Max Lucado Daily: There is One Name-Jesus
Son of God, the Lamb of God, the Resurrection and the Life, Alpha and Omega. Phrases that stretch the boundaries of human language in an effort to capture the un-capturable, the grandeur of God. They always fall short. Hearing them is somewhat like hearing a Salvation Army Christmas band on the street corner playing Handel's Messiah. No names do God justice!
But there is one name. Jesus. A name so typical, if He were here today, his name might be John or Bob or Jim. He was touchable, approachable, reachable. "Just call me Jesus," you can almost hear Him say. Those who walked with Him remembered Him not with a title or designation, but with a name-Jesus! It's a beautiful name and a powerful name. The day is coming when at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord!
From In the Manger
Luke 1:57-80
The Birth of John the Baptist
When it was time for Elizabeth’s baby to be born, she gave birth to a son. 58 And when her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had been very merciful to her, everyone rejoiced with her.
59 When the baby was eight days old, they all came for the circumcision ceremony. They wanted to name him Zechariah, after his father. 60 But Elizabeth said, “No! His name is John!”
61 “What?” they exclaimed. “There is no one in all your family by that name.” 62 So they used gestures to ask the baby’s father what he wanted to name him. 63 He motioned for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s surprise he wrote, “His name is John.” 64 Instantly Zechariah could speak again, and he began praising God.
65 Awe fell upon the whole neighborhood, and the news of what had happened spread throughout the Judean hills. 66 Everyone who heard about it reflected on these events and asked, “What will this child turn out to be?” For the hand of the Lord was surely upon him in a special way.
Zechariah’s Prophecy
67 Then his father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy:
68 “Praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has visited and redeemed his people.
69 He has sent us a mighty Savior[a]
from the royal line of his servant David,
70 just as he promised
through his holy prophets long ago.
71 Now we will be saved from our enemies
and from all who hate us.
72 He has been merciful to our ancestors
by remembering his sacred covenant—
73 the covenant he swore with an oath
to our ancestor Abraham.
74 We have been rescued from our enemies
so we can serve God without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness
for as long as we live.
76 “And you, my little son,
will be called the prophet of the Most High,
because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
77 You will tell his people how to find salvation
through forgiveness of their sins.
78 Because of God’s tender mercy,
the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,[b]
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide us to the path of peace.”
80 John grew up and became strong in spirit. And he lived in the wilderness until he began his public ministry to Israel.
Footnotes:
1:69 Greek has raised up a horn of salvation for us.
1:78 Or the Morning Light from Heaven is about to visit us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, December 15, 2014
Read: Deuteronomy 4:1-9
Moses Urges Israel to Obey
“And now, Israel, listen carefully to these decrees and regulations that I am about to teach you. Obey them so that you may live, so you may enter and occupy the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2 Do not add to or subtract from these commands I am giving you. Just obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you.
3 “You saw for yourself what the Lord did to you at Baal-peor. There the Lord your God destroyed everyone who had worshiped Baal, the god of Peor. 4 But all of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today—every one of you.
5 “Look, I now teach you these decrees and regulations just as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy. 6 Obey them completely, and you will display your wisdom and intelligence among the surrounding nations. When they hear all these decrees, they will exclaim, ‘How wise and prudent are the people of this great nation!’ 7 For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him? 8 And what great nation has decrees and regulations as righteous and fair as this body of instructions that I am giving you today?
9 “But watch out! Be careful never to forget what you yourself have seen. Do not let these memories escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren.
Insight
In today’s passage, Moses reminded the people of Israel that—unlike the nations around them—they were the only ones privileged to have intimate fellowship with God (v.7) and the only nation given God’s law (v.8). If they faithfully obeyed His law, God would make them a great and wise people (vv.6,8-9).
Story Stewards
By Julie Ackerman Link
Take heed . . . lest you forget the things your eyes have seen . . . . And teach them to your children and your grandchildren. —Deuteronomy 4:9
Many people take great care to make sure their resources are used well after they die. They set up trusts, write wills, and establish foundations to guarantee that their assets will continue to be used for a good purpose after their life on earth is done. We call this good stewardship.
Equally important, however, is being good stewards of our life story. God commanded the Israelites not only to teach their children His laws but also to make sure they knew their family history. It was the responsibility of parents and grandparents to make sure their children knew the stories of how God had worked in their behalf (Deut. 4:1-14).
God has given each of us a unique story. His plan for our lives is individualized. Do others know what you believe and why? Do they know the story of how you came to faith and how God has worked in your life to strengthen your faith? Do they know how God has shown Himself faithful and has helped you through doubts and disappointments?
The faithfulness of God is a story that we have the privilege to pass on. Record it in some way and share it. Be a good steward of the story that God is telling through you.
How great, O God, Your acts of love!
Your saving deeds would now proclaim
That generations yet to come
May set their hope in Your great name. —D. DeHaan
A life lived for God leaves a lasting legacy.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, December 15, 2014
“Approved to God”
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. —2 Timothy 2:15
If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God’s winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God’s truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God’s wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, “I’m not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I’ll just borrow my words from someone else,” then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else.
Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, December 15, 2014
A Basketful of Earth - #7286
Ellis Island was the first piece of America that millions of immigrants ever saw – ever touched. Perhaps it was that way for somebody in your family. Ellis Island was the point of entry for all the immigrants coming through New York; a little island in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.
When you visit the island you see this long, granite wall with thousands of names of immigrants who passed through there. When the boat landed, they would step off carrying all their belongs in a basket and enter this long, red brick building. The inside of that building is cavernous. It echoes on the inside. Can't you just kind of hear it and see it in your mind; this rich mixture of voices and languages?
Actually, Ellis Island was, you know, like just a waiting station. They weren't going to live on that island. Out of all those thousands who came there, not one ever set up a house on Ellis Island. They weren't going to be there for very long.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Basketful of Earth."
Which leads us to our word for today from the Word of God, in 1 Peter 1, beginning at verse 1. Peter writes to, "God's elect, strangers in the world." Now, remembering that image of believers, in verse 17 he says, "Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear." In 1 Peter 2:11 he continues, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires."
Peter is saying, "Hey, this isn't home." It's like that old hymn, "This world is not my home. I'm just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue." See, we're all immigrants according to the Bible. Earth is our Ellis Island. We've got maybe seventy years here; seventy years that are just the preparation for billions of years. But the quality of the billions of years is determined by how we live the seventy or whatever.
Now, here's a question. If we're just immigrants passing through earth, why are we saving up so much stuff here on our Ellis Island? In Luke 12, Jesus addresses this issue of accumulating earth stuff. He says in verse 22, "Do not worry about your life or what you will eat or about your body what you will wear." Then he says some radical stuff in verse 24, "Consider the ravens. They do not sow or reap. They have no storeroom or barn. Yet God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than the birds?"
He's saying that for your security you don't need this big, stored-up reserve somewhere. But, of course, that's the opposite of everything we've been taught about security. But here's biblical security. "Your Father knows you have need of these things. Sell your possessions; give to the poor. Provide purses for yourself that will not wear out; a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near or no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
There's no storeroom, no pile of earth stuff. No, you send it on ahead to the place where you're going to live forever. You don't move it all into the hotel. You send it on to home. Don't accumulate it in the place that you're just visiting. We're all guilty of the sin of accumulating. We kind of keep building our earth kingdom, those earth reserves, what the earth calls security.
One day I wonder if Jesus is going to come back and say, "What are you doing holding onto all of that; tying up all of that? I had a world to reach." He calls us to live simply on this immigrant island, and to pour everything else into causes that will last forever.
Give to that for which He gave everything He had. Look, do you want a bank full in heaven, or just a basketful of earth?