Max Lucado Daily: His Children
His Children
“God sent his Son . . . so we could become his children.” Galatians 4:4-5
We . . . were orphans.
Alone.
No name. No future. No hope.
Were it not for our adoption as God’s children we would have no place to belong. We sometimes forget that.
Psalm 90
A prayer of Moses the man of God.
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.
7 We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
10 Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
11 If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
13 Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
17 May the favor[a] of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Job 12:7-13
Job 12:7-13 (New International Version, ©2010)
7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish in the sea inform you.
9 Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every creature
and the breath of all mankind.
11 Does not the ear test words
as the tongue tastes food?
12 Is not wisdom found among the aged?
Does not long life bring understanding?
13 “To God belong wisdom and power;
counsel and understanding are his.
The Variety Of Creation
February 23, 2011 — by David C. Egner
In [God’s] hand is the life of every living thing. —Job 12:10
Have you ever stopped to consider the amazing features God placed in the animals He created? Job did, and one of the most interesting he wrote about is the ostrich. Despite its apparent lack of good sense and its eccentric parenting skills, its offspring survive (39:13-16). And despite its membership in the bird family, it can’t fly—but it can outrun a horse (v.18).
Another remarkable creature is the bombardier beetle. This African insect shoots two common materials, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone, from twin storage tanks in its back. Apart, these substances are harmless; together, they blind the beetle’s predators. A special nozzle inside the beetle mixes the chemicals, enabling it to bombard its foe at amazing speeds! And the little guy can rotate his “cannon” to fire in any direction.
How can this be? How is it that a rather dull-witted ostrich survives despite a seeming inability to care for its young while the bombardier beetle needs a sophisticated chemical reaction to ensure its continued presence on earth? It’s because God’s creative abilities know no boundaries. “He commanded and they were created,” the psalmist tells us (148:5). From the ostrich to the beetle, God’s creative work is clear for all to see. “Praise the name of the Lord” (148:13).
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful;
The Lord God made them all. —Alexander
The design of creation points to the Master Designer.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
February 23rd, 2011
The Determination to Serve
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve . . .—Matthew 20:28
Jesus also said, “Yet I am among you as the One who serves” (Luke 22:27). Paul’s idea of service was the same as our Lord’s— “. . . ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). We somehow have the idea that a person called to the ministry is called to be different and above other people. But according to Jesus Christ, he is called to be a “doormat” for others— called to be their spiritual leader, but never their superior. Paul said, “I know how to be abased . . .” (Philippians 4:12). Paul’s idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul’s service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.
Paul’s understanding of how Christ had dealt with him is the secret behind his determination to serve others. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man . . .” (1 Timothy 1:13). In other words, no matter how badly others may have treated Paul, they could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ. Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Dirty Dead, Clean Dead, Dead Dead - #6293
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction and this...honestly, this is a true story. Friends of friends of ours have a big dog. And their neighbor threatened them about that dog. She had this white fluffy rabbit, you see, and a rabbit hutch in her backyard. And she said, "I'll tell you, if that dog ever hurts that rabbit of mine, I'll sue you for everything you're worth." Uh...she loves the rabbit?
Well, the friends of the friends had to leave a young man in charge of their house for one week, and the first couple of nights he came home from work and everything was fine. The third night he came home from work, he saw the dog in the back yard playing with a dead animal. Um huh. He said "Uh-oh." He went over and he found the bloody, dirty, muddy remains of that rabbit.
Well, he didn't know what to do. He panicked. He ran into the house, he put it in the kitchen sink; started to scrub it up, hoping somehow he could cover up what he felt the dog had done. So, he literally washed off all the mud, all the blood, he blew it dry so it would be all fluffy again. Can you imagine a blow dryer on a dead rabbit? You say, "This really didn't happen." I'm sorry, it really did.
Well, he sneaked out in the middle of the night, put it back in the rabbit hutch and went back to the house. The next morning he heard a scream next door; he heard the woman screaming. He ran over there. He said, "What happened?" She's jumping up and down; she said, "Look! He's back! He's back! My rabbit died two days ago, and I buried him and he's back! It's a miracle!" No ma'am, this is not a miracle. Actually, there are lots of people trying to make that kind of miracle in their own lives, and it won't work.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Dirty Dead, Clean Dead, Dead Dead."
Our word for today from the Word of God - Ephesians chapter 2. I'll be reading in verse 1. "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved. For it is by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not by works so that no one can boast."
Now, it's interesting that this passage says that the condition that we're in before we open our lives to Christ is we're dead. That means we don't need a bath; we need a resurrection like that rabbit. What does dead mean? Well, dead here spiritually means that you're separated from God by your sin. The "me first" way that I've lived my whole life; it's called sin instead of God being first. The result is that the God you were made by and the God you were made for, well, you shut Him out and you're dead inside.
That house sitter had something dead to deal with. He did all he could. He washed it, fluffed it, put it in a nice setting, but it was still dead. See, dirty dead, clean dead, it's all dead dead. Oh, we laugh at his efforts, but it's possible that you've been depending on the same approach to get to God to deal with your sin, to get to heaven when you die. Oh, you were a religious person; you've really cleaned up the outside: baptized, christened, confirmed, you joined a church, you read the Bible, you pray, you help people. It's all good, but it only cleans the outside.
Ephesians 2:8-9 says it's not about anything you can do to get to God. It's trusting in what Christ has done when He died on the cross for you. If there was some way, something you could do to get to God, He would never have allowed His Son to go through the agony and brutality of that cross. It took that to forgive you and bring you back to life.
Oh, you could make a dirty person clean, but only God can make a dead person live. We try every way to make it on our own spiritually, but we can't. That's why Christ gave His life. Now, if you die without Christ, you'll be separated from God forever. But He's in your reach right now. You feel knocking on the inside? Let Him in.
Let us help you begin a relationship with Him. Come to our website; check it out and find there the information you need from God's Word that will simply lead you into beginning a relationship with Him. Go to YoursForLife.net.
Jesus won't just make a dead person clean; He'll make a dead person alive who can live forever
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