Max Lucado Daily: Open Bible, Open Heart, Open Ears
Do you have a Bible? Read it! When anxiety termites away at your peace, read Philippians 4:6: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Or perhaps laziness is knocking on your door. Read Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.”
Don’t make a decision, large or small, without sitting before God with an open Bible, an open heart, and open ears. Philippians 2:13 says, “God is working in you to help you want to do and be able to do what pleases Him.”
You have all you need to face the giant-size questions of your life. Most of all you have a God who loves you too much to let you wander. You have a heart for God? Heed it! Have a Bible? Read it.
From Facing Your Giants
Psalm 16
A psalm[a] of David.
Keep me safe, O God,
for I have come to you for refuge.
2 I said to the Lord, “You are my Master!
Every good thing I have comes from you.”
3 The godly people in the land
are my true heroes!
I take pleasure in them!
4 Troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods.
I will not take part in their sacrifices of blood
or even speak the names of their gods.
5 Lord, you alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing.
You guard all that is mine.
6 The land you have given me is a pleasant land.
What a wonderful inheritance!
7 I will bless the Lord who guides me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
8 I know the Lord is always with me.
I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.
9 No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice.[b]
My body rests in safety.
10 For you will not leave my soul among the dead[c]
or allow your holy one[d] to rot in the grave.
11 You will show me the way of life,
granting me the joy of your presence
and the pleasures of living with you forever.[e]
Footnotes:
16:Title Hebrew miktam. This may be a literary or musical term.
16:9 Greek version reads and my tongue shouts his praises. Compare Acts 2:26.
16:10a Hebrew in Sheol.
16:10b Or your Holy One.
16:11 Greek version reads You have shown me the way of life, / and you will fill me with the joy of your presence. Compare Acts 2:28.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, July 31, 2015
Read: Luke 19:1-10
Jesus and Zacchaeus
Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. 2 There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. 3 He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.
5 When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.”
6 Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7 But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.
8 Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!”
9 Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man[a] came to seek and save those who are lost.”
Footnotes:
19:10 “Son of Man” is a title Jesus used for himself.
INSIGHT:
Jesus’ description of His mission to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10) is pictured beautifully in His trilogy of parables in Luke 15. He begins in verses 3-7, describing a shepherd who pursues the one lost sheep. The theme continues in verses 8-10 with a woman searching diligently for a lost coin. The trilogy finds its apex in the parable of the prodigal son in verses 11-32. Two common threads run through these three parables. The first is the passion and determination of the seeker—a picture of God’s great love for us. The second is the absolute joy and celebration every time the lost is found. What a marvelous expression of God’s loving pursuit of us.
He Found Me
By Bill Crowder
The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. —Luke 19:10
The film Amazing Grace was set in the late 1700s. It tells the story of William Wilberforce, a politician who was driven by his faith in Christ to commit his money and energy to abolishing the slave trade in England. In one scene, Wilberforce’s butler finds him praying. The butler asks, “You found God, Sir?” Wilberforce responds, “I think He found me.”
The Bible pictures humanity as wayward and wandering sheep. It says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way” (Isa. 53:6). In fact, this wayward condition is so deeply rooted in us that the apostle Paul said: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside” (Rom. 3:10-12). That is why Jesus came. We would never seek Him, so He came seeking us. Jesus declared His mission with the words, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
Wilberforce was exactly right. Jesus came to find us, for we could never have found Him if left to ourselves. It is a clear expression of the Creator’s love for His lost creation that He pursues us and desires to make us His own.
Amazing grace—how sweet the sound—that saved a wretch like me!?I once was lost but now am found,?was blind, but now I see. John Newton
Once lost, now found. Eternally thankful!
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
July 31, 2015
Becoming Entirely His
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. —James 1:4
Many of us appear to be all right in general, but there are still some areas in which we are careless and lazy; it is not a matter of sin, but the remnants of our carnal life that tend to make us careless. Carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit. We should have no carelessness about us either in the way we worship God, or even in the way we eat and drink.
Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives is under His scrutiny. God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives.
We have been having a wonderful time in our studies over the revealed truth of God’s redemption, and our hearts are perfect toward Him. And His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. “Let patience have its perfect work….” The Holy Spirit speaking through James said, “Now let your patience become a finished product.” Beware of becoming careless over the small details of life and saying, “Oh, that will have to do for now.” Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, July 31, 2015
How Satan Takes You Where You Never Thought You'd Go - #7450
I remember one time years ago when our area had a garbage strike. (It's not a great memory!) The garbage piled up in our garage while the sanitation folks figured out their deal, and it took a while. And it took awhile to get the smell out of our garage.
Now, I know how nasty garbage can get, so I was sympathetic to this man I heard about. There was a garbage strike in his area, and he came up with a creative way to get rid of all that accumulating junk. He sim-ply took some of his garbage each day, put it in a box, and gift wrapped it. Then he left that little gift each day on the bus or the subway. I'm not sure what happened to any of the lucky recipients of all those packages, but you've got to admit, if you've got garbage to move, it's pretty smart to gift wrap it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Satan Takes You Where You Never Thought You'd Go."
That man was not the first to think of this idea. Satan thought of it a long time ago. He's got garbage that he wants you to pick up. And he knows you won't take it unless it's gift-wrapped. He has no product to give you except pain and disappointment, slavery, death. But he does know how to create a package that will get things into your life that you would never let in if you knew what it was or where it was going to take you. Satan never starts with where he wants you to end up. You don't find that out until it's too late.
It's because the devil gift wraps his junk. And that's why Paul tells us what he does in our word for today from the Word of God, 2 Corinthians 2:11. He tells us to not let Satan "outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes." Like gift-wrapping death. Like the man with pretty garbage, making it look like something it isn't.
What kind of gift-wrapping does your enemy use? Well, sometimes he puts his garbage in an entertaining package. His goal is to get you to think about it and then to want it, because he got you thinking about it first, and then to do what he got you to want, and then to finally pay for it. Think about it, want it, do it, pay for it. And the easiest way to plant sin in your heart is when your guard is down. Satan shows up in the music you love, a movie you really wanted to see, a clever or popular TV show, a great website, a book. But inside what may be a very entertaining package could be images and ideas and values that Satan wants to use to ruin you.
Your enemy also puts his garbage in a personal package. He gets it into your life through a person you really like or respect. He sends the garbage through a teacher you really respect, or someone of the opposite sex you're attracted to, or friends you really don't want to lose. He knows that if he has his sinful idea delivered to you by the right person, you might fall for his lie.
And the devil will even gift-wrap his lies in a spiritual package and get you to wander away from Jesus into something that sounds very spiritual but is very wrong. Dead wrong. They may talk about God and spirituality, maybe meditation, maybe about the Bible; anything that sounds almost Christian, but it's a deadly detour from the truth. You can just assume that the enemy is trying to wear you down right now in some area by offering you garbage in a package designed to really disarm you. That's why God wants you to know who you really are.
In 2 Corinthians 6:16 Paul says, "We are the temple of the living God. As God said, 'I will live with them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be My people.'" And then he says, "Don't touch the filthy things and I will welcome you." He says don't even touch the package!
God lives in you. You're God's blood-bought child. Don't pollute yourself with the devil's stinking garbage no matter how irresistible the wrapping paper is. It's trash, no matter how good it looks!