Max Lucado Daily: MODERN-DAY CHRISTMAS STORY
You have bills to pay, beds to make, and grass to cut. Your face won’t grace any magazine covers, and you aren’t expecting a call from the White House. Congratulations! You qualify for a modern-day Christmas story.
Step into the stable, cradle in your arms the infant Jesus. Listen, as one who knew him well puts lyrics to the event. What no theologian conceived, what no rabbi dared to dream, God did. John 1:14 proclaims, “The Word became flesh!” Christ in Mary. God in Christ. The Word of God entered the world with the cry of a baby. God writes his story with ordinary people like Joseph and like Mary. . .people like you..and like me.
From More to Your Story
Psalm 148
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
2 Praise him, all his angels!
Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
3 Praise him, sun and moon!
Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
4 Praise him, skies above!
Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
5 Let every created thing give praise to the Lord,
for he issued his command, and they came into being.
6 He set them in place forever and ever.
His decree will never be revoked.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you creatures of the ocean depths,
8 fire and hail, snow and clouds,[b]
wind and weather that obey him,
9 mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all livestock,
small scurrying animals and birds,
11 kings of the earth and all people,
rulers and judges of the earth,
12 young men and young women,
old men and children.
13 Let them all praise the name of the Lord.
For his name is very great;
his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
14 He has made his people strong,
honoring his faithful ones—
the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!
Footnotes: 148:8 Or mist, or smoke.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, May 04, 2016
Read: Lamentations 5:8-22
Slaves have now become our masters;
there is no one left to rescue us.
9 We hunt for food at the risk of our lives,
for violence rules the countryside.
10 The famine has blackened our skin
as though baked in an oven.
11 Our enemies rape the women in Jerusalem[a]
and the young girls in all the towns of Judah.
12 Our princes are being hanged by their thumbs,
and our elders are treated with contempt.
13 Young men are led away to work at millstones,
and boys stagger under heavy loads of wood.
14 The elders no longer sit in the city gates;
the young men no longer dance and sing.
15 Joy has left our hearts;
our dancing has turned to mourning.
16 The garlands have[b] fallen from our heads.
Weep for us because we have sinned.
17 Our hearts are sick and weary,
and our eyes grow dim with tears.
18 For Jerusalem[c] is empty and desolate,
a place haunted by jackals.
19 But Lord, you remain the same forever!
Your throne continues from generation to generation.
20 Why do you continue to forget us?
Why have you abandoned us for so long?
21 Restore us, O Lord, and bring us back to you again!
Give us back the joys we once had!
22 Or have you utterly rejected us?
Are you angry with us still?
Footnotes:
5:11 Hebrew in Zion.
5:16 Or The crown has.
5:18 Hebrew Mount Zion.
INSIGHT:
According to The Bible Knowledge Commentary, one characteristic of the book of Lamentations is the pattern of its laments. “Lamentations is a series of five laments, or funeral dirges; each chapter is a separate lament. A lament was a funeral poem or song written and recited for someone who had just died (cf. 2 Sam. 1:17–27). The song usually emphasized the good qualities of the departed and the tragedy or loss felt by those mourning his death. Jeremiah was lamenting the tragic ‘death’ of the city of Jerusalem and the results of her demise that were being experienced by the people. Thus he used the form of a funeral lament to convey the feeling of sadness and loss being experienced by the survivors.”
Out of the Ruins
By Tim Gustafson
He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins. Ezra 9:9
In the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem you’ll find Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue. Built in the 19th century, the synagogue was dynamited by commandos during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
For years the site lay in ruins. Then, in 2014, rebuilding began. As city officials set a piece of rubble as the cornerstone, one of them quoted from Lamentations: “Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old” (5:21).
It takes time, but we can always trust Him.
Lamentations is Jeremiah’s funeral song for Jerusalem. With graphic imagery the prophet describes the impact of war on his city. Verse 21 is his heartfelt prayer for God to intervene. Still, the prophet wonders if that is even possible. He concludes his anguished song with this fearful caveat: “unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure” (v. 22). Decades later, God did answer that prayer as the exiles returned to Jerusalem.
Our lives too may seem to be in ruins. Troubles of our own making and conflicts we can’t avoid may leave us devastated. But we have a Father who understands. Gently, patiently, He clears away the rubble, repurposes it, and builds something better. It takes time, but we can always trust Him. He specializes in rebuilding projects.
Lord, You have reclaimed us, and You are remaking us. Thank You for Your love and Your care despite our self-centered and destructive ways.
Thank You for true forgiveness and unity in You.
God will one day restore all the beauty lost before.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, May 04, 2016
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment.
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, May 04, 2016
Ronald Reagan's Lasting Memory - #7648
Nancy Reagan called it "the long goodbye." Her beloved husband's slow slide into the black hole of Alzheimer's Disease. America said goodbye to Nancy Reagan recently, and we remember her as a great First Lady and a wife forever in love with her "Ronnie." Her boundless devotion to him became almost legendary. And at her funeral service, more people talked about that than anything else. Yes, when he was the famous Hollywood star and when he was a transformative leader of the Western World, Nancy stood by his side, but especially through his long, ten-year goodbye.
As Ronald Reagan's memory began to fade through the ravages of Alzheimer's, his Nancy wanted to make sure that he could still maintain the dignity of going to his office at Century City. And so several times a week he would get all dressed up and he would go to the office. Even though as time went by there wasn't a whole lot that he could do there.
This is where the story comes in that has affected me profoundly ever since I read it years ago. Actually, I read it in a national news magazine's special commemorative edition of Reagan's life. It reported how visitors would come to visit Mr. Reagan. And, of course, they would ask him about when he was governor of California, when he was a movie star, when he was President. But slowly, the conversations about the past became more and more frustrating, because as Alzheimer's began to erase various memories, his years as a movie star vanished from his own memory bank. And then might as well not talk about Governor of California. He didn't remember anything.
And finally, he could no longer remember even the great accomplishments as President of the United States. Amazingly, though, there was one memory that remained almost to the end.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Ronald Reagan's Lasting Memory."
The memory actually explained a picture on his wall. People would go, "Now, what's the picture of that river over there, Mr. Reagan?" groping for some conversation that could have some traction. And he'd smile and he would say, "Oh, wait! That's the Rock River in Illinois. That's where I was a lifeguard." Then came the recollection that brought me up short. He said, "That's where I saved 77 lives!"
Wow! Long after the traces of all his massive achievements were gone; Hollywood, Governor, the White House, there was one legacy of his life that remained; the lives he had saved. And so it will be for me. And so it will be for all of us who follow Jesus. When every other achievement of our life has faded to dust, one will remain – the lives we have saved.
In our word for today from the Word of God, Proverbs 24 verse 11, God says, "Rescue those who are being led away to death and hold back those who are staggering toward slaughter." Jude 23 says, "Snatch others from the fire and save them." See, we're "Christ's ambassadors" (2 Corinthians 5:20). You're His face, you're His hands, you're His voice to the people around you.
Like any ambassador, we carry a message from the One who assigned us. Here's the message in 2 Corinthians 5, "We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God..." I have nothing – nothing – more important to do than to get that plea; to get the good news of Christ's death for them to people I know and care about. That's the only way their eternity can be changed, that they can be rescued. This is a life-or-death message, and He's trusted you and me to deliver it.
So after all is said and done, this is what we will have to show for this life that God gave us to live. It's the lives we reached out to. It's the lives that God used us to save.
