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Max Lucado Daily: A Common Life
A Common Life
Posted: 02 Feb 2010 10:01 PM PST
“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field.” Matthew 13:44
When you list the places Christ lived, draw a circle around the town named Nazareth—a single-camel map dot on the edge of boredom. For thirty of thirty-three years, Jesus lived a common life . . .
And the town may have been common, but his attention to it was not . . . He saw how a seed on a path took no root (Luke 8:5) and how a mustard seed produced a great tree (Matthew 13:31-32). Jesus listened to his common life.
Are you listening to yours?
1 Kings 17
Elijah Fed by Ravens
1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe [a] in Gilead, said to Ahab, "As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word."
2 Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 3 "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there."
5 So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
The Widow at Zarephath
7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the LORD came to him: 9 "Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food." 10 So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, "Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?" 11 As she was going to get it, he called, "And bring me, please, a piece of bread."
12 "As surely as the LORD your God lives," she replied, "I don't have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die."
13 Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.' "
15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.
17 Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. 18 She said to Elijah, "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?"
19 "Give me your son," Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought tragedy also upon this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?" 21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this boy's life return to him!"
22 The LORD heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. 23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!"
24 Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth."
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
James 1:21-25 (New International Version)
21Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.
February 3, 2010
What Will I Do?
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READ: James 1:21-25
Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. —James 1:22
A man who has been my mentor and friend for many years often says that his goal in studying the Bible is always personal application. I appreciate his emphasis on putting learning into practice, because it’s too easy for those of us who study, discuss, teach, and write about the Bible to take a merely intellectual approach to the Word.
Oswald Chambers said: “There is a danger with the children of God of getting too familiar with sublime things. We talk so much about these wonderful realities, and forget that we have to exhibit them in our lives. It is perilously possible to mistake the exposition of the truth for the truth; to run away with the idea that because we are able to expound these things, we are living them too.”
James reminds us that the person “who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does” (1:25). The key issue is not what is preached or written, but what is done.
When I study God’s Word, my first question should not be, “What am I going to say about this?” but “What am I going to do about this?” — David C. McCasland
We take delight to teach God’s Word,
We say, “Amen, it’s true!”
But it’s of little use to us
Unless His will we do. —D. De Haan
One step forward in obedience is worth years of study about it. —Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
February 3, 2010
Becoming the "Filth of the World"
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READ:
We have been made as the filth of the world . . . —1 Corinthians 4:13
These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or "filth of the world." "Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." ( Colossians 1:24 ) is not the result of the holiness of sanctification, but the evidence of consecration-being "separated to the gospel of God . . ." ( Romans 1:1 ).
"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you . . ." (1 Peter 4:12). If we do think the things we encounter are strange, it is because we are fearful and cowardly. We pay such close attention to our own interests and desires that we stay out of the mire and say, "I won’t submit; I won’t bow or bend." And you don’t have to— you can be saved by the "skin of your teeth" if you like. You can refuse to let God count you as one who is "separated to the gospel . . . ." Or you can say, "I don’t care if I am treated like ’the filth of the world’ as long as the gospel is proclaimed." A true servant of Jesus Christ is one who is willing to experience martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but "to reveal His Son in me. . ." ( Galatians 1:16 ).
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Store Is Yours! - #6018
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
A visit to a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop is one of life's simple pleasures. We used to have one near our house, and the kids always enjoyed going there as a treat. And we'd look at all those unusual flavors and we'd have to make that stressful choice as to which one we could get. Well, several years ago I was in a city to speak, and the committee member who picked me up stopped by his store with me on the way back from the airport - his Baskin-Robbins store. It was closed, so he took me in, pointed to all the cases of ice cream with all those great flavors and said those mind-blowing words, "Take whatever you want!" Oh boy! Oh, not just a single little scoop of one little flavor; it's all available to you, boy! Go for it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Store Is Yours!"
It's pretty exciting when the person who owns it all throws open his store to you. That's exactly what God has in mind for us when we pray to Him. The One who owns it all opens up His resources and says, "They're yours for what you're facing right now." But so often we either neglect to go to the owner, or we go in asking for a single dip when He wants to give us so much more.
God throws open the door in our word for today from the Word of God in Jeremiah 33:2-3. "This is what the Lord says, He who made the earth, the Lord who formed it and established it - the Lord is His name." OK, there's no doubt about it, the One who is about to make this promise is the one who owns it all, made it all, controls it all. And He says to you and me, "Call to Me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know."
So, when you're saying, "I don't know," God is saying, "Then, pray big." Your mission impossible, your staggering need, your emotional or physical weakness - those are the canvasses on which "He who made the earth" paints some of His most magnificent works. That's why Paul got to the place where he said he would "delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties." Why? He said, "For when I am weak, then I am strong." In other words, when you're the most desperate and powerless and clueless, God shows up with His amazing and powerful interventions.
When we forget the size of God we're praying to, we under-pray, and we under-live. Right now there are some God-sized things you need to be trusting Him for; things so big only God can do them. You're in the "God Alone Zone" - God alone can do this one! Prayer is God's access code to the unlimited resources of heaven - all the grace you need for what's going on, all the comfort you need, all the physical and emotional strength, and all the wisdom to know how to figure it out. So pray like it! Let prayer, not planning or politicking or scheming, let prayer be your primary method of getting things done!
At a conference recently the praise band led us in a chorus that repeats these words, "Touching heaven, changing earth, touching heaven, changing earth." God has thrown open His storehouse to His children. He's unlocked His infinite resources and promised that our prayer of faith would unleash those resources and aim them at the need we have, the situation we face, or the person we love. When you are praying, don't ever forget you really are touching heaven, changing earth.
