Max Lucado Daily: The State of Your Heart
The State of Your Heart
Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:01 PM PDT
“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart.” Luke 6:45, NIV
When you are offered a morsel of gossip marinated in slander, do you turn it down or pass it on? That depends on the state of your heart . . .
The state of your heart dictates whether you harbor a grudge or give grace, seek self-pity or seek Christ, drink human misery or taste God’s mercy.
Deuteronomy 29
Renewal of the Covenant
1 [b]These are the terms of the covenant the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.
2 Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them:
Your eyes have seen all that the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. 3 With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and great wonders. 4 But to this day the LORD has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear. 5 Yet the LORD says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. 6 You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.”
7 When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
9 Carefully follow the terms of this covenant, so that you may prosper in everything you do. 10 All of you are standing today in the presence of the LORD your God—your leaders and chief men, your elders and officials, and all the other men of Israel, 11 together with your children and your wives, and the foreigners living in your camps who chop your wood and carry your water. 12 You are standing here in order to enter into a covenant with the LORD your God, a covenant the LORD is making with you this day and sealing with an oath, 13 to confirm you this day as his people, that he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 14 I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you 15 who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God but also with those who are not here today.
16 You yourselves know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries on the way here. 17 You saw among them their detestable images and idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold. 18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.
19 When such a person hears the words of this oath and they invoke a blessing on themselves, thinking, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way,” they will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry. 20 The LORD will never be willing to forgive them; his wrath and zeal will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will fall on them, and the LORD will blot out their names from under heaven. 21 The LORD will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.
22 Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it. 23 The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger. 24 All the nations will ask: “Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this fierce, burning anger?”
25 And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. 26 They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. 27 Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. 28 In furious anger and in great wrath the LORD uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”
29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Luke 15:1-10
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
The Parable of the Lost Coin
8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Lost And Found
June 30, 2011 — by Julie Ackerman Link
Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost! —Luke 15:6
Until the day I was found, I didn’t know I was lost. I was going about business as usual, moving from task to task, distraction to distraction. But then I received an e-mail with the heading: “I think you’re my cousin.” As I read my cousin’s message, I learned that she and another cousin had been searching for my branch of the family for nearly 10 years. The other cousin promised her father, shortly before he died, that she would find his family.
I hadn’t done anything to get lost, and I didn’t have to do anything to be found except acknowledge that I was the person they had been looking for. Learning that they had spent so much time and energy searching for our family made me feel special.
This led me to think about the “lost and found” parables of Luke 15—the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Whenever we wander away from God, whether intentionally like the prodigal son or unintentionally like the sheep, God looks for us. Even though we may not “feel” lost, if we have no relationship with God, we are. To be found, we need to realize that God is looking for us (Luke 19:10) and admit that we are separated from Him. By giving up our waywardness, we can be reunited with Him and restored to His family.
The Lord has come to seek and save
A world that is lost in sin;
And everyone who comes to Him
Will be restored and changed within. —Sper
To be found, you must admit you are lost.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
June 30th, 2011
Do It Now!
Agree with your adversary quickly . . . —Matthew 5:25
In this verse, Jesus Christ laid down a very important principle by saying, “Do what you know you must do— now. Do it quickly. If you don’t, an inevitable process will begin to work ’till you have paid the last penny’ (Matthew 5:26) in pain, agony, and distress.” God’s laws are unchangeable and there is no escape from them. The teachings of Jesus always penetrate right to the heart of our being.
Wanting to make sure that my adversary gives me all my rights is a natural thing. But Jesus says that it is a matter of inescapable and eternal importance to me that I pay my adversary what I owe him. From our Lord’s standpoint it doesn’t matter whether I am cheated or not, but what does matter is that I don’t cheat someone else. Am I insisting on having my own rights, or am I paying what I owe from Jesus Christ’s standpoint?
Do it quickly— bring yourself to judgment now. In moral and spiritual matters, you must act immediately. If you don’t, the inevitable, relentless process will begin to work. God is determined to have His child as pure, clean, and white as driven snow, and as long as there is disobedience in any point of His teaching, He will allow His Spirit to use whatever process it may take to bring us to obedience. The fact that we insist on proving that we are right is almost always a clear indication that we have some point of disobedience. No wonder the Spirit of God so strongly urges us to stay steadfastly in the light! (see John 3:19-21).
“Agree with your adversary quickly . . . .” Have you suddenly reached a certain place in your relationship with someone, only to find that you have anger in your heart? Confess it quickly— make it right before God. Be reconciled to that person— do it now!
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
AWWY - "How Not to Be a Scary Giant" (#6384)
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Over the years, I've learned a few lessons about how to meet a little child for the first time and how not to. I used to stand there all big and adult and come on real enthusiastic, "Hey, how you doing, Billy?" Well, at that point the child promptly turned his head and disappeared somewhere in his mother's leg.
Have you ever seen that happen? I think I scared him to death! When you're only knee high, and an adult reaches down to you, especially as enthusiastically as I did, it probably looks like Goliath reaching for David.
But I'm getting a little smarter in my old age. Now I sort of squat down or I kneel down; get down where he is and look that little guy in the eye and I talk gently, not real loud. I come on soft instead of strong. And believe it or not, I get some smiles and hand shakes back from little Billy. Even big folks respond better to that kind of treatment.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Not to Be a Scary Giant."
I was at a conference some years ago and a young woman asked me how she could get through to her boss with the Good News about Jesus Christ. The hurdle was that her boss was a homosexual, and he was very guarded when the subject of Jesus came up. And it was further complicated by the fact that this girl is like the picture of innocence. She's the model girl in her youth group, very wholesome looking, doesn't even attend a public school or a Christian school. She's being home schooled as a 16-year-old girl. I showed her the Good News that she has for her boss, and in the process, a little something about herself too.
Our word for today from the Word of God is from 1 Corinthians 6, beginning at verse 9: "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Kingdom of God?" Who are those folks? Well, "Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, or homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God." That's bad news!
Here's the good news, "...and that is what some of you were, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God."
That's a glorious word, "...some of you were like this." No one has to be sexually immoral ever again. No one has to be a drunkard, or a swindler, or a homosexual ever again. "You were washed." The slavery of sin was broken by the cleansing of Christ. And that's good news to deliver, like when I was trying to be friendly to a little child.
But the Good News has to be delivered from across from the person, not above the person. See, most of us don't realize we have to come down to their level. Not to do what they do, but to let them know that this is a sinner who's talking to them; a sinner just as in need of saving. And I'm just talking to a sinner in need of saving. I said to this girl, "Have you ever been greedy?" She said, "Oh, yeah." I said, "Have you ever said anything bad about anyone, slandered anyone?" "Well, I guess." "Have you ever let anything be more important than God is?" "Well, yeah." "Well, see, that's idolatry. We're all in this list. We're on the same list as the sexual immoral." You see, often the one that we're trying to reach feels condemned by our presence.
A person tends to back off like a child retreating from that intimidating adult. That may be how they feel. But that's not how they should feel. "I'm a beggar. You're a beggar. I just happen to be a beggar who found bread."
I want to tell you where I found it. I must never forget that I am a sinner, still desperately in need of what Christ did on the cross. I heard a song recently that said, "Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future." I like that!
When I remember who I am, I'll come in on their level. And maybe they'll be willing to listen to a fellow sinner who has found a Savior, who changes what you were into what you can be. And then I won't be a scary giant.