Max Lucado Daily: GOD WITH US
In Matthew 1:23, God called himself, “Immanuel”—which means, God with us! Not just God made us; not just God thinks about us; not just God above us; but God with us. God– where we are! He breathed our air and walked this earth. God. . .with. . .us!
Bethlehem was just the beginning. Jesus has promised a repeat performance: Bethlehem, Act 2. No silent night this time, however. The skies will open, trumpets will blast, and a new kingdom will begin. He will empty the tombs and melt the winter of death. Death, you die! Life, you reign! The manger dares us to believe the best is yet to be. I love Christmas because it reminds us how God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God!
From Because of Bethlehem
Hosea 11
Israel Played at Religion with Toy Gods
“When Israel was only a child, I loved him.
I called out, ‘My son!’—called him out of Egypt.
But when others called him,
he ran off and left me.
He worshiped the popular sex gods,
he played at religion with toy gods.
Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim.
I rescued him from human bondage,
But he never acknowledged my help,
never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon,
That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek,
that I bent down to feed him.
Now he wants to go back to Egypt or go over to Assyria—
anything but return to me!
That’s why his cities are unsafe—the murder rate skyrockets
and every plan to improve things falls to pieces.
My people are hell-bent on leaving me.
They pray to god Baal for help.
He doesn’t lift a finger to help them.
But how can I give up on you, Ephraim?
How can I turn you loose, Israel?
How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah,
devastated like luckless Zeboim?
I can’t bear to even think such thoughts.
My insides churn in protest.
And so I’m not going to act on my anger.
I’m not going to destroy Ephraim.
And why? Because I am God and not a human.
I’m The Holy One and I’m here—in your very midst.
10-12 “The people will end up following God.
I will roar like a lion—
Oh, how I’ll roar!
My frightened children will come running from the west.
Like frightened birds they’ll come from Egypt,
from Assyria like scared doves.
I’ll move them back into their homes.”
God’s Word!
Soul-Destroying Lies
Ephraim tells lies right and left.
Not a word of Israel can be trusted.
Judah, meanwhile, is no better,
addicted to cheap gods.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, December 05, 2016
Read: John 8:12–20
You’re Missing God in All This
12 Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.”
13 The Pharisees objected, “All we have is your word on this. We need more than this to go on.”
14-18 Jesus replied, “You’re right that you only have my word. But you can depend on it being true. I know where I’ve come from and where I go next. You don’t know where I’m from or where I’m headed. You decide according to what you can see and touch. I don’t make judgments like that. But even if I did, my judgment would be true because I wouldn’t make it out of the narrowness of my experience but in the largeness of the One who sent me, the Father. That fulfills the conditions set down in God’s Law: that you can count on the testimony of two witnesses. And that is what you have: You have my word and you have the word of the Father who sent me.”
19 They said, “Where is this so-called Father of yours?”
Jesus said, “You’re looking right at me and you don’t see me. How do you expect to see the Father? If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father.”
20 He gave this speech in the Treasury while teaching in the Temple. No one arrested him because his time wasn’t yet up.
INSIGHT:
The gospel records fall into two categories: the Synoptic gospels and the gospel of John. The “Synoptics” (which means “with a common view”) are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Although they offer varying details to help them tell the story of Jesus in a unique way, they still have a common perspective because they often tell the same stories. John’s gospel is very distinct from the synoptics, with 92 percent unique material. One distinctive of John’s gospel is the emphasis on the themes of light and truth. John expresses the reality that Jesus is the embodiment of truth and light.
Christmas Lights
By C. P. Hia
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. John 8:12
Each year for several weeks around Christmas, Singapore’s tourist belt, Orchard Road, is transformed into a wonderland of lights and colors. This light-up is designed to attract tourists to spend their money at the many stores along the street during this “golden month of business.” Shoppers come to enjoy the festivities, listen to choirs sing familiar Christmas carols, and watch performers entertain.
The first Christmas “light-up” ever was not created by electrical cables, glitter, and neon lights but by “the glory of the Lord [that] shone around” (Luke 2:9). No tourists saw it, just a few simple shepherds out in their field. And it was followed by an unexpected rendition of “Glory to God in the Highest” by an angelic choir (v. 14).
Lord, help me this Christmas to reflect the light of Your presence and goodness to others.
The shepherds went to Bethlehem to see if what the angels said was true (v. 15). After they had confirmed it, they could not keep to themselves what they had heard and seen. “When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child” (v. 17).
Many of us have heard the Christmas story often. This Christmas, why not share the good news with others that Christ—“the light of the world”—has come (John 8:12).
Lord, help me this Christmas to reflect the light of Your presence and goodness to others.
Read more of the Christmas story in God of the Stable at discoveryseries.org/hp145.
The gift of God’s love in us can bring light to any darkness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, December 05, 2016
“The Temple of the Holy Spirit”
…only in regard to the throne will I be greater than you. —Genesis 41:40
I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under His authority. Paul said he did not “set aside the grace of God”— make it ineffective (Galatians 2:21). The grace of God is absolute and limitless, and the work of salvation through Jesus is complete and finished forever. I am not being saved— I am saved. Salvation is as eternal as God’s throne, but I must put to work or use what God has placed within me. To “work out [my] own salvation” (Philippians 2:12) means that I am responsible for using what He has given me. It also means that I must exhibit in my own body the life of the Lord Jesus, not mysteriously or secretly, but openly and boldly. “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection . . .” (1 Corinthians 9:27). Every Christian can have his body under absolute control for God. God has given us the responsibility to rule over all “the temple of the Holy Spirit,” including our thoughts and desires (1 Corinthians 6:19). We are responsible for these, and we must never give way to improper ones. But most of us are much more severe in our judgment of others than we are in judging ourselves. We make excuses for things in ourselves, while we condemn things in the lives of others simply because we are not naturally inclined to do them.
Paul said, “I beseech you…that you present your bodies a living sacrifice…” (Romans 12:1). What I must decide is whether or not I will agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be His temple. Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and requirements of the law concerning the body are summed up for me in this revealed truth-my body is “the temple of the Holy Spirit.”
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, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, December 05, 2016
The Hand That Keeps You Safe - #7801
"I don't wanna go." When our boys were little, that was sometimes what they'd tell me when we were out in the woods where it was like totally dark and a little scary. Well, not for me. I mean for them, of course. But I would reach for their hand and their little hand would instinctively reach up my way when we hit a dark stretch, and they'd grab on tight. Now the strangest thing happened. Once they had their father's hand, their feet started moving. They could go where they otherwise would never think about going as long as they had my hand.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Hand That Keeps You Safe."
At the other end of life's spectrum from little boys was where my wife's grandfather was. He was 94. He was unable to remember very much, including my wife – his granddaughter. She called him one day and she said, "Hi, Granddad." She, of course, told him her name, and she said, "I love you." He wasn't very happy about it. He said, "I don't know who this is." Some strange woman was calling and saying she loved him! What is this? Well, she reminded her Granddad of his only son and that she was his daughter. "I don't know you." Finally she just said, "Well, Granddad, remember this. Jesus loves you." To which he replied, "Now Him I know!" Isn't that interesting? After 94 years, not much that he could remember, but there was one person whose love and whose presence he was still aware of – Jesus.
Listen, that's not a religion. That's a relationship so real that it's there for you through every conceivable stage of life. For my wife, it was real when she used to walk that dark stretch of road from her house to the school bus as a little girl. They lived way back in the woods, and that last stretch was beyond where she could see Mommy, or the neighbor, or anyone. Knowing those trees could be hiding the bears and the mountain lions that she knew were in their area, she would just start to sing, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me."
This Jesus – this Savior – is literally the hand you never outgrow. The hand that is there for you as my hand was there for my boys in those dark and uncertain places. Here's our word for today from the Word of God. It's the familiar words of the 23rd Psalm. They're a description of a personal relationship with God that I hope you have, or if you don't, that you'll begin it.
These are the words my own father wanted me to read to him the day he was going into that heart surgery from which he would never recover. Here are the words, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want...Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death (Which, by the way, sounds like a 94-year-old grandfather I knew, and my father facing life-or-death surgery, and a frightened little five-year-old girl on the dark stretch.). Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me."
This deep, personal, unloseable relationship with Jesus Christ is what I pray you will begin. It's the relationship your heart has always hungry for. This is the Savior who'll be with you through the turbulence of being a teenager, the pressures of parenting, the lonely moments of being single, the darkness of depression, the struggle of disease, or divorce, or disaster, or facing death.
The hand of Jesus I think maybe is reaching to you right now. If you'll look closely you'll see nail prints in that hand. They're there because of the price He paid to tear down the wall between you and God. His brutal death on the cross was to pay the death penalty for your sins and mine. Now He waits to forgive you; to be the one constant in your life and in your eternity no matter what changes.
Don't you want to grab that hand of Jesus to be your own personal Savior, your lifetime friend? Tell Him today, "Jesus, I give my life to the One who gave His life for me. I've been running it. You run it from now on. Jesus, I'm Yours."
Experience that love for yourself today. Let me invite you to go to our website. It's there to help you be sure you have begun your relationship with Jesus and to show you how. It's ANewStory.com. I hope you'll go there right away today.
You know, for an elderly grandfather, for a very sick father, for a frightened little girl, for you, the same never-leave-you person is Jesus. His hand is reaching. Won't you grab it? I'll tell you, He'll never, never let go.
