Max Lucado Daily: Enough
Enough
Posted: 03 Aug 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“He is able . . . to run to the cry of . . . those who are being . . . tested.” Hebrews 2:18 AMP
Jesus was angry enough to purge the temple, hungry enough to eat raw grain, distraught enough to weep in public, fun loving enough to be called a drunkard, winsome enough to attract kids, . . . radical enough to get kicked out of town, responsible enough to care for his mother, tempted enough to know the smell of Satan, and fearful enough to sweat blood . . .
Whatever you are facing, he knows how you feel.
Hebrews 11
Faith in What We Don't See
1-2The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It's our handle on what we can't see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
3By faith, we see the world called into existence by God's word, what we see created by what we don't see.
4By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That's what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
5-6By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. "They looked all over and couldn't find him because God had taken him." We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken "he pleased God." It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
7By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.
8-10By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God's call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
11-12By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That's how it happened that from one man's dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
13-16Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.
17-19By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him—and this after he had already been told, "Your descendants shall come from Isaac." Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that's what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.
20By an act of faith, Isaac reached into the future as he blessed Jacob and Esau.
21By an act of faith, Jacob on his deathbed blessed each of Joseph's sons in turn, blessing them with God's blessing, not his own—as he bowed worshipfully upon his staff.
22By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.
23By an act of faith, Moses' parents hid him away for three months after his birth. They saw the child's beauty, and they braved the king's decree.
24-28By faith, Moses, when grown, refused the privileges of the Egyptian royal house. He chose a hard life with God's people rather than an opportunistic soft life of sin with the oppressors. He valued suffering in the Messiah's camp far greater than Egyptian wealth because he was looking ahead, anticipating the payoff. By an act of faith, he turned his heel on Egypt, indifferent to the king's blind rage. He had his eye on the One no eye can see, and kept right on going. By an act of faith, he kept the Passover Feast and sprinkled Passover blood on each house so that the destroyer of the firstborn wouldn't touch them.
29By an act of faith, Israel walked through the Red Sea on dry ground. The Egyptians tried it and drowned.
30By faith, the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho for seven days, and the walls fell flat.
31By an act of faith, Rahab, the Jericho harlot, welcomed the spies and escaped the destruction that came on those who refused to trust God.
32-38I could go on and on, but I've run out of time. There are so many more— Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets....Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn't deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.
39-40Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Psalm 63
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings.
8 My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.
9 They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the sword and become food for jackals.
11 But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by God's name will praise him, while the mouths of liars will be silenced.
Out Of Orbit
August 4, 2010 — by Joe Stowell
O God, You are my God; early will I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh longs for You in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water. —Psalm 63:1
I still find it amazing that we can launch probes into deep space. But think of how wasteful it would be if on the way to Mars our probe got caught in the gravitational pull of a lesser, insignificant object. Beware! That might be happening in our lives.
When Jesus called His disciples to follow Him, He meant for them to begin a journey to passionately pursue Him. Followers of Christ have been launched into a trajectory that is defined by drawing closer and closer to Him. But in the process, we are often distracted and succumb to the gravitational pull of lesser, alluring things. When that happens, we cease our pursuit of Him and go into orbit around stuff that in the end is empty and unsatisfying.
Psalm 63 is the cure for lives stuck in orbit. David pursued God, knowing that He alone could satisfy his inner longings because His “lovingkindness is better than life” (v.3). The joy of God’s presence consumed every moment: “When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches” (v.6). David understood that true joy and purpose come not in admiring God from a safe distance, but from chasing hard after Him.
Let’s get back on track and pursue an increasingly closer walk with God!
To walk in fellowship with Christ
And sense His love so deep and true
Brings to the soul its highest joy
As nothing in this world can do. —D. De Haan
The closer you walk with God, the less room for anything to come between.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 4th , 2010
The Brave Friendship of God
He took the twelve aside . . . —Luke 18:31
Oh, the bravery of God in trusting us! Do you say, “But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing good in me and I have no value”? That is exactly why He chose you. As long as you think that you are of value to Him He cannot choose you, because you have purposes of your own to serve. But if you will allow Him to take you to the end of your own self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him “to Jerusalem” ( Luke 18:31 ). And that will mean the fulfillment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.
We tend to say that because a person has natural ability, he will make a good Christian. It is not a matter of our equipment, but a matter of our poverty; not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a matter of natural virtues, of strength of character, of knowledge, or of experience— all of that is of no avail in this concern. The only thing of value is being taken into the compelling purpose of God and being made His friends (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 ). God’s friendship is with people who know their poverty. He can accomplish nothing with the person who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not here for our own purpose at all— we are here for the purpose of God, and the two are not the same. We do not know what God’s compelling purpose is, but whatever happens, we must maintain our relationship with Him. We must never allow anything to damage our relationship with God, but if something does damage it, we must take the time to make it right again. The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Dark Closet - #6148
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
She was such a sweet little old lady - the housemother who inspected our dorm rooms every week at college. I just didn't want her to get hurt. You know? I was afraid she would, though, if she opened my closet door. Look, you're busy in college with all kinds of important things - who's got time to clean your room? Some days, it was almost impossible to tell I had furniture in there. Everything was covered with what looked like the fallout from a bomb blast, but not on inspection day. No, I managed to get all the junk stuffed into my closet. Sometimes it took three guys to close the door, but eventually what I needed to hide was safely inside that closet. Safe, that is, unless you opened the door. She was such a sweet little old lady.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Dark Closet."
A lot of us still have a closet today where we try to hide the stuff we don't want discovered. Maybe there's some dark stuff you've managed to keep in that closet for a long time. Like my college room, on the surface you look clean. But just inside the closet is stuff you don't want anyone to see. And so far, no one has - except for the One who matters the most.
Nine words - that's all it is. But these nine words in Numbers 32:23, our word for today from the Word of God, literally blow the door off your closet. Here they are: "Be sure that your sin will find you out." No loopholes, no exceptions - including you. God knows everything you've done, everything you've thought, everything you've said. So you're caught! And without exception, someday your sin will be out of the closet.
You can rationalize it away - we're good at that. "It's just a little...I can't help it...I deserve this...I need this...this is love...I'll get out soon." Lies you may believe but God doesn't buy. You can compare yourself with others and feel pretty good about yourself - until you remember that God doesn't grade on the curve and His standard is perfection. You can excuse what you're doing, call it by a nice name, blame someone else, live in denial about it, try to compensate for it by doing lots of good things. But it's still sin, it's still something that helped cause the death of your Savior, it still stinks to God, and it's building up judgment for you all the time.
Recently, a major church was rocked by the public confession of one of its longtime leaders; a man described as the most trusted person in the church. But behind that closet door was 20 years of blatant sexual sin, a sin he had even confronted in others as a church leader. It had been successfully concealed from everyone but God. And now comes the picking up of the pieces in so many lives.
King David did everything to keep his adultery hidden in the closet. Until God's man Nathan tore the door off with these words, "You are the man." Finally, David faced the ugly truth and he said, "I have sinned against the Lord." Right now, God, through His Holy Spirit, may be saying to you, "You are the man. You are the woman." He's giving you this chance to finally be free of the inner torture, to stop the mounting consequences, to experience at Jesus' cross the incomparable relief and release of finally getting clean.
You've hidden it, but the sin and the price and the guilt continue to grow behind that door. It's going to be tough to open that closet and deal with what's in there. But it's going to be a whole lot tougher not to. It's haunted you. It's shamed you. It's shackled you long enough. Jesus is right there with you to help you open that door, and to once and for all get rid of the awful secret behind it.
