Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
July 21
A Yoke of Kindness
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Matthew 11:29 (NKJV)
Farmers in ancient Israel used to train an inexperienced ox by yoking it to an experienced one with a wooden harness. The straps around the older animal were tightly drawn. He carried the load. But the yoke around the younger animal was loose. He walked alongside the more mature ox, but his burden was light. In this verse Jesus is saying, "I walk alongside you. We are yoked together. But I pull the weight and carry the burden."
I wonder, how many burdens is Jesus carrying for us that we know nothing about? We're aware of some. He carries our sin. He carries our shame. He carries our external debt. But are there others? Has he lifted fears before we felt them? Has he carried our confusion so we wouldn't have to? Those times when we have been surprised by our own sense of peace? Could it be that Jesus has lifted our anxiety onto his shoulders and placed a yoke of kindness on ours?
Acts 14
In Iconium
1At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. 2But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders. 4The people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, others with the apostles. 5There was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews, together with their leaders, to mistreat them and stone them. 6But they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian cities of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding country, 7where they continued to preach the good news.
In Lystra and Derbe
8In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. 9He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed 10and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.
11When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!" 12Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. 13The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them.
14But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: 15"Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. 16In the past, he let all nations go their own way. 17Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy." 18Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them.
19Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead. 20But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe.
The Return to Antioch in Syria
21They preached the good news in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, 22strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith. "We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God," they said. 23Paul and Barnabas appointed elders[a] for them in each church and, with prayer and fasting, committed them to the Lord, in whom they had put their trust. 24After going through Pisidia, they came into Pamphylia, 25and when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.
26From Attalia they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed. 27On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. 28And they stayed there a long time with the disciples.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Ecclesiastes 3:9-17 (New International Version)
9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.
15 Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account. [a]
16 And I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
in the place of justice—wickedness was there.
17 I thought in my heart,
"God will bring to judgment
both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
a time for every deed."
July 21, 2009
Eternity In Our Hearts
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READ: Ecclesiastes 3:9-17
He has put eternity in their hearts. —Ecclesiastes 3:11
I once came across a scene of beauty outside Anchorage, Alaska. Against a slate-gray sky, the water of an ocean inlet had a slight greenish cast, interrupted by small whitecaps. Soon I saw these were not whitecaps at all but whales—silvery white beluga whales in a pod feeding no more than 50 feet offshore. I stood with other onlookers, listening to the rhythmic motion of the sea, following the graceful, ghostly crescents of surfacing whales. The crowd was hushed, even reverent. For just a moment, nothing else mattered.
The author of Ecclesiastes would have understood the crowd’s response. He sees with dazzling clarity the beauty in the created world and that God “has put eternity in their hearts” (3:11). Such an elegant phrase applies to much in human experience. Surely it hints at a religious instinct. Our hearts perceive eternity in ways other than the religious.
Ecclesiastes presents both sides of life on this planet: the promise of pleasures so alluring that we may devote our lives to their pursuit, and the haunting realization that these pleasures ultimately do not satisfy. God’s tantalizing world is too big for us. Unless we acknowledge our limits and subject ourselves to God’s rule, unless we trust the Giver of all good gifts, we will end up in despair. — Philip Yancey
Amid the measured music
What watchful ear can hear
God’s voice amidst the garden?
Yet hush! for He is here! —Charles
To make the most of today, keep eternity in mind.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 21, 2009
The Doorway to the Kingdom
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READ:
Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . —Matthew 5:3
Beware of thinking of our Lord as only a teacher. If Jesus Christ is only a teacher, then all He can do is frustrate me by setting a standard before me I cannot attain. What is the point of presenting me with such a lofty ideal if I cannot possibly come close to reaching it? I would be happier if I never knew it. What good is there in telling me to be what I can never be— to be "pure in heart" ( Matthew 5:8 ), to do more than my duty, or to be completely devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as my Savior before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of a lofty ideal which only leads to despair. But when I am born again by the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come only to teach— He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The redemption means that Jesus Christ can place within anyone the same nature that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives us are based on that nature.
The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces a sense of despair in the natural man— exactly what Jesus means for it to do. As long as we have some self-righteous idea that we can carry out our Lord’s teaching, God will allow us to continue until we expose our own ignorance by stumbling over some obstacle in our way. Only then are we willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . ." This is the first principle in the kingdom of God. The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ’s kingdom is poverty, not possessions; not making decisions for Jesus, but having such a sense of absolute futility that we finally admit, "Lord, I cannot even begin to do it." Then Jesus says, "Blessed are you . . ." ( Matthew 5:11 ). This is the doorway to the kingdom, and yet it takes us so long to believe that we are actually poor! The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes His work.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Blindness that Makes You Crash - #5877
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
When you've driven as much as I have over the years, you know when it's time to stop. I've been driving along at night, for example, and suddenly I'm enveloped in this thick fog; usually in the mountains. Semis are pulled over to the side of the road, and they're professional drivers. They know well enough not to go on. It's definitely time to stop before I hit something. Same thing when I suddenly find myself in one of those driving rainstorms, or I've been in a snow storm "whiteout" - those times when you literally can't see a car length in front of you. It's like you're temporarily blind, and you'd better not keep pushing ahead.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Blindness that Makes You Crash."
Fog can make you temporarily blind. So can rain or snow. And so can your hormones. It happened even to King David, who God called "a man after God's own heart." David's hormonal blindness, which led to so many devastating crashes, is described in one of the saddest chapters in the Bible. In 2 Samuel 11, beginning with verse 2, our word for today from the Word of God, the Bible says, "One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her." Right about here you feel like screaming at the Bible, "David, don't do it, man!"
But he did do it. "The man said, 'Isn't this Bathsheba...the wife of Uriah the Hittite?'" Uriah, by the way, was one of David's most trusted and most loyal soldiers. The Bible goes on: "Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her." Here's David - God's man, God's king, but his sexual desires started pumping, and he followed them all the way to disaster. From these few moments of sexual pleasure will come a baby who dies, David's murder of his loyal associate to cover up his sin, rape and incest and even an attempt to overthrow him among his own children, and an agony of soul that David could have never imagined that night.
That's what is so dangerous about lust, sexual fantasies, about pornography, about flirting with sexual sin; your hormones blind you, just like they did David. You let your lust keep pulling you toward a crash, and it makes you blind to so many things you cannot afford to forget: the consequences, what you stand to lose, who you're going to hurt, the agony of a broken relationship with God. But you don't care much about all that; you just care about satisfying your sexual desires, about following your passions, about meeting your needs.
But God has sent you this way today to send you a wakeup call. Please, consider where your passions and your desires are taking you. Count the cost. Think about all you have to lose if you keep driving down this road. Think about the price that you will pay in your soul - maybe the price you're already paying. Think about the hurt this can cause. And don't make the deadly mistake that millions of people have made, underestimating the power of sin and overestimating your power to control it.
Sexual desire is blinding. It can blind you like a thick fog. Please, don't keep going this way. Pull over now! Stop before you crash.