Max Lucado Daily: Become as Little Children
We prayer wimps fear "mis-praying." What is the expected etiquette and dress code for prayer? What if we kneel instead of stand?
Jesus' answer? In Matthew 18:3 He says, "Become as little children." Carefree. Joy filled. Playful. Trusting. Curious. Trust more-strut less.
God prefers this greeting: "God, you are my Daddy, and I am your child!" It's hard to show off and call God "Daddy" at the same time. Impossible, in fact. Remember, prayer doesn't depend on how you pray. The power of prayer depends on the One who hears the prayer!
Here's my simple prayer challenge for you today! Join me every day for 4 weeks and pray 4 minutes. Sign on at BeforeAmen.com. And just be honest-honest to God!
Before Amen
Leviticus 20
Punishments for Sin
The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. 3 I myself will set my face against him and will cut him off from his people; for by sacrificing his children to Molek, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. 4 If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molek and if they fail to put him to death, 5 I myself will set my face against him and his family and will cut them off from their people together with all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molek.
6 “‘I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people.
7 “‘Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. 8 Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy.
9 “‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head.
10 “‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.
11 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
12 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.
13 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
14 “‘If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.
15 “‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal.
16 “‘If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
17 “‘If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They are to be publicly removed from their people. He has dishonored his sister and will be held responsible.
18 “‘If a man has sexual relations with a woman during her monthly period, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it. Both of them are to be cut off from their people.
19 “‘Do not have sexual relations with the sister of either your mother or your father, for that would dishonor a close relative; both of you would be held responsible.
20 “‘If a man has sexual relations with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible; they will die childless.
21 “‘If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless.
22 “‘Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. 24 But I said to you, “You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations.
25 “‘You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground—those that I have set apart as unclean for you. 26 You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.
27 “‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Read: 2 Corinthians 4:16–5:8
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are[a] being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
New Bodies
5 For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.[b] 4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
6 So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. 7 For we live by believing and not by seeing. 8 Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.
Footnotes:
4:16 Greek our inner being is.
5:3 Greek we will not be naked.
Insight
The opening words of today’s passage are beautiful and encouraging: “We do not lose heart.” Despite the afflictions we face, we know something greater is coming—an “eternal weight of glory” (v.17).
A Forever Hello
By Anne Cetas
He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit. —2 Corinthians 5:5
After a week’s vacation with her daughter and 4-month-old grandson, Oliver, Kathy had to say goodbye until she could see them again. She wrote to me saying, “Sweet reunions like we had make my heart long for heaven. There, we won’t have to try to capture memories in our mind. There, we won’t have to pray for the time to go slowly and the days to last long. There, our hello will never turn into goodbye. Heaven will be a ‘forever hello,’ and I can’t wait.” As a first-time grandma, she wants to be with her grandson Oliver as much as possible! She’s thankful for any time she can be with him and for the hope of heaven—where the wonderful moments will never end.
Our good days do seem too short, and our difficult days far too long. But both kinds of days cause us to long for even better days ahead. The apostle Paul said that he and the Corinthians longed to be “clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4 niv). Although the Lord is with us in this life, we cannot see Him face to face. Now we live by faith, not by sight (v.7).
God made us for the very purpose of being near to Him always (v.5). Heaven will be a forever hello.
Face to face—O blissful moment!
Face to face—to see and know;
Face to face with my Redeemer,
Jesus Christ who loves me so! —Breck
Now we see Jesus in the Bible, but then, face to face.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
The Key to the Missionary’s Work (1)
Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ’All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . .’ —Matthew 28:18-19
The key to the missionary’s work is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that the lost will never be saved if we don’t go— He simply says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . . .” He says, “Go on the basis of the revealed truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience of Me.”
“Then the eleven disciples went . . . to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them” (Matthew 28:16). If I want to know the universal sovereignty of Christ, I must know Him myself. I must take time to worship the One whose name I bear. Jesus says, “Come to Me . . .”— that is the place to meet Jesus— “all you who labor and are heavy laden . . .” (Matthew 11:28)— and how many missionaries are! We completely dismiss these wonderful words of the universal Sovereign of the world, but they are the words of Jesus to His disciples meant for here and now.
“Go therefore . . . .” To “go” simply means to live. Acts 1:8 is the description of how to go. Jesus did not say in this verse, “Go into Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria,” but, “. . . you shall be witnesses to Me in [all these places].” He takes upon Himself the work of sending us.
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you . . .” (John 15:7)— that is the way to keep going. Where we are placed is then a matter of indifference to us, because God sovereignly engineers our goings.
“None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . .” (Acts 20:24). That is how to keep going until we are gone from this life.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Quakeproof - #7242
It wasn't the big one, but it was pretty big. It was that 6.6 earthquake that rocked Los Angeles a number of years ago. It was 4:31 A.M. and the ground began to tremble underneath Southern California again. And those who watched it will not forget the picture of what collapsed; those Northridge Meadows Apartments where 16 people died in those apartments. But in the midst of the Northridge tragedy, you heard the word miracle a lot. Maria Ballesteros was one who survived that apartment collapse and she was rescued. And she claimed she knew why. She said there were 50 pictures hanging on her wall and 49 of them were destroyed. But one was still there when the shaking was all over. Maria said this, "The one of the Lord was the only one left hanging."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Quakeproof."
Frankly I was pretty touched when I heard about that one picture that the quake couldn't shake. It was a picture of Jesus. It made me think of two men in the Bible who had a similar experience and of how you and I can live in times when it seems like everything is shaking. Job was a wealthy man. He had a wonderful family, and he lost it all. His children all died violently, he lost everything he had materially. He later lost his health. He was living in constant pain. Even his wife turned on him. Every picture fell but one.
And Job, in the book named after him, said in his agony in chapter 19, verse 25, "I know that my Redeemer lives and that in the end He will stand upon the earth." Now, Paul was the major ambassador for Christ in the early days of the Christian faith. He wrote about half of the books in the New Testament. And in his last one, 2 Timothy, Paul was in prison in Rome. Most of his friends weren't there with him. He's facing execution by Nero. Every picture has been shaken off the wall of his heart except one. He talks about it in 2 Timothy 1:12. "I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him for that day." He's speaking about Jesus Christ. Job and Paul were unsinkable. They're unshakable because of a personal Savior who cannot be shaken who lives in our heart.
Working with young people, I've often handed out four 3x5 cards in a meeting, and I've asked them to put on those cards the four most important things, people or activities in their life. Then I've said, "Okay, now there's been a tragedy and you have to lose one of those four most important things. But you've got to choose which one." Like real life, sometimes something comes along and you are forced to drop a card. It's hard, and you've got just three left.
Then I tell them there's another tragedy, and they have to drop another card. It's getting tough; they're resisting now. But finally they're down to one card. They have to drop three most important things in their life. They can keep one. But one is all. Even though it's just a card, they battle over which one. But that one card, I ask them one question, "Is it something you can lose?" How about yours? Your last card? Is it something you can lose?
In our world today you need something that's quakeproof, someone that's quakeproof, and there's only One. That is God's Son, Jesus Christ. We need Him desperately. A relationship with Him is the only dependable anchor there is.
And the Bible says, "Our self rule of our life has cut us off from that God." But that's why Jesus came to remove the barrier by paying our death penalty for our sin on His cross. The Bible says, "Nothing can ever separate us from His love." But you have to choose Him for yourself.
If you've never done that and grabbed the one hand that will never let you go, the one picture that will still be there when all the others have fallen, let this be the day you do that. I'd love to show you how if you would just visit our website sometime today. Would you go to ANewStory.com? It's not about a religion. It's all about this personal relationship.
Once you choose Christ, then you can know there is no life quake so powerful that it will cost you Jesus. No matter how you're shaken, you can be quakeproof, because nothing can shake Him and He's got His hand on you.