Six hours, one Friday. Mundane to the casual observer. A shepherd with his sheep, a housewife with her thoughts, a doctor with his patients. But to a handful of awestruck witnesses, the most maddening of miracles is occurring. God is on a cross. The creator of the universe is being executed.
It is no normal six hours. It is no normal Friday. Far worse than the breaking of his body is the shredding of his heart. And now his own father is beginning to turn his back on him, leaving him alone. What do you do with that day in history? What do you do with its claims? They were the most critical hours in history.
Nails didn't hold God to a cross. Love did. The sinless One took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint!
"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21).
From Six Hours One Friday
Job 5
“Call if you will, but who will answer you?
To which of the holy ones will you turn?
2 Resentment kills a fool,
and envy slays the simple.
3 I myself have seen a fool taking root,
but suddenly his house was cursed.
4 His children are far from safety,
crushed in court without a defender.
5 The hungry consume his harvest,
taking it even from among thorns,
and the thirsty pant after his wealth.
6 For hardship does not spring from the soil,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground.
7 Yet man is born to trouble
as surely as sparks fly upward.
8 “But if I were you, I would appeal to God;
I would lay my cause before him.
9 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
miracles that cannot be counted.
10 He provides rain for the earth;
he sends water on the countryside.
11 The lowly he sets on high,
and those who mourn are lifted to safety.
12 He thwarts the plans of the crafty,
so that their hands achieve no success.
13 He catches the wise in their craftiness,
and the schemes of the wily are swept away.
14 Darkness comes upon them in the daytime;
at noon they grope as in the night.
15 He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth;
he saves them from the clutches of the powerful.
16 So the poor have hope,
and injustice shuts its mouth.
17 “Blessed is the one whom God corrects;
so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.[a]
18 For he wounds, but he also binds up;
he injures, but his hands also heal.
19 From six calamities he will rescue you;
in seven no harm will touch you.
20 In famine he will deliver you from death,
and in battle from the stroke of the sword.
21 You will be protected from the lash of the tongue,
and need not fear when destruction comes.
22 You will laugh at destruction and famine,
and need not fear the wild animals.
23 For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field,
and the wild animals will be at peace with you.
24 You will know that your tent is secure;
you will take stock of your property and find nothing missing.
25 You will know that your children will be many,
and your descendants like the grass of the earth.
26 You will come to the grave in full vigor,
like sheaves gathered in season.
27 “We have examined this, and it is true.
So hear it and apply it to yourself.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: Ephesians 2:1-10
Made Alive in Christ
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Footnotes:
Ephesians 2:3 In contexts like this, the Greek word for flesh (sarx) refers to the sinful state of human beings, often presented as a power in opposition to the Spirit.
Insight
Twice in today’s passage, Paul affirms that our salvation is God’s gift, for “by grace you have been saved” (vv.5,8). He reminds us that we are saved so that we can do good works (v.10). In other epistles, Paul encourages us to be “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14), to be “fruitful in every good work” (Col. 1:10), and to demonstrate “an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8). Martin Luther put it this way: “We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”
I’m Alive
By Marvin Williams
You He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. —Ephesians 2:1
Laura Brooks, a 52-year-old mother of two, didn’t know it but she was one of 14,000 people in 2011 whose name was incorrectly entered into the government database as dead. She wondered what was wrong when she stopped receiving disability checks, and her loan payments and her rent checks bounced. She went to the bank to clear up the issue, but the representative told her that her accounts had been closed because she was dead! Obviously, they were mistaken.
The apostle Paul was not mistaken when he said that the Ephesian believers were at one point dead—spiritually dead. They were dead in the sense that they were separated from God, enslaved to sin (Eph. 2:5), and condemned under the wrath of God. What a state of hopelessness!
Yet God in His goodness took action to reverse this condition for them and for us. The living God “who gives life to the dead” (Rom. 4:17) poured out His rich mercy and great love by sending His Son Jesus to this earth. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, we are made alive (Eph. 2:4-5).
When we believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we go from death to life. Now we live to rejoice in His goodness!
I know I’m a sinner and Christ is my need;
His death is my ransom, no merit I plead.
His work is sufficient, on Him I believe;
I have life eternal when Him I receive. —Anon.
Accepting Jesus’ death gives me life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, April 18, 2014
Readiness
God called to him . . . . And he said, ’Here I am’ —Exodus 3:4
When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses’ reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, “Here I am.” Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty.
Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing— it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God’s plans may be, we are there and ready. Whenever any duty presents itself, we hear God’s voice as our Lord heard His Father’s voice, and we are ready for it with the total readiness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us just as His Father did with Him. He can put us wherever He wants, in pleasant duties or in menial ones, because our union with Him is the same as His union with the Father. “. . . that they may be one just as We are one . . .” (John 17:22).
Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready— he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the person who is ready, and it is on fire with the presence of God Himself.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
How the Hands Tell It All - #7115
Look, you've probably got a picture of yourself you don't like, right? It might be on your driver's license, or an ID card, or a passport. There's probably a picture of you that you do like. That's the one that shows your good side, your hair's just right, you're smiling. Once at a conference there was a lady who I guess appreciated the speaking of one of my fellow speakers there, and she said, "Would you mind if I give you a picture of myself?" He said, "Well, that would be fine." So she signed it with a note, and he didn't really look at the picture until he got to a lunch that I was attending. We were sitting right next to each other, and he opened it up and he said, "Man! Look at this picture!" It was the most unusual personal photo I've ever seen. It was a picture of her hands.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How the Hands Tell It All."
Our word today from the Word of God comes from Isaiah chapter 49 beginning at verse 15. God asks this provocative question, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born?" Of course the answer to that should be, "Never," although occasionally it does happen. He goes on to say, "Though she may forget, I will not forget you. I have engraved you on the palms of My hands."
That lady gave my speaker friend a picture of her wrinkled, worn hands. You could see that those hands had obviously worked very hard for a very long time. And that is how she wanted to portray her life. Well, it seems like God's saying to us here, "If you want to know what I'm like; if you want to know how I feel about you, look at this picture of Me. It's a picture of my hands."
Do you know what the message is in His hands? "I will never forget you." First, look at the hands of God in a stable in a little town called Bethlehem where all of the power of the creative God is packed into this wrinkled little Jewish baby. And here His hands are so powerless. He can't even grab His mama's nose. These are the hands that created the world, and they are now helpless as He becomes a human being to reach us.
And now look at those hands touching people later in His life; touching them with healing at the point of their need. And then, later, you can see those hands nailed viciously to a cross. A few days later, those same hands are extended to His disciple Thomas to prove He is alive. And now Jesus is alive and glorified, but the nail scars are still there. God says, "We are engraved on the palms of His hands."
Maybe you're in a time when other hands have left you or let you down. Well, today your almighty God has His hands open and He cannot forget you. There are nail prints there because of how much He loves you. He paid for your sins, for your wrong doing, for your running your own life. He paid for that on a cross. And no matter how alone you feel right now, He's offering all the grace and all the love, and all the understanding, and all the power you need, and He'll never turn His back on you. If He was ever going to, He would have done it on that cross.
If you don't know this Jesus, if you've never reached out and grabbed that hand and said as Thomas did, "My Lord and My God" and made Him your own personal Savior with total trust, please do that today. It's Good Friday! He's been reaching for you. Won't you reach back? He wants to know you. He wants you to know Him. You are in His nail-engraved hands once you give your heart to Him.
We've kind of set up our website just to be a place where you can begin a personal relationship with Jesus. I've got some scripture there, and I'm there to meet you really, and just share with you how to take the hand of Jesus and belong to Him from this day on. That website is ANewStory.com. Please, this day, go there.
There's an old hymn that pretty well sums it up. "I shall know Him when redeemed by His side I shall stand. I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side by the print of the nails in His hands."