Max Lucado Daily: His Love Is Not Normal
His Love Is Not Normal
Posted: 15 Mar 2011 11:01 PM PDT
“Your love, God, is my song, and I’ll sing it!” Psalm 89:1, The Message
God’s love is not human. His love is not normal. His love sees your sin and loves you still. Does he approve of your error? No.
Do you need to repent? Yes. But do you repent for his sake or yours? Yours. His ego needs no apology. His love needs no bolstering.
And he could not love you more than he does right now.
Mark 8
Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
1 During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, 2 “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.”
4 His disciples answered, “But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?”
5 “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.
“Seven,” they replied.
6 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. 7 They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. 8 The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 9 About four thousand were present. After he had sent them away, 10 he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.
11 The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. 12 He sighed deeply and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” 13 Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.
The Yeast of the Pharisees and Herod
14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. 15 “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
16 They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.”
17 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
“Twelve,” they replied.
20 “And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”
They answered, “Seven.”
21 He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Daniel 9:20-27
Daniel 9:20-27 (New International Version, ©2011)
The Seventy “Sevens”
20 While I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request to the LORD my God for his holy hill— 21 while I was still in prayer, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision, came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. 22 He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight and understanding. 23 As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed. Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision:
24 “Seventy ‘sevens’[a] are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish[b] transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.[c]
25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One,[d] the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.[e] The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’[f] In the middle of the ‘seven’[g] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple[h] he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.[i]”[j
God’s Answers
March 16, 2011 — by Dave Branon
While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel . . . reached me. —Daniel 9:21
Daniel poured out his heart to God (Dan. 9:2). He had read Jeremiah and rediscovered God’s promise that Israel’s captivity in Babylon would last 70 years. So, in an effort to represent his people before God, Daniel fasted and prayed. He pleaded with God not to delay in rescuing His people (v.19).
When we pray, there are things we can know and other things we cannot. For instance, we have the assurance that God will hear our prayer if we know Him as our heavenly Father through faith in Jesus, and we know that His answer will come according to His will. But we don’t know when the answer will come or what it will be.
For Daniel, the answer to his prayer came in miraculous fashion, and it came immediately. While he was praying, the angel Gabriel arrived to provide the answer. But the nature of the answer was as surprising as the quick reply. While Daniel asked God about “70 years,” the answer was about a prophetic “70 weeks of years.” Daniel asked God for an answer about the here and now, but God’s answer had to do with events thousands of years into the future.
Focused as we are with our immediate situation, we may be shocked by God’s answer. Yet we can know that the answer will be for His glory.
I know not by what methods rare,
But this I know—God answers prayer;
I leave my prayers with Him alone,
Whose will is wiser than my own. —Hickok
God’s answers to our prayers may exceed our expectations.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
March 16th, 2011
The Master Will Judge
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ . . . —2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul says that we must all, preachers and other people alike, “appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” But if you will learn here and now to live under the scrutiny of Christ’s pure light, your final judgment will bring you only delight in seeing the work God has done in you. Live constantly reminding yourself of the judgment seat of Christ, and walk in the knowledge of the holiness He has given you. Tolerating a wrong attitude toward another person causes you to follow the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One carnal judgment of another person only serves the purposes of hell in you. Bring it immediately into the light and confess, “Oh, Lord, I have been guilty there.” If you don’t, your heart will become hardened through and through. One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll. No struggling or praying will enable you to stop doing certain things, and the penalty of sin is that you gradually get used to it, until you finally come to the place where you no longer even realize that it is sin. No power, except the power that comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit, can change or prevent the inherent consequences of sin.
“If we walk in the light as He is in the light. . .” (1 John 1:7). For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to the standard we have set up for another person. The deadliest attitude of the Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from unconsciously living a lie.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Prints in Sand and Cement - #6308
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
I was all alone on that Atlantic Ocean beach that day. It was almost dark, and all the sun bathers had gone home to take another kind of bath, with creams, and lotions and so on. I was walking along the edge of the water, playing a little game of dodge-em with the waves. And I looked back, and I noticed the long trail of footprints I'd left behind me. I said, "Hey, I'm making a mark." Well, I had a distant jetty in my eyesight; that was going to be my goal. So, I walked that far, turned around and came back. I looked for that bold trail of footprints in the sand. Of course, there was no trail. They were gone. I thought about that Hollywood theatre where celebrities put their footprints in cement instead of sand. Maybe that's what I should try if I want my mark to last.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Prints in Sand and Cement."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. And I'm going to begin reading at verse 19. Paul says, "For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy." The Apostle Paul had a lot of other things he could glory in, don't you think? What a track record spiritually! But you know what he said was his glory and joy. He said to these spiritual children of his, "You are my marks in cement."
You see, the Apostle Paul knew where to make footprints that last. So many of our efforts are poured into, well, things that are like prints in the sand. A man or woman rises to a top position in their company, and everyone's looking to them, and they've got power, and they've got influence, and they've got importance. And then they retire or they're replaced. You know what - it's amazing how quickly that hole closes up. It takes about one day to change the name on the door. And the waves come in and wipe out all the years of footprints.
Or an athlete breaks a record, only to leave someone else's wave to come in and wipe it out. Awards, titles, victories, great speeches, recognition, things we work so hard, sacrifice so much for. Maybe even we sacrifice so many people for. But those things come and they go. The marks that last are not the achievements you score, but the people you touch.
Your children - they're wet cement. Don't be so busy making your mark at work or at church that you don't have your prime energy for them. The people you teach, the people you manage, they are wet cement. You're marking them your friends. Especially those who need your Jesus and have no idea that what happened on that cross was for them. Ultimately, the marks that last are not the ones that give you a name, but the ones that are made in Jesus' name.
Could it be that you didn't mean to, but you've been caught up in the footprints that you've been making in the sand? It's been so important to make that mark at work, at church, with a group of people you want to impress.
Well, are the people close to you losing out to the things that you're involved in? Put your prints in cement, where they'll last, not in sand where they can't last.
See, the waves can never erase what you write in human cement.