful to the Lord’s command:
We hold each other to God’s standards—
All that truth and love demand. —D. De Haan
Only God sees the heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
May 11, 2009
'Love One Another'
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READ:
. . . add to your . . . brotherly kindness love —2 Peter 1:5, 7
Love is an indefinite thing to most of us; we don’t know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the loftiest preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that this sovereign preference be for Himself (see Luke 14:26 ). Initially, when "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" ( Romans 5:5 ), it is easy to put Jesus first. But then we must practice the things mentioned in 2 Peter 1 to see them worked out in our lives.
The first thing God does is forcibly remove any insincerity, pride, and vanity from my life. And the Holy Spirit reveals to me that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now He commands me to show the same love to others by saying, ". . . love one another as I have loved you" ( John 15:12 ). He is saying, "I will bring a number of people around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just as I have exhibited it to you." This kind of love is not a patronizing love for the unlovable— it is His love, and it will not be evidenced in us overnight. Some of us may have tried to force it, but we were soon tired and frustrated.
"The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish . . ." ( 2 Peter 3:9 ). I should look within and remember how wonderfully He has dealt with me. The knowledge that God has loved me beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the same way. I may get irritated because I have to live with an unusually difficult person. But just think how disagreeable I have been with God! Am I prepared to be identified so closely with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness will be continually poured out through Me? Neither natural love nor God’s divine love will remain and grow in me unless it is nurtured. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained through discipline.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Ill from Overeating - #5826
Monday, May 11, 2009
Being close to some folks who own several horses, "City Boy" here has been learning about our equine friends. For example, I now understand that old cliché, "eating like a horse." They really do, in fact, to the point of overeating sometimes. Which, as I understand, it can lead to a painful and even deadly condition sometimes called foundering. I looked up "founder" in the dictionary and when it comes to horses, it's defined as "to become ill from overeating." Again, as "City Boy" understands it, when a horse eats too much grain or hay or grass, it can have painful gas build up inside. One way you can tell they're foundering is if they become lethargic, just kind of lying on the ground a lot. In its worst case, foundering can actually be fatal. The horse owner's job at a time like that is to just walk and walk with the horse, making sure it gets exercise. To neglect foundering can actually cost a horse's life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Ill from Overeating."
If that's what foundering is, then God has plenty of His people who are foundering. They're ill from overeating spiritually. You can tell because they're spiritually lethargic; going to all the meetings, filling up on all the teachings and fellowship, believing all the beliefs but not doing much with what they've been learning all these years. They're in effect, overfed and under exercised. And as they lie down in the pasture, they're not really enjoying their faith much. To be honest, maybe you've been foundering lately.
God talks about people who are all settled down in their comfy pasture in our word for today from the Word of God in Amos 6:1. He says, "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria." For us, "Zion" and "Mount Samaria" are whatever our secure little spiritual nest is: our church, our ministry, our Christianity. But God says if you belong to Him and you're lethargic and complacent, you're in trouble!
In fact, just a few verses earlier, God says how unimpressed He is by all their religiosity. "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them...Away with the noise of your songs..." (Amos 5:21-23). God says, "I'm tired of you just going through the motions and playing church. I want to see you living what you profess...getting out and doing something for Me, not just coming to My meetings!"
Maybe you've been pretty much, well let's call it a "spiritual consumer" recently, just stuffing yourself with more teaching, more fellowship, more meetings, more blessing. But all of that is meant to be fuel for you to be actively making a difference for the Lord. If you just keep eating spiritually and not getting enough spiritual exercise, you're foundering! Knowing it without doing it is dangerous. Knowing it without sharing it is dangerous.
If your Christian life is mostly passive right now, it's no wonder you're spiritually bored and you're living in a false security that everything is OK. It's not. You're foundering...you're ill from overeating and under exercising. But today can be your day to get up, get busy, and start experiencing what it is to run in God's pasture, not just graze in God's pasture!