Max Lucado Daily: Settling the Score
Do not try to punish others
when they wrong you, but wait for God
to punish them with his anger.
Romans 12:19
In the western movies the bounty hunter always travels alone. It’s not hard to see why. Who wants to hang out with a guy who settles scores for a living? Who wants to risk getting on his bad side?
More than once I’ve heard a person spew his anger. He thought I was listening, when really I was thinking, I hope I never get on his list.
Cantankerous sorts, these bounty hunters. Best leave them alone. Hang out with the angry and you might catch a stray bullet.
If you’re out to settle the score, you’ll never rest. How can you?
Romans 12:19 reminds us, “Do not try to punish others when they wrong you, but wait for God to punish them with his anger.”
As justified as you are in your quest for vengeance, you may never get justice. And if you do, will it make a difference?
2 Samuel 20
Sheba Rebels Against David
1 Now a troublemaker named Sheba son of Bikri, a Benjamite, happened to be there. He sounded the trumpet and shouted,
“We have no share in David,
no part in Jesse’s son!
Every man to his tent, Israel!”
2 So all the men of Israel deserted David to follow Sheba son of Bikri. But the men of Judah stayed by their king all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem.
3 When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them but had no sexual relations with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows.
4 Then the king said to Amasa, “Summon the men of Judah to come to me within three days, and be here yourself.” 5 But when Amasa went to summon Judah, he took longer than the time the king had set for him.
6 David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bikri will do us more harm than Absalom did. Take your master’s men and pursue him, or he will find fortified cities and escape from us.”[b] 7 So Joab’s men and the Kerethites and Pelethites and all the mighty warriors went out under the command of Abishai. They marched out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba son of Bikri.
8 While they were at the great rock in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Joab was wearing his military tunic, and strapped over it at his waist was a belt with a dagger in its sheath. As he stepped forward, it dropped out of its sheath.
9 Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” Then Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. 10 Amasa was not on his guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab plunged it into his belly, and his intestines spilled out on the ground. Without being stabbed again, Amasa died. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bikri.
11 One of Joab’s men stood beside Amasa and said, “Whoever favors Joab, and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab!” 12 Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the middle of the road, and the man saw that all the troops came to a halt there. When he realized that everyone who came up to Amasa stopped, he dragged him from the road into a field and threw a garment over him. 13 After Amasa had been removed from the road, everyone went on with Joab to pursue Sheba son of Bikri.
14 Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel Beth Maakah and through the entire region of the Bikrites,[c] who gathered together and followed him. 15 All the troops with Joab came and besieged Sheba in Abel Beth Maakah. They built a siege ramp up to the city, and it stood against the outer fortifications. While they were battering the wall to bring it down, 16 a wise woman called from the city, “Listen! Listen! Tell Joab to come here so I can speak to him.” 17 He went toward her, and she asked, “Are you Joab?”
“I am,” he answered.
She said, “Listen to what your servant has to say.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
18 She continued, “Long ago they used to say, ‘Get your answer at Abel,’ and that settled it. 19 We are the peaceful and faithful in Israel. You are trying to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why do you want to swallow up the LORD’s inheritance?”
20 “Far be it from me!” Joab replied, “Far be it from me to swallow up or destroy! 21 That is not the case. A man named Sheba son of Bikri, from the hill country of Ephraim, has lifted up his hand against the king, against David. Hand over this one man, and I’ll withdraw from the city.”
The woman said to Joab, “His head will be thrown to you from the wall.”
22 Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice, and they cut off the head of Sheba son of Bikri and threw it to Joab. So he sounded the trumpet, and his men dispersed from the city, each returning to his home. And Joab went back to the king in Jerusalem.
David’s Officials
23 Joab was over Israel’s entire army; Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and Pelethites; 24 Adoniram[d] was in charge of forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder; 25 Sheva was secretary; Zadok and Abiathar were priests; 26 and Ira the Jairite[e] was David’s priest.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: John 6:25-41
Jesus the Bread of Life
25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[a]”
32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”
Free Pizza!
December 13, 2011 — by Anne Cetas
I am the bread which came down from heaven. —John 6:41
Money is tight when you’re a college student. So when free food is available, students will show up anytime, anywhere. If a company wants to recruit new employees, it will entice young people on college campuses to come to a presentation by offering free pizza. Some students attend presentation after presentation—just for the pizza. The food in the present seems to be more important than the job for the future.
Jesus fed a crowd of 5,000, and the next day many searched for Him (John 6:10-11,24-25). He challenged them: “You seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled” (v.26). It seems that the food was more important to some of the people than the everlasting life Jesus offered in Himself. He told them He was “the bread of God . . . who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (v.33). Some didn’t believe, wouldn’t accept His teaching, and “walked with Him no more” (v.66). They had wanted the food, but they didn’t want Him and what would be required of them to follow Him.
Jesus calls us today to come to Him—not for the blessings from His hand but to receive the eternal life He offers and to follow Him, “the bread of God.”
Examining our motives
For following the Lord
Will show if we’re authentically
Believing in His Word. —Sper
Only Christ the Living Bread can satisfy our spiritual hunger.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Intercessory Prayer
. . . men always ought to pray and not lose heart —Luke 18:1
You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others, which will serve only to increase the contentment they have for remaining out of touch with God. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to “fill up . . . [with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, “It is putting yourself in someone else’s place.” That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and His perspective.
As an intercessor, be careful not to seek too much information from God regarding the situation you are praying about, because you may be overwhelmed. If you know too much, more than God has ordained for you to know, you can’t pray; the circumstances of the people become so overpowering that you are no longer able to get to the underlying truth.
Our work is to be in such close contact with God that we may have His mind about everything, but we shirk that responsibility by substituting doing for interceding. And yet intercession is the only thing that has no drawbacks, because it keeps our relationship completely open with God.
What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply “patched up.” We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Very Needy, Very Close - #6502
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
"We were closer when we were poorer." The lady who told me that was speaking about her marriage, and she wasn't poor any more. You could tell that by looking at her. She was very affluent. But she was telling me that she and her husband were closer in the early days of their relationship when they were pinching pennies, and scraping by, and wondering how they were going to pay the rent, and fighting the wolf at the door. But they were at least fighting the wolf together.
Now, since that conversation with that lady I've had many opportunities to quote her at, oh, women's luncheons and dinners. And I always see women's head nodding in agreement as if that's been the case in their life too. Apparently there's something about not having much that can make a relationship stronger.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Very Needy, Very Close."
The Apostle Paul knew about poor making you close, in life's most important relationship that is. He talked about it in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in 2 Corinthians 12:9. He says, quoting the Lord, "But He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore (Paul says) I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power will rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
I've had the wonderful privilege of meeting believers from a lot of other countries: Haiti, Africa, India, a lot of places like that. And I've noticed something about them. It's something, honestly, that I covet. They seem to live in the supernatural more than I do, and more than most Christians I know in this country. They seem to pray powerfully and they expect and honestly they often get miracles. They're radically Christian. And I feel like a pale office worker who hasn't been out in the sun all year, standing next to someone who just got back from Florida with a deep spiritual tan. I want what they have. And one believer summed up their secret. He said, "Ron, we live in a poor village. We have no regular support. We don't have organizations or manuals or tools. We only have God." I can't get those words out of my heart, "We only have God."
See, they're rich in God because they're poor in earth. They're very needy and they're very close to God. Now, our Christianity is active, and sophisticated, and well managed, well planned, well financed, and often pretty powerless. The early church had little machinery and much power. We seem to have much machinery and, yeah, little power.
I guess there are three roads that we rich Christians can take. One, we can continue with our mediocrity, doing the biggest things that man can do. Two, we can learn God's power through a time when He strips us of all the earth things that we are depending on. Or three, we could use all God has given us, but put no trust in it.
You know, couples can have a lot but hold it loosely and still love each other as if they were living on pork and beans. A Christian can live in America and have it all but ask God to teach them childlike dependency. All that we have blinds us to our total need - our desperate need - of God and His power. We're as needy as the Christian from India, barely surviving in his village. We just don't recognize it. We just don't admit it. We just don't acknowledge it. We just don't live like it.
When you recognize how poor you are, you're really rich. Whether we live in a condo or a hut; whether we eat filet or rice, we only have God.