Max Lucado Daily: THE HAND OF GOD
Come with me to the hill of Calvary. Watch as the soldiers press a knee against a forearm and a spike against a hand. As the soldier lifts the hammer to strike it, think about the hand that received the nail. The fist doesn’t clench—the moment isn’t aborted.
A mallet drove a nail into the hand, not just of a carpenter, but into the hand of God. Fingers that formed Adam out of clay and furrowed truth into tablets felt the pain of crucifixion. The same hand that stilled the seas stilled your guilt. And as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of heaven opened for you.
From He Chose the Nails
Daniel 9
God’s Covenant Commitment
1-4 “Darius, son of Ahasuerus, born a Mede, became king over the land of Babylon. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, was meditating on the Scriptures that gave, according to the Word of God to the prophet Jeremiah, the number of years that Jerusalem had to lie in ruins, namely, seventy. I turned to the Master God, asking for an answer—praying earnestly, fasting from meals, wearing rough penitential burlap, and kneeling in the ashes. I poured out my heart, baring my soul to God, my God:
4-8 “‘O Master, great and august God. You never waver in your covenant commitment, never give up on those who love you and do what you say. Yet we have sinned in every way imaginable. We’ve done evil things, rebelled, dodged and taken detours around your clearly marked paths. We’ve turned a deaf ear to your servants the prophets, who preached your Word to our kings and leaders, our parents, and all the people in the land. You have done everything right, Master, but all we have to show for our lives is guilt and shame, the whole lot of us—people of Judah, citizens of Jerusalem, Israel at home and Israel in exile in all the places we’ve been banished to because of our betrayal of you. Oh yes, God, we’ve been exposed in our shame, all of us—our kings, leaders, parents—before the whole world. And deservedly so, because of our sin.
9-12 “‘Compassion is our only hope, the compassion of you, the Master, our God, since in our rebellion we’ve forfeited our rights. We paid no attention to you when you told us how to live, the clear teaching that came through your servants the prophets. All of us in Israel ignored what you said. We defied your instructions and did what we pleased. And now we’re paying for it: The solemn curse written out plainly in the revelation to God’s servant Moses is now doing its work among us, the wages of our sin against you. You did to us and our rulers what you said you would do: You brought this catastrophic disaster on us, the worst disaster on record—and in Jerusalem!
13-14 “‘Just as written in God’s revelation to Moses, the catastrophe was total. Nothing was held back. We kept at our sinning, never giving you a second thought, oblivious to your clear warning, and so you had no choice but to let the disaster loose on us in full force. You, our God, had a perfect right to do this since we persistently and defiantly ignored you.
15-17 “‘Master, you are our God, for you delivered your people from the land of Egypt in a show of power—people are still talking about it! We confess that we have sinned, that we have lived bad lives. Following the lines of what you have always done in setting things right, setting people right, please stop being so angry with Jerusalem, your very own city, your holy mountain. We know it’s our fault that this has happened, all because of our sins and our parents’ sins, and now we’re an embarrassment to everyone around us. We’re a blot on the neighborhood. So listen, God, to this determined prayer of your servant. Have mercy on your ruined Sanctuary. Act out of who you are, not out of what we are.
18 “‘Turn your ears our way, God, and listen. Open your eyes and take a long look at our ruined city, this city named after you. We know that we don’t deserve a hearing from you. Our appeal is to your compassion. This prayer is our last and only hope:
19 “‘Master, listen to us!
Master, forgive us!
Master, look at us and do something!
Master, don’t put us off!
Your city and your people are named after you:
You have a stake in us!’
Seventy Sevens
20-21 “While I was pouring out my heart, baring my sins and the sins of my people Israel, praying my life out before my God, interceding for the holy mountain of my God—while I was absorbed in this praying, the humanlike Gabriel, the one I had seen in an earlier vision, approached me, flying in like a bird about the time of evening worship.
22-23 “He stood before me and said, ‘Daniel, I have come to make things plain to you. You had no sooner started your prayer when the answer was given. And now I’m here to deliver the answer to you. You are much loved! So listen carefully to the answer, the plain meaning of what is revealed:
24 “‘Seventy sevens are set for your people and for your holy city to throttle rebellion, stop sin, wipe out crime, set things right forever, confirm what the prophet saw, and anoint The Holy of Holies.
25-26 “‘Here is what you must understand: From the time the word goes out to rebuild Jerusalem until the coming of the Anointed Leader, there will be seven sevens. The rebuilding will take sixty-two sevens, including building streets and digging a moat. Those will be rough times. After the sixty-two sevens, the Anointed Leader will be killed—the end of him. The city and Sanctuary will be laid in ruins by the army of the newly arriving leader. The end will come in a rush, like a flood. War will rage right up to the end, desolation the order of the day.
27 “‘Then for one seven, he will forge many and strong alliances, but halfway through the seven he will banish worship and prayers. At the place of worship, a desecrating obscenity will be set up and remain until finally the desecrator himself is decisively destroyed.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, April 05, 2017
Read: 2 Kings 23:12–14, 21–25
The king smashed all the altars to smithereens—the altar on the roof shrine of Ahaz, the various altars the kings of Judah had made, the altars of Manasseh that littered the courtyard of The Temple—he smashed them all, pulverized the fragments, and scattered their dust in the Valley of Kidron. The king proceeded to make a clean sweep of all the sex-and-religion shrines that had proliferated east of Jerusalem on the south slope of Abomination Hill, the ones Solomon king of Israel had built to the obscene Sidonian sex goddess Ashtoreth, to Chemosh the dirty-old-god of the Moabites, and to Milcom the depraved god of the Ammonites. He tore apart the altars, chopped down the phallic Asherah-poles, and scattered old bones over the sites. Next, he took care of the altar at the shrine in Bethel that Jeroboam son of Nebat had built—the same Jeroboam who had led Israel into a life of sin. He tore apart the altar, burned down the shrine leaving it in ashes, and then lit fire to the phallic Asherah-pole.
2 Kings 23:21-25The Message (MSG)
21 The king now commanded the people, “Celebrate the Passover to God, your God, exactly as directed in this Book of the Covenant.”
22-23 This commanded Passover had not been celebrated since the days that the judges judged Israel—none of the kings of Israel and Judah had celebrated it. But in the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah this very Passover was celebrated to God in Jerusalem.
24 Josiah scrubbed the place clean and trashed spirit-mediums, sorcerers, domestic gods, and carved figures—all the vast accumulation of foul and obscene relics and images on display everywhere you looked in Judah and Jerusalem. Josiah did this in obedience to the words of God’s Revelation written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in The Temple of God.
25 There was no king to compare with Josiah—neither before nor after—a king who turned in total and repentant obedience to God, heart and mind and strength, following the instructions revealed to and written by Moses. The world would never again see a king like Josiah.
INSIGHT:
Ask God to help you see false trusts that are robbing you of the joy of living in the presence and joy of the One whose mercy and love are more real and sure than the air we breathe.
Kossi’s Courage
By Tim Gustafson
You shall have no other gods before me. . . . You shall not bow down to them or worship them. Exodus 20:3, 5
As he awaited his baptism in Togo’s Mono River, Kossi stooped to pick up a worn wooden carving. His family had worshiped the object for generations. Now they watched as he tossed the grotesque figure into a fire prepared for the occasion. No longer would their choicest chickens be sacrificed to this god.
In the West, most Christians think of idols as metaphors for what they put in place of God. In Togo, West Africa, idols represent literal gods that must be appeased with sacrifice. Idol burning and baptism make a courageous statement about a new believer’s allegiance to the one true God.
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3
As an eight-year-old, King Josiah came to power in an idol-worshiping, sex-obsessed culture. His father and grandfather had been two of the worst kings in all of Judah’s sordid history. Then the high priest discovered the book of the law. When the young king heard its words, he took them to heart (2 Kings 22:8–13). Josiah destroyed the pagan altars, burned the vile items dedicated to the goddess Asherah, and stopped the ritual prostitution (ch. 23). In place of these practices, he celebrated the Passover (23:21–23).
Whenever we look for answers apart from God—consciously or subconsciously—we pursue a false god. It would be wise to ask ourselves: What idols, literal or figurative, do we need to throw on the fire?
Lord, forgive us for those things we turn to that show our hearts are not focused on You. Show us what we need to give up, and replace it with the presence of Your Holy Spirit.
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:21
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, April 05, 2017
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples…."Stay here and watch with Me." —Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don’t have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique— they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God— Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan’s assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation— “…the devil…departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan’s final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The message of the prophets is that although they have forsaken God, it has not altered God. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the same truth, that God remains God even when we are unfaithful (see 2 Timothy 2:13). Never interpret God as changing with our changes. He never does; there is no variableness in Him. Notes on Ezekiel, 1477 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, April 05, 2017
The Biggest Star Of All - #7888
When you hear the word "superstar", you may think of some great athlete or A-list movie star or some television personality - a celebrity. I'm sorry, but I personally think that's a pretty lame use of the word when you hear about the kind of star that astronomers have been discovering. Like the largest known star in the universe! Conventional telescopes had missed it because of vast dust clouds. But the Hubble Space Telescope picked it up. It is (get this) 186 million miles wide and 10 million times brighter than the Sun! That's a superstar. Don't even try to comprehend one star that enormous! Interesting footnote-according to many theories on how stars are formed, a star this large is an impossibility! No, it's not.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Biggest Star Of All."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 8:1-4. "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens...When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"
It's hard to come up with a theory big enough to contain the infinity of what's out there. But it's not hard to come up with a creator big enough to explain it all. And speaking of Jesus, the Bible further explains in John 1:3 that "through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made."
When you consider that beyond that superstar are literally millions of galaxies, your mind just goes on overload. But there is something more staggering than the size of creation...and that is the possibility that you could have a personal love relationship with the creator of it all! That's what the psalmist couldn't grasp-in light of the splendor and magnitude of all you've created, God, why do you care about us little guys and girls on this speck of dust called earth?
But the amazing truth is that this awesome God has a deep, deep love for you. Here's how you can know that. In those same verses that tell us Jesus created it all, it says that He "became flesh and made His dwelling among us" (John 1:14). The One who created that mega-star-and countless millions of galaxies-left the Throne Room of the universe to come here as one of us. And everything in us screams, "But why?"
Answer-two chapters later. "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Why? God loves you so much. So much that even though we've defied Him by running our own life, He sent His Son to go to a cross to bear the death penalty for my sin and yours. God does not want to lose you.
And when Jesus comes knocking on the door of your heart, offering you His love and His forgiveness, it just doesn't make any sense to reject Him or postpone Him. This is the One who made it all-who loved you enough to die for you. Why would you wait another day to begin a personal love-relationship with the most awesome person in all the universe?
Have you ever begun this relationship that Jesus died to make possible? He proved that He can give it to us, because He walked out of his grave under his own power. And only the One who's proven He has eternal life can give it to you. This is your day to be born into God's family; to begin your relationship you were made for.
Reach out to Jesus where you are. Say, "Jesus, I'm tired of running my own life. I resign from running my life. You died for the sin that's come from my decision to take over a life you were suppose to run. And today, Jesus, I'm pinning all my hopes on you. Thank you for loving me so much." Tell Him you're putting all the faith you've got into Him to forgive you and get you to heaven.
You know, we have a website that is just for people at the point of beginning that personal relationship. I invite you to go there as soon as you can today and find out exactly how to be sure you belong to this great God. Go to ANewStory.com.
Jesus-the one who made the stars-the biggest Star of all-has come to you. Don't miss this amazing love.