Max Lucado Daily: Tell the Truth
Our dislike for the truth began at age three when mom walked in our rooms and asked, “Did you hit your little brother?” We knew then and there that honesty had its consequences. “Did I hit baby brother? Well, that all depends on how you interpret the word hit.”
We want our bosses to like us, so we flatter. God calls it a lie. We want people to admire us, so we exaggerate. God calls it a lie. We want people to respect us, so we live in houses we can’t afford and charge bills we can’t pay. God calls it living a lie.
The cure for deceit is simply this: face the music. The ripple of today’s lie is tomorrow’s wave and next year’s flood.
Be just like Jesus. Tell the truth!
from Just Like Jesus
Job 19
Then Job replied:
2 “How long will you torment me
and crush me with words?
3 Ten times now you have reproached me;
shamelessly you attack me.
4 If it is true that I have gone astray,
my error remains my concern alone.
5 If indeed you would exalt yourselves above me
and use my humiliation against me,
6 then know that God has wronged me
and drawn his net around me.
7 “Though I cry, ‘Violence!’ I get no response;
though I call for help, there is no justice.
8 He has blocked my way so I cannot pass;
he has shrouded my paths in darkness.
9 He has stripped me of my honor
and removed the crown from my head.
10 He tears me down on every side till I am gone;
he uproots my hope like a tree.
11 His anger burns against me;
he counts me among his enemies.
12 His troops advance in force;
they build a siege ramp against me
and encamp around my tent.
13 “He has alienated my family from me;
my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.
14 My relatives have gone away;
my closest friends have forgotten me.
15 My guests and my female servants count me a foreigner;
they look on me as on a stranger.
16 I summon my servant, but he does not answer,
though I beg him with my own mouth.
17 My breath is offensive to my wife;
I am loathsome to my own family.
18 Even the little boys scorn me;
when I appear, they ridicule me.
19 All my intimate friends detest me;
those I love have turned against me.
20 I am nothing but skin and bones;
I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.[b]
21 “Have pity on me, my friends, have pity,
for the hand of God has struck me.
22 Why do you pursue me as God does?
Will you never get enough of my flesh?
23 “Oh, that my words were recorded,
that they were written on a scroll,
24 that they were inscribed with an iron tool on[c] lead,
or engraved in rock forever!
25 I know that my redeemer[d] lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.[e]
26 And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet[f] in[g] my flesh I will see God;
27 I myself will see him
with my own eyes—I, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!
28 “If you say, ‘How we will hound him,
since the root of the trouble lies in him,[h]’
29 you should fear the sword yourselves;
for wrath will bring punishment by the sword,
and then you will know that there is judgment.[i]”
Job 19:20 Or only by my gums
Job 19:24 Or and
Job 19:25 Or vindicator
Job 19:25 Or on my grave
Job 19:26 Or And after I awake, / though this body has been destroyed, / then
Job 19:26 Or destroyed, / apart from
Job 19:28 Many Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint and Vulgate; most Hebrew manuscripts me
Job 19:29 Or sword, / that you may come to know the Almighty
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Psalm 107:1-16
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
2 Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
3 those he gathered from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.[a]
4 Some wandered in desert wastelands,
finding no way to a city where they could settle.
5 They were hungry and thirsty,
and their lives ebbed away.
6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
7 He led them by a straight way
to a city where they could settle.
8 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
9 for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.
10 Some sat in darkness, in utter darkness,
prisoners suffering in iron chains,
11 because they rebelled against God’s commands
and despised the plans of the Most High.
12 So he subjected them to bitter labor;
they stumbled, and there was no one to help.
13 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress.
14 He brought them out of darkness, the utter darkness,
and broke away their chains.
15 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
16 for he breaks down gates of bronze
and cuts through bars of iron.
Footnotes:
Psalm 107:3 Hebrew north and the sea
He Changed My Life
By David C. McCasland
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy. —Psalm 107:2
Following the death of computer pioneer Steve Jobs in 2011, more than one million people from around the world posted tributes to him online. The common theme was how Jobs had changed their lives. They said they lived differently because of his creative innovations, and they wanted to express their appreciation and their sorrow. The screen of one tablet computer said in large letters: iSad.
Gratitude fuels expression, which is exactly what Psalm 107 describes: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy” (v.2). The theme of this psalm is people in great trouble who were delivered by the Lord. Some were homeless and in need (vv.4-5); some had rebelled against God’s Word (vv.10-11); others were at their wits’ end when they cried out to God (vv.26-27). All were rescued by God. “Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!” (vv.8,15,21,31).
When we consider the greatness of God’s love, His grace in sending Jesus Christ to die for us and rise again, and what He has delivered us from, we cannot keep from praising Him and wanting to tell others how He changed our lives!
O God, my heart is filled with praise for all that You
have done for me. You have changed the focus
and purpose of my life because You sent Your Son.
Thank You.
Our gratitude to God for salvation fuels our witness to others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, May 03, 2014
Vital Intercession
. . . praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit . . . —Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, “I will not allow that thing to happen.” And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own “sad and pitiful self.” You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
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