Max Lucado Daily: God Never Gives Up
God Never Gives Up
Posted: 16 May 2011 11:01 PM PDT
“He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us.” Micah 7:18-19, NKJV
When Joseph was dropped into a pit by his own brothers, God didn’t give up.
When Moses said, “Here I am, send Aaron,” God didn’t give up . . .
When Peter worshiped Him at the supper and cursed Him at the fire, He didn’t give up.
God never gives up.
Luke 1:21-38 (New International Version)
21 Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. 22 When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.
23 When his time of service was completed, he returned home. 24 After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. 25 “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”
The Birth of Jesus Foretold
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called[a] the Son of God. 36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. 37 For no word from God will ever fail.”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Deuteronomy 19:16-21 Matthew 5:38-45
16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, 17 the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, 19 then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you. 20 The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Matthew 5:38-45 (New International Version)
Eye for Eye
38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[b] and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Alternatives To Revenge
May 17, 2011 — by Marvin Williams
You shall not take vengeance . . . , but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. —Leviticus 19:18
One Sunday while preaching, a pastor was accosted and punched by a man. He continued preaching, and the man was arrested. The pastor prayed for him and even visited him in jail a few days later. What an example of the way to respond to insult and injury!
While there is a place for self-defense, personal revenge was forbidden in the Old Testament: “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18; see also Deut. 32:35). It was also forbidden by Jesus and the apostles (Matt. 5:38-45; Rom. 12:17; 1 Peter 3:9).
The Old Testament law exacted like for like (Ex. 21:23-25; Deut. 19:21), which ensured that judicial punishment was not unjust or malicious. But there was a larger principle looming when it came to personal revenge: Justice must be done, but it must be left in the hands of God or the authorities ordained by God.
Instead of returning injury and insult, may we live by Christ-honoring and Spirit-empowered alternatives: Live at peace with everyone (Rom. 12:18), submit to a spiritual mediator (1 Cor. 6:1-6), and leave it in the hands of authorities and, most of all, in God’s hands.
Lord, when I’m troubled by the insult of another,
help me to let go of my desire for revenge. May I seek
justice but also realize that it will happen in Your
time. I want to learn to overcome evil with good. Amen.
Leave final justice in the hands of a just God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
May 17th, 2011
His Ascension and Our Access
It came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven —Luke 24:51
We have no experiences in our lives that correspond to the events in our Lord’s life after the transfiguration. From that moment forward His life was altogether substitutionary. Up to the time of the transfiguration, He had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man. But from the transfiguration forward— Gethsemane, the Cross, the resurrection— everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to anyone, and by His ascension our Lord entered heaven, keeping the door open for humanity.
The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.
The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God— He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ deliberately limited His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But now they are His in absolute, full power. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ now has all the power at the throne of God. From His ascension forward He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The Unquenchable Thirst for Freedom - #6352
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
There it was again, displayed for all the world to see; hundreds of thousands of people, willing to risk everything for one thing - freedom. Over the weeks in that square, we watched a powerful, real-life struggle for freedom played out in a place called Liberation ("Tahrir") Square in Egypt. Once again, as we've now seen in other countries, the unquenchable passion to be free changed the nation.
Oh, it's not the first time. It's what happened in 1989 in that Old World Square in Romania where I walked a couple of years ago. On those cobblestones, 200,000 people dared to stand up to brutal oppression, and they toppled a dictator in a matter of days. The freedom flame is what drove thousands of oppressed people to "tear down that wall" in Berlin. And that yearning for freedom? It's what inspired a ragtag gaggle of farmers to grab their muskets 200 years ago to fight the British Army, the mightiest army in the world. And America was born.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You about "The Unquenchable Thirst For Freedom."
Few passions run deeper in the human heart than this desire to be free. There's something in the human soul that just knows that being in bondage is not how we were created to be. But it turns out that this yearning goes much deeper than we imagined; much deeper than any political or social freedom could ever satisfy.
So Jesus came, as the ultimate Liberator. No, not from a political system or a human despot. He came as the Liberator from the ultimate bondage. A personal bondage that no demonstration, no war can ever shatter.
He said of His mission, "If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36 ). From the dark despot that keeps every human soul in bondage. Just before He talked about "free indeed," He said, "Anyone who commits sin is a slave of sin" (John 8:34 ).
Now, at first thought, "sin" may not seem like that big a deal; certainly not our "slave master." Especially if we think sin is just breaking some religion's rules. But it is so much more. And it is at the heart of our broken families, our broken relationships, our broken hearts, our broken world.
Sin is every selfish, dirty or dishonest thing we've ever done. Every word or reaction that has hurt someone, most often someone we love. It's that disease of "me" that, multiplied by six billion "me's" on this planet, exacts a horrific price. And for all our attempts at self-improvement, we just keep doing the things that we hate...that those who love us hate...that God hates. It is, in fact, the hijacking of our life from the very One who gave us our life.
In the words of one of the writers of the Bible, "I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out...no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:19 ). Who doesn't know that struggle? No matter how good we manage to look on the outside, we all have this dark side that just keeps winning; a dark side known all too well by the people closest to us. We are, as Jesus said, slaves to the sin that we can't stop doing.
Well, the same Bible writer ended up with this impassioned cry to be free: "Who will rescue me?" A cry for rescue? Well, that's an admission that I can't liberate myself. Then this man, who's desperate for change, comes to the answer: "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 7:24 ).
You know, as we've seen in all the upheaval in all the countries recently, freedom often comes with a price of blood, and mine did. But not my blood; the blood of God's only Son. There was no way to break the enslaving power of sin than to pay its unspeakable death penalty. And that is what Jesus was doing when He died on that cross. As the Bible says, "He loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood" (Revelation 1:5 ).
This could be the day you go free inside; set free by the Liberator who died to give you your freedom. You've got to tell Him you want to be His. You've got to give yourself to Him. We'd love to help you do that. Our website is there for that. I hope you'll go there today. It's YoursForLife.net.
The day I told Jesus, "I'm Yours," that was the day that this sin-slave went free. Because there's no feeling like the day you know you're finally free. For me, for millions, that was the day that we welcomed the Liberator, who paid the price so we would never have to.