Max Lucado Daily: A Master Plan
A Master Plan
Posted: 26 Dec 2010 10:01 PM PST
They put him to death by nailing him to a cross. But this was God’s plan which he had made long ago. Acts 2:23
The cross wasn’t a tragic surprise. Calvary was not a knee-jerk response to a world plummeting toward destruction. It wasn’t a patch-up job or a stop-gap measure ...
The moment the forbidden fruit touched the lips of Eve, the shadow of a cross appeared on the horizon. And between that moment and the moment the man with the mallet placed the spike against the wrist of God, a master plan was fulfilled.
Matthew 23:23-39 (New International Version, ©2010)
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and sages and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation.
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Psalm 95:1-7
Psalms 95:1-7 (NIV)Ps 1 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. 3 For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, 9 where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.
The True Owner
December 27, 2010 — by Cindy Hess Kasper
All things were created through Him and for Him. —Colossians 1:16
Did you hear about the church that didn’t have enough room for parking? Fortunately, it was located right next to a store that was closed on Sundays, so a church member asked the store owner if they could overflow into his parking lot. “No problem,” he said. “You can use it 51 weeks out of the year. On the 52nd week, though, it will be chained off.” The man was grateful, but asked curiously, “What happens that week?” The store owner smiled, “Nothing. I just want you to remember that it’s not your parking lot.”
It’s easy to take for granted all the material and spiritual blessings that God has given us. That’s why we need to stop and remember that Scripture says the true owner of all we possess is God: “All that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted as head over all” (1 Chron. 29:11). Even our bodies do not belong to us: “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . . . and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
As 1 Timothy 6:17 reminds us: “God . . . gives us richly all things to enjoy.” We are so abundantly blessed with good things! Let’s never take our Father for granted, but use wisely and gratefully all that He has given us.
As we all enjoy God’s blessing,
Oh, may we not forget
Our Lord, from whom all good gifts come—
In Him our needs are met. —Fitzhugh
God gives blessing to us so we can give glory to Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
December 27th, 2010
Where the Battle is Won or Lost
’If you will return, O Israel,’ says the Lord . . . —Jeremiah 4:1
Our battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the world. The Spirit of God seizes me and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God. However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.
I should never say, “I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances and then I’ll put God to the test.” Trying to do that will not work. I must first get the issue settled between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then I can go ahead, knowing with certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God. The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, do battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all.
In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward making a decision of their will. That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a major turning point— a great crossroads in our life. From that point we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Turbulence That Transforms - #6251
Monday, December 27, 2010
Our grandson has one of those inquiring minds. So he really likes a gift he got for Christmas; it's called a rock tumbler. You'll never guess what it does. It tumbles rocks. The rock tumbler is placed in water, and these boring old rocks are placed in the rock tumbler, you turn it on and you let the good times roll! Those rocks start spinning, flying, and crashing into each other as they churn around in that water. All they need is some music so they could have a rock concert. Right? Ok, fine. The atmosphere inside that rock tumbler is pure mayhem. But after all the rockin' and rollin' and clashin' and crashin', something pretty amazing happens. Before those rocks went through the tumbler, they were just drab, boring hunks of stone. They come out displaying a beauty you would have never guessed they had!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Turbulence That Transforms."
If the real beauty of a dumb old rock is uncovered through turmoil and turbulence, don't you suppose that could be true of us as people; of you as a "people"? Could it be that all the hits you've been taking right now are actually part of God's "tumbler" to give you a beauty that you've never had before? That's very much His way. Pressure and heat make a lump of coal into a diamond. An oyster's irritation and aggravation from a grain of sand, well you know, ultimately emerges as a pearl of great price.
Maybe you need to just kind of stand back from what's been happening to see what God is doing through what's happening. Isaiah 61 , beginning with verse 1, our word for today from the Word of God, reveals some of how turbulence can transform you. The Son of God says: "The Lord...has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." You may feel like you're in one of those categories: you're brokenhearted, you're captive, or you're a prisoner to darkness. That's not the end of the story.
God's Son goes on to say He was sent to "...comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion; to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair." Jesus makes beauty from the ashes of your life, gladness from the grieving times, and praise emerging from a time of despair.
Here's how God wants to help you look when you come out of the tumbler: "They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor." God wants to use the tumbler to make you strong and indestructible like an oak. Suffering makes wimps into warriors. And He wants to use the turbulence to give you such a beautiful relationship with Him that you will be a stage to show His glory. Ultimately, the Bible says, "you will be named ministers of our God." That means you'll be equipped by the hard times to be a powerful instrument of God in other hurting lives.
The shaking you're enduring, the hits you're taking, those are tools in God's hands to bring out an amazing beauty in you: a strength, a tenderness, a maturity, a confidence, a compassion that comes only from being beautified in God's tumbler. So don't wallow in the "why is this happening?" quagmire. Instead, keep asking, "How can God use this?" Don't despair when you keep running into things and things keep running into you, when your whole world is spinning and colliding. This isn't to destroy you. This is to give you a beauty you've never had before. If you let God have His way in this turbulence, you will "display His splendor" for the rest of your life!
