Max Lucado Daily: Let Your Light Shine
Let Your Light Shine
Posted: 27 Feb 2011 10:01 PM PST
“Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” Matthew 5:16, NIV
Did you notice the first five letters of the word courteous spell court? In old England, to be courteous was to act in the way of the court. The family and servants of the king were expected to follow a higher standard.
So are we. Are we not called to represent the King? Then “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Leviticus 3
The Fellowship Offering
1 “‘If your offering is a fellowship offering, and you offer an animal from the herd, whether male or female, you are to present before the LORD an animal without defect. 2 You are to lay your hand on the head of your offering and slaughter it at the entrance to the tent of meeting. Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall splash the blood against the sides of the altar. 3 From the fellowship offering you are to bring a food offering to the LORD: the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them, 4 both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which you will remove with the kidneys. 5 Then Aaron’s sons are to burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering that is lying on the burning wood; it is a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.
6 “‘If you offer an animal from the flock as a fellowship offering to the LORD, you are to offer a male or female without defect. 7 If you offer a lamb, you are to present it before the LORD, 8 lay your hand on its head and slaughter it in front of the tent of meeting. Then Aaron’s sons shall splash its blood against the sides of the altar. 9 From the fellowship offering you are to bring a food offering to the LORD: its fat, the entire fat tail cut off close to the backbone, the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them, 10 both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which you will remove with the kidneys. 11 The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering presented to the LORD.
12 “‘If your offering is a goat, you are to present it before the LORD, 13 lay your hand on its head and slaughter it in front of the tent of meeting. Then Aaron’s sons shall splash its blood against the sides of the altar. 14 From what you offer you are to present this food offering to the LORD: the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them, 15 both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which you will remove with the kidneys. 16 The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering, a pleasing aroma. All the fat is the LORD’s.
17 “‘This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: You must not eat any fat or any blood.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Romans 3:10-18
Romans 3:10-18 (New International Version, ©2010)
10 As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”[a]
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”[b]
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”[c]
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”[d]
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”[e]
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[f
The Core Of The Problem
February 28, 2011 — by Bill Crowder
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. —Romans 7:18
One of my favorite television cartoons as a boy was Tom Terrific. When Tom faced a challenge, he would put on his thinking cap and work through the matter with his faithful sidekick Mighty Manfred, the Wonder Dog. Usually, those problems found their source in Tom’s arch-enemy, Crabby Appleton. To this day, I remember how this villain was described on the show. He was “Crabby Appleton—rotten to the core.”
The fact is that all of us share Crabby Appleton’s primary problem—apart from Christ, we’re all rotten to the core. The apostle Paul described us this way: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God” (Rom. 3:10-11). None of us are capable of living up to God’s perfect standard of holiness. Because of our condition of being separated from a holy God, He sent His Son Jesus to give Himself to die on the cross for the punishment we deserve, and then rise again. Now we can be “justified freely by His grace” through faith in Him (v.24).
Jesus Christ has come to people “rotten to the core,” and makes us “a new creation” by faith in Him (2 Cor. 5:17). In His goodness, He has fixed our problem completely—all the way down to our core.
I know I’m a sinner and Christ is my need;
His death is my ransom, no merit I plead.
His work is sufficient, on Him I believe;
I have life eternal when Him I receive. —Anon.
We need more than a new start— we need a new heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
February 28th, 2011
"Do You Now Believe?"
’By this we believe . . . .’ Jesus answered them, ’Do you now believe?’ —John 16:30-31
Now we believe. . . .” But Jesus asks, “Do you . . . ? Indeed the hour is coming . . . that you . . . will leave Me alone” (John 16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6). This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return.
We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to “walk in the light” of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to “walk in the light asHe is in the light. . .” (1 John 1:7). When we do something out of a sense of duty, it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others. But when we do something out of obedience to the Lord, there can be no other explanation-just obedience. That is why a saint can be so easily ridiculed and misunderstood.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Fighting for Lives When the Shots Rang Out - #6296
Monday, February 28, 2011
Flags fly at half staff, our national leaders pause for a moment of silence at the White House, on the Capitol steps, and you even see news reporters struggle with the pain and anguish of devastating moments when a mall parking lot suddenly became a killing field, the heart rending toll of a lone gunman's rampage in Tucson. Six people dead, 14 others wounded. And then in that Tucson hospital Representative Gabrielle Giffords, apparently the intended target, battled for her life with a critical head wound. As horrific as those losses were, we now know that there could have been many more. When the shots began, the everyday heroes stepped up.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fighting for Lives When the Shots Rang Out."
Gabby Giffords' 20-year-old intern, Daniel Hernandez, ignored the bullets to reach the side of the wounded. And when he saw the congresswoman contorted on the ground, he sat her upright to keep her from asphyxiating. And then with his bare hands he applied the pressure to her head wound that may have saved her life. As he ran by her gurney to a waiting ambulance, he was covered with her blood.
Patricia Maisch, described as looking like a storybook grandmother, first hit the ground and then dove for the second ammunition magazine that the shooter was about to load with 31 more shots. That act of selfless bravery allowed two survivors to tackle and subdue the assailant. We will never know how many lives were saved.
And then the doctor in the crowd pitched in, followed by a flood of first responders. Whatever each person's plans had been for that destiny Saturday morning, suddenly only one thing mattered, saving the people whose lives hung in the balance. I mean, does anything else really matter when people are dying? You drop everything to do what you can to save them. It's that life-saving instinct that could be the difference between life or death for people all around you and me. Eternal life or death that is.
The need for life-saving action is so blatantly obvious when the danger is physical. But the Bible leaves no doubt that there are so many people in a mortal danger that is not visible but still horrifically real. It's a life threat that can cost a person much more than another 30 or 40 more years on earth. This threat can cost you heaven.
God's Word tells us that "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life" (1 John 5:11-12 ). Since only Jesus died to pay for the sin that keeps us from God and His heaven, only those who "have the Son" are ready for eternity whenever it comes.
God uses sobering and unmistakable language to open our eyes to the condition of so many around us: they are "lost" (Luke 19:10 )..."perishing" (2 Corinthians 2:15 )..."without hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12 )...those who "will be shut out from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9 ).
The Bible reveals the mortal danger of people around us who don't belong to Jesus. And in so doing, it summons us who know Him to do whatever we can to save them. That's why the Bible commands us to "snatch others from the fire and save them." And to, "rescue those being led away to death." Each Jesus follower is divinely positioned to be the life-saving difference for the people they know.
My prayer needs to be, "Jesus, help me see the people around me through Your eyes." He sees so much more than neighbors, or co-workers, or friends. He sees them as future inhabitants of eternity in heaven...or in hell.
There is a life-saving emergency right in front of each of us who knows Jesus. We can't wait for a "rescue professional" to get there. If you're with a person in danger of dying, you're responsible. If anything stops us it will be fear.
As Daniel Hernandez reflected on taking action while bullets were still flying, he said, "Of course you're afraid, but you have to do what you can." Yes, you do. Especially when someone's eternity is in the balance.