Max Lucado Daily: What Love Doesn’t
“Love . . . does not boast, it is not proud.” I Corinthians 13:4 NIV
Jesus blasts the top birds of the church, those who roost at the top of the spiritual ladder and spread their plumes of robes, titles, jewelry, and choice seats. Jesus won’t stand for it. It’s easy to see why. How can I love others if my eyes are only on me? How can I point to God if I’m pointing at me? And, worse still, how can someone see God if I keep fanning my own tail feathers?
Jesus has no room for pecking orders.
Luke 19:28-48
New International Version (NIV)
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King
28 After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 30 “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”
32 Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. 33 As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
34 They replied, “The Lord needs it.”
35 They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. 36 As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
37 When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
38 “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”[a]
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”
41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”
Jesus at the Temple
45 When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. 46 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be a house of prayer’[b]; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’[c]”
47 Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. 48 Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 2 Corinthians 1:1-10
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
To the church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy people throughout Achaia:
2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Praise to the God of All Comfort
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,[a] about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. 10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,
Healing From Heaven
October 3, 2011 — by Dennis Fisher
Blessed be . . . the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. —2 Corinthians 1:3
Thomas Moore (1779–1852) was an Irish songwriter, singer, and poet. His talents brought joy to many who saw him perform or who sang his music. Yet, tragically, his personal life was troubled by repeated heartaches, including the death of all five of his children during his lifetime. Moore’s personal wounds make these words of his all the more meaningful: “Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish; earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” This moving statement reminds us that meeting with God in prayer can bring healing to the troubled soul.
The apostle Paul also saw how our heavenly Father can provide solace to the hurting heart. To the believers at Corinth he wrote: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation” (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Sometimes, though, we can be so preoccupied with an inner sorrow that we isolate ourselves from the One who can offer consolation. We need to be reminded that God’s comfort and healing come through prayer.
As we confide in our Father, we can experience peace and the beginning of healing for our wounded hearts. For truly “earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.”
Under His wings, what a refuge in sorrow!
How the heart yearningly turns to His rest!
Often when earth has no balm for my healing,
There I find comfort, and there I am blessed. —Cushing
Prayer is the soil in which hope and healing grow best.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
October 3rd, 2011
The Place of Ministry
He said to them, ’This kind [of unclean spirit] can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting’ —Mark 9:29
His disciples asked Him privately, ’Why could we not cast it out?’ ” (Mark 9:28). The answer lies in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. “This kind can come out by nothing but” concentrating on Him, and then doubling and redoubling that concentration on Him. We can remain powerless forever, as the disciples were in this situation, by trying to do God’s work without concentrating on His power, and by following instead the ideas that we draw from our own nature. We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him.
When you are brought face to face with a difficult situation and nothing happens externally, you can still know that freedom and release will be given because of your continued concentration on Jesus Christ. Your duty in service and ministry is to see that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. Is there anything between you and Jesus even now? If there is, you must get through it, not by ignoring it as an irritation, or by going up and over it, but by facing it and getting through it into the presence of Jesus Christ. Then that very problem itself, and all that you have been through in connection with it, will glorify Jesus Christ in a way that you will never know until you see Him face to face.
We must be able to “mount up with wings like eagles” (Isaiah 40:31), but we must also know how to come down. The power of the saint lies in the coming down and in the living that is done in the valley. Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) and what he was referring to were mostly humiliating things. And yet it is in our power to refuse to be humiliated and to say, “No, thank you, I much prefer to be on the mountaintop with God.” Can I face things as they actually are in the light of the reality of Jesus Christ, or do things as they really are destroy my faith in Him, and put me into a panic?
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
A Hole in the Dam, Trouble Downstream - #6451
Monday, October 3, 2011
Now, listen. When it's man versus lots of water, you know the water is often going to win. Oh, we've built dams and levees and water management systems. But sometimes, like this past spring, and then along the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers, oh man, just too much water!
Of course, it's hard to see them having to dynamite holes in a dam, which they did. Now, they knew they were saving a town, but they also knew they had to inundate thousands of acres of farmland. So, there goes a crop. There goes a harvest. There goes some family's income. And then downriver, oh man, they had to open the gates on a dam, knowing that the resulting flood again might save a city but drown a town.
But there is some good news. In a lot of places, the dams and the levees managed to hold back the flood. If it weren't for those walls, well, the flood would wash away everything in its path.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Hole in the Dam, Trouble Downstream."
Now, I watched the news about all that high-water drama that took place during spring floods, and as it unfolded it actually gave new meaning to a personal testimony that I have shared with some people who are close to me. I've actually put it this way: I have told them that my time with Jesus is literally the dam that holds back the dark side of me; the sinful dark side that we all have.
In our word for today from the Word of God, Psalm 119:11, it says, "I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You." God's Word--that's what stands between me and the flood. I honestly cannot afford to miss a day where I spend time with Jesus in His Book. Not because it's my Christian duty to read my Bible, or because I'm afraid I'll get a flat tire or a sprained ankle, or some kind of curse will come on me if I don't, but because I really, really love Him. And I really, really need Him.
Hey, we all know about the war. It's talked about in the book of Galatians, "The sinful nature wants to do evil...the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires." You know that battle. "These two forces are constantly fighting each other" (Galatians 5:17 - NLB). Now, the difference is the sin-disarming power of the Word of God. Jesus put it this way: "Now you are clean through the Word I have spoken to you" (John 15:3).
I heard a story about a concert violinist once who said, "If I miss a day of practice, I notice. If I miss two days, my friends notice. If I miss three days, the whole world notices." Well, I tell you what, I can tell the days when I've been too "busy" to start my day in His Word, because the dam starts to leak. And the parts of me that God hates, and I hate, and the people who love me hate, those parts start to slowly take over again. I have found the power of daily being in God's Word to be, yes, that wonderful wall that holds back the worst of "old Ron."
So, I can't afford to miss many days, and I don't think you can either, because we've all got a dark side that will leak without the dam there. My time with Jesus in His Word? It can't be optional. No, it's got to be non-negotiable, because a hole in the dam can do so much damage downstream.