Max Lucado Daily: Taking a Long Time to Boil
Taking a Long Time to Boil
Posted: 02 Aug 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“Love is patient.” I Corinthians 13:4
The Greek word used here for patient . . . means “taking a long time to boil.”
Think about a pot of boiling water . . . Water boils quickly when the flame is high. It boils slowly when the flame is low. Patience “keeps the burner down.”
Patience isn’t naive. It doesn’t ignore misbehavior. It just keeps the flame low. It waits. It listens . . . This is how God treats us. And, according to Jesus, this is how we should treat others.
Hebrews 10
The Sacrifice of Jesus
1-10The old plan was only a hint of the good things in the new plan. Since that old "law plan" wasn't complete in itself, it couldn't complete those who followed it. No matter how many sacrifices were offered year after year, they never added up to a complete solution. If they had, the worshipers would have gone merrily on their way, no longer dragged down by their sins. But instead of removing awareness of sin, when those animal sacrifices were repeated over and over they actually heightened awareness and guilt. The plain fact is that bull and goat blood can't get rid of sin. That is what is meant by this prophecy, put in the mouth of Christ:
You don't want sacrifices and offerings year after year;
you've prepared a body for me for a sacrifice.
It's not fragrance and smoke from the altar
that whet your appetite.
So I said, "I'm here to do it your way, O God,
the way it's described in your Book."
When he said, "You don't want sacrifices and offerings," he was referring to practices according to the old plan. When he added, "I'm here to do it your way," he set aside the first in order to enact the new plan—God's way—by which we are made fit for God by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus.
11-18Every priest goes to work at the altar each day, offers the same old sacrifices year in, year out, and never makes a dent in the sin problem. As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process. The Holy Spirit confirms this:
This new plan I'm making with Israel
isn't going to be written on paper,
isn't going to be chiseled in stone;
This time "I'm writing out the plan in them,
carving it on the lining of their hearts."
He concludes,
I'll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins.
Once sins are taken care of for good, there's no longer any need to offer sacrifices for them.
Don't Throw It All Away
19-21So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into "the Holy Place." Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God. The "curtain" into God's presence is his body.
22-25So let's do it—full of belief, confident that we're presentable inside and out. Let's keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let's see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.
26-31If we give up and turn our backs on all we've learned, all we've been given, all the truth we now know, we repudiate Christ's sacrifice and are left on our own to face the Judgment—and a mighty fierce judgment it will be! If the penalty for breaking the law of Moses is physical death, what do you think will happen if you turn on God's Son, spit on the sacrifice that made you whole, and insult this most gracious Spirit? This is no light matter. God has warned us that he'll hold us to account and make us pay. He was quite explicit: "Vengeance is mine, and I won't overlook a thing" and "God will judge his people." Nobody's getting by with anything, believe me.
32-39Remember those early days after you first saw the light? Those were the hard times! Kicked around in public, targets of every kind of abuse—some days it was you, other days your friends. If some friends went to prison, you stuck by them. If some enemies broke in and seized your goods, you let them go with a smile, knowing they couldn't touch your real treasure. Nothing they did bothered you, nothing set you back. So don't throw it all away now. You were sure of yourselves then. It's still a sure thing! But you need to stick it out, staying with God's plan so you'll be there for the promised completion.
It won't be long now, he's on the way;
he'll show up most any minute.
But anyone who is right with me thrives on loyal trust;
if he cuts and runs, I won't be very happy.
But we're not quitters who lose out. Oh, no! We'll stay with it and survive, trusting all the way.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Romans 6:14-23
14 For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Slaves to Righteousness
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Sin Virus
August 3, 2010 — by C. P. Hia
Having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. —Romans 6:18
The H1N1 pandemic focused the world’s attention on viruses. Viruses are living organisms that need a host to survive and wreak their havoc. In some cases, a virus can be present for many years before the host is even aware of it. During that time, the virus can inflict widespread and untold damage. Take it away from the host, and it remains dormant or dies.
In a similar way, sin needs a host to stay alive. By themselves, sins such as pride, greed, anger, and selfishness are mere words. But when sin overpowers a human host, it works to destroy it for as long as the host is alive.
Thankfully, because of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, Christians have been positionally “set free from sin” (Rom. 6:18). Even though we still sin, the Holy Spirit who lives in us helps us to resist that “sin virus,” the lust of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). The apostle John tells us: “Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them” (1 John 3:9 NLT). Now we walk in dependence upon the Spirit, and one day we will stand “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).
Isn’t that a great comfort for you as you step out today into a world infected by the “virus” of sin?
The Great Physician holds the cure
That kills the virus of our sin;
It’s by His own atoning blood
That we’re made whole and pure within. —D. De Haan
Sin is the disease, Christ is the cure.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 3rd, 2010
The Compelling Purpose of God
He . . . said to them, ’Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem . . —Luke 18:31
Jerusalem, in the life of our Lord, represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Father’s will. Jesus said, “I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” ( John 5:30 ). Seeking to do “the will of the Father” was the one dominating concern throughout our Lord’s life. And whatever He encountered along the way, whether joy or sorrow, success or failure, He was never deterred from that purpose. “. . . He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem . . .” ( Luke 9:51 ).
The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . .” ( John 15:16 ).
We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God’s purpose— we are taken into God’s purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God’s goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague. God’s aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming. At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is. We say, “God means for me to go over there,” and, “God has called me to do this special work.” We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us. The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan. “He took the twelve aside . . .” ( Luke 18:31 ). God takes us aside all the time. We have not yet understood all there is to know of the compelling purpose of God.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Only Way to Land Safely - #6147
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
It was during a major energy crisis in the United States. From the White House on down, people were turning off lights, canceling or combining automobile trips, and using energy conservation steps they had never even considered before. A Christian college in the Boston area had a chapel with a yellow-lit cross on the top. In keeping with the need to conserve, they turned off that light. Before long, they got an urgent call from an air traffic controller at Logan Airport. He said, "You need to turn on the lights on your cross...immediately!" The college learned that night that they hadn't known before. The flight controller said, "That cross is the first landmark for flights coming in from Europe, and we have a flight coming in on low fuel. I know we're having an energy crisis, but turn on the lights on that cross. If they can't see the lights on the cross, they cannot land safely."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Only Way to Land Safely."
For nearly 2,000 years, the cross has guided people to a safe landing; for their years here on earth and for an eternity in heaven. If you're interested in landing safely, it's vital that you understand how to navigate your way to heaven. That's why I want to "turn the light on the cross" right now. God may have brought you to this place at this time so you can understand how deeply personal the cross of Jesus can be for you and how to find your way to heaven by the way of the cross.
It is, in fact, the only way to get there. I know you can find a lot of people who will debate that, but they have no authority to tell you how to get to God's heaven. Only God can tell you that. Everybody else is just guessing. And God has made the way clear all through the Bible. Take, for example, our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Timothy 2, beginning with verse 3. "God our Savior wants all men to be saved." That's "saved" as in rescued from a situation where we will otherwise die. "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men." That's "ransom" as in the price you pay to get someone back.
God says there is one person who can bring you together with Him, and that is His Son, Jesus Christ. Why? Because He's the only One who did and the only One who could do what it took for you and me to be forgiven of our sins. He "gave Himself as a ransom." In other words, He paid the price to get us back from our sin and to give us a relationship with God. He didn't just pay the price for you; He was the price for you on the cross, because He loves you with a love you can't even imagine.
So there really is only one way to land safely in heaven someday - the way of the cross, because that cross is where the awful death penalty for your sin and mine was absorbed by God's one and only Son. In the words of the Bible, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree..." (1 Peter 2:24). So that cross isn't just history or religion. It's personal. It's deeply personal. It represents the total sacrifice of Jesus on your behalf.
And it is the place where you can leave every wrong thing you've ever done and have it completely forgiven by God; erased from God's records so you'll never meet those sins on Judgment Day. The cross is the place where you trade the hell you deserve for the heaven you could never deserve, and where the incredible love of Almighty God becomes yours for life.
The light is on the cross of Jesus today. Your safe landing depends on your navigating your life by His cross. And you will be forgiven, you will have your name entered in the book of those who are ready for heaven, if and when you put your total trust in Jesus to be your spiritual Rescuer. Because we're talking eternity here, it doesn't make much sense to postpone telling Him that you're opening your life to Him this very day.
We'd love to help you do that if you'll just drop by our website. It's there to briefly explain just how to begin your relationship with Jesus Christ. Just go to YoursForLife.net. Or, if you'd like me to send you that information in my little booklet, Yours For Life, just call and ask for it at 877-741-1200.
Like an old hymn says, "There's room at the cross for you. Though millions have come, there's still room for one. Yes, there's room at the cross for you."
