Max Lucado Daily: NO DAY ACCIDENTAL OR INCIDENTAL
No day is accidental or incidental. No acts are random or wasted. Look at Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem. A king ordered a census. Joseph was forced to travel. Mary, as round as a ladybug, bounced on a donkey’s back. The hotel was full. The hour was late. The event was one big hassle. Yet out of the hassle, hope was born. It still is.
I don’t like hassles. But I love Christmas because it reminds us of the heart-shaping promises of Christmas. Long after the guests have left, and the carolers have gone home, and the lights have come down these promises endure: God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God. Perhaps you could use some Christmas this Christmas?
From Because of Bethlehem
Hosea 12
Ephraim, obsessed with god-fantasies,
chases ghosts and phantoms.
He tells lies nonstop,
soul-destroying lies.
Both Ephraim and Judah made deals with Assyria
and tried to get an inside track with Egypt.
God is bringing charges against Israel.
Jacob’s children are hauled into court to be punished.
In the womb, that heel, Jacob, got the best of his brother.
When he grew up, he tried to get the best of God.
But God would not be bested.
God bested him.
Brought to his knees,
Jacob wept and prayed.
God found him at Bethel.
That’s where he spoke with him.
God is God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
God-Revealed, God-Known.
6 What are you waiting for? Return to your God!
Commit yourself in love, in justice!
Wait for your God,
and don’t give up on him—ever!
7-8 The businessmen engage in wholesale fraud.
They love to rip people off!
Ephraim boasted, “Look, I’m rich!
I’ve made it big!
And look how well I’ve covered my tracks:
not a hint of fraud, not a sign of sin!”
9-11 “But not so fast! I’m God, your God!
Your God from the days in Egypt!
I’m going to put you back to living in tents,
as in the old days when you worshiped in the wilderness.
I speak through the prophets
to give clear pictures of the way things are.
Using prophets, I tell revealing stories.
I show Gilead rampant with religious scandal
and Gilgal teeming with empty-headed religion.
I expose their worship centers as
stinking piles of garbage in their gardens.”
12-14 Are you going to repeat the life of your ancestor Jacob?
He ran off guilty to Aram,
Then sold his soul to get ahead,
and made it big through treachery and deceit.
Your real identity is formed through God-sent prophets,
who led you out of Egypt and served as faithful pastors.
As it is, Ephraim has continually
and inexcusably insulted God.
Now he has to pay for his life-destroying ways.
His Master will do to him what he has done.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Read: Psalm 141:1–4
1-2 God, come close. Come quickly!
Open your ears—it’s my voice you’re hearing!
Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising;
my raised hands are my evening prayers.
3-7 Post a guard at my mouth, God,
set a watch at the door of my lips.
Don’t let me so much as dream of evil
or thoughtlessly fall into bad company.
And these people who only do wrong—
don’t let them lure me with their sweet talk!
May the Just One set me straight,
may the Kind One correct me,
Don’t let sin anoint my head.
I’m praying hard against their evil ways!
Oh, let their leaders be pushed off a high rock cliff;
make them face the music.
Like a rock pulverized by a maul,
let their bones be scattered at the gates of hell.
INSIGHT:
One of the experiences that shaped David's life—and his psalms—was his time as a refugee from a homicidal King Saul. David had two opportunities to usher in the fulfillment of his anointing as king by killing Saul (chs. 24, 26), and both times he was encouraged to do so by some of his followers. However, he did not kill Saul but left the situation in God’s hands. It may be these instances specifically that are at the root of the words of Psalm 141. The God who gave David strength to avoid evil deeds continues to offer help to us when we are faced with temptation. When have you asked God to help you resist a temptation in your life?
Constant Kindness
By David Roper
Be kind and compassionate to one another. Ephesians 4:32
When I was a child I was an ardent reader of L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz books. I recently came across Rinkitink in Oz with all the original artwork. I laughed again at the antics of Baum's irrepressible, good-hearted King Rinkitink with his down-to-earth goodness. Young Prince Inga described him best: “His heart is kind and gentle and that is far better than being wise."
How simple and how sensible! Yet who has not wounded the heart of someone dear to us by a harsh word? By doing so, we disturb the peace and quiet of the hour and we can undo much of the good we have done toward those we love. "A small unkindness is a great offense,” said Hannah More, an 18th-century English writer.
Be kind and compassionate to one another. Ephesians 4:32
Here’s the good news: Anyone can become kind. We may be incapable of preaching an inspiring sermon, fielding hard questions, or evangelizing vast numbers, but we can all be kind.
How? Through prayer. It is the only way to soften our hearts. “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil [or harsh]” (Ps. 141:3–4).
In a world in which love has grown cold, a kindness that comes from the heart of God is one of the most helpful and healing things we can offer to others.
Forgive me, Lord, when I bring anger into a situation. Soften my heart and help me use my words to encourage others.
Read words from Oswald Chambers at utmost.org
The knowledge that God has loved me beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the same way. Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
“My Rainbow in the Cloud”
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. —Genesis 9:13
It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose. Why doesn’t God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with Him. Why doesn’t God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is— will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won’t do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God— a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don’t believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, “Now I believe.” There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, “Look to Me, and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:22).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement— no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us, our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” My Utmost for His Highest, April 23, 773 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Building Now What You'll Live In Later - #7802
My wife was just a girl when her grandparents down the road started building a little farmstead to live in. Because she had expressed a desire to be a missionary someday, Granddad thought she needed to know how to do things for herself – including laying block for a building. So, she got to help lay the block for her grandparents' house. Well, in the amazing, surprising ways of God, we ended up getting to live in that house many years after it was built. I used to kid her that the crooked blocks are the ones she did!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Building Now What You'll Live In Later."
My wife could have never imagined it what she built as a girl she would one day live in! But then, aren't our lives like that? We live in tomorrow whatever we build today.
That's exactly what the Bible says in that famous statement in Galatians 6:7. It's our word for today from the Word of God. "Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." What you're planting today, you'll be eating in the future; what you're building today, you'll be living in later on. You know, in a very real way, the life you're living right now, the things you love and the things you hate, it's the harvest of the choices you made months ago or years ago, right? Except you may not have realized at the time what the choices were that you were making or the significance of them. You were actually building your future. You were choosing a road. See, that's why it's so important to realize it now. I mean, to realize about the choices you're making at this point in your life!
What you do with your body, what you do to your body now you're going to be living with down the road. Right? The way you treat your parents, the way you treat your children, the way you treat the other people in your personal world – you'll be living with that in your relationships for a long time to come. You will reap what you sow, you'll reap the sacrifices you're making, you'll reap the appreciation you're expressing, the generosity you're showing. You'll also reap the criticism you give, the sarcasm, the meanness, the harshness, the hurting words and the neglect. Oh yeah, they'll come back to you.
The way you talk to people, the way you talk about people – I hope it's something you'll want to live with in the years to come. Your words are seed you sow, and later you'll be living with the harvest of those words – a beautiful harvest or a bitter harvest. And one thing we're all building, for better or for worse, is a reputation. You're developing a reputation right now for trustworthiness or unreliability, for honesty or deceitfulness, for moral purity or moral laxity, for consistency or inconsistency. And much of what you get in the future will be the harvest of the kind of reputation that you're building today. You really do reap what you sow.
So don't compromise just to get out of a jam, or to get a quick fix, or to cover up something, or to meet a need today in a way that you're going to regret tomorrow. Draw out the lines of the choices you're making. Where's this going to take me? Am I going to end up where I want to end up? I'll be meeting what I'm sowing today later on. So, live openly, live honestly, and live gently.
Jesus gave us great advice in Luke 14 about all decisions. He said, "First sit down and estimate the cost." So someday you'll be living in what you're building today. So, come on! Build something that will last, and build something you'll want to live in for a long time.
