Max Lucado Daily: Unnecessary Messes
A lot of us make unnecessary messes. But we can change that. May I make a suggestion? Before you face the world, face your Father.
Take this "pocket prayer:"
"Father. . .You are good. Your heart is good." The words come slowly at first, but stay at it… "Your ways are right. The weather's bad, the economy is bad, but God, you are awesome."
Don't underestimate the power of this moment. You just opened the door to God and welcomed truth to enter your heart. Who knows, you might even start to worship. Is your world different because you prayed? In one sense, no. But you are different. You have peace. You've talked with your Father.
Here's my challenge to you today! With a "pocket prayer" you'll find at BeforeAmen.com-join me every day for 4 weeks to pray 4 minutes-it'll change your life forever!
Before Amen
Leviticus 26
Reward for Obedience
“‘Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.
2 “‘Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3 “‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, 4 I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit. 5 Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.
6 “‘I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove wild beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country. 7 You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you. 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
9 “‘I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you. 10 You will still be eating last year’s harvest when you will have to move it out to make room for the new. 11 I will put my dwelling place[a] among you, and I will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
Punishment for Disobedience
14 “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies; those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you.
18 “‘If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. 19 I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron and the ground beneath you like bronze. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain, because your soil will not yield its crops, nor will the trees of your land yield their fruit.
21 “‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. 22 I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted.
23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, 24 I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over. 25 And I will bring the sword on you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into your cities, I will send a plague among you, and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven, and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat, but you will not be satisfied.
27 “‘If in spite of this you still do not listen to me but continue to be hostile toward me, 28 then in my anger I will be hostile toward you, and I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies[b] on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. 31 I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. 32 I myself will lay waste the land, so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it.
36 “‘As for those of you who are left, I will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. 37 They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So you will not be able to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins they will waste away.
40 “‘But if they will confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors—their unfaithfulness and their hostility toward me, 41 which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their enemies—then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for their sin, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them. They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”
46 These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, October 24, 2014
Read: Titus 3:1-7
Do What Is Good
Remind the believers to submit to the government and its officers. They should be obedient, always ready to do what is good. 2 They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone.
3 Once we, too, were foolish and disobedient. We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy, and we hated each other. 4 But—
When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, 5 he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.[a] 6 He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. 7 Because of his grace he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.
Footnotes:
3:5 Greek He saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Insight
According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, Titus “was with Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, and accompanied them to the council at Jerusalem (Gal. 2:1-3; Acts 15:2) . . . . He appears to have been a Gentile, and to have been chiefly engaged in ministering to Gentiles; for Paul sternly refused to have him circumcised . . . . [Later] he was sent by Paul to Corinth for the purpose of getting the contributions of the church there in behalf of the poor saints at Jerusalem sent forward (2 Cor. 8:6, 12:18).”
Tiny Island
By Poh Fang Chia
Speak evil of no one, . . . be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. —Titus 3:2
Singapore is a tiny island. It’s so small that one can hardly spot it on the world map. (Try it, if you don’t already know where Singapore is.) Because it is densely populated, consideration of others is especially important. A man wrote to his fiancée who was coming to Singapore for the first time: “Space is limited. Therefore . . . you must always have that sense of space around you. You should always step aside to ensure you are not blocking anyone. The key is to be considerate.”
The apostle Paul wrote to Titus, a young pastor: “Remind the people . . . to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone” (Titus 3:1-2 niv). It has been said, “Our lives may be the only Bible some people read.” The world knows that Christians are supposed to be different. If we are cantankerous, self-absorbed, and rude, what will others think about Christ and the gospel we share?
Being considerate is a good motto to live by and is possible as we depend on the Lord. And it is one way to model Christ and demonstrate to the world that Jesus saves and transforms lives.
Dear Lord, help us to be gracious, kind, and
considerate not only in the church but also in our
community. May the world who watches see
transformed people and believe in Your transforming power.
Your witness is only as strong as your character.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, October 24, 2014
The Proper Perspective
Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ . . . —2 Corinthians 2:14
The proper perspective of a servant of God must not simply be as near to the highest as he can get, but it must be the highest. Be careful that you vigorously maintain God’s perspective, and remember that it must be done every day, little by little. Don’t think on a finite level. No outside power can touch the proper perspective.
The proper perspective to maintain is that we are here for only one purpose— to be captives marching in the procession of Christ’s triumphs. We are not on display in God’s showcase— we are here to exhibit only one thing— the “captivity [of our lives] to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). How small all the other perspectives are! For example, the ones that say, “I am standing all alone, battling for Jesus,” or, “I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold down this fort for Him.” But Paul said, in essence, “I am in the procession of a conqueror, and it doesn’t matter what the difficulties are, for I am always led in triumph.” Is this idea being worked out practically in us? Paul’s secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive— and that became his purpose. It was Paul’s joy to be a captive of the Lord, and he had no other interest in heaven or on earth. It is a shameful thing for a Christian to talk about getting the victory. We should belong so completely to the Victor that it is always His victory, and “we are more than conquerors through Him . . .” (Romans 8:37).
“We are to God the fragrance of Christ . . .” (2 Corinthians 2:15). We are encompassed with the sweet aroma of Jesus, and wherever we go we are a wonderful refreshment to God.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, October 24, 2014
Laughing When They're Crying - #7250
They were very exciting years; those days when God launched our radio outreach to young people. The Lord used that program to present Jesus to young people in almost 400 areas of this country and about 60 countries of the world. And the early ones; the first ones we did, they were especially exciting because it was a new kind of Christian program. We were living in New Jersey. The program originated from Chicago, and it was neat to have two or three children with me for those pioneer broadcasts. We kind of shared the excitement.
At our first live "call in" on a Saturday night, we were so excited! So we celebrated by going to one of the most famous pizza restaurants in Chicago. There was a long line to get in (Like there usually is on the weekend.), and the line went past a pay phone in the days before cell phones. We didn't have much to do waiting in line, so we had this great idea. I said, "Hey, let's call your little brother. Let's include him in the celebration!" We were all pumped! Bad idea.
So we called and we were all talking at once about how the program had gone, and about the neat pizza place where we were at, and then there was finally a brief break in our chatter and my youngest son finally had a chance to talk. He started crying about our little parakeet, Chappy. He just said, "Chappy's dead." That's all he could say. So here we are partying over the phone, and the kid on the other end is in parakeet mourning.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Laughing When They're Crying."
Our word for today from the Word of God is from Romans 12:15. It's a call to care-a challenge to live sensitively. It simply says, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn." No heavy theology. No big words. Just a down-to-earth definition of what it means to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Which James describes as "the royal law."
It means that we're going to have to do better than that night that we called my youngest. I mean, we were laughing and he was crying. How do we make the mistake of walking over people's feelings instead of walking with them through their feelings? It starts by what we did that night when we had so much to celebrate. We talked before we listened.
God knew we needed this reminder in James 1:19, "Be slow to speak and quick to listen." See, we always want to come roaring in with our story, our feelings, our problem, our victory. But love and unselfishness, you know what they say? "First, how are you feeling?" That's hard for me when I'm coming back excited, let's say, from what God has done on a recent ministry trip. But if I'm going to really love my wife, I need to hold back. I've got to ask her what's happened in her life while I'm gone. If I don't listen, I won't know whether she needs for me to laugh with her or weep with her.
Without thinking, we tend to operate on the principle that what I have to say is more important than what you have to say. What I've got to get done is more important than what you've got to get done. What I'm feeling is more important. We run right over people who need us to either laugh with them or weep with them.
But Jesus shows us something better. Even in His hour of ultimate suffering on the cross, He was caring about the needs of His mother, caring about the man on the cross next to Him. In Hebrews 4:15 it says of the busiest person in the universe, "He is not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses." He enters into our feelings, so we can trust Him.
People around you need your Jesus, and they need Him sometimes with skin on. You're His skin, you're His face, you're His listening ear, you're His voice, you're His tender heart. It means you're willing to weep with them even when you feel like rejoicing, and to rejoice with them even if you feel like weeping.
I won't forget that night we inadvertently added to a little boy's grief because we didn't feel his heart before we talked about ours. Love in the simplest form is putting the other person first, and leading with what is in their heart.
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