Max Lucado Daily: Keep It Real
They love to pray standing in the synagogues
and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.
Matthew 6:5.
Don’t make a theater production out of your faith. Hypocrisy is a real turn-off.
When someone enters your church to see God, yet can’t see Him because of the church, don’t think for a second God doesn’t react. Jesus said, “Be especially careful when you’re trying to be good so you don’t make a performance out of it.”
Let’s take hypocrisy as seriously as God does!
Ask yourself, if no one knew of the good I do, would I still do it?
How about giving financial gifts in secret? Money can sure stir the phony within us!
If you raise your hands in church, raise holy ones, not showy ones. Nothing nauseates more than a fake “praise the Lord” or a shallow “Glory be to God.”
It all might be good theater—but the God who made you won’t be applauding!
Psalm 51
Psalm 51[a]
For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge.
5 Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
so that sinners will turn back to you.
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart
you, God, will not despise.
18 May it please you to prosper Zion,
to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
19 Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
in burnt offerings offered whole;
then bulls will be offered on your altar.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Exodus 20:1-17
The Ten Commandments
1 And God spoke all these words:
2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 “You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Honoring Your Parents
November 29, 2011 — by Dennis Fisher
Honor your father and mother. —Ephesians 6:2
My dad recently turned 90 years old and his physical capabilities are fading. He can still move around with his walker, but he needs someone to cook his meals and help him with other tasks.
My older brother Steve and his wife Judy lived close to him, so they decided to move in with Dad to care for him. Wanting to help in some way, my wife and I flew across the country to help out a bit by watching Dad while my brother and his wife had some time away together. We enjoyed our time with my father and were glad to ease Steve and Judy’s load—even if it was only for a few days.
The Bible says to “honor your father and mother” (Eph. 6:2). One New Testament commentary says that to honor someone is to “treat him with the deference, respect, reverence, kindness, courtesy, and obedience which his station in life . . . demands.”
For young children, this means obeying parents. For teenagers, it indicates showing respect for Mom and Dad even if you think you know more than they do. For young adults, this means including your parents in your life. And for those in middle-age and beyond, it means making sure that parents are cared for as they move into old age or their health declines.
How can you honor your parents this week?
Don’t miss the opportunity
To honor and obey
The parents God has given you—
For they’ll be gone someday. —Sper
Honoring our parents has no age limit.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
The Supremacy of Jesus Christ
He will glorify Me . . . —John 16:14
The holiness movements of today have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them. There is nothing about them that needs the death of Jesus Christ. All that is required is a pious atmosphere, prayer, and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous. It did not cost the sufferings of God, nor is it stained with “the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 12:11). It is not marked or sealed by the Holy Spirit as being genuine, and it has no visual sign that causes people to exclaim with awe and wonder, “That is the work of God Almighty!” Yet the New Testament is about the work of God and nothing else.
The New Testament example of the Christian experience is that of a personal, passionate devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ. Every other kind of so-called Christian experience is detached from the Person of Jesus. There is no regeneration— no being born again into the kingdom in which Christ lives and reigns supreme. There is only the idea that He is our pattern. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the Savior long before He is the pattern. Today He is being portrayed as the figurehead of a religion— a mere example. He is that, but He is infinitely more. He is salvation itself; He is the gospel of God!
Jesus said, “. . . when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, . . . He will glorify Me . . .” (John 16:13-14). When I commit myself to the revealed truth of the New Testament, I receive from God the gift of the Holy Spirit, who then begins interpreting to me what Jesus did. The Spirit of God does in me internally all that Jesus Christ did for me externally.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Beautiful When It's Fresh - #6492
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Okay, some people might call it a form of insanity, I know that, but I love snow. I guess it began when I was a little kid. I guess kind of you're always a five-year-old kid when it snows, especially some of the first snows of the winter. There's this kind of kid inside of me that maybe has never grown up. Well, I love new fallen snow. That probably should be qualified. Oh, it's so nice to walk through our neighborhood when it's blanketed in white and there are no tracks. Now, when the snow has been around for a while, oh it's not really very beautiful. Yeah, it's gets dirty, and crusty, and slushy, and messy. You know. Untouched snow--oh, that's the best, kind of like untouched love.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Beautiful When It's Fresh."
Our word for today from the Word of God is from Proverbs 5:15-19. It is speaking symbolically about sex, physical love, and a married relationship. "Drink water," it says, "from your own cistern; running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares, let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. May her breasts satisfy you always, and may you ever be captivated by her love."
Now, Proverbs 5 is talking about the glory of unspoiled love - of virginity. And in very frank and open terms, which we would expect from the inventor of sex, about the special excitement that is reserved for those who keep sex special. You see, the untouched, un-dirty kind of love, it's the most beautiful of all. It's like new fallen, untouched snow. After it's been around a while, and around too much, whether it's snow or whether it's sexual love, it isn't as beautiful any more.
Now, what society considers normal and right, oh, that's changed. But the inventor's blueprint for sexual love, oh, it hasn't changed. It's designed to be a unique, never-before-touched language of love between two people who are committed publicly to each other forever.
Without that, well, it's an empty, unsatisfying counterfeit. See, it's the uniqueness of married love that it's never been with anybody else that makes it so exciting, so fulfilling, so rewarding. And as uncommon and rare as this might be, the more rare something becomes, the more valuable it becomes. And it is worth the wait, it is worth sacrificing for, and it is exactly what we ought to be raising our kids to shoot for.
See, the lie today is this: "You really need a little sexual experience before you're married." No. You see, what God says is the glory of it is in the discovering of sexual love together - your own unique relationship so you'll never be compared with anybody else. Don't dirty it like ugly, old snow.
Whatever you've done before, from this moment on, would you begin now to commit your sexuality to Jesus Christ? Thank God, because of His death on the cross for every sin of mankind, He is the forgiving Savior. He is one who not only forgives, but He restores and He renews the specialness of that which we have compromised. He can restore whatever you may have lost in terms of the specialness of sex. He can restore your emotional and spiritual virginity so you can have pure days now, that become pure weeks, that become pure months, and then finally pure years and you become restored.
Don't let anything, including your own runaway emotions or passions, cause you to sacrifice the best of sex and the best of love. Remember, it's like snow. It's beautiful when it's fresh.
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