Max Lucado Daily:His Love Is Not Normal
“Your love, God, is my song, and I’ll sing it!” Psalm 89:1, The Message
God’s love is not human. His love is not normal. His love sees your sin and loves you still. Does he approve of your error? No.
Do you need to repent? Yes. But do you repent for his sake or yours? Yours. His ego needs no apology. His love needs no bolstering.
And he could not love you more than he does right now.
2 Chronicles 33
King Manasseh
1-6Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. In God's opinion he was a bad king—an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when God dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel. He rebuilt the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and the sex goddess Asherah and worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations. He built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of God, the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by God's decree to God's Name ("in Jerusalem I place my Name"). He burned his own sons in a sacrificial rite in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. He practiced witchcraft and fortunetelling. He held séances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil—in God's view a career in evil. And God was angry.
7-8 As a last straw he placed a carved image of the sex goddess Asherah that he had commissioned in The Temple of God, a flagrant and provocative violation of God's well-known command to both David and Solomon, "In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name—exclusively and forever." He had promised, "Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I've given to their ancestors. But on this condition, that they keep everything I've commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them."
9-10 But Manasseh led Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem off the beaten path into practices of evil exceeding even the evil of the pagan nations that God had earlier destroyed. When God spoke to Manasseh and his people about this, they ignored him.
11-13 Then God directed the leaders of the troops of the king of Assyria to come after Manasseh. They put a hook in his nose, shackles on his feet, and took him off to Babylon. Now that he was in trouble, he went to his knees in prayer asking for help—total repentance before the God of his ancestors. As he prayed, God was touched; God listened and brought him back to Jerusalem as king. That convinced Manasseh that God was in control.
14-17 After that Manasseh rebuilt the outside defensive wall of the City of David to the west of the Gihon spring in the valley. It went from the Fish Gate and around the hill of Ophel. He also increased its height. He tightened up the defense system by posting army captains in all the fortress cities of Judah. He also did a good spring cleaning on The Temple, carting out the pagan idols and the goddess statue. He took all the altars he had set up on The Temple hill and throughout Jerusalem and dumped them outside the city. He put the Altar of God back in working order and restored worship, sacrificing Peace-Offerings and Thank-Offerings. He issued orders to the people: "You shall serve and worship God, the God of Israel." But the people didn't take him seriously—they used the name "God" but kept on going to the old pagan neighborhood shrines and doing the same old things.
18-19 The rest of the history of Manasseh—his prayer to his God, and the sermons the prophets personally delivered by authority of God, the God of Israel—this is all written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. His prayer and how God was touched by his prayer, a list of all his sins and the things he did wrong, the actual places where he built the pagan shrines, the installation of the sex-goddess Asherah sites, and the idolatrous images that he worshiped previous to his conversion—this is all described in the records of the prophets.
20 When Manasseh died, they buried him in the palace garden. His son Amon was the next king.
King Amon
21-23 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem. In God's opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh, but he never did repent to God as Manasseh repented. He just kept at it, going from one thing to another.
24-25 In the end Amon's servants revolted and assassinated him—killed the king right in his own palace. The citizens in their turn then killed the king's assassins. The citizens then crowned Josiah, Amon's son, as king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
John 3:22-30 (The Message)
The Bridegroom's Friend
22-26After this conversation, Jesus went on with his disciples into the Judean countryside and relaxed with them there. He was also baptizing. At the same time, John was baptizing over at Aenon near Salim, where water was abundant. This was before John was thrown into jail. John's disciples got into an argument with the establishment Jews over the nature of baptism. They came to John and said, "Rabbi, you know the one who was with you on the other side of the Jordan? The one you authorized with your witness? Well, he's now competing with us. He's baptizing, too, and everyone's going to him instead of us."
27-29John answered, "It's not possible for a person to succeed—I'm talking about eternal success—without heaven's help. You yourselves were there when I made it public that I was not the Messiah but simply the one sent ahead of him to get things ready. The one who gets the bride is, by definition, the bridegroom. And the bridegroom's friend, his 'best man'—that's me—in place at his side where he can hear every word, is genuinely happy. How could he be jealous when he knows that the wedding is finished and the marriage is off to a good start?
29-30"That's why my cup is running over. This is the assigned moment for him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.
March 16, 2010
The Real Hero
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READ: John 3:22-30
He must increase, but I must decrease. —John 3:30
Louis B. Neumiller was known for his humility, integrity, and commitment to quality. As president of the Caterpillar Tractor Company from 1941–54, he led the manufacturer of earth-moving equipment through the challenges of World War II into global expansion. In the book In Their Time: The Greatest Business Leaders of the Twentieth Century, authors Mayo and Nohria describe Neumiller’s leadership as “success without fanfare.” His mark of greatness, they note, was that he took his identity out of the business and “let his company become a hero instead of himself.”
We see the same quality of selflessness in John the Baptist, the dynamic preacher who repeatedly affirmed his mission of paving the way for the Messiah. When John’s followers became concerned that Jesus was baptizing people and crowds were following Him, John replied: “You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent before Him.’ . . . He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:28,30).
As followers of Christ, are we lifting Him up instead of seeking honor for ourselves? Rather than being disappointed when our contribution is unnoticed, we should be glad because our highest privilege is to magnify the Lord. He’s the hero!
Honoring Him is the mark of greatness. — David C. McCasland
A Prayer: Lord, teach us to be humble. May our desire be that You be known, honored, loved, and exalted in every thought and action—above ourselves. Amen.
The great Christian is one who is small enough to let God be great in his life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
March 16, 2010
The Master Will Judge
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READ:
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ . . . —2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul says that we must all, preachers and other people alike, "appear before the judgment seat of Christ." But if you will learn here and now to live under the scrutiny of Christ’s pure light, your final judgment will bring you only delight in seeing the work God has done in you. Live constantly reminding yourself of the judgment seat of Christ, and walk in the knowledge of the holiness He has given you. Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you. Bring it immediately into the light and confess, "Oh, Lord, I have been guilty there." If you don’t, your heart will become hardened through and through. One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll. No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing certain things, and the penalty of sin is that you gradually get used to it, until you finally come to the place where you no longer even realize that it is sin. No power, except the power that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit, can change or prevent the inherent consequences of sin.
"If we walk in the light as He is in the light. . ." ( 1 John 1:7 ). For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person. The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Answer in the Mirror - #6047
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
No, our "word for today" is not from a cartoon, but I do occasionally see something enlightening in a little comic strip called "Family Circus." For example, there was this one where the house is a total disaster, and Mom walks in. The look on her face tells you that Mt. Vesuvius is about to blow. She has only one question, "Who did this?" Dad and the children are all innocent, of course. Apparently, the house must have just exploded and made itself a mess. But when Mom presses the question for who should be held responsible, one of the kids cleverly responds: "It was the ghost of 'not me'!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Answer in the Mirror."
That ghost of "not me" really gets around. There are a lot of folks who see almost every problem, every conflict, or every mistake that way. Whoever is at fault, it certainly isn't me. Sadly, those folks continue to be the common denominator in one problem after another because they simply can't see, or admit, their blame for anything. That's what destroys marriages, and children, and friendships, working relationships, churches - you name it. Mature people, on the other hand, are those who can look in the mirror and honestly see their part of the blame.
Our word for today from the Word of God - Proverbs 16:2 - provides this insight: "All a man's ways seem innocent to him..." Boy, that is so true! "They" did it! They caused the problem. I'm a victim! It's their fault." Never me - always them. We have this amazing, and perverted, ability to see ourselves as usually being in the right, of bearing little or no blame for the problem, of seeing our own complete innocence and someone else's complete guilt. If you are to any degree like that, I could almost guarantee you are leaving behind you your own personal "trail of tears."
That verse in Proverbs 16 says, "All a man's ways seem" - notice the word "seem" - "innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord." See, when God looks at the situation, He sees what's really going on inside us and holding us responsible for the part that we've done wrong. I'm happy to repent for other people's sins. I just need to be quick to repent of my sins.
Sadly, those who tend to see the fault as being in the other person find themselves trapped in a repetitious life-cycle of friction, unhappiness, self-pity, negativity, destructive talk, anger, hurt, and a constant state of what I call "un-peace." You live that way until you finally see the trail of brokenness behind you, and you realize you were a common denominator in all or most of that unhappiness.
That's when you stop blaming others and you finally experience what Jesus promised, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). And the truth is, the man or woman in the mirror has been wrong, has shared the blame, and has apologies to give, as well as some forgiving to do.
I saw a simple, but profound little sentence on a church sign recently. It said, "God, I have a problem. It's me." That kind of prayer is the only place some of us are ever going to find any healing, any happiness, or any peace. Not "I have a problem - it's them," but "it's me." That admission can save a marriage, a relationship with a child, the unity of a church or a ministry, or a relationship that's too valuable to lose.
It's not my brother, not my sister, but it really is me, O Lord, standin' in the need of prayer! The answer is in the mirror...and then on your knees.
