Max Lucado Daily: THE ONE GIFT TROUBLES CANNOT TOUCH
There’s one gift your troubles cannot touch: your destiny. I remember when my father had just retired. He and mom wanted to visit every national park in their travel trailer. Then came the diagnosis of ALS, a cruel degenerative disease that affects the muscles. Within months, the world, as he knew it, was gone.
Denalyn and I were preparing to do mission work in Brazil. I offered to change my plans. But Dad’s reply was immediate and confident. “Go, I have no fear of death or eternity, so don’t be concerned about me. Just Go. Please Him.” Much was lost: his retirement, years with his children and grandchildren, years with his wife. The lost was severe, but it wasn’t complete. “Dad,” I could’ve asked him, “what do you have that you cannot lose?” He still had God’s call on his heart! And so do you.
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 45
Sacred Space for God
1-4 “When you divide up the inheritance of the land, you must set aside part of the land as sacred space for God: approximately seven miles long by six miles wide, all of it holy ground. Within this rectangle, reserve a seven-hundred-fifty-foot square for the Sanctuary with a seventy-five-foot buffer zone surrounding it. Mark off within the sacred reserve a section seven miles long by three miles wide. The Sanctuary with its Holy of Holies will be placed there. This is where the priests will live, those who lead worship in the Sanctuary and serve God there. Their houses will be there along with The Holy Place.
5 “To the north of the sacred reserve, an area roughly seven miles long and two and a quarter miles wide will be set aside as land for the villages of the Levites who administer the affairs of worship in the Sanctuary.
6 “To the south of the sacred reserve, measure off a section seven miles long and about a mile and a half wide for the city itself, an area held in common by the whole family of Israel.
7-8 “The prince gets the land abutting the seven-mile east and west borders of the central sacred square, extending eastward toward the Jordan and westward toward the Mediterranean. This is the prince’s possession in Israel. My princes will no longer bully my people, running roughshod over them. They’ll respect the land as it has been allotted to the tribes.
9-12 “This is the Message of God, the Master: ‘I’ve put up with you long enough, princes of Israel! Quit bullying and taking advantage of my people. Do what’s just and right for a change. Use honest scales—honest weights and honest measures. Every pound must have sixteen ounces. Every gallon must measure four quarts. The ounce is the basic measure for both. And your coins must be honest—no wooden nickels!
Everyone in the Land Must Contribute
13-15 “‘These are the prescribed offerings you are to supply: one-sixtieth part of your wheat, one-sixtieth part of your barley, one-hundredth part of your oil, one sheep out of every two hundred from the lush pastures of Israel. These will be used for the grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making the atonement sacrifices for the people. Decree of God, the Master.
16-17 “‘Everyone in the land must contribute to these special offerings that the prince in Israel will administer. It’s the prince’s job to provide the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings at the Holy Festivals, the New Moons, and the Sabbaths—all the commanded feasts among the people of Israel. Sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making atonement for the people of Israel are his responsibility.
18-20 “‘This is the Message from God, the Master: On the first day of the first month, take an unblemished bull calf and purify the Sanctuary. The priest is to take blood from the sin offerings and rub it on the doorposts of the Temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gate entrance to the inside courtyard. Repeat this ritual on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins without knowing it. In this way you make atonement for the Temple.
21 “‘On the fourteenth day of the first month, you will observe the Passover, a feast of seven days. During the feast you will eat bread made without yeast.
22-23 “‘On Passover, the prince supplies a bull as a sin offering for himself and all the people of the country. Each day for each of the seven days of the feast, he will supply seven bulls and seven rams unblemished as a burnt offering to God, and also each day a male goat.
24 “‘He will supply about five and a half gallons of grain offering and a gallon of oil for each bull and each ram.
25 “‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and on each of the seven days of the feast, he is to supply the same materials for sin offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and oil.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Read: Job 37:1–16
1-13 “Whenever this happens, my heart stops—
I’m stunned, I can’t catch my breath.
Listen to it! Listen to his thunder,
the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice.
He lets loose his lightnings from horizon to horizon,
lighting up the earth from pole to pole.
In their wake, the thunder echoes his voice,
powerful and majestic.
He lets out all the stops, he holds nothing back.
No one can mistake that voice—
His word thundering so wondrously,
his mighty acts staggering our understanding.
He orders the snow, ‘Blanket the earth!’
and the rain, ‘Soak the whole countryside!’
No one can escape the weather—it’s there.
And no one can escape from God.
Wild animals take shelter,
crawling into their dens,
When blizzards roar out of the north
and freezing rain crusts the land.
It’s God’s breath that forms the ice,
it’s God’s breath that turns lakes and rivers solid.
And yes, it’s God who fills clouds with rainwater
and hurls lightning from them every which way.
He puts them through their paces—first this way, then that—
commands them to do what he says all over the world.
Whether for discipline or grace or extravagant love,
he makes sure they make their mark.
A Terrible Beauty Streams from God
14-18 “Job, are you listening? Have you noticed all this?
Stop in your tracks! Take in God’s miracle-wonders!
Do you have any idea how God does it all,
how he makes bright lightning from dark storms,
How he piles up the cumulus clouds—
all these miracle-wonders of a perfect Mind?
Why, you don’t even know how to keep cool
on a sweltering hot day,
So how could you even dream
of making a dent in that hot-tin-roof sky?
INSIGHT:
"The heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps. 19:1). The word glory is often misunderstood. In Psalm 19:1, the Hebrew word for glory is kabod, meaning “weight, significance.” God’s eternal significance is seen in the fact that He brought a universe into existence! In the New Testament, the Greek term for glory is doxa, which speaks of honor, dignity, or praise. The God who created the universe and sent His Son for our rescue is to be praised because of who He is and because of all He has done.
As you observe God’s created world today, what evokes a spirit of worship and praise?
Consider the Clouds
By David H. Roper
Do you know how the clouds hang poised? Job 37:16
One day many years ago my boys and I were lying on our backs in the yard watching the clouds drift by. “Dad,” one asked, “why do clouds float?” “Well, son,” I began, intending to give him the benefit of my vast knowledge, but then I lapsed into silence. “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’ll find out for you.”
The answer, I discovered, is that condensed moisture, descending by gravity, meets warmer temperatures rising from the land. That moisture then changes into vapor and ascends back into the air. That’s a natural explanation for the phenomenon.
We are amazed at You, wonderful Creator, as we look at Your world. We praise you!
But natural explanations are not final answers. Clouds float because God in His wisdom has ordered the natural laws in such a way that they reveal the “wonders of him who has perfect knowledge” (Job 37:16). Clouds then can be thought of as a symbol—an outward and visible sign of God’s goodness and grace in creation.
So someday when you’re taking some time to see what images you can imagine in the clouds, remember this: The One who made all things beautiful makes the clouds float through the air. He does so to call us to wonder and adoration. The heavens—even the cumulus, stratus, and cirrus clouds—declare the glory of God.
We are amazed at You, wonderful Creator, as we look at Your world. You deserve all the praise our hearts can give and so much more!
Creation is filled with signs that point to the Creator.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Getting There (3)
…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of isolation; beware of the idea that you have to develop a holy life alone. It is impossible to develop a holy life alone; you will develop into an oddity and a peculiarism, into something utterly unlike what God wants you to be. The only way to develop spiritually is to go into the society of God’s own children, and you will soon find how God alters your set. God does not contradict our social instincts; He alters them. Biblical Psychology, 189 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Escape From Lonely Island - #7937
There's this beautiful spot on the coast of Maine called Bar Harbor, because there's a bar in the harbor. It's a sandbar that's totally exposed at low tide and totally submerged at high tide. The bar goes from the mainland to a little island called, (You'll never guess.) Bar Island. The island's okay, but you will not spend a lot of time there. Although some people do – a lot more time than they had planned to spend. When our family walked across the bar at low tide, we made sure to check that tide chart to see when the tide would be coming back. As we were walking back from the island, the bar was already a little narrower than it had been – the tide had started coming in. Then there were those intelligent tourists who waited a little too long to start back, and there was no way back! Now, you know what? No one has to be stranded on that island. There is a way off, if you take it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Escape From Lonely Island."
Lonely Island is not on any map that I know of, but it's an island we've all spent time on. Loneliness is like an emotional island and we can get stranded there when we've been isolated, or ignored, or left out, or forgotten, maybe misunderstood, abandoned. Maybe even today finds you in the middle of another one of your lonely times.
The good news is you don't have to be stuck on Lonely Island. Loneliness is ultimately not a prison sentence. It's a choice! Feeling lonely is unavoidable. It's part of being human, but staying lonely is a choice. Just like Bar Island, there are some steps you can take to leave that island.
One way to make a lonely time a short time is to find somebody who needs you; to reach out from your loneliness, even if you don't feel like it, to make a difference for someone else. At a time when loneliness leaves you thinking mostly about you, it's important to decide to look beyond yourself. Another antidote to loneliness is to expand your world, especially your circle of friendships. If you take the risks to reach out to more people, you can reduce your trips to Lonely Island.
But even with all our efforts to cope with the lonely times, a lot of us carry this gnawing sense of loneliness with us most of the time. It isn't necessarily that there aren't people there for us, it's just that those people have never been enough to fill us up inside. It's like there's always something missing. Actually, like someone missing. Well, there is – the One you were made by; the One you were made for.
The incurable loneliness in the human heart is ultimately cosmic loneliness. We're lonely for God. No earth relationship has ever been able to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart. In the words of the Bible, in Isaiah 59:2, "Your sins have separated you from your God." Your sins are all those thousands of choices you've made in your lifetime that disregarded God's way for "your way." So here we are, away from the one person who has the love we're looking for. The only person who knows why we were created; the person we will meet the moment we die.
For our word for today from the Word of God, consider this promise from Jesus in light of the loneliness you know all too well. Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." Think of it – unloseable love, unconditional love. Jesus' love for you took Him all the way to a brutal death on a cross, where He gave His life to pay your sin-bill with God. The one whose love you've been looking for all these years is yours the moment you say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." You are one step of faith away from the world's only "never leave you" love. Would you take that step today? "Jesus, I'm yours."
Our website is there to help you begin a whole new story in your life. In fact, that's the name of the website - ANewStory.com. I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today.
Your anchor relationship could begin this very day and it will never end. Never, no matter what else changes and no matter who else leaves. And you will have just spent your last day alone.