Max Lucado Daily: It Was Love
It Was Love
Posted: 19 Aug 2010 11:01 PM PDT
“I lay down my life . . . No one takes it from Me.” John 10:17-18, NKJV
Jesus knows the meaning of the phrase, “It’s just not right.”
For it wasn’t right that people spit into the eyes that had wept for them. It wasn’t right that soldiers ripped chunks of flesh out of the back of their God. It wasn’t right that spikes pierced the hands that formed the earth . . .
Was it right? No . . . Was it love? Yes.
Genesis 1
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [b] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 1 Corinthians 3:1-17
1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
4 For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe--as the Lord has assigned to each his task.
6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.
7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor.
9 For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds.
11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw,
13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work.
14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.
15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
16 Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple.
Time To Grow Up
August 20, 2010 — by Bill Crowder
I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. —1 Corinthians 3:1
While browsing through some birthday cards in a gift shop, I found one that made me laugh. Its message read: “You are only young once, but you can be immature forever.” That card tickled my funny bone. There is something winsome about never having to grow up, as any fan of Peter Pan can attest.
But we all know that perpetual immaturity is not only inappropriate, it’s also unacceptable. For the Christian, it’s vital that we mature. After we are born again and become followers of Christ, we are not expected to stay spiritual babies. The Scriptures challenge us to grow to be more like Him.
When writing to the church at Corinth—a church with many problems—Paul said that their issues were rooted in a lack of spiritual development. In 1 Corinthians 3:1, he said, “I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.”
How do we grow beyond being just spiritual babes? Peter urged, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). We do this by meditating on the Word of God and devoting ourselves to prayer (Ps. 119:97-104; Acts 1:14). Like the troubled church of Corinth, it may be time for us to grow up.
More like the Master I would live and grow,
More of His love to others I would show;
More self-denial, like His in Galilee,
More like the Master I long to ever be. —Gabriel
Spiritual growth occurs when faith is cultivated.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 20th , 2010
Christ-Awareness
. . . and I will give you rest —Matthew 11:28
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, “Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already.” Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute.
A complete life is the life of a child. When I am fully conscious of my awareness of Christ, there is something wrong. It is the sick person who really knows what health is. A child of God is not aware of the will of God because he is the will of God. When we have deviated even slightly from the will of God, we begin to ask, “Lord, what is your will?” A child of God never prays to be made aware of the fact that God answers prayer, because he is so restfully certain that God always answers prayer.
If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, “Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest,” that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest— the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Being Where Everything is Decided - #6160
Friday, August 20, 2010
It's probably the most famous office in the world - the Oval Office of the President of the United States. Every four years, two people fight it out with the voters to be the one who gets to occupy that room from which so many world-changing decisions are made. And with the President comes a supporting cast, of course, that includes a Chief of Staff, a Political Director, a National Security Advisor, and many others. The greatest perk at the White House has little to do with how nice an office you have or even how much money you make. It's all about your proximity to the President's office and, more importantly, what kind of access you have to him there. Some of the President's staff see him barely at all; others see him occasionally; but there are trusted few who are in and out of the Oval Office several times a day. Given the weight of what goes on in that room, those are some of the most privileged and powerful people in the land.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Being Where Everything is Decided."
Power has to do with who has regular access to the place where things are decided; to the person who makes those decisions. If you belong to Jesus Christ, you have that access, you have that power to enter at any time of the day or night the place where everything on earth is decided - the Throne Room of Almighty God. In fact, Scripture invites us to "approach the throne of grace with confidence" (Hebrews 4:16 ). It tells us that "we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus" (Hebrews 10:19 ).
At any given moment in your life, you are facing some things that are beyond your ability to figure out, or to fix, or to change. It can be something medical, or financial, or emotional, maybe marital; a situation or a person you cannot change; a mountain you can't move, a challenge you can't meet. Where will the outcome be decided? Who will decide it? Will that medical condition decide it, or your boss, or your company, or the economy, or the people who are against you, some human authority or human factor? No! For you as a child of God, it will be decided in the Throne Room of the One who rules a hundred billion galaxies and who is your Father! Which means your primary method of getting anything done must be big-time praying!
The Bible is filled with examples of the decisive difference that desperate and dependent prayer makes. In our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 37 , King Hezekiah is facing an ultimatum from the Assyrian army that has rolled like a juggernaut across the Middle East, crushing every king and kingdom in its path. Their leader demands Hezekiah's surrender with a message like this: "Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?" (Isaiah 36:18 ). The answer was "no."
According to Isaiah 37:14 , here's what King Hezekiah did with that surrender demand. "He went up to the temple of the Lord and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: 'O Lord Almighty...enthroned between the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth'." And he went on to plead with God for deliverance. And the angel of the Lord came and slew 185,000 Assyrians that night.
That divine throne room where the outcome of Hezekiah's battle was decided is the same place your battle will be decided.
The powerless P's won't get it done: pushing, persuading, personalities, planning, promoting. Life's battles are won by prayer, not on the battlefield itself, but in the Throne Room of the God who governs the galaxies - who is, because of what Jesus did, your spiritual Daddy! And you have access, day or night, to the place where it's decided and the person who decides it. Go there often, go there in awe, go there clean, and go there expecting something so big, only God could do it!