Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
September 21
One Incredible Plan
He humbled himself and was fully obedient to God, even when that caused his death--death on a cross.
Philippians 2:8 (NCV)
When human hands fastened the divine hands to a cross with spikes, it wasn't the soldiers who held the hands of Jesus steady. It was God who held them steady. Those same hands that formed the oceans and built the mountains. Those same hands that designed the dawn and crafted each cloud. Those same hands that blueprinted one incredible plan for you and me.
Take a stroll out to the hill. Out to Calvary. Out to the cross where, with holy blood, the hand that placed you on the planet wrote the promise, "God would give up his only Son before he'd give up on you."
Genesis 12
The Call of Abram
1 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.
2 "I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."
4 So Abram left, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. 5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. 7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring [a] I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. 9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.
Abram in Egypt
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you."
14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that she was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh's officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, menservants and maidservants, and camels.
17 But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram's wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. "What have you done to me?" he said. "Why didn't you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!" 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Matthew 23
Seven Woes
1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2"The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 3So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
5"Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them 'Rabbi.'
8"But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. 9And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ.[b] 11The greatest among you will be your servant. 12For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
13"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.[c]
15"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
September 21, 2009
Whitewashed Tombs
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READ: Matthew 23:1-15
You . . . have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. —Matthew 23:23
As I study the life of Jesus, one fact consistently surprises me: the group that made Jesus angriest was one that He outwardly resembled. Jesus obeyed the Mosaic Law and quoted leading Pharisees (Mark 9:11-12; 12:28-34). Yet He singled out the Pharisees for His strongest attacks. He called them serpents, a brood of vipers, fools, and hypocrites (Matt. 23:13-33).
What provoked such outbursts? The Pharisees devoted their lives to following God, gave away an exact tithe (v.23), obeyed every law in the Torah, and sent out missionaries to gain new converts (v.15). Against the relativists and secularists of the first century, they held firm to traditional values.
Yet Jesus’ fierce denunciations of the Pharisees show how seriously He viewed the toxic threat of legalism. Its dangers are elusive, slippery, hard to pin down. I believe these dangers remain a great threat today.
Jesus condemned the emphasis on externals: “You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence” (v.25). Expressions of love for God had become ways to impress others.
The proof of spiritual maturity is not how “pure” you are but your awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to God’s grace. — Philip Yancey
Thinking It Through
According to Romans 7:18-24, what is the
apostle Paul’s view of his own spiritual condition?
What did Paul say is the answer? (Rom. 7:25–8:4).
Legalism destroys our loving relationship with God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 21, 2009
The Missionary’s Predestined Purpose
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READ:
Now the Lord says, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant . . . —Isaiah 49:5
The first thing that happens after we recognize our election by God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our preconceived ideas, our narrow-minded thinking, and all of our other allegiances— we are turned solely into servants of God’s own purpose. The entire human race was created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Sin has diverted the human race onto another course, but it has not altered God’s purpose to the slightest degree. And when we are born again we are brought into the realization of God’s great purpose for the human race, namely, that He created us for Himself. This realization of our election by God is the most joyful on earth, and we must learn to rely on this tremendous creative purpose of God. The first thing God will do is force the interests of the whole world through the channel of our hearts. The love of God, and even His very nature, is introduced into us. And we see the nature of Almighty God purely focused in
John 3:16 — "For God so loved the world. . . ."
We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God’s creative purpose, and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God’s servant, one in whom God is glorified. Once we realize that it is through the salvation of Jesus Christ that we are made perfectly fit for the purpose of God, we will understand why Jesus Christ is so strict and relentless in His demands. He demands absolute righteousness from His servants, because He has put into them the very nature of God.
Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Life-Saving Pain - #5921
Monday, September 21, 2009
One of the first clues that something was wrong with little Ashlyn showed up when her baby teeth were coming in. She would chew her lips bloody in her sleep and bite through her tongue while she was eating. When she was three, she laid her hand on a hot pressure washer in the back yard. She didn't cry; she just stared bewildered at the red blister in her palm. Ashlyn was diagnosed with a rare condition that makes her unable to feel pain. She gulps down scalding hot food with no internal warning that she's hurting herself. One child with this same condition had appendicitis that went untreated until her appendix burst - no pain. Ashlyn's five now and her inability to feel pain is downright scary.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Life-Saving Pain."
At first thought, we might think it would be nice not to feel pain, but only on first thought. God has given us pain as His internal warning system that something is wrong; something that will cause us far more pain, or even kill us, if we don't deal with it. Pain is our friend. It's our life-saving friend; not only physically, but spiritually.
God has built into our soul a capacity to feel guilty when we do something wrong. We might call guilt moral pain. Feeling guilty, and feeling shame over what we have or haven't done, feeling dirty inside - those aren't nice feelings. But they are God's alarm to deal with what's wrong before it causes greater pain, or even spiritual death.
In Psalm 32, our word for today from the Word of God, David candidly pours out what moral pain feels like and two ways to respond to the pain. He tried them both. He begins with his conclusion: "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him." Now, there's a declaration of spiritual freedom!
But first came the pain. David says, "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long." He's talking about a deep soul anguish that he couldn't even put into words. "Day and night," he says to God, "Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer." Maybe those are feelings you know all too well - that heavy weight. That turns out to be the weight of God's hand on you: the dwindling energy - dwindling enthusiasm for life, the dark feelings of shame and guilt, the fears of getting caught. Moral pain, given to you by God, not to make you miserable, but to make you well.
Your guilt is not meant to crush you, but to save you. And David got the message. He said, "Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord' and You forgave my sin." Guilt removed - pain over.
It can be that way for you if you'll quit trying to rationalize your sin, or cover up your sin, or justify your sin. The longer you refuse to repent of your sin, the more God is going to turn up the pain, and the higher price you're going to pay. Not because He doesn't love you, but because He does; too much to let you keep going down a road that's destroying you. The message from heaven to your heart today is this summons from Acts 3:19: "Repent and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord." Relief from your pain, healing for your heart, cleansing for your soul; you'll find them at the foot of the cross of Jesus where everything you've done was paid for in full with His blood.
It may be that you have never personally in your heart gone to that cross and said, "Jesus, what You did there is for me. Your dying for every wrong thing I have ever done, and I'm tired of the guilt. I want to be forgiven. I want to be clean." Tell Him that today; put your life in His hands. Put your total trust in Him to be your own Savior from your own sin. And it is done! You are forgiven.
If you want to know more about how to get that done in your heart today, I encourage you to go to our website today. It will help you I think; it's helped a lot of others - YoursForLife.net.
Listen to that pain in your soul. It's life-saving pain.
