Max Lucado Daily: God Leads Us
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God Leads Us
Posted: 20 Jan 2010 10:01 PM PST
“You cannot add any time to your life by worrying about it.” Matthew 6:27
Anxiety is an expensive habit. Of course, it might be worth the cost if it worked. But it doesn’t. Our frets are futile.
Worry has never brightened a day, solved a problem, or cured a disease.
God leads us. God will do the right thing at the right time. And what a difference that makes.
Ecclesiastes 2
Pleasures Are Meaningless
1 I thought in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 "Laughter," I said, "is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?" 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.
4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem [b] as well—the delights of the heart of man. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless
12 Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
and also madness and folly.
What more can the king's successor do
than what has already been done?
13 I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness.
14 The wise man has eyes in his head,
while the fool walks in the darkness;
but I came to realize
that the same fate overtakes them both.
15 Then I thought in my heart,
"The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?"
I said in my heart,
"This too is meaningless."
16 For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
in days to come both will be forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise man too must die!
Toil Is Meaningless
17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 18 I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. 20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21 For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. 22 What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? 23 All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.
24 A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, 25 for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? 26 To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
John 15:9-17 (New International Version)
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.
January 21, 2010
A Mutual Friend
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READ: John 15:9-17
I have called you friends. —John 15:15
Imagine being a visitor in a foreign land, showing up unannounced at a gathering of people you have never met and who have never heard of you—and then being allowed to address that group just a few minutes later. That can happen only if something breaks down barriers— something like mutual friends.
It happened when I took a missions team to a church service in Discovery Bay, Jamaica. Before we left the US, my friend Dorant Brown, a Jamaican pastor, recommended a church to attend. So when we arrived at the church, and I mentioned Pastor Brown, we were not only welcomed, but I was also asked to speak briefly and our team was asked to sing.
While sharing Dorant’s name was vital, I really don’t think it was that mutual friend who got us such a warm welcome. I think it was our shared Friend and Savior Jesus who opened our Jamaican friends’ hearts to our visit.
Have you experienced a connection with someone you just met when you tell them you too know Jesus? He’s a friend who laid down His life for us (John 15:13), and He makes brothers and sisters of all who believe (1 Peter 2:17).
Jesus. Our Savior. Our mutual Friend. He joins hearts around the world under the banner of His love. — Dave Branon
Join hands, then, brothers of the faith,
Whate’er your race may be;
Who serves my Father as a son
Is surely kin to me. —Oxenham
Those who are drawn to Christ are drawn to each other.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
January 21, 2010
Recall What God Remembers
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READ:
Thus says the Lord: ’I remember . . . the kindness of your youth . . .’ —Jeremiah 2:2
Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Does everything in my life fill His heart with gladness, or do I constantly complain because things don’t seem to be going my way? A person who has forgotten what God treasures will not be filled with joy. It is wonderful to remember that Jesus Christ has needs which we can meet— "Give Me a drink" (John 4:7). How much kindness have I shown Him in the past week? Has my life been a good reflection on His reputation?
God is saying to His people, "You are not in love with Me now, but I remember a time when you were." He says, "I remember . . . the love of your betrothal . . ." (Jeremiah 2:2). Am I as filled to overflowing with love for Jesus Christ as I was in the beginning, when I went out of my way to prove my devotion to Him? Does He ever find me pondering the time when I cared only for Him? Is that where I am now, or have I chosen man’s wisdom over true love for Him? Am I so in love with Him that I take no thought for where He might lead me? Or am I watching to see how much respect I get as I measure how much service I should give Him?
As I recall what God remembers about me, I may also begin to realize that He is not what He used to be to me. When this happens, I should allow the shame and humiliation it creates in my life, because it will bring godly sorrow, and "godly sorrow produces repentance . . ." (2 Corinthians 7:10).
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
God's Super Glue - #6009
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Antiques and children - that is not a good combination. It is, in fact, an invitation to disaster. Like that lovely antique teapot my wife had out years ago when the kids were little. Well, you know what happened; one moment a teapot, the next moment pieces of a teapot. But my wife quickly rallied to remedy the situation. No, she did not disown one of our children. She sent me out for a tube of some sort of super glue. And amazingly, she put those pieces together and recreated that old teapot, and that glue has held it together to this very day!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "God's Super Glue."
There are times when you and I can use a little "super glue" because it's us that's going to pieces. And that spiritual glue is available to you right now, if you know where to get it and you know how to use it.
In fact, our word for today from the Word of God is all about this powerful agent that can hold you together, no matter what. Hebrews 4:16 puts it this way: "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." I studied that "grace to help us" phrase in the original Greek words of the New Testament and I discovered that the word translated "help us" is used only one other time in the Bible - in Acts 27:17. Paul is on a ship that's literally being blown apart by a violent storm. The Bible says "they passed ropes under the ship itself to hold it together." There's that "help" word from Hebrews 4:16, except here it's about literally keeping the ship from coming apart in the storm.
God says that's what His grace is able to do for you, to help hold you together when the storm is intense and things seem to be breaking apart. He invites us to "approach the throne of grace with confidence." That word "confidence" means boldness and frankness. So when you start to pray, you go to your Lord boldly, talking, not in some fancy "prayer-ese" language, but with straight talk. You tell Him how it really is, how you really feel, and how much you need Him.
The Bible says that when you do that, you can "find grace." I like the deeper meaning of the Greek word that we translate as "find" here. It means to "come upon" or to "discover." There's almost an element of surprise in it, "Wow! Look what I just found! All this grace - lots of grace to hold me together in this situation right now!" When the verse says "grace to help us in our time of need," the original language is saying help that comes at just the right time, not before you really need it, not after you really need it, but right on time.
So this is one power-packed invitation from the One who rules the galaxies from His "throne of grace" - to come into His throne room boldly and honestly, reaching out to put in our hands the exact resources we need for this moment, this challenge, this situation, or this need. He will respond with a flood of grace, just the kind of grace you need right now: suffering grace, waiting grace, deciding grace, grieving grace, single grace, physical grace, emotional grace, or financial grace.
But the grace doesn't just come to you automatically. You have to go for the grace that this moment requires! And so often we don't. We struggle and worry and scheme, never going to the Grace Throne for the answers or resources we need. We could be rich, but we live in unnecessary poverty. We need to accept this incredible invitation many times a day and pray aggressively, not passively; boldly, not timidly; specifically, not generally. And it's all available to us because of Jesus. We come there because He died to make it possible for us to get this close to the God of the universe.
So there is never any reason you need to go to pieces. The grace glue of your God can hold you together, no matter what hits you!