Max Lucado Daily: A Hope-Filled Heart
You and I live in a trashy world. Unwanted garbage comes our way on a regular basis. Haven’t you been handed a trash sack of mishaps and heartaches? Sure you have. May I ask, what are you going to do with it? You could hide it. Pretend it isn’t there. But sooner or later it will start to stink. So what will you do?
If you follow the example of Christ, you’ll learn to see tough times differently. God wants you to have a hope-filled heart. . .just like Jesus. Wouldn’t you want that? Jesus saw his Father’s presence in the problem. Sure, Max, but Jesus was God. I can’t see the way he saw. Not yet, maybe. But don’t underestimate God’s power. He can change the way you look at life.
From The Lucado Inspirational Reader
Deuteronomy 12
The Lord’s Chosen Place for Worship
“These are the decrees and regulations you must be careful to obey when you live in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. You must obey them as long as you live.
2 “When you drive out the nations that live there, you must destroy all the places where they worship their gods—high on the mountains, up on the hills, and under every green tree. 3 Break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars. Burn their Asherah poles and cut down their carved idols. Completely erase the names of their gods!
4 “Do not worship the Lord your God in the way these pagan peoples worship their gods. 5 Rather, you must seek the Lord your God at the place of worship he himself will choose from among all the tribes—the place where his name will be honored. 6 There you will bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your sacred offerings, your offerings to fulfill a vow, your voluntary offerings, and your offerings of the firstborn animals of your herds and flocks. 7 There you and your families will feast in the presence of the Lord your God, and you will rejoice in all you have accomplished because the Lord your God has blessed you.
8 “Your pattern of worship will change. Today all of you are doing as you please, 9 because you have not yet arrived at the place of rest, the land the Lord your God is giving you as your special possession. 10 But you will soon cross the Jordan River and live in the land the Lord your God is giving you. When he gives you rest from all your enemies and you’re living safely in the land, 11 you must bring everything I command you—your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your sacred offerings, and your offerings to fulfill a vow—to the designated place of worship, the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored.
12 “You must celebrate there in the presence of the Lord your God with your sons and daughters and all your servants. And remember to include the Levites who live in your towns, for they will receive no allotment of land among you. 13 Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings just anywhere you like. 14 You may do so only at the place the Lord will choose within one of your tribal territories. There you must offer your burnt offerings and do everything I command you.
15 “But you may butcher your animals and eat their meat in any town whenever you want. You may freely eat the animals with which the Lord your God blesses you. All of you, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as you now eat gazelle and deer. 16 But you must not consume the blood. You must pour it out on the ground like water.
17 “But you may not eat your offerings in your hometown—neither the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, nor the firstborn of your flocks and herds, nor any offering to fulfill a vow, nor your voluntary offerings, nor your sacred offerings. 18 You must eat these in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose. Eat them there with your children, your servants, and the Levites who live in your towns, celebrating in the presence of the Lord your God in all you do. 19 And be very careful never to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.
20 “When the Lord your God expands your territory as he has promised, and you have the urge to eat meat, you may freely eat meat whenever you want. 21 It might happen that the designated place of worship—the place the Lord your God chooses for his name to be honored—is a long way from your home. If so, you may butcher any of the cattle, sheep, or goats the Lord has given you, and you may freely eat the meat in your hometown, as I have commanded you. 22 Anyone, whether ceremonially clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as you do now with gazelle and deer. 23 But never consume the blood, for the blood is the life, and you must not consume the lifeblood with the meat. 24 Instead, pour out the blood on the ground like water. 25 Do not consume the blood, so that all may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what pleases the Lord.
26 “Take your sacred gifts and your offerings given to fulfill a vow to the place the Lord chooses. 27 You must offer the meat and blood of your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your other sacrifices must be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. 28 Be careful to obey all my commands, so that all will go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and pleasing to the Lord your God.
29 “When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land, 30 do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example.’ 31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way the other nations worship their gods, for they perform for their gods every detestable act that the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters as sacrifices to their gods.
32 [d]“So be careful to obey all the commands I give you. You must not add anything to them or subtract anything from them.
12:32 Verse 12:32 is numbered 13:1 in Hebrew text.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Read: Joshua 3:9-17
Joshua 3:9-17
So Joshua told the Israelites, “Come and listen to what the Lord your God says. 10 Today you will know that the living God is among you. He will surely drive out the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites ahead of you. 11 Look, the Ark of the Covenant, which belongs to the Lord of the whole earth, will lead you across the Jordan River! 12 Now choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. 13 The priests will carry the Ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. As soon as their feet touch the water, the flow of water will be cut off upstream, and the river will stand up like a wall.”
14 So the people left their camp to cross the Jordan, and the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them. 15 It was the harvest season, and the Jordan was overflowing its banks. But as soon as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge, 16 the water above that point began backing up a great distance away at a town called Adam, which is near Zarethan. And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea[a] until the riverbed was dry. Then all the people crossed over near the town of Jericho.
17 Meanwhile, the priests who were carrying the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant stood on dry ground in the middle of the riverbed as the people passed by. They waited there until the whole nation of Israel had crossed the Jordan on dry ground.
Footnotes:
3:16 Hebrew the sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea.
Standing On The Edge
By Jennifer Benson Schuldt
[The Israelites] set out . . . to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before [them]. —Joshua 3:14
My little girl stood apprehensively at the pool’s edge. As a nonswimmer, she was just learning to become comfortable in the water. Her instructor waited in the pool with outstretched arms. As my daughter hesitated, I saw the questions in her eyes: Will you catch me? What will happen if my head goes under?
The Israelites may have wondered what would happen when they crossed the Jordan River. Could they trust God to make dry ground appear in the riverbed? Was God guiding their new leader, Joshua, as He had led Moses? Would God help His people defeat the threatening Canaanites who lived just across the river?
To learn the answers to these questions, the Israelites had to engage in a test of faith—they had to act. So they “set out from their camp to cross over the Jordan, with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before [them]” (v.14). Exercising their faith allowed them to see that God was with them. He was still directing Joshua, and He would help them settle in Canaan (vv.7,10,17).
If you are facing a test of faith, you too can move forward based on God’s character and His unfailing promises. Relying on Him will help you move from where you are to where He wants you to be.
Lord, we’re prone to quickly forget Your goodness
and care for us. May we trust You today and
into the new year—whatever uncertainties we
face. You are the God who can be trusted.
Fear fades when we trust our Father.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Yesterday
You shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. —Isaiah 52:12
Security from Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.
Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
THE MIRACLE RUSH - #7298
My flight was scheduled to leave Newark Airport at 2:30 in the afternoon. There was bad weather at my destination, so they said we were postponed until 4:30. Then, "We have no idea when we'll be able to leave." Then they said, "We think we'll go at 5:30." Finally we did leave at 6:00. Of course that gave us lots of time to memorize the menu at the airport restaurant, which didn't take long, to check out the restroom several times, buy lots of magazines, and count the designs in the carpet. In the meantime another flight had been cancelled and some of those passengers were put on my flight. So this was one very full plane.
As the passengers were boarding with their carry-on luggage, the word came from the cockpit, the pilot, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are number two for take-off. We've been assigned that position, but we only have 20 minutes to load this plane and take off. So would you please be seated as quickly as you can, wherever you can?"
Well, everyone knew we couldn't take off until the cockpit knew everybody was seated. It was chaos! People were trying to board the plane, the captain was "pushing" them verbally, and the flight attendants were pushing them physically. Soon they were saying, "We've got to go! We're going to lose our spot and we'll have to wait longer." And the pilot came on again and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I know we kept delaying this flight. You had to wait and wait. And then now we are telling you, "Hurry! Hurry!" We had waited for four hours and then suddenly we had immediate clearance and everything was a rush.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Miracle Rush."
That takes us to our word for today from the Word of God from Exodus 12, which is where the Jews are spending their last night as slaves in Egypt. They've been through a long process of waiting as God recruited Moses to be their deliverer. Then He dealt with Pharaoh. Then they endured ten plagues. Things got worse before they got better.
They're at the night of Passover where they applied blood to their doorposts. As the angel comes through, the firstborns of Egypt died while the Jewish firstborns are protected. In verse 11 they're getting ready to go to bed that night. Here are their instructions about the Passover Dinner. "This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak
tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover."
Now, they really did need to get ready quickly because when the Lord moves it happens fast. Verse 33 says, "The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. So the people took the dough before the yeast was added, carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing." This is like the night I had at the airport, a long wait, then the big rush.
There's insight here into what God might be doing in your life right now. He works quietly, often invisibly, methodically, and holistically. Meanwhile, we're getting that panicky feeling that we're never going to take off. Our flight will never get where we need to go. But when God has everything ready and you ready for it, fasten your seatbelt. Get to your seat quickly. The answer will come so quickly there won't even be time for the bread to rise.
You might think you're running out of time for an answer, but when God moves it doesn't take much time. Remember your ketchup bottle? You hit it on the end several times – nothing comes out. Then, all of a sudden a lot comes out. Well, that's how God works. It might take you a long time to get it done. But God could do it in an hour. It might take you fifty years. It doesn't take Him any time, so don't panic just because it's taking longer than you thought.
The answer you're praying for may be about a relationship, finances, or your health, or a child, or a decision. Don't let the wait make you give up or push for your own impatient, probably messed up solution. The flight may be delayed, but it will go when your captain knows everything is ready on your end and on the other end.
Get ready for the miracle rush when your captain says, "We have immediate clearance. We're taking off."