Max Lucado Daily: Time to Celebrate
Time to Celebrate
Posted: 20 Jun 2011 11:01 PM PDT
“He will destroy death forever.” Isaiah 25:8
Jesus explained that the river of death was nothing to fear. The people wouldn’t believe him. He touched a boy and called him back to life . . . He let a dead man spend four days in a grave and then called him out. Is that enough? Apparently not. For it was necessary for him to . . . submerge himself in the water of death before people would believe that death had been conquered.
After he . . . came out on the other side of death’s river . . . it was time to celebrate.
Luke 6
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
1 One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
3 Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 5 Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.
9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”
10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
The Twelve Apostles
12 One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose twelve of them, whom he also designated apostles: 14 Simon (whom he named Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, 15 Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called the Zealot, 16 Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
Blessings and Woes
17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coastal region around Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by impure spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.
20 Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Ruth 2:11-23
11 Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before. 12 May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
13 “May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”
14 At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.”
When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over. 15 As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her. 16 Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”
17 So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.[a] 18 She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.
19 Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!”
Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.
20 “The LORD bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.[b]”
21 Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’”
22 Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”
23 So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.
Unexpected Blessing
June 21, 2011 — by Julie Ackerman Link
Your daughter-in-law, who loves you, . . . is better to you than seven sons. —Ruth 4:15
Naomi and Ruth came together in less-than-ideal circumstances. To escape a famine in Israel, Naomi’s family moved to Moab. While living there, her two sons married Moabite women: Orpah and Ruth. Then Naomi’s husband and sons died. In that culture, women were dependent on men, which left the three widows in a predicament.
Word came to Naomi that the famine in Israel had ended, so she decided to make the long trek home. Orpah and Ruth started to go with her, but Naomi urged them to return home, saying, “The hand of the Lord has gone out against me!” (1:13).
Orpah went home, but Ruth continued, affirming her belief in Naomi’s God despite Naomi’s own fragile faith (1:15-18).
The story started in desperately unpleasant circumstances: famine, death, and despair (1:1-5). It changed direction due to undeserved kindnesses: Ruth to Naomi (1:16-17; 2:11-12) and Boaz to Ruth (2:13-14).
It involved unlikely people: two widows (an aging Jew and a young Gentile) and Boaz, the son of a prostitute (Josh. 2:1; Matt. 1:5).
It depended on unexplainable intervention: Ruth just so “happened” to glean in the field of Boaz (2:3).
And it ended in unimaginable blessing: a baby who would be in the lineage of the Messiah (4:16-17).
God makes miracles out of what seems insignificant: fragile faith, a little kindness, and ordinary people.
In all the setbacks of your life as a believer,
God is plotting for your joy. —John Piper
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
June 21th, 2011
The Ministry of the Inner Life
You are . . . a royal priesthood . . . —1 Peter 2:9
By what right have we become “a royal priesthood”? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our “hanging on by the skin of our teeth,” although we say, “What a wonderful victory I have!” Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don’t worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, “Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men.” Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: “Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now.”
How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
What To Do When There's a Power Failure - #6377
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
It was a hot July day some years ago in Washington D.C., and I had a great experience! Sixteen thousand Christian teenagers massed on the Capitol Mall with Capitol Hill right behind us, and we were having the closing rally.
The speaker was ready to speak, a music group was ready to play, and of course, the sound system was crucial to all of this to make anything heard on that massive mall. And would you believe it, an hour before this there was a massive power failure in that whole part of Washington D.C. As you were driving around, all of a sudden all the federal office buildings were emptying out, and people were standing out on the steps by the thousands.
Some folks were trapped in elevators between floors; the subways all stopped. They couldn't even make the electric bell work that convenes the United States Senate. This is true! That day they convened the Senate by banging on a trash can. Somebody said they thought that was appropriate in the Senate, but you know, they got the Senate together whatever way they could. But you know, even without any power, the rally went on. You know why? Well, because the day before they had located a giant generator just in case. And so while the rest of Washington D.C. had no power, we did, because we were depending on another power source.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What To Do When There's a Power Failure."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 1, and I'm reading beginning in verse 31. It's when the angel appeared to Mary, the virgin from Nazareth, telling her she would be the virgin mother of the Messiah. "The angel said, 'You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.'" In verse 34 comes the understandable reaction, "'How will this be since I am a virgin?' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.'"
Well, there was nothing in Mary's experience, or her ability, or her background that could answer her question, "How will this be?" How could this possibly happen? Apparently, there was an insurmountable gap between the ability and the assignment that God gave her. But then, you've been there, haven't you? I have many times. The assignment is larger than my ability.
Maybe what God is giving you to do right now is bigger than your ability to do it. Maybe like what your role as a mom or dad is demanding of you, the needs of your family right now. And you look at that job and you say, "How will this be?" "How can I do it?"
Maybe it's just looking ahead at an impossible week, or a work you're doing for the Lord, and you say, "How can little ol' me handle big ol' this?" "How can this be?" Your assignment right now could be an illness, an injury, singleness, maybe single parenting, or a time of loss or loneliness. I don't know your situation, but I know your question. It's the same as Mary, "How will this be?"
There's a gap between the assignment and the ability, but the answer is the same as it was then, "The Holy Spirit will..." The Holy Spirit of Almighty God will be the difference between the size of the assignment and the size of your ability. You see, the bearing of the Christ child had nothing to do with Mary's capabilities. It was the capability of the Holy Spirit that would make her assignment doable...and yours.
When the power failed for everyone else in Washington D.C. that day, it didn't stop us. We were depending on another power source. And that's where you are right now. Your power will fail before you can get through what lies ahead. But the generator of the Holy Spirit will just keep on running, and that power is enough!
