Max Lucado Daily: Love for the Least
Love for the Least
Posted: 22 Jul 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“Anything you did even for the least of my people here, you did also for me.” Matthew 25:40
What is the sign of the saved? Their scholarship? Their willingness to go to foreign lands? Their ability to amass an audience and preach? Their skillful pens and hope-filled volumes? . . . No.
The sign of the saved is their love for the least . . .
No fanfare. No hoopla. No media coverage. Just good people doing good things. For when we do good things to others we do good things to God.
1 Peter 1
1-2I, Peter, am an apostle on assignment by Jesus, the Messiah, writing to exiles scattered to the four winds. Not one is missing, not one forgotten. God the Father has his eye on each of you, and has determined by the work of the Spirit to keep you obedient through the sacrifice of Jesus. May everything good from God be yours!
A New Life
3-5What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all—life healed and whole.
6-7I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
8-9You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don't see him, yet you trust him—with laughter and singing. Because you kept on believing, you'll get what you're looking forward to: total salvation.
10-12The prophets who told us this was coming asked a lot of questions about this gift of life God was preparing. The Messiah's Spirit let them in on some of it—that the Messiah would experience suffering, followed by glory. They clamored to know who and when. All they were told was that they were serving you, you who by orders from heaven have now heard for yourselves—through the Holy Spirit—the Message of those prophecies fulfilled. Do you realize how fortunate you are? Angels would have given anything to be in on this!
A Future in God
13-16So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives. Don't lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn't know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, "I am holy; you be holy."
17You call out to God for help and he helps—he's a good Father that way. But don't forget, he's also a responsible Father, and won't let you get by with sloppy living.
18-21Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.
22-25Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God's living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That's why the prophet said,
The old life is a grass life,
its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;
Grass dries up, flowers droop,
God's Word goes on and on forever.
This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 1 Corinthians 10:1-12
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea.
2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
3 They all ate the same spiritual food
4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.
7 Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry."
8 We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did--and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.
9 We should not test the Lord, as some of them did--and were killed by snakes.
10 And do not grumble, as some of them did--and were killed by the destroying angel.
11 These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!
Confidence In What?
July 23, 2010 — by Bill Crowder
Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. —1 Corinthians 10:12
While walking through a home-improvement store, I saw a man wearing a bright red T-shirt bearing this melancholy message: “Confidence: The feeling you have just before you understand the situation.”
I laughed at this humorous concept, but I also realized that the shirt carried a sane and sound warning. It’s a reminder to all of us who try to get things done through confidence in our own ability or credentials but without consciously trusting in the strength of God. If we think we can accomplish life’s tasks in our own strength, that false confidence will inevitably become our undoing—and we’ll collapse under the weight of our own failings.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians about this by recalling ancient Israel’s penchant for self-confidence and self-sufficiency. He described everything the Israelites thought they had going for them; then he told how they had turned those benefits into a license to sin and an almost arrogant confidence that would prove to be their undoing.
Paul said their self-confidence should warn us. His conclusion? “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). Psalm 118:8 shows us the best way: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man,” or in ourselves. Where is your confidence?
Let all who think that they can stand
Take heed lest they should fall;
These words remind us of the truth
That God is Lord of all. —Branon
Confidence in Christ is the right kind of confidence.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 23rd , 2010
Sanctification (2)
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . . —1 Corinthians 1:30
The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He “became for [me] . . . sanctification . . . .” Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.
The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is “Christ in you . . .” ( Colossians 1:27 ). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification— imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God’s grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?
Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy— it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness— “. . . kept by the power of God . . .” ( 1 Peter 1:5 ).
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Waves You're Making - #6140
Friday, July 23, 2010
I had the joy of participating in the baptism of some young people not long ago - in the waters of a beautiful lake. It was a sacred moment for all of us - in spite of the speedboat. You see, at one point, it went blazing across the lake behind us. It was there and gone in a flash. But its wake wasn't. For some time after the boat had disappeared, the waves it had created kept rolling in on us. And, for a time, it actually interrupted the proceedings. Mr. BoatGuy probably never thought about the wake he was leaving - long after he left. He was just passing through.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Waves You're Making."
If you've ever spent much time by a lake, it's something you've experienced for yourself. Long after the boat has passed, the waves it created are still making an impact. Our lives are like that. Long after we've passed on, the waves our choices have made are still impacting many other lives. In our "now is all that matters" culture, it's easy to forget how much our choices matter and how long their effects last. It's about so much more than this moment.
God gives us a powerful values-clarifier in our word for today from the Word of God in Psalm 102:18 . He says, "Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord." Man, that hits me hard! God focuses our eyes on the big picture reason for doing the right thing, because what you do now will affect lives that have not even been born yet - generations you will never see! Think about it. You and I are continuing to benefit from the choices previous generations have made, and to pay for choices previous generations have made. They've passed by, but not the waves they created. They are still rocking our lives.
The psalm goes one to point out the long-lasting effects of making God's choices your choices: "The children of Your servants will live in Your presence; their descendants will be established before You." Again, multiple generations whose destiny will be shaped by what we do now. Pretty sobering, isn't it?
So that compromise you're making or about to make - is it worth it - in light of its long-range consequences? Is that taste of sin really worth the road it may take you down and the legacy that may leave? Is that fling really worth what it may do to you, to people you love, to generations you may never see? How about that divorce? It will leave a mark for a long, long time. Maybe you're tempted to return to the old you, but stop and think about generations that could feel the impact of that choice. Who you're dating, who you sleep with, who you marry, even who your friends are - don't think those are just decisions that affect only you or only a few years of your life. Again, we are all still feeling the affects of those same choices made by people who went before us - when we were "the people not created" yet.
There's so much more at stake in the choices we make and the way we live than we could ever imagine. Things are being passed from us to others, especially our children, who will in turn pass it on to those they influence and who will in turn just keep it alive across the generations.
Before you go speeding into what you may be considering, would you think about it and consider the waves that your life is making? Make the choices that will cause those who follow you to bless your memory and the God that you helped them find across those years.