Max Lucado Daily: God Gives Hope
My grandmother canned her own peach preserves and stored them in an underground cellar. It was a deep hole with wooden steps and a musty smell. As a youngster, I'd climb in, close the door and see how long I could last in the darkness. Not even a slit of light entered that underground hole. I'd sit listening to my breath and heartbeats, until I couldn't take it anymore. Then I would race up the stairs and throw open the door! Light would avalanche into the cellar. What a change! Moments before I couldn't see anything-then, all of a sudden I could see everything!
Just as light poured into the cellar, God's hope pours into your world. Upon the sick, He shines the ray of healing. To the confused, He offers the light of Scripture. God gives hope! Your cup overflows with joy-with grace. Shouldn't your heart overflow with gratitude?
From Traveling Light
Matthew 15:1-20
New International Version (NIV)
That Which Defiles
15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’[c]”
10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”
13 He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides.[d] If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
15 Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
16 “Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. 17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Footnotes:
Matthew 15:4 Exodus 20:12; Deut. 5:16
Matthew 15:4 Exodus 21:17; Lev. 20:9
Matthew 15:9 Isaiah 29:13
Matthew 15:14 Some manuscripts blind guides of the blind
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Philippians 4:10-13
Thanks for Their Gifts
10 I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Insight
The spiritual vitality and confidence found in the inspiring words of today’s text have sustained the faith of believers for hundreds of years. Here Paul wrote, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (v.13). When we read these words we also need to take into consideration their context. Paul, while unjustly incarcerated for his faith, has just received a gracious gift from the congregation in Philippi. The apostle sees a pattern of grace provision in this generous gift. He has learned to rejoice in plenty and to be thankful and satisfied in want. The reason for this is that Jesus Christ, who indwells him and who engineers life’s circumstances, provides him with the power to be resilient in whatever circumstance he must face.
Jordyn’s Journey
By Dennis Fisher
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. —Philippians 4:13
Jordyn Castor was born blind. But this doesn’t hold her back from living a full and productive life. The documentary Can You See How I See? tells her story. She excels at school and with a little help she enjoys biking and downhill skiing.
Of her sight, Jordyn says: “If I could give my blindness back, I wouldn’t do it. I think God made all of us the way we are for a reason . . . and I think my blindness is part of what I am going to do with my life.” She is now a university student majoring in computer technology. Her dream is to assist in developing new computer software that will help the blind.
How can Jordyn maintain such a positive outlook on life? As a Christ-follower, she understands that God is in control of the circumstances of life. This gives her confidence to pursue opportunities that others might not have believed possible. Certainly, Jordyn’s life illustrates this truth from Philippians: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (4:13).
No matter what our strengths or weaknesses might be, God’s providential hand can give us what we need to make a difference for Him in our world. Rely on His strength to help you as you take a step of faith.
“I will strengthen,” so take courage,
Child of God, so weak and frail;
God has said so, and it must be,
For His promise cannot fail! —Anon.
God’s call to a task includes His strength to complete it.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 30, 2014
“Yes— But . . .!”
Lord, I will follow You, but . . . —Luke 9:61
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis— only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Salt Storage - #7145
Friday, May 30, 2014
It was the early winter of 1994 - the one the Sanitation Department of New York City would not forget for a while. Much of the East Coast got hit big time with this parade of snow and ice storms. At one point, they were coming about every other day. You take a hard freeze and frequent storms; well, it just created layers of frozen precipitation on the ground. Kind of like geological strata except slippery. Olympic skaters could have practiced on Broadway or Fifth Avenue.
Needless to say, the sand and salt trucks were working around the clock, and drivers worked such long hours they had to wear name tags when they got home because it was so late when they finally got there! But, ultimately, the slippery stuff wasn't the biggest problem. No, the real crisis was a salt shortage. Now, snow and ice are bad. But no salt on the snow and ice? Well, that's terrible. People were saying, "Hey, they ran out of salt!" Actually, one city official explained that was not the problem. He said, "There's plenty of salt. The problem is we can't get the salt from where it is to where it's needed."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Salt Storage."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 5, beginning at verse 13, "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt looses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again. It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men." God goes on to describe us, then, as "the light of the world, like a city set on a hill." And then He says, "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."
If you're a follower of Jesus, there are two things you need to know that your Savior says you are. You are salt and you are light. Now, it doesn't take a lot of salt to change the environment. I mean, you don't need a pound of salt for a pound of meat, right? You don't have to have as much salt as there is ice. But in order for salt to do any good, it has to be in contact with the thing it is needed to change; on the street or on the meat. It doesn't do anything in a salt shaker or piled in a salt mountain somewhere in a big storage yard.
God's problem with getting Jesus to lost and dying people is the same as that winter emergency in New York; the salt wasn't getting where it was needed. We - who know Christ - often are not in enough meaningful contact with the people who need us most. It's as if there are these great mountains of spiritual salt in a very cold and frozen world. We salt people spend so much time in meetings with each other, doing programs for each other, having concerts with each other, serving on committees for each other, and doing books and music for each other. We're disconnected from the people who are dying without our Jesus.
Isn't it time for the salt to get out where it's needed? We need to leave the comfort of Salt Mountain and dare to risk getting involved in places where lost people are; to look at the unbelieving people around us and start building some bridges into their lives; building intentional rescue relationships. More than picketers, protestors, politickers, or promoters, God needs some of His people to just move close to some people who are not His people.
Would you dare to ask God today to lay some lost person on your heart? Maybe He already has. Ask Him, "God, go ahead and break my heart for the people within my reach who do not have You." And then invest yourself in what Jesus did. He came "to seek and to save those who are lost."
Too many people are slipping away, falling, crashing because there is no salt making a difference where they are. Please, if you know Jesus, be where you are needed the most.
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