Max Lucado Daily: My God, My God
Calvary's Hill, Christ lifts his heavy head toward the heavens crying out, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani"-that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34). We would ask the same. Why him? Why forsake your son? Forsake the murderers. Desert the evildoers. Turn your back on the perverts and peddlers of pain. Abandon them, not him.
What did Christ feel on the cross? The icy displeasure of a sin-hating God. Why? Because Jesus carried our sins in His body. With hands nailed open, he invited God, "Treat me as you would treat them." And God did. In an act that broke the heart of the Father, yet honored the holiness of heaven, sin-purging judgment flowed over the sinless Son of the ages.
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Why did God scream those words? So you'll never have to!
From On Calvary's Hill
Judges 14
Samson’s Riddle
One day when Samson was in Timnah, one of the Philistine women caught his eye. 2 When he returned home, he told his father and mother, “A young Philistine woman in Timnah caught my eye. I want to marry her. Get her for me.”
3 His father and mother objected. “Isn’t there even one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry?” they asked. “Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife?”
But Samson told his father, “Get her for me! She looks good to me.” 4 His father and mother didn’t realize the Lord was at work in this, creating an opportunity to work against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time.
5 As Samson and his parents were going down to Timnah, a young lion suddenly attacked Samson near the vineyards of Timnah. 6 At that moment the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him, and he ripped the lion’s jaws apart with his bare hands. He did it as easily as if it were a young goat. But he didn’t tell his father or mother about it. 7 When Samson arrived in Timnah, he talked with the woman and was very pleased with her.
8 Later, when he returned to Timnah for the wedding, he turned off the path to look at the carcass of the lion. And he found that a swarm of bees had made some honey in the carcass. 9 He scooped some of the honey into his hands and ate it along the way. He also gave some to his father and mother, and they ate it. But he didn’t tell them he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.
10 As his father was making final arrangements for the marriage, Samson threw a party at Timnah, as was the custom for elite young men. 11 When the bride’s parents[b] saw him, they selected thirty young men from the town to be his companions.
12 Samson said to them, “Let me tell you a riddle. If you solve my riddle during these seven days of the celebration, I will give you thirty fine linen robes and thirty sets of festive clothing. 13 But if you can’t solve it, then you must give me thirty fine linen robes and thirty sets of festive clothing.”
“All right,” they agreed, “let’s hear your riddle.”
14 So he said:
“Out of the one who eats came something to eat;
out of the strong came something sweet.”
Three days later they were still trying to figure it out. 15 On the fourth[c] day they said to Samson’s wife, “Entice your husband to explain the riddle for us, or we will burn down your father’s house with you in it. Did you invite us to this party just to make us poor?”
16 So Samson’s wife came to him in tears and said, “You don’t love me; you hate me! You have given my people a riddle, but you haven’t told me the answer.”
“I haven’t even given the answer to my father or mother,” he replied. “Why should I tell you?” 17 So she cried whenever she was with him and kept it up for the rest of the celebration. At last, on the seventh day he told her the answer because she was tormenting him with her nagging. Then she explained the riddle to the young men.
18 So before sunset of the seventh day, the men of the town came to Samson with their answer:
“What is sweeter than honey?
What is stronger than a lion?”
Samson replied, “If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have solved my riddle!”
19 Then the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon him. He went down to the town of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their belongings, and gave their clothing to the men who had solved his riddle. But Samson was furious about what had happened, and he went back home to live with his father and mother. 20 So his wife was given in marriage to the man who had been Samson’s best man at the wedding.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, March 20, 2015
The Birth of Samson
Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years.
2 In those days a man named Manoah from the tribe of Dan lived in the town of Zorah. His wife was unable to become pregnant, and they had no children. 3 The angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and said, “Even though you have been unable to have children, you will soon become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 So be careful; you must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food.[a] 5 You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and his hair must never be cut. For he will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from birth. He will begin to rescue Israel from the Philistines.”
6 The woman ran and told her husband, “A man of God appeared to me! He looked like one of God’s angels, terrifying to see. I didn’t ask where he was from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 But he told me, ‘You will become pregnant and give birth to a son. You must not drink wine or any other alcoholic drink nor eat any forbidden food. For your son will be dedicated to God as a Nazirite from the moment of his birth until the day of his death.’”
Footnotes:
13:4 Hebrew any unclean thing; also in 13:7, 14.
INSIGHT: Samson was set apart as “a Nazirite to God” even before he was born (vv. 5,7). Nazirite means “dedicated” or “consecrated.” Numbers 6:1-21 sets out the requirements for those who were Nazirites. Besides Samson, other well-known Nazirites in the Bible are Samuel (1 Sam. 1:11) and John the Baptist (Luke 1:15).
A Gift Of Hope
By Jennifer Benson Schuldt
He shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. —Judges 13:5
When a powerful typhoon swept through the city of Tacloban, Philippines, in 2013, an estimated 10,000 people died, and many who survived found themselves homeless and jobless. Necessities became scarce. Three months later, while the town was still struggling to dig itself out from the destruction, a baby was born on a roadside near Tacloban amid torrents of rain and strong wind. Although the weather brought back painful memories, residents worked together to find a midwife and transport the mother and newborn to a clinic. The baby survived, thrived, and became a symbol of hope during a time of despair.
Forty years of Philistine oppression marked a grim period in Israel’s national history. During this time, an angel informed an Israelite woman that she would give birth to a special son (Judg. 13:3). According to the angel, the baby would be a Nazirite—a man set apart to God—and would “begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines” (v.5). The infant, Samson, was a gift of hope born in a troubled time.
Trouble is unavoidable, yet Jesus has the power to rescue us from despair. Christ was born “to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace” (Luke 1:76-79).
Lord, help me to see beyond my circumstances and put my hope in You. All authority and power are Yours. Remind me of Your goodness, and let me rest in Your love.
Jesus is the hope that calms life’s storms.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, March 20, 2015
Friendship with God
Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing…? —Genesis 18:17
The Delights of His Friendship. Genesis 18 brings out the delight of true friendship with God, as compared with simply feeling His presence occasionally in prayer. This friendship means being so intimately in touch with God that you never even need to ask Him to show you His will. It is evidence of a level of intimacy which confirms that you are nearing the final stage of your discipline in the life of faith. When you have a right-standing relationship with God, you have a life of freedom, liberty, and delight; you are God’s will. And all of your commonsense decisions are actually His will for you, unless you sense a feeling of restraint brought on by a check in your spirit. You are free to make decisions in the light of a perfect and delightful friendship with God, knowing that if your decisions are wrong He will lovingly produce that sense of restraint. Once he does, you must stop immediately.
The Difficulties of His Friendship. Why did Abraham stop praying when he did? He stopped because he still was lacking the level of intimacy in his relationship with God, which would enable him boldly to continue on with the Lord in prayer until his desire was granted. Whenever we stop short of our true desire in prayer and say, “Well, I don’t know, maybe this is not God’s will,” then we still have another level to go. It shows that we are not as intimately acquainted with God as Jesus was, and as Jesus would have us to be— “…that they may be one just as We are one…” (John 17:22). Think of the last thing you prayed about— were you devoted to your desire or to God? Was your determination to get some gift of the Spirit for yourself or to get to God? “For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him” (Matthew 6:8). The reason for asking is so you may get to know God better. “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). We should keep praying to get a perfect understanding of God Himself.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, March 20, 2015
The Jesus Journal Igniting Your Spiritual Growth - #7355
Someone said to me, "Don't forget to tell your wife!" I said, "Wait a minute. I'd better write it down. I'm Mr. No Gig." They looked at me kind of funny. See, computers have gigabytes of memory. And I think sometimes I've reached mine, so I am like "Mr. No Gig". Look, I'm too young to be losing my memory. I think I've just used it up, that's all. There's not room to put anything else in there.
So, I have to write things down; like things we need at the store, appointments, a list of errands. I think that's pretty normal no matter what your age. You've got to write down an idea. I always carry this 4x6 card with me everywhere. I mean, I even have one close to my bed. I know it's crazy, but I've got to write it down when it comes into my head, and that helps me remember it because I have a lot to do. I've got to write down phone numbers or have them stored in the phone. I've got to write down directions. A lot of us write down the things we don't want to forget, except for maybe the really important ones.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Jesus Journal Igniting Your Spiritual Growth."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 103. These will be familiar words, "Praise the Lord, O my soul." He's talking to his own heart. "All my inmost being, praise His holy name. Praise the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits." Here's the problem. All too often I do forget His benefits.
I mean, there is not a day that God cannot be seen active somewhere in that day, many somewheres. If you're looking for God-sightings, he's there: his love, his supply, his faithfulness, his protection, his mercy. They show up in all kinds of ways. "His mercies are new" according to Jeremiah "every morning."
Okay, then I see them, but then I tend to forget them. David says, "O my soul, don't forget His benefits", so spiritual amnesia is nothing new; it's happened so many times before. Nehemiah 9 for example talks about where the saints of that day literally forgot all of the manna that God had supplied from heaven; the water that had come from the rock; how God had given them possession of the land – these awesome things that God had done.
And He says, "But they refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them." They forgot God's interventions. They chose what was easy, and it turned out to be hard. They got 40 years in the wilderness. When we forget God's benefits we make spiritually, cowardly decisions, we miss the next miracles and maybe we miss the will of God.
I have tried keeping an encouragement journal; a Jesus Journal. In there I write down the day's date, I'll write God's work in that day whatever it was. And then it's exciting at the end of the day, or maybe the next morning, to show the places that God was at work; benefits I don't want to forget.
Now you put the next day's date down by faith, because you haven't seen it yet. And then you pick up that journal and you read it when discouragement hits. When you do, you are looking at the fingerprints of God all through your life. It's the same God who's there for you in that day. Your faith will grow and your trust will be more activated as you remember God's breakthroughs-all those other God-sightings.
One of the greatest things I ever did for my relationship with Christ was to buy a notebook to keep a daily record of what God was saying in my time with Him. I cannot urge you enough to make that a daily part of your relationship with Jesus. Not just an encouragement journal, but a journal to write down what He just said to me out of His Book and what I'm going to do differently today because He said it. It is so incredible to be able to pick up a notebook and read the history of God's working in your life right there in your own handwriting.
We really do write down what we can't afford to forget, and there is nothing more important to remember than those daily touches of God on your life. So get a big notebook!
