Max Lucado Daily: Simon Carries Jesus' Cross
Four soldiers. One criminal. One cross. Simon, a farmer, stands among the crowd and can't see the man's face, only a head wreathed with thorny branches. Jesus stops in front of Simon and heaves for air, the beam rubbing against an already-raw back.
"His name is Jesus," someone speaks. "Move on!" commands the executioner. But Jesus can't. The beam begins to sway. Simon instinctively extends his strong hands and catches the cross. "You! Take the cross." Simon dares to object. "I don't care," the soldier says, "Take up the cross!" And Simon did literally what God calls us to do figuratively: take up the cross and follow Jesus. Luke 9:23 says, "If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget yourself. You must take up your cross each day and follow me."
From On Calvary's Hill
Psalm 112
Praise the Lord.[d]
Blessed are those who fear the Lord,
who find great delight in his commands.
2 Their children will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in their houses,
and their righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright,
for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.
5 Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely,
who conduct their affairs with justice.
6 Surely the righteous will never be shaken;
they will be remembered forever.
7 They will have no fear of bad news;
their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
8 Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;
in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
9 They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor,
their righteousness endures forever;
their horn[e] will be lifted high in honor.
10 The wicked will see and be vexed,
they will gnash their teeth and waste away;
the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.
Footnotes:
Psalm 111:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem, the lines of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Psalm 111:1 Hebrew Hallelu Yah
Psalm 112:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem, the lines of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
Psalm 112:1 Hebrew Hallelu Yah
Psalm 112:9 Horn here symbolizes dignity.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Read: Psalm 22:1-10
For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be sung to the tune “Doe of the Dawn.”
1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
2 Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 Our ancestors trusted in you,
and you rescued them.
5 They cried out to you and were saved.
They trusted in you and were never disgraced.
6 But I am a worm and not a man.
I am scorned and despised by all!
7 Everyone who sees me mocks me.
They sneer and shake their heads, saying,
8 “Is this the one who relies on the Lord?
Then let the Lord save him!
If the Lord loves him so much,
let the Lord rescue him!”
9 Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb
and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast.
10 I was thrust into your arms at my birth.
You have been my God from the moment I was born.
INSIGHT:
Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God affected their relationship with Him, with each other, and with the good world God had created for them to live in and tend (Gen. 3:8-19). Too often we think of Jesus’s work—His life, death, and resurrection—solely in terms of what it means for our relationship with God. But the redemptive work of Christ extends beyond reconciling us to God. Jesus inaugurated a kingdom that is about restoring what was broken at the fall.
Never Forsaken
By Bill Crowder
Jesus cried out in a loud voice, . . . “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46
Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky said, “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” With that in mind, I read an online article describing “The Top 8 Deadliest Prisons in the World.” In one of these prisons every prisoner is held in solitary confinement.
We are intended to live and relate in relationships and community, not in isolation. This is what makes solitary confinement such a harsh punishment.
We are intended to live and relate in relationships and community.
Isolation is the agony Christ suffered when His eternal relationship with the Father was broken on the cross. We hear this in His cry captured in Matthew 27:46: “About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).” As He suffered and died under the burden of our sins, Christ was suddenly alone, forsaken, isolated, cut off from His relationship with the Father. Yet His suffering in isolation secured for us the promise of the Father: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).
Christ endured the agony and abandonment of the cross for us so that we would never be alone or abandoned by our God. Ever.
Father, thank You for making it possible for me to be Your child. I will be eternally grateful for the price Jesus paid to make that relationship possible. Thank You for the promise that You will never abandon me.
Those who know Jesus are never alone.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. —Matthew 5:8
Purity is not innocence— it is much more than that. Purity is the result of continued spiritual harmony with God. We have to grow in purity. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our character— it is “the pure in heart” who “see God.”
God makes us pure by an act of His sovereign grace, but we still have something that we must carefully watch. It is through our bodily life coming in contact with other people and other points of view that we tend to become tarnished. Not only must our “inner sanctuary” be kept right with God, but also the “outer courts” must be brought into perfect harmony with the purity God gives us through His grace. Our spiritual vision and understanding is immediately blurred when our “outer court” is stained. If we want to maintain personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean refusing to do or even think certain things. And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us.
A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, “That man or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus!”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. Not Knowing Whither, 903 R
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