Max Lucado Daily: He Loved It
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He Loved It
Posted: 17 Jan 2010 10:01 PM PST
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1 NKJV
Of all we don’t know about creation, there is one thing we do know—God did it with a smile. He must’ve had a blast. Painting the stripes on the zebra, hanging the stars in the sky, putting the gold in the sunset. What creativity!
Like a whistling carpenter in his workshop, he loved every bit of it. He poured himself into the work. So intent was his creativity that he took a day off at the end of the week just to rest.
Song of Solomon 7
1 How beautiful your sandaled feet,
O prince's daughter!
Your graceful legs are like jewels,
the work of a craftsman's hands.
2 Your navel is a rounded goblet
that never lacks blended wine.
Your waist is a mound of wheat
encircled by lilies.
3 Your breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle.
4 Your neck is like an ivory tower.
Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon
by the gate of Bath Rabbim.
Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon
looking toward Damascus.
5 Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel.
Your hair is like royal tapestry;
the king is held captive by its tresses.
6 How beautiful you are and how pleasing,
O love, with your delights!
7 Your stature is like that of the palm,
and your breasts like clusters of fruit.
8 I said, "I will climb the palm tree;
I will take hold of its fruit."
May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine,
the fragrance of your breath like apples,
9 and your mouth like the best wine.
Beloved
May the wine go straight to my lover,
flowing gently over lips and teeth. [a]
10 I belong to my lover,
and his desire is for me.
11 Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside,
let us spend the night in the villages. [b]
12 Let us go early to the vineyards
to see if the vines have budded,
if their blossoms have opened,
and if the pomegranates are in bloom—
there I will give you my love.
13 The mandrakes send out their fragrance,
and at our door is every delicacy,
both new and old,
that I have stored up for you, my lover.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Leviticus 19:11-18 (New International Version)
11 " 'Do not steal.
" 'Do not lie.
" 'Do not deceive one another.
12 " 'Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
13 " 'Do not defraud your neighbor or rob him.
" 'Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.
14 " 'Do not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind, but fear your God. I am the LORD.
15 " 'Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.
16 " 'Do not go about spreading slander among your people.
" 'Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor's life. I am the LORD.
17 " 'Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt.
18 " 'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
January 18, 2010
It Is My Business
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READ: Leviticus 19:11-18
You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge . . . , but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. —Leviticus 19:18
In 1955, when the South was still highly segregated, Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, visited relatives in Mississippi. After Emmett “dared” to talk to a white woman, two white men brutally murdered him. An all-white, male jury found the two “not guilty”—after deliberating for barely an hour. The two men later confessed to the crime in a Life magazine article.
Following the verdict, Emmett’s mother said, “Two months ago I had a nice apartment in Chicago. I had a good job. I had a son. When something happened to Negroes in the South, I said, ‘That’s their business, not mine.’ Now I know how wrong I was. The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all.”
Making another’s concerns our own is what Leviticus 19:18 calls us to do: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus quotes this verse and interprets it as not placing any limitations on loving those around us (Matt. 22:39; Luke 10:25-37). Our neighbor doesn’t just mean someone close by; it’s anyone who has a need. We are to care for others as we care for ourselves.
To love our neighbor means to make the persecution, suffering, and injustice of our fellow human beings our own. It is the business of all who follow Christ. — Marvin Williams
For Further Thought
How can we be a good neighbor? Be respectful to all. Lend a hand. Volunteer. Join a neighborhood association. Speak up when others are treated unjustly.
Compassion puts love into action.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
January 18, 2010
"It Is the Lord!"
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READ:
Thomas answered and said to Him, ’My Lord and my God!’ —John 20:28
Jesus said to her, ’Give Me a drink’ " (John 4:7). How many of us are expecting Jesus Christ to quench our thirst when we should be satisfying Him! We should be pouring out our lives, investing our total beings, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. "You shall be witnesses to Me . . ." (Acts 1:8). That means lives of pure, uncompromising, and unrestrained devotion to the Lord Jesus, which will be satisfying to Him wherever He may send us.
Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
How to Miss What You Were Made For - #6006
Monday, January 18, 2010
It really wasn't that my wife and I were eavesdropping. Honest. It's just that the four well-dressed, older ladies at the restaurant table next to ours were so close we couldn't help but hear part of their conversation. One lady was recounting the beginning of her day. She said she was following her usual routine of getting up, taking care of some personal maintenance, and then turning on the TV for her morning Oprah fix - watching Oprah Winfrey's Show, that is. No Oprah. She began pushing buttons on her remote, increasingly more frustrated by her inability to find her morning TV companion. At that point, her daughter happened to call on the telephone. Mom began venting her frustration over how technology was failing her and soliciting her daughter's help. Finally she just sputtered, "Where's Oprah?" When her daughter could finally get a word in, she said, "Mom, it's Sunday! Oprah's not on, but church is!" Mom suddenly went into fast-forward mode - not with her TV, but with her getting ready for church; which she came very close to missing entirely.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Miss What You Were Made For."
Poor lady! She didn't know what day it was. So she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing. It's possible for many of us to make that same mistake - not about church, but about God Himself. It's possible for God to come your way and for you to totally miss what day it is - the day that God comes to touch your life and become more personal and more powerful to you than you ever dreamed.
It's been happening for 2,000 years, and it's happening today. There's an incident in the life of Jesus that reveals the awesome possibility of an unforgettable God-day in your life, and the awful danger of missing it with consequences that will last for all eternity. The account is in Luke 19, beginning with verse 41, our word for today from the Word of God. It says: "As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace.'" He had just entered Jerusalem on what we know today as Palm Sunday, with multitudes welcoming Him with a royal celebration. Many of whom were, only five days later, perhaps in the same crowd that was screaming, "Crucify Him!" Now Jesus predicts disaster for them because, in His words, "...you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."
That's a mistake God really doesn't want you to make because He really, really loves you. There comes this day in your life when Jesus goes by, offering Himself to you to be your personal Savior from your personal sin. There comes this day when He moves your heart to care about the sin in your life, to see that it will cost you heaven, and to understand that His dying on that cross was to pay the awful price for your sin.
He gives you a chance to put your trust in Him to have every sin forgiven; to trade the hell you deserve for the heaven you could never deserve. But you need to grab Him while He's close. The Bible says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near" (Isaiah 55:7). You may think you'll come to Jesus when you're ready. That's wrong. Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws Him" (John 6:44).
You come to Jesus when He's ready - when He gets your heart ready for Him. And if you feel a tug in His direction today, He's ready now. This is your opportunity to belong to Jesus. Today is your chance. If you have never given yourself to this Man who died for you, you need to grab Him while He's close. You can do that right where you are - just by telling Him from your heart something like this: "Jesus, my only hope with God is what You did for me on that cross when You died to pay for my junk. I'm dropping the junk to grab You with both hands. I'm Yours."
If that's what you want, I want to invite you to check out our website today, because there's some great information there to make sure you have begun your relationship with Jesus. The website is YoursForLife.net. I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today.
As your life closes and your eternity begins, I pray Jesus will not have to say to you, "You did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." If that time is now, don't miss Him.