Max Lucado Daily: REMEMBER JESUS
We can rise too high but we can never stoop too low. The Apostle Paul was saved through a personal visit from Jesus, granted a vision of the heavens, and given the ability to raise the dead. But when he introduced himself, he simply stated, “I, Paul, am God’s slave” (Titus 1:1 MSG).
John the Baptist is remembered in Scripture as the one who resolved: ”He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Humility is the appropriate response to God’s love. What gift are you giving that he did not first give? You love. But who loved you first?
As Stephen’s accusers reached for their rocks, the Scripture says, “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit. . .saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Acts 7:55 NLT). If we will remember Jesus, he will remember us.
From God is With You Every Day
Jeremiah 27
Harness Yourselves Up to the Yoke
1-4 Early in the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, Jeremiah received this Message from God: “Make a harness and a yoke and then harness yourself up. Send a message to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. Send it through their ambassadors who have come to Jerusalem to see Zedekiah king of Judah. Give them this charge to take back to their masters: ‘This is a Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel. Tell your masters:
5-8 “‘I’m the one who made the earth, man and woman, and all the animals in the world. I did it on my own without asking anyone’s help and I hand it out to whomever I will. Here and now I give all these lands over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I have made even the wild animals subject to him. All nations will be under him, then his son, and then his grandson. Then his country’s time will be up and the tables will be turned: Babylon will be the underdog servant. But until then, any nation or kingdom that won’t submit to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon must take the yoke of the king of Babylon and harness up. I’ll punish that nation with war and starvation and disease until I’ve got them where I want them.
9-11 “‘So don’t for a minute listen to all your prophets and spiritualists and fortunetellers, who claim to know the future and who tell you not to give in to the king of Babylon. They’re handing you a line of lies, barefaced lies, that will end up putting you in exile far from home. I myself will drive you out of your lands, and that’ll be the end of you. But the nation that accepts the yoke of the king of Babylon and does what he says, I’ll let that nation stay right where it is, minding its own business.’”
12-15 Then I gave this same message to Zedekiah king of Judah: “Harness yourself up to the yoke of the king of Babylon. Serve him and his people. Live a long life! Why choose to get killed or starve to death or get sick and die, which is what God has threatened to any nation that won’t throw its lot in with Babylon? Don’t listen to the prophets who are telling you not to submit to the king of Babylon. They’re telling you lies, preaching lies. God’s Word on this is, ‘I didn’t send those prophets, but they keep preaching lies, claiming I sent them. If you listen to them, I’ll end up driving you out of here and that will be the end of you, both you and the lying prophets.’”
16-22 And finally I spoke to the priests and the people at large: “This is God’s Message: Don’t listen to the preaching of the prophets who keep telling you, ‘Trust us: The furnishings, plundered from God’s Temple, are going to be returned from Babylon any day now.’ That’s a lie. Don’t listen to them. Submit to the king of Babylon and live a long life. Why do something that will destroy this city and leave it a heap of rubble? If they are real prophets and have a Message from God, let them come to God-of-the-Angel-Armies in prayer so that the furnishings that are still left in God’s Temple, the king’s palace, and Jerusalem aren’t also lost to Babylon. That’s because God-of-the-Angel-Armies has already spoken about the Temple furnishings that remain—the pillars, the great bronze basin, the stands, and all the other bowls and chalices that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon didn’t take when he took Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim off to Babylonian exile along with all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem. He said that the furnishings left behind in the Temple of God and in the royal palace and in Jerusalem will be taken off to Babylon and stay there until, in God’s words, ‘I take the matter up again and bring them back where they belong.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 17, 2017
Read: 2 Corinthians 5:1–9
1-5 For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.
6-8 That’s why we live with such good cheer. You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don’t get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.
9-10 But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that’s what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions. Sooner or later we’ll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. We will appear before Christ and take what’s coming to us as a result of our actions, either good or bad.
INSIGHT:
Often I muse, “What will happen in my life tomorrow?” Tomorrow could bring me trouble and suffering. Job, the great sufferer of the Old Testament, said, “Man is born to trouble” (Job 5:7). Our days are filled “grief and pain” (Eccl. 2:23). Tomorrow may even see my death. But death holds no terrors for us who are in the Lord. For “if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Cor. 5:1). I need not fear even that tomorrow; in fact, I can look forward to being with the Lord (5:8). What fears or worries about tomorrow do you need to bring to God?
Seeing to Tomorrow
By Bill Crowder
We live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
I enjoy gazing up at a cloudless blue sky. The sky is a beautiful part of our great Creator’s masterpiece, given for us to enjoy. Imagine how much pilots must love the view. They use several aeronautical terms to describe a perfect sky for flying, but my favorite is, “You can see to tomorrow.”
“Seeing to tomorrow” is beyond our view. Sometimes we even struggle to see or understand what life is throwing at us today. The Bible tells us, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).
We live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
But our limited visibility is not cause for despair. Just the opposite. We trust in the God who sees all of our tomorrows perfectly—and who knows what we need as we face the challenges ahead. The apostle Paul knew this. That’s why Paul encourages us with hopeful words, “We live by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).
When we trust God with our day as well as our unseen tomorrows, we don’t need to worry about anything life throws at us. We walk with Him and He knows what is ahead; He is strong enough and wise enough to handle it.
Lord, I know I can trust You for today and tomorrow because You are kind, good, loving, wise, and powerful. Teach me not to worry.
God sees the beginning to the end.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 17, 2017
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat. —1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive— only material things don’t suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God’s creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things— things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray. So Send I You, 1325 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 17, 2017
Fingerprints On Your Future - #7855
"Just handle them by the edges, Dad!" That was my son's repeated instruction whenever I picked up some of his valuable baseball cards to look at. Valuable as in helping to eventually help pay his way through college! He didn't want to risk me reducing the mint condition value of a card with my grubby fingerprints. Of course, our son-in-law, who was also a photographer, felt that same way about the photos that he brought back from some of our ministry events. Of course, I wanted to see them, but again I was warned, "Just be careful. Don't get your fingerprints on them." OK, I get it! I guess if you're in law enforcement, fingerprints are your friend. But there are some things you just mess up if you get your prints on them.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fingerprints On your Future."
Rebekah's story: She has two sons-Esau the oldest, the one who, according to Jewish tradition, will receive the family blessing from his father, Isaac. But God has promised that the younger brother, Jacob, will receive the blessing. Problem: Isaac appears to be on his deathbed, and he's asked Esau, the older son, to bring him a dinner of fresh game. Isaac is going to give Esau the family blessing before he dies, or so he thinks.
Enter Rebekah and her fingerprints all over what God wanted to do. Our word for today from the Word of God begins in Genesis 27:15, "Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, and put them on her younger son Jacob."
With her husband Isaac nearly blind, she did everything she could to make Jacob feel and even smell like he was his older brother, and it worked. Isaac thinks Jacob is Esau and gives him the family blessing. Esau returns and as you would expect is enraged. Problem is, this giving of the blessing is irreversible.
Now Rebekah had the right idea. Jacob was to get the blessing, but she panicked. It's too late; isn't going to happen. And she started handling it herself. And, by the way, Isaac lived 20 more years. If only she had left it for God to do His way and in His time.
Verse 41 and following: "Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given" him. He said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob." Rebekah is forced to make Jacob flee the country for his life. What she doesn't know is that she will not see her beloved son for 14 years. And she has alienated her other son by handling the processes of God her way in her time. By getting her fingerprints all over her future, she has broken what she was trying to fix. Wow!
But then we're all Rebekah sometimes, aren't we? It's so tempting to try to help God out, to speed things up, to make happen what should happen, right? But we inevitably mess it up. I've spent my whole life talking with people who they had to be in love, they had to get married, they had to get some money somehow, they had to have their way, or they had to make their child in their image. Whatever it was, they had to force it. They had to make it happen. They had to rush it. They ruined it, and I saw them in the sadness of their future.
One thing you want to be sure of when you get to your future is that God did it, not you. You need to know that there will be only one set of prints on your future-God's. That assurance is all that will get you through the dark times. "This is what God did." So let God give you what He wants you to have, don't try to take it. Don't try to make it happen.
For me, the journey is to go from being a make-it-happen person to a let-it-happen person, watch-it-happen follower of Jesus. Your interference? You're only going to complicate and delay the processes of God. Rebekah and Jacob learned it the hard way. Your fingerprints on your life will only mess it up.
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