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Max Lucado Daily:
The Perfect Guide
The story is told of a man on an African safari deep in the jungle. The guide had a machete and was whacking away the tall weeds and thick underbrush. The traveler, wearied and hot, asked in frustration, “Where are we? Do you know where you’re taking me? Where’s the path?” The seasoned guide stopped and looked back at the man and replied, “I am the path.”
We ask the same questions, don’t we? We ask God, “Where are you taking me? Where’s the path? Oh, He may give us a hint or two, but that’s all. If he did give us more, would we understand? No, like the traveler, we’re unacquainted with this jungle. So rather than give us an answer, He gives us a far greater gift. Jesus gives us Himself. He says in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always to the very end of the age.”
We need that reminder!
From Traveling Light
Jeremiah 3
New International Version (NIV)
3 “If a man divorces his wife
and she leaves him and marries another man,
should he return to her again?
Would not the land be completely defiled?
But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—
would you now return to me?”
declares the Lord.
2 “Look up to the barren heights and see.
Is there any place where you have not been ravished?
By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers,
sat like a nomad in the desert.
You have defiled the land
with your prostitution and wickedness.
3 Therefore the showers have been withheld,
and no spring rains have fallen.
Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;
you refuse to blush with shame.
4 Have you not just called to me:
‘My Father, my friend from my youth,
5 will you always be angry?
Will your wrath continue forever?’
This is how you talk,
but you do all the evil you can.”
Unfaithful Israel
6 During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. 7 I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. 8 I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. 9 Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. 10 In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord.
11 The Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah. 12 Go, proclaim this message toward the north:
“‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord,
‘I will frown on you no longer,
for I am faithful,’ declares the Lord,
‘I will not be angry forever.
13 Only acknowledge your guilt—
you have rebelled against the Lord your God,
you have scattered your favors to foreign gods
under every spreading tree,
and have not obeyed me,’”
declares the Lord.
14 “Return, faithless people,” declares the Lord, “for I am your husband. I will choose you—one from a town and two from a clan—and bring you to Zion. 15 Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding. 16 In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the Lord, “people will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made. 17 At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the Lord, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the Lord. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts. 18 In those days the people of Judah will join the people of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your ancestors as an inheritance.
19 “I myself said,
“‘How gladly would I treat you like my children
and give you a pleasant land,
the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.’
I thought you would call me ‘Father’
and not turn away from following me.
20 But like a woman unfaithful to her husband,
so you, Israel, have been unfaithful to me,”
declares the Lord.
21 A cry is heard on the barren heights,
the weeping and pleading of the people of Israel,
because they have perverted their ways
and have forgotten the Lord their God.
22 “Return, faithless people;
I will cure you of backsliding.”
“Yes, we will come to you,
for you are the Lord our God.
23 Surely the idolatrous commotion on the hills
and mountains is a deception;
surely in the Lord our God
is the salvation of Israel.
24 From our youth shameful gods have consumed
the fruits of our ancestors’ labor—
their flocks and herds,
their sons and daughters.
25 Let us lie down in our shame,
and let our disgrace cover us.
We have sinned against the Lord our God,
both we and our ancestors;
from our youth till this day
we have not obeyed the Lord our God.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Philippians 2:1-11
Imitating Christ’s Humility
2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Country Doctor
June 25, 2013 — by Dennis Fisher
Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. —Philippians 2:3
Sinclair Lewis’ novel Main Street tells the story of Carol, a sophisticated city woman who marries a country doctor. She feels superior to others in her new small-town environment. But her husband’s response to a medical crisis challenges her snobbery. An immigrant farmer terribly injures his arm, which needs to be amputated. Carol watches with admiration as her husband speaks comforting words to the injured man and his distraught wife. The physician’s warmth and servant attitude challenges Carol’s prideful mindset.
In all of our relationships as Jesus’ followers, we can choose to think we’re superior or we can humbly serve the interests of others. Paul, the apostle, tells us, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:3-4).
We can learn to consider others’ needs more important than our own as we focus on Jesus’ example. He took “the form of a bondservant,” and gave Himself up for us (vv.5-8). When we fail in valuing others, His sacrifice for us shows us the humble, better way.
More like the Master I would ever be,
More of His meekness, more humility;
More zeal to labor, more courage to be true,
More consecration for work He bids me do. —Gabriel
Joy comes from putting another’s welfare ahead of your own.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
June 25, 2013
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
. . . what shall I say? ’Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. ’Father, glorify Your name’ —John 12:27-28
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Lincoln's Last Wish - #6902
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Abraham Lincoln was the hero of my boyhood. Not because I knew him personally or was alive when he was alive. But he was kind of my guy that I was the encyclopedia about. He died on Good Friday. Yeah, he did. And until recently, I didn't know his final wish. He actually whispered it to his wife just before that fatal shot at Ford's Theatre, and it's pretty moving.
Abe Lincoln grew up with a God-loving mother and a religious father. But he was demanding; he was distant. Abe's mom died when he was a boy. And as Lincoln grew, he went from a spiritual skeptic to actually a Bible-bashing unbeliever. But somewhere along the way, he began to realize his deep need for God. I guess losing a son and carrying the weight of a bleeding nation can do that for a man.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lincoln's Last Wish."
The Civil War ended five days before that fateful Good Friday. On what would be the Great Emancipator's last day on earth, he and his wife went for a carriage ride. And, with the war over, they kind of dreamed together about the months and the years ahead.
Then at the theater that night - literally as the assassin crept into the President's box - Abraham Lincoln uttered his final wish to his wife, Mary. "We will visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior. There is no place I so much desire to see as Jerusalem." And then he was gone. In his last moments, he was thinking about Jesus. "The Savior," he called Him.
The journey Abe Lincoln wished for is actually a journey I have made, because ultimately it's a journey of the heart: Walking with Jesus, through the cheering multitudes of that Palm Sunday, through the jeering crowd of Good Friday, and then following the trail of blood to that place of death called Skull Hill.
The crown made of thorns jammed into the forehead of the King of Kings. The merciless mockers, blaspheming the One that angels worship. The spikes pounded into the hands that shaped the universe. The "God, why have You forsaken Me?" cry of God's one and only Son. My heart's screaming, "Why?"
The Bible answers in our word for today from the Word of God in Galatians 2:20. "The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me." For me - that's what levels me. Jesus chose to go through that hell for me. And hell it was, because the Bible says, "He personally carried our sins in His own body on the cross" (1 Peter 2:24) - the pain, the guilt, the eternal separation from God for all the sinning of my life. Jesus took my hell so I could go to His heaven.
Yes, my heart has been to His cross. I went there with my sin and I left forgiven. I went there dirty and I came away clean. I went there without Him in my life and I left there with the promise that I'll never be without Him again. Because I got what He died for when those two words captured my heart. "For me." He did this for me.
I embraced Him as the Savior for me, for my sin. And I flung open the door of my heart to this One who has loved me like no other. He said, "If you open the door, I will come in" (Revelation 3:20). He kept His promise. He's done that for everyone who's ever opened the door, and He will for you if you'll make your way to that cross and tell Him, "For me, Jesus. For me."
If you have never told the Man who died for you that you're pinning all your hopes on Him, I invite you to join me at our website, YoursForLife.net. Please let me share with you how this day can be your personal Jesus-day. See, He walked out of His grave that Easter morning so He could walk into your life today.
(Lincoln account based on the book, "Lincoln's Battle with God;" Stephen Mansfield; Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2012, pp. xiii-xvii.)
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