Max Lucado Daily: SHOW UP
God believes in you! And I wonder if you could take some of the belief he has in you and share it with someone else? Could you believe in someone? One German poet said, “Treat a man as he appears to be, and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be.”
How do we show people that we believe in them? Show up! Nothing takes the place of your presence. Do you believe in your kids? Then show up…at their games…and at their plays. It may not be possible to make each one, but it’s worth the effort. Do you believe in your friends? Show up at their graduations and weddings. Spend time with them. You want to bring out the best in someone? Then show up. And let God’s word be the authoritative word in your world.
From A Love Worth Giving
2 Peter 1
1-2 I, Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God’s straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.
Don’t Put It Off
3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
5-9 So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
10-11 So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The One Light in a Dark Time
12-15 Because the stakes are so high, even though you’re up-to-date on all this truth and practice it inside and out, I’m not going to let up for a minute in calling you to attention before it. This is the post to which I’ve been assigned—keeping you alert with frequent reminders—and I’m sticking to it as long as I live. I know that I’m to die soon; the Master has made that quite clear to me. And so I am especially eager that you have all this down in black and white so that after I die, you’ll have it for ready reference.
16-18 We weren’t, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts out before you regarding the powerful return of our Master, Jesus Christ. We were there for the preview! We saw it with our own eyes: Jesus resplendent with light from God the Father as the voice of Majestic Glory spoke: “This is my Son, marked by my love, focus of all my delight.” We were there on the holy mountain with him. We heard the voice out of heaven with our very own ears.
19-21 We couldn’t be more sure of what we saw and heard—God’s glory, God’s voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You’ll do well to keep focusing on it. It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. The main thing to keep in mind here is that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private opinion. And why? Because it’s not something concocted in the human heart. Prophecy resulted when the Holy Spirit prompted men and women to speak God’s Word.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Read: Luke 18:9–14
The Story of the Tax Man and the Pharisee
He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’
13 “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’”
14 Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
INSIGHT:
The two characters in today’s parable have similarities and differences. The obvious similarity is that both the Pharisee and the tax collector went up to the temple to pray. They both had an idea of presenting themselves to God, of communicating and communing with Him. Each of their self-perceptions was influenced by their occupation or position in society. The Pharisees were meticulous rule-keepers, and by the law the Pharisee was likely righteous. Tax collectors were notorious for exploiting the populace and taking more than was rightly due.
The difference between them is that the Pharisee viewed himself in comparison to the tax collector, but the tax collector viewed himself in comparison to God. While the Pharisee thanked God that he was not like the tax collector and judged his standing by comparison, the tax collector did not ask to be made more like the Pharisee. He could only look down and ask for mercy.
Expect and Extend Mercy
By Xochitl Dixon
God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Luke 18:13
When I complained that a friend’s choices were leading her deeper into sin and how her actions affected me, the woman I prayed with weekly placed her hand over mine. “Let’s pray for all of us.”
I frowned. “All of us?”
When we realize the depth of our need for mercy, we can more readily offer mercy to others.
“Yes,” she said. “Aren’t you the one who always says Jesus sets our standard of holiness, so we shouldn’t compare our sins to the sins of others?”
“That truth hurts a little,” I said, “but you’re right. My judgmental attitude and spiritual pride are no better or worse than her sins.”
“And by talking about your friend, we’re gossiping. So—”
“We’re sinning.” I lowered my head. “Please, pray for us.”
In Luke 18, Jesus shared a parable about two men approaching the temple to pray in very different ways (vv. 9–14). Like the Pharisee, we can become trapped in a circle of comparing ourselves to other people. We can boast about ourselves (vv. 11–12) and live as though we have the right to judge and the responsibility or the power to change others.
But when we look to Jesus as our example of holy living and encounter His goodness firsthand, like the tax collector, our desperate need for God’s grace is magnified (v. 13). As we experience the Lord’s loving compassion and forgiveness personally, we’ll be forever changed and empowered to expect and extend mercy, not condemnation, to others.
Lord, please keep us from falling into the trap of comparing ourselves to others. Mold us and make us more like You.
When we realize the depth of our need for mercy, we can more readily offer mercy to others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Yes—But…!
Lord, I will follow You, but... —Luke 9:61
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about…?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis— only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Much of the misery in our Christian life comes not because the devil tackles us, but because we have never understood the simple laws of our make-up. We have to treat the body as the servant of Jesus Christ: when the body says “Sit,” and He says “Go,” go! When the body says “Eat,” and He says “Fast,” fast! When the body says “Yawn,” and He says “Pray,” pray! Biblical Ethics, 107 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Thermostat or Thermometer? - #7927
It was very cold in our house. I was the first one awake that morning, and as I scampered through our personal Arctic I checked the thermometer. It said 50 degrees. I called Mr. Furnace to come. In the meantime, I turned on the kitchen stove, opened the door and sat in front of it to have some personal spiritual time. My kids told me that with my eyes closed it looked like I was praying to the stove! Great! Well, Mr. Furnace came and he finally figured it out. See, the problem was not the thermometer, it was the thermostat. Because the thermometer was just reflecting the temperature. It was the thermostat, which of course, controlled the temperature!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Thermostat or Thermometer?".
The fact is, you may be a thermometer, or might be a thermostat. Thermometer people tend to reflect the temperature of the people around them. "If you're hot, I'm hot. If you're cool, I'm cool. If you're nice, I'm nice. If you yell, I yell." Thermometer.
What most of us would like to be is a thermostat - someone who controls the temperature in our situation. Your family sure needs for you to be a thermostat. If everyone's a thermometer, hello chaos. The people you work with, your friends - they need someone who is under control, who doesn't go off with the stress, who is steady and caring and peaceful. Those thermostat people are rare, and so they're valuable.
My friend, Mark, runs a rapidly growing, highly pressurized company that services some of America's largest corporations. In the heat of battle one day, one of Mark's execs came in and said, "Man, how do you handle this pressure?" Well, Mark is kind of like the eye of a hurricane - the center of calm in this swirling storm. Actually, Mark explained his thermostatic peace in a word - "Jesus."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from the words of Jesus Himself in John 14:27. He is talking to His closest friends on the most stressful night of His life, just before His arrest and execution. And it's on the eve of what is about to be the most stressful chapter in their lives. If stressful is a fair description of your life right now, these words from Jesus are for you, too. Here's what He says. "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."
I'm sure I don't have to make a list of the uncertainties in our world that could make any of our hearts "troubled" or "afraid" right now. There's plenty of them, and you probably have a pretty impressive list of your own. But in the midst of combat conditions, Jesus says, "I give you My peace, like nothing, like no one on earth can give you."
A love-relationship with the Son of God is the secret of my friend Mark's peace under pressure. It's a peace that I have experienced over and over again from hospital rooms, to gravesides, to doctor's offices, to airplanes in trouble, to out-of-control weeks. The anchor, I'll tell you, is that relationship with Jesus Christ.
And when you know you belong to Him, you can be a thermostat instead of a thermometer because you know you have an identity, you have a security, you have a love that is rooted in something you cannot lose. The freedom of knowing that whatever's at stake in this situation isn't all there is. You're anchored to Jesus Christ, His unlovable love, and His unstoppable plans.
It's the relationship you were made for, that you've been missing because your sin has cut you off from your Creator. It's the relationship that Jesus died to give you by paying for your sin on His cross. If you're ready to let Jesus bring peace to that storm inside you, tell Him you are trusting Him to be your Savior from your sin.
If you want to anchor this relationship and be sure you belong to Him, that's what our website's there for. So I invite you to go as soon as you can to ANewStory.com. That's what it's all about is the beginning of your new story with Jesus.
Jesus makes a thermometer person into a thermostat, who has this inner power...His inner power to set a whole new temperature. And right now He's just waiting for your invitation.
