Max Lucado Daily: I LOVE CHRISTMAS
Let the sleigh bells ring! I love Christmas. Let the carolers sing. The more Santas the merrier. I don’t complain about the crowded shops. I don’t grumble at the jam-packed grocery store. Well—it’s Christmas.
I love it because someone will ask the Christmas questions. What’s the big deal about the baby in the manger? Who was he? What does his birth have to do with me? The questioner may be a soldier stationed far from home. She may be a young mom who, for the first time, holds a child on Christmas Eve. The Christmas season prompts Christmas questions…and answers.
Because of Bethlehem, God is always near us. Always for us. Always in us. We may forget Him, but God will never forget us. He called Himself “Immanuel”—God with us!
From Because of Bethlehem
Romans 15:1-13
Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”
3-6 That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it. Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next. May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!
7-13 So reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory. Jesus did it; now you do it! Jesus, staying true to God’s purposes, reached out in a special way to the Jewish insiders so that the old ancestral promises would come true for them. As a result, the non-Jewish outsiders have been able to experience mercy and to show appreciation to God. Just think of all the Scriptures that will come true in what we do! For instance:
Then I’ll join outsiders in a hymn-sing;
I’ll sing to your name!
And this one:
Outsiders and insiders, rejoice together!
And again:
People of all nations, celebrate God!
All colors and races, give hearty praise!
And Isaiah’s word:
There’s the root of our ancestor Jesse,
breaking through the earth and growing tree tall,
Tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope!
Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, December 01, 2016
Read: John 1:1–14
The Life-Light
1 1-2 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
3-5 Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.
6-8 There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.
9-13 The Life-Light was the real thing:
Every person entering Life
he brings into Light.
He was in the world,
the world was there through him,
and yet the world didn’t even notice.
He came to his own people,
but they didn’t want him.
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves.
These are the God-begotten,
not blood-begotten,
not flesh-begotten,
not sex-begotten.
14 The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.
INSIGHT:
The Lord Jesus gives the gift of light (John 8:12) and life (14:6) to all who believe in Him so they may enter into and experience eternal life with God (3:15–16; 6:47; 17:3). God has given us light embodied in Jesus (the living Word; John 1:1) and expressed in print in the written Word of God, the Bible (Ps. 119:105). As we focus on Jesus and immerse our minds responsively in God’s words, we find light shining more and more upon our daily path. Then we are better able to be what God intended us to be.
The View from 400 Miles
By David McCasland
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. John 1:9
“My perspective on earth changed dramatically the very first time I went into space,” says Space Shuttle astronaut Charles Frank Bolden Jr. From four hundred miles above the earth, all looked peaceful and beautiful to him. Yet Bolden recalled later that as he passed over the Middle East, he was “shaken into reality” when he considered the ongoing conflict there. During an interview with film producer Jared Leto, Bolden spoke of that moment as a time when he saw the earth with a sense of how it ought to be—and then sensed a challenge to do all he could to make it better.
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the world was not the way God intended it. Into this moral and spiritual darkness Jesus came bringing life and light to all (John 1:4). Even though the world didn’t recognize Him, “to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (v. 12).
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. John 1:9
When life is not the way it ought to be we are deeply saddened—when families break up, children go hungry, and the world wages war. But God promises that through faith in Christ anyone can begin to move in a new direction.
The Christmas season reminds us that Jesus, the Savior, gives the gift of life and light to everyone who will receive and follow Him.
Father in heaven, may we share the light and life of Jesus with others today.
Share the hope of Christmas with your family and friends. Visit us at ourdailybread.org/GiftofGrace for outreach resources.
God is at work to make us who He intends us to be.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, December 01, 2016
The Law and the Gospel
Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. —James 2:10
The moral law does not consider our weaknesses as human beings; in fact, it does not take into account our heredity or infirmities. It simply demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never changes, either for the highest of society or for the weakest in the world. It is enduring and eternally the same. The moral law, ordained by God, does not make itself weak to the weak by excusing our shortcomings. It remains absolute for all time and eternity. If we are not aware of this, it is because we are less than alive. Once we do realize it, our life immediately becomes a fatal tragedy. “I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died” (Romans 7:9). The moment we realize this, the Spirit of God convicts us of sin. Until a person gets there and sees that there is no hope, the Cross of Christ remains absurd to him. Conviction of sin always brings a fearful, confining sense of the law. It makes a person hopeless— “…sold under sin” (Romans 7:14). I, a guilty sinner, can never work to get right with God— it is impossible. There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the underlying idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience. Who of us could ever obey God to absolute perfection!
We only begin to realize the power of the moral law once we see that it comes with a condition and a promise. But God never coerces us. Sometimes we wish He would make us be obedient, and at other times we wish He would leave us alone. Whenever God’s will is in complete control, He removes all pressure. And when we deliberately choose to obey Him, He will reach to the remotest star and to the ends of the earth to assist us with all of His almighty power.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.… We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. My Utmost for His Highest, January 6, 736 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, December 01, 2016
Women Watching Their Men - #7799
There's this poignant scene from the epic novel and movie, "Grapes of Wrath". You might remember that's John Steinbeck's story about families that were living in the Depression-era in the Dust Bowl of mid-America, and that's a time when lives and families were changed forever. Huge dust storms were wiping out the life's work of a lot of farmers. In this one scene, an Oklahoma farm family has gathered in front of their house to watch the approach of this massive, foreboding dust storm. The working men in the family are looking toward the horizon, no doubt wondering what this storm is going to do to their world. The children are hanging onto their parents' knees, and their eyes are on the horizon, too. But not the women. No, the women are watching only their men's faces. What they need to know is there.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Women Watching Their Men."
That scene actually is a pretty revealing picture of where a wife's sense of security and well-being is supposed to lie – in the man she married. In fact, our word for today from the Word of God in Proverbs 14:26 describes the home of a real man this way: "He who fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for his children it will be a refuge." Wow! A secure fortress – that's the kind of environment a man should provide for his wife and for his children.
God seems to have designed the home in such a way that the man is the thermostat – his marriage and his home reflect whatever climate he sets. That climate can be peaceful or stressful, it can be affectionate or cold, it can be communicating or just silent and disconnected. I mean, a man could be setting a climate that's sort of harsh, or it could be selfish or it could be unselfish, positive or negative. The woman seems to be the thermometer of the family, reflecting the temperature that's set by her thermostatic man. And I guess you might say that the children are the seismograph who register every disturbance.
When Eve ate the forbidden fruit, do you notice who God came looking for? He came looking for Adam, because it was the man God that held accountable for the condition of that first family. When Sarah laughed at God's promise of a son in her old age, God didn't come looking for Sarah. He came looking for Abraham and He confronted him about her unbelief. The buck stops with the man. Guys, it's us!
In our wedding ceremony, I asked God to help me be for my Karen – and these are the words we used – "the harbor for which the heart of woman truly longs". I don't think I always was that harbor, but I knew that that is what God expected of me and what I needed to try to be more and more.
You know, it's hard for a woman to feel secure in her husband's love when he doesn't even take time to listen to her heart, when he often criticizes her, when he seldom praises her, when he speaks harsh words to her in anger that he forgets and she can never forget. It's hard for her to trust him when his eyes keep wandering, when he doesn't seem to value what she does. A man has incredible power to build a woman up or to tear her down.
And she has every right to expect what God expects – that the man will be the spiritual leader in his home; leading them to pray, leading them to consult God's Word, leading them into godly choices.
The man may be scanning the horizon, weighing what he needs to do. But if you're married, your wife is looking at you to decide whether she's safe or not. See, you're her horizon. Don't let her down.