Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S AGAPE LOVE
Paul reminded the church at Corinth the kind of love Christ offers to us– Agape love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” Don’t we need the same prescription today? Don’t groups still fight with each other? Don’t we flirt with those we shouldn’t? Aren’t we sometimes quiet when we should speak?
Someday there will be a community where everyone behaves and no one complains. But it won’t be this side of heaven. So till then we reason, we confront, and we teach. But most of all we love. Such love isn’t easy. Not even for Jesus. Listen to his frustration in Mark 9:19: “You people have no faith. How long must I stay with you? How long must I put up with you? How long? Until it kills me! Jesus bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured all things! Even the cross.
From A Love Worth Giving
Psalm 2
Why do the nations conspire[a]
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.”
4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.
5 He rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:
He said to me, “You are my son;
today I have become your father.
8 Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will break them with a rod of iron[b];
you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.
12 Kiss his son, or he will be angry
and your way will lead to your destruction,
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Footnotes:
Psalm 2:1 Hebrew; Septuagint rage
Psalm 2:9 Or will rule them with an iron scepter (see Septuagint and Syriac)
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
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:
Luke 19:1–3 tells us five things about a man named Zacchaeus. He lived in Jericho, he was a chief tax collector, he was wealthy, he was short, and he wanted to see Jesus. Most people know he was short, but that may be the least important fact of the five. Zacchaeus was likely the superintendent of customs for Jericho—an important and lucrative post. Jericho exported a great deal of balsam wood and was situated on a major trade route connecting Jerusalem to the East. Both of these facts—Zacchaeus’s residence in Jericho and his vocation—would account for his wealth. But ultimately wealth cannot provide the salvation and satisfaction that only Jesus can give.
A Better View
By Jennifer Benson Schuldt
Because he was short he could not see over the crowd. Luke 19:3
As a child, I loved to climb trees. The higher I climbed, the more I could see. Occasionally, in search of a better view, I might inch out along a branch until I felt it bend under my weight. Not surprisingly, my tree-climbing days are over. I suppose it isn’t very safe—or dignified.
Zacchaeus, a wealthy man, set aside his dignity (and perhaps ignored his safety) when he climbed a tree one day in Jericho. Jesus was traveling through the city, and Zacchaeus wanted to get a look at Him. However, “because he was short he could not see over the crowd” (Luke 19:3). Fortunately, those things did not stop him from seeing and even talking with Christ. Zacchaeus’s plan worked! And when he met Jesus, his life was changed forever. “Salvation has come to this house,” Jesus said (v. 9).
God rewards people who earnestly seek him (Heb. 11:6).
We too can be prevented from seeing Jesus. Pride can blind us from seeing Him as the Wonderful Counselor. Anxiety keeps us from knowing Him as the Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). Hunger for status and stuff can prevent us from seeing Him as the true source of satisfaction—the Bread of Life (John 6:48).
What are you willing to do to get a better view of Jesus? Any sincere effort to get closer to Him will have a good result. God rewards people who earnestly seek Him (Heb. 11:6).
Thank You Jesus for all that You are. Show me more of Yourself as I read the Bible and pray. Help me to pursue You with all of my heart and mind.
To strengthen your faith in God, seek the face of God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve… —Matthew 20:28
Jesus also said, “Yet I am among you as the One who serves” (Luke 22:27). Paul’s idea of service was the same as our Lord’s— “…ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). We somehow have the idea that a person called to the ministry is called to be different and above other people. But according to Jesus Christ, he is called to be a “doormat” for others— called to be their spiritual leader, but never their superior. Paul said, “I know how to be abased…” (Philippians 4:12). Paul’s idea of service was to pour his life out to the last drop for others. And whether he received praise or blame made no difference. As long as there was one human being who did not know Jesus, Paul felt a debt of service to that person until he did come to know Him. But the chief motivation behind Paul’s service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.
Paul’s understanding of how Christ had dealt with him is the secret behind his determination to serve others. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man…” (1 Timothy 1:13). In other words, no matter how badly others may have treated Paul, they could never have treated him with the same degree of spite and hatred with which he had treated Jesus Christ. Once we realize that Jesus has served us even to the depths of our meagerness, our selfishness, and our sin, nothing we encounter from others will be able to exhaust our determination to serve others for His sake.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Both nations and individuals have tried Christianity and abandoned it, because it has been found too difficult; but no man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making Jesus Lord and found Him to be a failure. The Love of God—The Making of a Christian, 680 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
A Single Break - A Lot of Ripples - #7597
Here's what my airline ticket said: Friday afternoon Ron will fly from Newark to Houston. An hour later, he will take a connecting flight from Houston to Guadalajara, Mexico. So much for what the ticket said. I was on my way to be with the Director of our radio outreach to Latin American young people. But little did I know that my flight would be delayed for a last-minute repair. Many passengers were concerned because they, too, had connecting flights in Houston and then on to various destinations in Mexico.
The good news is that they finished the repair in enough time for most of us to still have a shot at making our connections. That was the good news. Then the pilot said, "But we do have another problem. The copilot's seat just broke." Right! Now listen, I have flown a lot, but I have never heard of a seat breaking in the cockpit. Apparently they don't have a spare copilot's seat at the gate, just in case. It took quite a while to get another one. I got off to make a phone call and, sure enough, there was a dead seat lying face down in the jet way.
By the time we finally took off, those of us with connecting flights were doomed and we knew we were doomed! When we finally arrived in Houston, we were greeted with a piece of paper that told us where we would be spending the night. On the other side of the paper was a list of all the new flights for those who had missed their connection. Twenty-eight flights had been affected by that one broken seat, and who knows how many people!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Single Break - A Lot of Ripples."
It's amazing how one broken thing can produce so many ripples isn't it! Especially when what's broken is a relationship. If we could see the list of people who are affected when one relationship is breaking or broken, we would be stunned at the extent of the damage.
A struggling couple who is thinking about divorce is probably not beginning to estimate the collateral damage from that choice. Children, friends, fellow believers, others with marital struggles, even future generations will feel the effects of one canceled marriage. Or church members, allowing issues that seem so important to divide them. They have no idea of what they're doing to children who are watching, young people who are watching, relatives, leaders. If they could see a list of the people who are being scarred and confused and spiritually disillusioned, I wonder if winning that issue would seem worth all that damage.
That long night I spent trying to get to Houston, I knew I was being affected by one thing broken. And the people who were to meet me on the other end were affected, too. But I could never have dreamed how many passengers and loved ones and meetings and commitments would be affected until I saw that list of disruptions.
It's because relationships are so fragile, because they do so much damage when they're broken, that God gives us this relationship insurance in our word for today from the Word of God, Ephesians 4:26-27, "In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. And do not give the devil a foothold."
God says, "If there's a problem between you, fix it fast. When you don't, you've just given the devil a place to get in." See, relationships don't have to become broken if we will just get to that person quickly and do whatever it takes to deal with the problem. Today it's small. By tomorrow, the break will be bigger and the feelings will be harder.
So whether it's a relationship in your family, or your church, or in a romance, maybe between friends, or at work; wherever there's a break, don't let it go any longer, don't let it grow any bigger. You're only giving Satan himself a weapon with which to wound you and more people than you could ever imagine.
That night at the airport I saw the long list of what got messed up because of one broken thing. Please don't let a list like that start to grow because you didn't sacrifice a little to fix one broken relationship. You can't see it from where you're sitting right now, but the damage from that break could reach so far and it could hurt so many.