Max Lucado Daily: God’s Doing What’s Best for Us
God is at work in each of us whether we know it or not, whether we want it or not. Lamentations 3:33 says, “He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way.” He doesn’t delight in our sufferings, but He delights in our development. It’s what Paul pointed out in Philippians 1:6, “God began doing a good work in you, and I am sure He will continue it until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again.”
Don’t see your struggle as an interruption to life but as preparation for life. No one said the road would be easy or painless. But God will use this mess for something good. This trouble you are in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children. God is doing what’s best for us, training us to live God’s holy best!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Samuel 14
Joab Arranges for Absalom’s Return
Joab realized how much the king longed to see Absalom. 2 So he sent for a woman from Tekoa who had a reputation for great wisdom. He said to her, “Pretend you are in mourning; wear mourning clothes and don’t put on lotions.[i] Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time. 3 Then go to the king and tell him the story I am about to tell you.” Then Joab told her what to say.
4 When the woman from Tekoa approached[j] the king, she bowed with her face to the ground in deep respect and cried out, “O king! Help me!”
5 “What’s the trouble?” the king asked.
“Alas, I am a widow!” she replied. “My husband is dead. 6 My two sons had a fight out in the field. And since no one was there to stop it, one of them was killed. 7 Now the rest of the family is demanding, ‘Let us have your son. We will execute him for murdering his brother. He doesn’t deserve to inherit his family’s property.’ They want to extinguish the only coal I have left, and my husband’s name and family will disappear from the face of the earth.”
8 “Leave it to me,” the king told her. “Go home, and I’ll see to it that no one touches him.”
9 “Oh, thank you, my lord the king,” the woman from Tekoa replied. “If you are criticized for helping me, let the blame fall on me and on my father’s house, and let the king and his throne be innocent.”
10 “If anyone objects,” the king said, “bring him to me. I can assure you he will never harm you again!”
11 Then she said, “Please swear to me by the Lord your God that you won’t let anyone take vengeance against my son. I want no more bloodshed.”
“As surely as the Lord lives,” he replied, “not a hair on your son’s head will be disturbed!”
12 “Please allow me to ask one more thing of my lord the king,” she said.
“Go ahead and speak,” he responded.
13 She replied, “Why don’t you do as much for the people of God as you have promised to do for me? You have convicted yourself in making this decision, because you have refused to bring home your own banished son. 14 All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.
15 “I have come to plead with my lord the king because people have threatened me. I said to myself, ‘Perhaps the king will listen to me 16 and rescue us from those who would cut us off from the inheritance[k] God has given us. 17 Yes, my lord the king will give us peace of mind again.’ I know that you are like an angel of God in discerning good from evil. May the Lord your God be with you.”
18 “I must know one thing,” the king replied, “and tell me the truth.”
“Yes, my lord the king,” she responded.
19 “Did Joab put you up to this?”
And the woman replied, “My lord the king, how can I deny it? Nobody can hide anything from you. Yes, Joab sent me and told me what to say. 20 He did it to place the matter before you in a different light. But you are as wise as an angel of God, and you understand everything that happens among us!”
21 So the king sent for Joab and told him, “All right, go and bring back the young man Absalom.”
22 Joab bowed with his face to the ground in deep respect and said, “At last I know that I have gained your approval, my lord the king, for you have granted me this request!”
23 Then Joab went to Geshur and brought Absalom back to Jerusalem. 24 But the king gave this order: “Absalom may go to his own house, but he must never come into my presence.” So Absalom did not see the king.
Absalom Reconciled to David
25 Now Absalom was praised as the most handsome man in all Israel. He was flawless from head to foot. 26 He cut his hair only once a year, and then only because it was so heavy. When he weighed it out, it came to five pounds![l] 27 He had three sons and one daughter. His daughter’s name was Tamar, and she was very beautiful.
28 Absalom lived in Jerusalem for two years, but he never got to see the king. 29 Then Absalom sent for Joab to ask him to intercede for him, but Joab refused to come. Absalom sent for him a second time, but again Joab refused to come. 30 So Absalom said to his servants, “Go and set fire to Joab’s barley field, the field next to mine.” So they set his field on fire, as Absalom had commanded.
31 Then Joab came to Absalom at his house and demanded, “Why did your servants set my field on fire?”
32 And Absalom replied, “Because I wanted you to ask the king why he brought me back from Geshur if he didn’t intend to see me. I might as well have stayed there. Let me see the king; if he finds me guilty of anything, then let him kill me.”
33 So Joab told the king what Absalom had said. Then at last David summoned Absalom, who came and bowed low before the king, and the king kissed him.
14:2 Hebrew don’t anoint yourself with oil.
14:4 As in many Hebrew manuscripts and Greek and Syriac versions; Masoretic Text reads spoke to.
14:16 Or the property; or the people.
14:26 Hebrew 200 shekels [2.3 kilograms] by the royal standard.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Read: Genesis 3:14-19
Then the Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, you are cursed
more than all animals, domestic and wild.
You will crawl on your belly,
groveling in the dust as long as you live.
15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike[a] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
16 Then he said to the woman,
“I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy,
and in pain you will give birth.
And you will desire to control your husband,
but he will rule over you.[b]”
17 And to the man he said,
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
whose fruit I commanded you not to eat,
the ground is cursed because of you.
All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you,
though you will eat of its grains.
19 By the sweat of your brow
will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground
from which you were made.
For you were made from dust,
and to dust you will return.”
Footnotes:
3:15 Or bruise; also in 3:15b.
3:16 Or And though you will have desire for your husband, / he will rule over you.
INSIGHT:
After the fall, Adam and Eve were barred from the Garden of Eden by cherubim (angels). God then established a form of worship to teach the necessity of a Savior to regain access to His presence. Of the tabernacle and then the temple, God said, “I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim,” which were fashioned out of gold and stretched their wings over the mercy seat (Ex. 25:17-22). The reminder of God’s holiness and the need for sacrifice and mercy were central to Old Testament worship.
Shopping with Liam
By Tim Gustafson
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel. —Genesis 3:15
My son Liam loves to pick dandelions for his mother. To date, she hasn’t wearied of receiving them. One man’s weed is a little boy’s flower.
One day I took Liam shopping with me. As we hurried past the floral section, he pointed excitedly to an arrangement of yellow tulips. “Daddy,” he exclaimed, “you should get those dandelions for Mommy!” His advice made me laugh. It made a pretty good Facebook post on his mother’s page too. (By the way, I bought the tulips.)
Some see in weeds a reminder of Adam’s sin. By eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve brought on themselves the curse of a fallen world—relentless work, agonizing birth, and eventual death (Gen. 3:16-19).
But Liam’s youthful eyes remind me of something else. There is beauty even in weeds. The anguish of childbirth holds hope for us all. Death is ultimately defeated. The “Seed” God spoke of in Genesis 3:15 would wage war with the serpent’s offspring. That Seed is Jesus Himself, who rescued us from the curse of death (Gal. 3:16).
The world may be broken, but wonder awaits us at every turn. Even weeds remind us of the promise of redemption and a Creator who loves us.
Help us, Father, to find You even in the midst of all life’s pain and aggravations. Forgive us for so often overlooking the beauty You have planted everywhere.
Creation reminds us of the promise of redemption.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
“Acquainted With Grief”
He is…a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. —Isaiah 53:3
We are not “acquainted with grief” in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of our lives we do not bring ourselves to the point of dealing with the reality of sin. We look at life through the eyes of reason and say that if a person will control his instincts, and educate himself, he can produce a life that will slowly evolve into the life of God. But as we continue on through life, we find the presence of something which we have not yet taken into account, namely, sin— and it upsets all of our thinking and our plans. Sin has made the foundation of our thinking unpredictable, uncontrollable, and irrational.
We have to recognize that sin is a fact of life, not just a shortcoming. Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life. The New Testament brings us right down to this one issue— if sin rules in me, God’s life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that. The culmination of sin was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, and what was true in the history of God on earth will also be true in your history and in mine— that is, sin will kill the life of God in us. We must mentally bring ourselves to terms with this fact of sin. It is the only explanation why Jesus Christ came to earth, and it is the explanation of the grief and sorrow of life.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Charleston-So Much Grief, So Much Grace - #7422
Part of my heart's been in Charleston, South Carolina these past few days. So has a part of America's heart. There was this hate-driven murder, of nine Christian worshipers in the church. It’s devastated the city and it’s riveted our nation. Seasoned reporters have been groping for words. They come up with words like "horrific" and "heartbreaking." But even more overwhelming than the brutal crime was the response of the families whose loved ones were murdered. "I forgive you."
News anchors have been shaking their heads. They’re trying right on-air to comprehend what the family members said to the shooter. Forgiveness being offered, even as they wept over the cherished loved ones that he had taken from them.
One CNN anchor may have said it best: he was standing outside the church, listening to the spontaneous singing of hymns, and reflecting on the stunning contrast between what I would call a horrific crime and a holy response. Here’s what he said, "There is so much grace here. Amazing grace."
A young man mercilessly executes the people he'd been with for an hour of prayer and Bible study. Leaving a survivor to be sure the world heard about it. The darkness was very dark that awful night in Emanuel AME Church.
But the Light has been so much brighter! As the world watches the stark contrast between the ugliness of hate, right next to the blazing light of supernatural love.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Charleston - So Much Grief, So Much Grace."
Our word for today from the Word of God John 1:5. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it."
There’s one image I’m not going to forget. It’s these hundreds of people, packed into a sanctuary 24 hours after the murders, singing through their tears - "We shall overcome." You know what? They have already.
Through the Savior who said, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" So we can be, in the Bible’s words, "more than conquerors through Him who loved us" (Romans 8:37). We can overcome because He has. The overcoming Jesus makes possible is on vivid display in the agony - and really the triumph of Charleston.
Overcoming the power of hate with the power of forgiveness. See hate and bitterness are cancers that eat away at our soul. They’re chains that tie us to the very person who hurt us. But forgiving sets us free. It's not excusing the person or the offense. It's refusing to harbor bitterness or vengeance toward them in our heart. Leaving judgment where it belongs - with God. Because, in our hearts, we've been to the cross where Jesus was slaughtered for our sin. And as He looks at all of us whose sin nailed Him there and He cries out, "Father, forgive them!" What else can we do? As the Bible says, "forgive as the Lord forgave you" (Colossians 3:13).
And He’s the key to overcoming the darkness inside us with the power of His cross. Anger and prejudice, and selfishness and pride, and lust and deceit. There are dark corners in every human heart. I call it "The animal inside." But, thank God, Jesus tamed that animal called sin when He allowed all of its fury to be unleashed on Him on the cross. So in the Bible’s words, "anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person...a new life has begun!" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
And Jesus is the key to overcoming the despair of grief with the power of hope. There was hope on display for all the world to see in Charleston. A scale where deep grief weighed heavily on one side - and hope, born from a resurrected Jesus, outweighed it on the other side.
I wonder if you’ve ever experienced the power and love of this Jesus for yourself. To carry you through the darkest valleys of your life, with resources only He can give you.
If you’ve never given your life to Him, He gave His life for you. Let this be the day you do that. Tell him, “Jesus, I’m yours.” You can chat with us about it at Chataboutjesus.com or text us at 442-244-WORD.
For our hurt, for our sin, for our broken heart - Jesus is, as no one else can be, the "anchor for the soul,” the Bible says, “firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:19). Not erasing the pain and the tears. But overcoming it with something greater.
