Max Lucado Daily: Not Made For Earth
Not Made For Earth
Posted: 19 May 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“Your faith and hope are in God.” 1 Peter 1:21, NIV
You will never be completely happy on earth simply because you were not made for earth. Oh, you will have your moments of joy. You will catch glimpses of light. You will know moments or even days of peace.
But they simply do not compare with the happiness that lies ahead.
Luke 11
Ask for What You Need
1 One day he was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said, "Master, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples." 2-4So he said, "When you pray, say,
Father,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil."
5-6Then he said, "Imagine what would happen if you went to a friend in the middle of the night and said, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread. An old friend traveling through just showed up, and I don't have a thing on hand.'
7"The friend answers from his bed, 'Don't bother me. The door's locked; my children are all down for the night; I can't get up to give you anything.'
8"But let me tell you, even if he won't get up because he's a friend, if you stand your ground, knocking and waking all the neighbors, he'll finally get up and get you whatever you need.
9"Here's what I'm saying:
Ask and you'll get;
Seek and you'll find;
Knock and the door will open.
10-13"Don't bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we're in. If your little boy asks for a serving of fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? If your little girl asks for an egg, do you trick her with a spider? As bad as you are, you wouldn't think of such a thing—you're at least decent to your own children. And don't you think the Father who conceived you in love will give the Holy Spirit when you ask him?"
No Neutral Ground
14-16Jesus delivered a man from a demon that had kept him speechless. The demon gone, the man started talking a blue streak, taking the crowd by complete surprise. But some from the crowd were cynical. "Black magic," they said. "Some devil trick he's pulled from his sleeve." Others were skeptical, waiting around for him to prove himself with a spectacular miracle.
17-20Jesus knew what they were thinking and said, "Any country in civil war for very long is wasted. A constantly squabbling family falls to pieces. If Satan cancels Satan, is there any Satan left? You accuse me of ganging up with the Devil, the prince of demons, to cast out demons, but if you're slinging devil mud at me, calling me a devil who kicks out devils, doesn't the same mud stick to your own exorcists? But if it's God's finger I'm pointing that sends the demons on their way, then God's kingdom is here for sure.
21-22"When a strong man, armed to the teeth, stands guard in his front yard, his property is safe and sound. But what if a stronger man comes along with superior weapons? Then he's beaten at his own game, the arsenal that gave him such confidence hauled off, and his precious possessions plundered.
23"This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you're not on my side, you're the enemy; if you're not helping, you're making things worse.
24-26"When a corrupting spirit is expelled from someone, it drifts along through the desert looking for an oasis, some unsuspecting soul it can bedevil. When it doesn't find anyone, it says, 'I'll go back to my old haunt.' On return, it finds the person swept and dusted, but vacant. It then runs out and rounds up seven other spirits dirtier than itself and they all move in, whooping it up. That person ends up far worse than if he'd never gotten cleaned up in the first place."
27While he was saying these things, some woman lifted her voice above the murmur of the crowd: "Blessed the womb that carried you, and the breasts at which you nursed!"
28Jesus commented, "Even more blessed are those who hear God's Word and guard it with their lives!"
Keep Your Eyes Open
29-30As the crowd swelled, he took a fresh tack: "The mood of this age is all wrong. Everybody's looking for proof, but you're looking for the wrong kind. All you're looking for is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. But the only proof you're going to get is the Jonah-proof given to the Ninevites, which looks like no proof at all. What Jonah was to Nineveh, the Son of Man is to this age.
32-31"On Judgment Day the Ninevites will stand up and give evidence that will condemn this generation, because when Jonah preached to them they changed their lives. A far greater preacher than Jonah is here, and you squabble about 'proofs.' On Judgment Day the Queen of Sheba will come forward and bring evidence that condemns this generation, because she traveled from a far corner of the earth to listen to wise Solomon. Wisdom far greater than Solomon's is right in front of you, and you quibble over 'evidence.'
33-36"No one lights a lamp, then hides it in a drawer. It's put on a lamp stand so those entering the room have light to see where they're going. Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don't get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room."
Frauds!
37-41When he finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house and sat right down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn't wash up before the meal. But the Master said to him, "I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn't the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.
42"I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God's love. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.
43-44"You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You love sitting at the head table at church dinners, love preening yourselves in the radiance of public flattery. Frauds! You're just like unmarked graves: People walk over that nice, grassy surface, never suspecting the rot and corruption that is six feet under."
45One of the religion scholars spoke up: "Teacher, do you realize that in saying these things you're insulting us?"
46He said, "Yes, and I can be even more explicit. You're hopeless, you religion scholars! You load people down with rules and regulations, nearly breaking their backs, but never lift even a finger to help.
47-51"You're hopeless! You build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed. The tombs you build are monuments to your murdering ancestors more than to the murdered prophets. That accounts for God's Wisdom saying, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, but they'll kill them and run them off.' What it means is that every drop of righteous blood ever spilled from the time earth began until now, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was struck down between altar and sanctuary, is on your heads. Yes, it's on the bill of this generation and this generation will pay.
52"You're hopeless, you religion scholars! You took the key of knowledge, but instead of unlocking doors, you locked them. You won't go in yourself, and won't let anyone else in either."
53-54As soon as Jesus left the table, the religion scholars and Pharisees went into a rage. They went over and over everything he said, plotting how they could trap him in something from his own mouth.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Genesis 4:1-7
1 Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man."
2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil.
3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.
4 But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,
5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?
7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
A Worthy Offering
May 20, 2010 — by Joe Stowell
If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. —Genesis 4:7
I was delighted when a mutual friend gave my neighbor a Bible. But my neighbor told me she stopped reading it because she couldn’t understand why God would be so unfair as to reject Cain’s offering. “After all,” she said, “as a farmer, he simply brought to God what he had. Did God expect him to buy a different kind of sacrifice?” Sadly, she had missed the point.
It wasn’t that God didn’t like vegetables. Rather, He knew that Cain’s offering was masking an unrighteous attitude. Cain wasn’t fully committed to God, as expressed by the fact that he wasn’t living according to His ways.
It’s easy to worship God on the outside while stubbornly keeping territory from Him on the inside. Jude writes about outwardly religious people who use religious activities to cover the reality of their sinful lives: “Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain” (Jude 11). We can faithfully serve God, sing His praises, and give sacrificially to His work. But God doesn’t want any of that without our hearts.
Does the Lord take priority over our plans and dreams? Is He worth more than the sin that tempts us? When we express to Him that He is more worthy than anything or anyone else in our lives, it’s an offering He won’t refuse.
Lord, may our worship and our praise,
From hearts surrendered to Your ways,
Be worthy offerings of love
For all Your blessings from above. —Sper
God won’t refuse a heart that is surrendered to Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
May 20, 2010
Taking Possession of Our Own Soul
By your patience possess your souls —Luke 21:19
When a person is born again, there is a period of time when he does not have the same vitality in his thinking or reasoning that he previously had. We must learn to express this new life within us, which comes by forming the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5 ). Luke 21:19 means that we take possession of our souls through patience. But many of us prefer to stay at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us. We fail because we are ignorant of the way God has made us, and we blame things on the devil that are actually the result of our own undisciplined natures. Just think what we could be when we are awakened to the truth!
There are certain things in life that we need not pray about— moods, for instance. We will never get rid of moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some physical circumstance, not in our true inner self. It is a continual struggle not to listen to the moods which arise as a result of our physical condition, but we must never submit to them for a second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The problem that most of us are cursed with is simply that we won’t. The Christian life is one of spiritual courage and determination lived out in our flesh.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Illusion of Safety - #6094
Thursday, May 20, 2010
On a foreboding day in the spring, the tornado warnings were out for a small town in Illinois. Knowing they needed to find a safe place, some folks there ran for shelter into the basement of a restaurant that was housed in a hundred-year-old stone building. What they didn't factor into their choice was the old sandstone foundation on which that building rested. A tornado roared right through the middle of the town, and it made a direct hit on that building. It destroyed everything - the building, the foundation, and the basement. And eight people died there that day.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Illusion of Safety."
It's a sad story. The people didn't ignore the danger. They knew they had to seek safety, but they looked for safety in a place that looked like it could save them, but was built on a foundation that couldn't stand in the storm. That turned out to be a fatal mistake. A mistake made by countless people over the years when it comes to the safety of their soul, and a mistake that has eternally deadly consequences.
Whether you look at a highly civilized culture or one that might be considered a primitive culture, mankind seems to know that we've got trouble with the One who created us. Every culture has its means of trying to deal with the things our God is unhappy with; of trying to get on His good side before we die.
Many of us know that we've got a sin problem. We've done wrong things that could keep us out of heaven someday. And we're right. The Bible says that "nothing impure will ever enter" heaven" (Revelation 21:27). We need to do something to escape the storm of the judgment of Almighty God for our rebellion against Him. So we run into a religion for spiritual safety. Our answer to the bad things we've done is to do good things to make up for them - whatever good things our particular faith prescribes; the meetings, the creeds, the rituals, the ceremonies, the good works. Is that all bad? No. It's just not enough. It's not a matter of which religion is right. The issue is that no religion is enough to please a perfect God or to pay the death penalty for our sin. Like those people in that vulnerable old building, we're depending on something that, in the end, cannot save us.
In Romans 3, beginning with verse 10, our word for today from the Word of God, He says, "There is no one righteous, not even one...No one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law" - that's the highest form of doing good works. It couldn't be clearer. The God you will face one day has told us bluntly that all our goodness will not make us right with Him. Then He explains what will. "Righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."
Translation: there's no hope in what you and I can do for God. Our only hope is what God has done for us when His Son paid for our sin on the cross. The moment you abandon your trust in anything else and put your total trust in Jesus, every sin of your life is erased from God's book and your eternal address is changed from hell to heaven. That could happen to you today if you'll give yourself, by faith, to the man who gave His life for you. If that's what you want, would you tell Him, "Jesus, I'm Yours. I'm not running my life anymore. I am grabbing You as the rescuer who died to pay for my sin." And then I encourage you to go to our website today. I've tried to lay out for you there in a simple, brief way how you can begin your relationship with God and know you have it, and know that you belong to Him. You can read it; you can listen to it; you can watch it. Go to this website - YoursForLife.net.
Don't risk another day seeking eternal safety in something that looks strong but cannot save you. If it could, Jesus would not have gone to the cross. Run to Him today. He took the storm of God's judgment for you, and He's your only safe place.