Max Lucado Daily:
A Righteous Man“Surely this was a righteous man.” Luke 23:47, NIV
All the Roman centurion did was see Jesus suffer. He never heard him preach or saw him heal or followed him through the crowds. He never witnessed him still the wind; he only witnessed the way he died. But that was all it took to cause this weather-worn soldier to take a giant step in faith. “Surely this was a righteous man . . .”
Anybody can preach a sermon on a mount surrounded by daisies. But only one with a gut full of faith can live a sermon on a mountain of pain.
Ezra 6
1-3 So King Darius ordered a search through the records in the archives in Babylon. Eventually a scroll was turned up in the fortress of Ecbatana over in the province of Media, with this writing on it:
Memorandum
In his first year as king, Cyrus issued an official decree regarding The Temple of God in Jerusalem, as follows:
3-5 The Temple where sacrifices are offered is to be rebuilt on new foundations. It is to be ninety feet high and ninety feet wide with three courses of large stones topped with one course of timber. The cost is to be paid from the royal bank. The gold and silver vessels from The Temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar carried to Babylon are to be returned to The Temple at Jerusalem, each to its proper place; place them in The Temple of God.
6-7 Now listen, Tattenai governor of the land beyond the Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, associates, and all officials of that land: Stay out of their way. Leave the governor and leaders of the Jews alone so they can work on that Temple of God as they rebuild it.
8-10 I hereby give official orders on how you are to help the leaders of the Jews in the rebuilding of that Temple of God:
1.All construction costs are to be paid to these men from the royal bank out of the taxes coming in from the land beyond the Euphrates. And pay them on time, without delays.
2.Whatever is required for their worship—young bulls, rams, and lambs for Whole-Burnt-Offerings to the God-of-Heaven; and whatever wheat, salt, wine, and anointing oil the priests of Jerusalem request—is to be given to them daily without delay so that they may make sacrifices to the God-of-Heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons.
11-12 I've issued an official decree that anyone who violates this order is to be impaled on a timber torn out of his own house, and the house itself made a manure pit. And may the God who put his Name on that place wipe out any king or people who dares to defy this decree and destroy The Temple of God at Jerusalem.
I, Darius, have issued an official decree. Carry it out precisely and promptly.
13 Tattenai governor of the land across the Euphrates, Shethar-Bozenai, and their associates did it: They carried out the decree of Darius precisely and promptly.
The Building Completed:
"Exuberantly Celebrated the Dedication"
14-15 So the leaders of the Jews continued to build; the work went well under the preaching of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo. They completed the rebuilding under orders of the God of Israel and authorization by Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia. The Temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
16-18 And then the Israelites celebrated—priests, Levites, every last exile, exuberantly celebrated the dedication of The Temple of God. At the dedication of this Temple of God they sacrificed a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs—and, as an Absolution-Offering for all Israel, twelve he-goats, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. They placed the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their places for the service of God at Jerusalem—all as written out in the Book of Moses.
19 On the fourteenth day of the first month, the exiles celebrated the Passover.
20 All the priests and Levites had purified themselves—all, no exceptions. They were all ritually clean. The Levites slaughtered the Passover lamb for the exiles, their brother priests, and themselves.
21-22 Then the Israelites who had returned from exile, along with everyone who had removed themselves from the defilements of the nations to join them and seek God, the God of Israel, ate the Passover. With great joy they celebrated the Feast of Unraised Bread for seven days. God had plunged them into a sea of joy; he had changed the mind of the king of Assyria to back them in rebuilding The Temple of God, the God of Israel.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Psalm 46
A Song of the Sons of Korah
1-3 God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,
courageous in seastorm and earthquake,
Before the rush and roar of oceans,
the tremors that shift mountains.
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
4-6 River fountains splash joy, cooling God's city,
this sacred haunt of the Most High.
God lives here, the streets are safe,
God at your service from crack of dawn.
Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten,
but Earth does anything he says.
7 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
8-10 Attention, all! See the marvels of God!
He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,
Bans war from pole to pole,
breaks all the weapons across his knee.
"Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything."
11 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
April 9, 2010
The Fear Of Falling
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READ: Psalm 46
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. —Deuteronomy 33:27
Have you ever dreamed that you were falling out of bed or from some great height, and you awoke in fright? I remember that as a boy I would often be awakened by such a terrifying feeling.
I heard about a man who had this sensation as soon as he slipped into sleep. He was so rudely awakened by his sense of falling that he was afraid to go back to sleep. He feared he would die, and he imagined he was falling into a bottomless pit.
Then one evening as he was strolling through a cemetery, he saw this phrase engraved on a tombstone:
Underneath Are The Everlasting Arms
These words reminded him that when believers die, they are safely carried by the Lord to their home in heaven. He recalled the assurance of the psalmist, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me” (Ps. 23:4).
The once-fearful man realized that in life and in death— and even in sleep—the “everlasting arms” of our loving Lord are there to catch and hold us. That night he was able to sing what he was taught in childhood, “Teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed!” At last he could fall asleep without fear. — M.R. De Haan
I can trust my loving Savior
When I fear the world’s alarms;
There’s no safer place of resting
Than His everlasting arms. —Hess
You can trust God in the dark as well as in the light.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
April 9, 2010
Have You Seen Jesus?
After that, He appeared in another form to two of them . . . —Mark 16:12
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many people who have never seen Jesus have received and share in God’s grace. But once you have seen Him, you can never be the same. Other things will not have the appeal they did before.
You should always recognize the difference between what you see Jesus to be and what He has done for you. If you see only what He has done for you, your God is not big enough. But if you have had a vision, seeing Jesus as He really is, experiences can come and go, yet you will endure “as seeing Him who is invisible” ( Hebrews 11:27 ). The man who was blind from birth did not know who Jesus was until Christ appeared and revealed Himself to him (see John 9 ). Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something, but we cannot order or predict when He will come. He may appear suddenly, at any turn. Then you can exclaim, “Now I see Him!” (see John 9:25 ).
Jesus must appear to you and to your friend individually; no one can see Jesus with your eyes. And division takes place when one has seen Him and the other has not. You cannot bring your friend to the point of seeing; God must do it. Have you seen Jesus? If so, you will want others to see Him too. “And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either” ( Mark 16:13 ). When you see Him, you must tell, even if they don’t believe.
O could I tell, you surely would believe it!
O could I only say what I have seen!
How should I tell or how can you receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
No Life Without the Source - #6065
Friday, April 9, 2010
For my wife, it was sort of a symbol of the day she was born - daffodils. Growing up in the South, she was always able to have some fresh-picked daffodils for her birthday. But then we got married and then we found ourselves living pretty much in the North, where daffodils don't grow that early in the year. So every year, as my honey's birthday approached, I had fun trying to find some florist that somehow had some daffodils for sale, and I did. And once again, my gal had daffodils for her birthday. But even though they were very beautiful, the sad secret is they didn't last long...just like most of the flowers in the florist shop. They started to die as soon as they got cut from their stem.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Life Without the Source."
Someone has said that you and I are living in a "cut-flower civilization." We look like we're alive, but we're really cut off from the source of our life. That would be the God who designed us, who wired us - who planned us. He is, as the Bible says, "The author of life" (Acts 3:15). As spiritual "cut flowers," it's not that we don't try to generate life on our own. But no matter who or what we try, that strange loneliness and emptiness keep creeping back into our soul. What we don't realize is that our loneliness is cosmic loneliness. Our emptiness is cosmic emptiness. We are missing the God who made us.
The Bible describes our true spiritual condition in eight sobering words. They're found in our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 59:2, "Your iniquities (that means sins or wrongdoings) have separated you from your God." Separated from God - in this life that means never finding the purpose of your life; never finding the love that could satisfy your heart. At the end of this life, "separated from God" means an unspeakable eternity. In the single word the Bible uses, it means hell. God didn't put up the wall that keeps us from Him - we did. Those "iniquities" are made up of every time you and I have done things the way we wanted to do it instead of God's way. Over a lifetime, it's impossible to add all those up. But each sin, each "me first" choice, has put another brick in the wall.
So, separated from the One our life came from, we're slowly dying inside. And every day is one day closer to the ultimate separation of an eternity away from God, or of paying sin's horrific death penalty ourselves. But in spite of the way you and I have marginalized and ignored our Creator, He wasn't willing to let us be cut off from Him forever. To reconnect us to Him required the greatest act of love in the history of the human race. In the Bible's words, "This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him" (1 John 4:9). So Jesus came, and Jesus died, to remove the sin-wall that keeps us cut off from God. In fact, when He was dying on that cross, He was cut off from God so you would never have to be.
That's why your decision about what you do with Jesus is the ultimate life-or-death decision, because as the Bible makes very clear, "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:11-12). Either you have the Son of God in your heart and you have life forever, or you don't have the Son of God in your heart and you will miss eternal life.
You "have the Son of God" when you open your heart to Him, trusting Him as your only hope of having your sins forgiven, of having that wall between you and God come down, of going to heaven when you die. It's all about Jesus and whether you say yes or no to Him. And you can say that "yes" to Him today where you are. You need to tell Him you want to be His as soon as you can this very day. Just say to Him, "Jesus, I've run my life. That's wrong. I'm sorry for that. You died for my sin. I am Yours beginning today."
That life you were made for, the God you were made for, they're within your reach right now. I want to encourage to go to our website and check out what I've put there as a brief explanation of just how you can be sure you've begun this relationship with Him. Go to YoursForLife.net.
Please, do not risk another day without Him.
