Max Lucado Daily: God Loves Humility
God loves humility. Could that be why he offers so many tips on cultivating it?
Assess yourself honestly. Romans 12:3 says, "Don't cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities."
Don't take success too seriously. Deuteronomy 8:13 warns, "When your silver and gold increase your heart will become proud." Ponder your success and count your money in a cemetery, and remember neither of the two is buried with you.
Celebrate the significance of others. Philippians 2:3 says, "In humility consider others better than yourselves."
Speak humbly. 1st Samuel 2:3 warns, "Let no arrogance come from your mouth." Don't be cocky. People aren't impressed with your opinions. In Galatians 6:14, Paul said, "The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is my only reason for bragging!" So if you need to brag-brag about that!
From Traveling Light
1 Samuel 26
David Spares Saul Again
Now some men from Ziph came to Saul at Gibeah to tell him, “David is hiding on the hill of Hakilah, which overlooks Jeshimon.”
2 So Saul took 3,000 of Israel’s elite troops and went to hunt him down in the wilderness of Ziph. 3 Saul camped along the road beside the hill of Hakilah, near Jeshimon, where David was hiding. When David learned that Saul had come after him into the wilderness, 4 he sent out spies to verify the report of Saul’s arrival.
5 David slipped over to Saul’s camp one night to look around. Saul and Abner son of Ner, the commander of his army, were sleeping inside a ring formed by the slumbering warriors. 6 “Who will volunteer to go in there with me?” David asked Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother.
“I’ll go with you,” Abishai replied. 7 So David and Abishai went right into Saul’s camp and found him asleep, with his spear stuck in the ground beside his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying asleep around him.
8 “God has surely handed your enemy over to you this time!” Abishai whispered to David. “Let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I won’t need to strike twice!”
9 “No!” David said. “Don’t kill him. For who can remain innocent after attacking the Lord’s anointed one? 10 Surely the Lord will strike Saul down someday, or he will die of old age or in battle. 11 The Lord forbid that I should kill the one he has anointed! But take his spear and that jug of water beside his head, and then let’s get out of here!”
12 So David took the spear and jug of water that were near Saul’s head. Then he and Abishai got away without anyone seeing them or even waking up, because the Lord had put Saul’s men into a deep sleep.
13 David climbed the hill opposite the camp until he was at a safe distance. 14 Then he shouted down to the soldiers and to Abner son of Ner, “Wake up, Abner!”
“Who is it?” Abner demanded.
15 “Well, Abner, you’re a great man, aren’t you?” David taunted. “Where in all Israel is there anyone as mighty? So why haven’t you guarded your master the king when someone came to kill him? 16 This isn’t good at all! I swear by the Lord that you and your men deserve to die, because you failed to protect your master, the Lord’s anointed! Look around! Where are the king’s spear and the jug of water that were beside his head?”
17 Saul recognized David’s voice and called out, “Is that you, my son David?”
And David replied, “Yes, my lord the king. 18 Why are you chasing me? What have I done? What is my crime? 19 But now let my lord the king listen to his servant. If the Lord has stirred you up against me, then let him accept my offering. But if this is simply a human scheme, then may those involved be cursed by the Lord. For they have driven me from my home, so I can no longer live among the Lord’s people, and they have said, ‘Go, worship pagan gods.’ 20 Must I die on foreign soil, far from the presence of the Lord? Why has the king of Israel come out to search for a single flea? Why does he hunt me down like a partridge on the mountains?”
21 Then Saul confessed, “I have sinned. Come back home, my son, and I will no longer try to harm you, for you valued my life today. I have been a fool and very, very wrong.”
22 “Here is your spear, O king,” David replied. “Let one of your young men come over and get it. 23 The Lord gives his own reward for doing good and for being loyal, and I refused to kill you even when the Lord placed you in my power, for you are the Lord’s anointed one. 24 Now may the Lord value my life, even as I have valued yours today. May he rescue me from all my troubles.”
25 And Saul said to David, “Blessings on you, my son David. You will do many heroic deeds, and you will surely succeed.” Then David went away, and Saul returned home.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Read: Isaiah 61:1-3
Good News for the Oppressed
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
and to proclaim that captives will be released
and prisoners will be freed.[a]
2 He has sent me to tell those who mourn
that the time of the Lord’s favor has come,[b]
and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.
3 To all who mourn in Israel,[c]
he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
a joyous blessing instead of mourning,
festive praise instead of despair.
In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks
that the Lord has planted for his own glory.
Footnotes:
61:1 Greek version reads and the blind will see. Compare Luke 4:18.
61:2 Or to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
61:3 Hebrew in Zion.
INSIGHT: Today’s Bible reading is a prophetic text that points to the arrival of the Messiah. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the synagogue of Nazareth Jesus selected a portion of this passage to announce His arrival and mission (Isa. 61:1-2). Luke 4:18-19 records for us this significant announcement rooted in Isaiah’s ancient words. In the verbs used by Isaiah, we see the core of Christ’s work (preach, heal, proclaim), and in the nouns we find word-pictures of the needy people for whom He had come (poor, brokenhearted, captives, bound).
New Start For A Broken Heart
By David C. McCasland
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted. —Isaiah 61:1
The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb, Croatia, is filled with anonymously donated remnants of love gone wrong. There is an axe that a jilted lover used to destroy the furniture of an offending partner. Stuffed animals, love letters framed in broken glass, and wedding dresses all speak volumes of heartache. While some visitors to the museum leave in tears over their own loss, some couples depart with hugs and a promise not to fail each other.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah wrote, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” (Isa. 61:1). When Jesus read from Isaiah 61 at the synagogue in Nazareth, He said, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Extending far beyond help for an emotional wound, Isaiah’s words speak of a changed heart and a renewed spirit that come by receiving God’s gift of “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isa. 61:3).
All of us have experienced regret and broken promises in our lives. Whatever has happened, the Lord invites us to find healing, hope, and new life in Him.
Lord, You are the promise-keeping God who has said He will make all things new. Today we give You our ashes in exchange for Your beauty, our mourning for the joy of finding comfort in You. Thank You!
God can transform tragedies into triumphs.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Having God’s “Unreasonable” Faith
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. —Matthew 6:33
When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. “…seek first the kingdom of God….” Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, “But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed.” The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.
“…do not worry about your life…” (Matthew 6:25). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed— no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, “Don’t make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God.” Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.
It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Remembering It's God, Not You - #7399
I was going through the all too frequent ritual of standing by an airport luggage carousel waiting for Big Bertha. (No, that's not someone I was traveling with. That's what I've named my suitcase because we've spent so much time together.) And suddenly the monotony was broken for all of us by this really cute scene. Here comes one of those luggage carts that look sort of like a big grocery cart without the big basket. Pushing it was this very little boy, barely able to walk and about one-fourth the size of the cart.
Actually, the boy thought he was pushing the cart. No, his Daddy was right next to him with his hands on the bar above his son's head. So, the cart was staying on a straight course moving at a good speed. So, despite the way it looked to this little cart jockey, it was his Father who was really making it happen.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Remembering It's God, Not You."
Our word for today from the Word of God is from Philippians 2:13. Here's what it says, "It is God (That's good right there!) who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose." Okay, we've got the want to – that's the will. And the how to – that's the act. And the three key words, "It's your God."
Looks like us doing it. You do the work for the Lord; you do the music, the serving, the encouraging, the leading, the speaking, the singing. And sure, it looks like it's you who's living your Christian life; saying "no" to temptation, loving people, encouraging people. But then, it looked to that little boy like he was doing the pushing, and it was really his Father. That's a picture of us.
Jesus illustrated this with a grapevine. He said, "He's the vine, we're the branches." The grapes look like they're coming from the branch. Right? Wrong. They're coming through the branch from the vine. If you don't believe it, cut off the branch and see how many grapes it produces. It's like that in our life in Jesus Christ. Anything you've become, anything you've done, all those spiritual victories, accomplishments that you've been a part of may look like something you have done. But it wasn't really you doing something for God. It was God doing something through you.
Jesus put it bluntly in His vine story. He said, "Without Me you can do nothing." Nothing that matters. Nothing that lasts. Nothing that's life-changing. Jesus is ultimately our Father who moves the cart. There are two attitudes that just aren't acceptable therefore. First, pride of any accomplishment, any ability or position. If your heart's saying, "Boy, aren't I something?" after a spiritual victory, your heart's in Fantasy Land. Realistically we should be saying, "Isn't God something?" Remember, it's God who should get the glory. God says, "I am the Lord. My glory I will not give to another." All the praise belongs to God.
But then it's almost a flip side, because there's a second unacceptable attitude that's the polar opposite of pride. It's this paralyzing sense of inadequacy that keeps you from listening for the Lord, working for your Lord, accepting assignments from the Lord. But Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength."
Yes, you are inadequate. The more you realize that, the more you get out of the way and you depend on the Lord to do it. You say, "Lord, there's not enough me to do this." He goes, "Good. It's going to be a little you and a whole lot of Me." You can dare for Jesus, you can work for Jesus, you can accept assignments from Jesus, because it's His power, His adequacy that's doing it anyway. "It is God who works" the verse says. Hallelujah!
This little boy was able to move what he could never move because of his Father's strength. You can move things for the Lord that are way beyond you because of your Heavenly Father's strength. Keep pushing the cart, keep walking, but remember that your cart will stay on course. Your cart will move a heavy load because of the powerful hand of your Father.
