Max Lucado Daily: YOU ARE TWEAKABLE
What if, for one day, Jesus were to become you? Would you still do what you’d planned to do for the next twenty-four hours?
It’s dangerous to sum up grand truths in one statement, but I’m going to try. If a sentence or two could capture God’s desire for each of us, it might read like this: “God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus.”
That’s good to know, right? You are tweakable. You aren’t stuck with today’s personality. Where did we get the idea we can’t change? If our bodies malfunction, we seek help. Shouldn’t we do the same with our hearts and our attitudes? Jesus can change our hearts. He wants us to have a heart like his. Can you imagine a better offer—than to be just like Jesus?
From Just Like Jesus
Jeremiah 42
What You Fear Will Catch Up with You
1-3 All the army officers, led by Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, accompanied by all the people, small and great, came to Jeremiah the prophet and said, “We have a request. Please listen. Pray to your God for us, what’s left of us. You can see for yourself how few we are! Pray that your God will tell us the way we should go and what we should do.”
4 Jeremiah the prophet said, “I hear your request. And I will pray to your God as you have asked. Whatever God says, I’ll pass on to you. I’ll tell you everything, holding nothing back.”
5-6 They said to Jeremiah, “Let God be our witness, a true and faithful witness against us, if we don’t do everything that your God directs you to tell us. Whether we like it or not, we’ll do it. We’ll obey whatever our God tells us. Yes, count on us. We’ll do it.”
7-8 Ten days later God’s Message came to Jeremiah. He called together Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers with him, including all the people, regardless of how much clout they had.
9-12 He then spoke: “This is the Message from God, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your prayer. He says, ‘If you are ready to stick it out in this land, I will build you up and not drag you down, I will plant you and not pull you up like a weed. I feel deep compassion on account of the doom I have visited on you. You don’t have to fear the king of Babylon. Your fears are for nothing. I’m on your side, ready to save and deliver you from anything he might do. I’ll pour mercy on you. What’s more, he will show you mercy! He’ll let you come back to your very own land.’
13-17 “But do not say, ‘We’re not staying around this place,’ refusing to obey the command of your God and saying instead, ‘No! We’re off to Egypt, where things are peaceful—no wars, no attacking armies, plenty of food. We’re going to live there.’ If what’s left of Judah is headed down that road, then listen to God’s Message. This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: ‘If you have determined to go to Egypt and make that your home, then the very wars you fear will catch up with you in Egypt and the starvation you dread will track you down in Egypt. You’ll die there! Every last one of you who is determined to go to Egypt and make it your home will either be killed, starve, or get sick and die. No survivors, not one! No one will escape the doom that I’ll bring upon you.’
18 “This is the Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: ‘In the same way that I swept the citizens of Jerusalem away with my anger and wrath, I’ll do the same thing all over again in Egypt. You’ll end up being cursed, reviled, ridiculed, and mocked. And you’ll never see your homeland again.’
19-20 “God has plainly told you, you leftovers from Judah, ‘Don’t go to Egypt.’ Could anything be plainer? I warn you this day that you are living out a fantasy. You’re making a fatal mistake.
“Didn’t you just now send me to your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to our God. Tell us everything that God says and we’ll do it all’?
21-22 “Well, now I’ve told you, told you everything he said, and you haven’t obeyed a word of it, not a single word of what your God sent me to tell you. So now let me tell you what will happen next: You’ll be killed, you’ll starve to death, you’ll get sick and die in the wonderful country where you’ve determined to go and live.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, March 13, 2017
Read: Acts 26:9–15
“I admit that I didn’t always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might. Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw these believers—I had no idea they were God’s people!—into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution. I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.
12-14 “One day on my way to Damascus, armed as always with papers from the high priests authorizing my action, right in the middle of the day a blaze of light, light outshining the sun, poured out of the sky on me and my companions. Oh, King, it was so bright! We fell flat on our faces. Then I heard a voice in Hebrew: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me? Why do you insist on going against the grain?’
15-16 “I said, ‘Who are you, Master?’
“The voice answered, ‘I am Jesus, the One you’re hunting down like an animal. But now, up on your feet—I have a job for you. I’ve handpicked you to be a servant and witness to what’s happened today, and to what I am going to show you.
INSIGHT:
Commentator William Barclay says, “One of the extraordinary things about the great characters in the New Testament story is that they were never afraid to confess what once they had been.” In today’s passage, Paul describes how Christ had transformed his life from someone who once persecuted Christ and His followers to someone who proclaims the truth of the gospel. His former way of life no longer defined him. A personal testimony is an effective witnessing tool. A simple way of telling our story is to write down answers to three simple questions: What characterized my life before receiving Christ? What were the circumstances when I chose to receive Him? How has my life changed since I trusted Jesus for salvation?
Surprise Interview
By Mart DeHaan
The King will say, “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” Matthew 25:40 nlt
On a crowded London commuter train, an early morning rider shoved and insulted a fellow passenger who got in his way. It was the kind of unfortunate and mindless moment that usually remains unresolved. But later that day, the unexpected happened. A business manager sent a quick message to his social media friends, “Guess who just showed up for a job interview.” When his explanation appeared on the Internet, people all over the world winced and smiled. Imagine walking into a job interview only to discover that the person who greets you is the one you had shoved and sworn at earlier that day.
Saul also ran into someone he never expected to see. While raging against a group called the Way (Acts 9:1–2), he was stopped in his tracks by a blinding light. Then a voice said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (v. 4). Saul asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The One speaking to him replied, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (26:15).
When we help or hurt one another, Jesus takes it personally.
Years earlier Jesus had said that how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, and the prisoner reflects our relationship to Him (Matt. 25:35–36). Who would have dreamed that when someone insults us, or when we help or hurt another, the One who loves us takes it personally?
Father, forgive us for acting as if You were not present in our moments of need, hurt, anger, or compassion.
When we help or hurt one another, Jesus takes it personally.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, March 13, 2017
God’s Total Surrender to Us
For God so loved the world that He gave… —John 3:16
Salvation does not mean merely deliverance from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect union with Him. When I think of my salvation experience, I think of being delivered from sin and gaining personal holiness. But salvation is so much more! It means that the Spirit of God has brought me into intimate contact with the true Person of God Himself. And as I am caught up into total surrender to God, I become thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself.
To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification is to miss the main point. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is actually part of the effect of His wonderful and total surrender to us.
If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. Beware of talking about surrender if you know nothing about it. In fact, you will never know anything about it until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and absolutely gave Himself to us. In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us— totally, unconditionally, and without reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
I have no right to say I believe in God unless I order my life as under His all-seeing Eye. Disciples Indeed, 385 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, March 13, 2017
Linus Minus His Blanket - #7871
Let's do a little word association exercise: First word that comes to your mind when I say this name – Linus? Let me guess – blanket. Well, of course, unless somehow in your life you've missed cartoondom's classic, "Peanuts" and the world of Charlie Brown and his friends. And Linus is the little philosopher of the group, known most of all for his ever-present security blanket. And I mean ever-present. Everywhere this boy goes, he's dragging his precious blanket. Trying to separate him from his blanket is a hopeless cause. It's like, "Who am I without it?"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Linus Minus His Blanket."
Maybe we shouldn't be so amused by Linus and the security blanket he can't do without, because most of us, maybe all of us, have a blanket of our own. Not literally, of course. But we're all pretty attached to something or someone that we really, really need, maybe someone or something that to a significant extent actually defines who we are. Unfortunately, there comes a time in all our lives when we can't hang onto that blanket anymore. Sometimes, it's literally stripped from our hands.
For some of us – often us men – our job, our career, our title is an important security blanket for us. We don't realize how much of who we are is what we do until one day it's taken from us. Your strength or your health might be your security blanket, and you work pretty hard at keeping it, but it can be lost all to suddenly. Maybe it's your looks, your wealth, your ability, your family, or a person who is a big part of who you are. A security blanket can be something very good – but loseable. And when things beyond your control tear your blanket from your hands, you're left wondering – as you might be right now – who am I now? Who am I without it?
I guess the great myth is that anything or anyone we can lose could ever give us ultimate security. There is always this gnawing fear that it won't be there someday. We're created, though, for a security that will always be there – even when every other security blanket is gone.
That rock-solid security is defined for us in our word for today from the Word of God in Romans 8:37. After talking about some of life's greatest tragedies, it says, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Next verse it says, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers...nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
There it is – unloseable love; security beyond the reach of every disease, every downsizing, divorce, depression, disaster, even death. When Jesus Christ died on the cross so the sin-wall between you and God could come down forever, He made it possible for you to know you belong to God, to never live a moment here or in eternity without being loved by Him. Without knowing it, you know you've been looking for this love all your life.
If you've lost a security you were depending on, it could be so you could finally realize how much you really need Jesus – how much you've always needed Him. And this could be your day to finally put your total trust in Him to be your Rescuer from your sin – to remove the wall between you and the unloseable love of God.
Has there ever been a time when you've said, "Jesus, I'm yours. You're my only hope of a relationship with God, of heaven and my sins being forgiven. You died on the cross for me. You walked out of your grave. Now I want you to walk into my life today." Let this be that day.
Our website is to be there to help you at a moment like this, at this most important day of your life perhaps, to be sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com.
Ultimate security? That's knowing you belong to Jesus Christ. And what you've lost? That might be what finally leads you to find Jesus, because He's the one you can never lose.
