Max Lucado Daily: Tailor-Made
Tailor-Made
Posted: 23 Jan 2011 10:01 PM PST
“Receive the kingdom God has prepared for you since the world was made.” Matthew 25:34
The problem with this world is that it doesn’t fit. Oh, it will do for now, but it isn’t tailor-made. We were made to live with God, but on earth we live by faith. We were made to live forever, but on this earth we live but for a moment. We were made to live holy lives, but this world is stained by sin.
This world wears like a borrowed shirt. Heaven will fit like one tailor-made.
Matthew 27:27-50 (New International Version, ©2010)
The Soldiers Mock Jesus
27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, 29 and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. 30 They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.
The Crucifixion of Jesus
32 As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. 33 They came to a place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). 34 There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. 35 When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. 37 Above his head they placed the written charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
38 Two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 In the same way the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
The Death of Jesus
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49 The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Acts 17:16-31
Acts 17:16-31 (NIV)Ac 16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, "What is this babbler trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be advocating foreign gods." They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean." 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. 24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27 God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' 29 "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone--an image made by man's design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead."
Still True Today
January 24, 2011 — by Bill Crowder
While Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. —Acts 17:16
The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland, has an extensive collection of ancient Bible fragments dating back to the second century AD. One fragment on display is a piece of Acts 17:16.
The message that ancient fragment displays, however, is as contemporary as today’s newspaper. It reads, “While Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.” Paul was angered by the proliferation of idols in ancient Athens, and I am convinced he would be upset with us today.
Some idols that we see in today’s world are different than the ones in Paul’s day. Whether it’s wealth, fame, power, athletes, entertainers, or politicians, contemporary idols abound. As always, our spiritual enemy, Satan, seeks to lure us away from the Savior to the false worship of idols. Christians are not immune, and thus we must guard our hearts against self-righteous anger toward unbelievers who seem to worship everything but God.
We must also be drawn by Christ’s love to reach out to those who don’t know Him. Then, like the believers at Thessalonica, they may turn “to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thess. 1:9).
The dearest idol I have known,
Whate’er that idol be,
Help me to tear it from Thy throne
And worship only Thee. —Cowper
An idol is anything that takes God’s rightful place.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
January 24th, 2011
God’s Overpowering Purpose
I have appeared to you for this purpose . . .—Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, “Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine.” And the Lord also says to us, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go . . .” (John 15:16).
When we are born again, if we are spiritual at all, we have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. It is important that I learn not to be “disobedient to the heavenly vision”—not to doubt that it can be attained. It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim. He was brought into a vivid, personal, overpowering relationship with Jesus Christ.Acts 26:16 is tremendously compelling “. . . to make you a minister and a witness . . . .” There would be nothing there without a personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Intimate Bonding - #6271
Monday, January 24, 2011
Now, you probably wouldn't expect the subject of intimacy to come up in a discussion of wallpaper, but it did. Of course, you've never been in a discussion with me, so maybe that's not a surprise to you. I have a friend who is a painter and a wallpaperer for a living, and he was helping in our office. He actually volunteered to help us out by scraping the old wallpaper off a wall that really needed some work. And before we were in our building, someone had put wallpaper on the sheet rock years ago. Well, when I walked in, he was very frustrated because what happened was, well apparently, when they had applied that wallpaper to the sheet rock they hadn't put any preparation layer on it. So, you can probably guess what happened. The wallpaper and the top layer of the sheet rock had sort of become one. And when he scraped off the wallpaper, yeah, you got it. The top layer of the sheet rock came with it. He was pretty frustrated, and he held them up to me and he said, "I can't separate them!" Then he said, "You know what we call this, Ron?" We being wallpaperers I guess. He said, "We call this an intimate bond." Well, those intimate bonds are hard to separate.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Intimate Bonding."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from the lips of Jesus in Mark 10 , beginning at verse 7. "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate." Sounds strangely like a conversation I had with the wallpaperer doesn't it? Separated...bonded in a way that you really cannot separate them.
Well, if you go over the 1 Corinthians 6:16 , you find out what powerful glue sexual involvement is between two people. Here's what it says, "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said that two will become one flesh." Now, there's no more meaningless sex than with a prostitute. But even that creates a lasting intimate bond. Our society has devalued this wonderful bonding that God has given us, but it hasn't weakened its power. And maybe you're devaluing this great gift of sexual closeness and intimacy without even knowing it. Let me suggest some ways that happens.
One is sex without commitment. It could be that you've experimented with sex and played around with it without a lifetime commitment to a partner, and that leaves permanent scars. You're playing with something that will make that person always a part of you, and that's scary. And if you do it often enough, you will lose your bondability; like tape that gets stuck too often. You won't be able to stick to another person in that bonded way the Bible talks about.
Secondly, you can devalue it by using sex as a weapon. That's why in 1 Corinthians 7 , the Bible says, "Don't deprive each other in marriage of a sexual relationship." Don't use sex as a weapon. It's too special to abuse by using it to get your own way. It's not a weapon!
Thirdly, we can devalue this bonding by sex without meaning, where you are married but you really aren't one. You had an argument; you're in disagreement, but you're going through the motions. Get your oneness together again emotionally, so you can express it physically.
And finally, you can devaluate it with sex outside the boundaries. That could be an adulterous relationship or somehow you introduce another person into this intimate, unbreakable bond. And you create an emotional schizophrenia for everyone involved.
Look, have you played with God's bonding gift? Well, confess that to Him. Let Him cleanse you as 1 John 1:9 promises He will, that "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us all our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Make it right. Reserve it for one relationship, and then use it unselfishly. I can still see that wallpaper and that sheet rock merged into one, when it's right, it is so beautiful. When bonding is wrong, it's so destructive.
The language of love that God calls sex - it truly is an intimate bond.
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