Max Lucado Daily: WHEN THE PRICE IS TOO HIGH
In the days when I was a missionary in Brazil, I went to visit one of our church leaders. We hadn’t seen him for several Sundays. Friends told me he had inherited three hundred dollars and was constructing, by hand, a one-room house. When he gave me a tour of the project, it took about twenty seconds.
I told him we had missed him and that the church needed him back. He grew quiet and turned and looked at his house. His eyes were moist. “You’re right, Max,” he confessed, “I guess I just got too greedy.” Greedy? I wanted to say, You’re building a hut in a swamp and you call it greed? But he was right. Greed is relative. Greed is not defined by what something costs; it is measured by what it costs you. If anything costs you your family or your faith, the price is too high!
Read more When God Whispers Your Name
Revelation 13
The Beast from the Sea
And the Dragon stood on the shore of the sea. I saw a Beast rising from the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads—on each horn a crown, and each head inscribed with a blasphemous name. The Beast I saw looked like a leopard with bear paws and a lion’s mouth. The Dragon turned over its power to it, its throne and great authority.
3-4 One of the Beast’s heads looked as if it had been struck a deathblow, and then healed. The whole earth was agog, gaping at the Beast. They worshiped the Dragon who gave the Beast authority, and they worshiped the Beast, exclaiming, “There’s never been anything like the Beast! No one would dare go to war with the Beast!”
5-8 The Beast had a loud mouth, boastful and blasphemous. It could do anything it wanted for forty-two months. It yelled blasphemies against God, blasphemed his Name, blasphemed his Church, especially those already dwelling with God in Heaven. It was permitted to make war on God’s holy people and conquer them. It held absolute sway over all tribes and peoples, tongues and races. Everyone on earth whose name was not written from the world’s foundation in the slaughtered Lamb’s Book of Life will worship the Beast.
9-10 Are you listening to this? They’ve made their bed; now they must lie in it. Anyone marked for prison goes straight to prison; anyone pulling a sword goes down by the sword. Meanwhile, God’s holy people passionately and faithfully stand their ground.
The Beast from Under the Ground
11-12 I saw another Beast rising out of the ground. It had two horns like a lamb but sounded like a dragon when it spoke. It was a puppet of the first Beast, made earth and everyone in it worship the first Beast, which had been healed of its deathblow.
13-17 This second Beast worked magical signs, dazzling people by making fire come down from Heaven. It used the magic it got from the Beast to dupe earth dwellers, getting them to make an image of the Beast that received the deathblow and lived. It was able to animate the image of the Beast so that it talked, and then arrange that anyone not worshiping the Beast would be killed. It forced all people, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to have a mark on the right hand or forehead. Without the mark of the name of the Beast or the number of its name, it was impossible to buy or sell anything.
18 Solve a riddle: Put your heads together and figure out the meaning of the number of the Beast. It’s a human number: 666.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, August 14, 2017
Read: Matthew 18:1–10
Whoever Becomes Simple Again
At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, “Who gets the highest rank in God’s kingdom?”
2-5 For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.
6-7 “But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do.
8-9 “If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.
10 “Watch that you don’t treat a single one of these childlike believers arrogantly. You realize, don’t you, that their personal angels are constantly in touch with my Father in heaven?
INSIGHT:
Speaking into a context where social status was central, Jesus made the revolutionary claim that true greatness is found through being humble like children (Matt. 18:3–4), who had no status on their own. He further declared that harming a child is a grave sin (vv. 6, 10). His is a kingdom dedicated to uplifting and cherishing the vulnerable (v. 5). Monica Brands
Love for Children
By Bill Crowder
Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children. Matthew 19:14 nlt
Thomas Barnado entered the London Hospital medical school in 1865, dreaming of life as a medical missionary in China. Barnado soon discovered a desperate need in his own front yard—the many homeless children living and dying on the streets of London. Barnado determined to do something about this horrendous situation. Developing homes for destitute children in London’s east end, Barnado rescued some 60,000 boys and girls from poverty and possible early death. Theologian and pastor John Stott said, “Today we might call him the patron saint of street kids.”
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children” (Matt. 19:14 nlt). Imagine the surprise the crowds—and Jesus’s own disciples—must have felt at this declaration. In the ancient world, children had little value and were largely relegated to the margins of life. Yet Jesus welcomed, blessed, and valued children.
James, a New Testament writer, challenged Christ-followers saying, “Pure and lasting religion in the sight of God our Father means that we must care for orphans . . . in their troubles” (James 1:27 nlt). Today, like those first-century orphans, children of every social strata, ethnicity, and family environment are at risk due to neglect, human trafficking, abuse, drugs, and more. How can we honor the Father who loves us by showing His care for these little ones Jesus welcomes?
See the book A Cup of Cold Water in His Name: 60 Ways to Care for the Needy by Lorie Newman at dhp.org/jd007.html.
Be an expression of the love of Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 14, 2017
The Discipline of the Lord
My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. —Hebrews 12:5
It is very easy to grieve the Spirit of God; we do it by despising the discipline of the Lord, or by becoming discouraged when He rebukes us. If our experience of being set apart from sin and being made holy through the process of sanctification is still very shallow, we tend to mistake the reality of God for something else. And when the Spirit of God gives us a sense of warning or restraint, we are apt to say mistakenly, “Oh, that must be from the devil.”
“Do not quench the Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 5:19), and do not despise Him when He says to you, in effect, “Don’t be blind on this point anymore— you are not as far along spiritually as you thought you were. Until now I have not been able to reveal this to you, but I’m revealing it to you right now.” When the Lord disciplines you like that, let Him have His way with you. Allow Him to put you into a right-standing relationship before God.
“…nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him.” We begin to pout, become irritated with God, and then say, “Oh well, I can’t help it. I prayed and things didn’t turn out right anyway. So I’m simply going to give up on everything.” Just think what would happen if we acted like this in any other area of our lives!
Am I fully prepared to allow God to grip me by His power and do a work in me that is truly worthy of Himself? Sanctification is not my idea of what I want God to do for me— sanctification is God’s idea of what He wants to do for me. But He has to get me into the state of mind and spirit where I will allow Him to sanctify me completely, whatever the cost (see 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.
Not Knowing Whither
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 14, 2017
A Big Jolt to Your Heart - #7981
"They had to use the paddles on him." Now that sounds like something we might say about an exasperated parent's response to an out-of-control child. But the paddles we're talking about here were the ones they used on our neighbor when he was rushed to the hospital with a heart attack. His wife said they saved his life by using the "paddles" on him. Actually, what they used was a device called a defibrillator. (You see why most people call them the paddles.) The defibrillator has two paddles that, after they are placed on the patient's chest, generate this strong electric jolt to restart the heart. More and more ambulances are carrying them, more and more emergency medical technicians are being trained to use them, and they are in more and more public places. When the heart stops, something has to be done to get it going again - even if it takes a big jolt.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Big Jolt To Your Heart."
Actually, that might be God's prescription for your heart condition right now. Because a heart that was once beating strong spiritually can start slowing down, and even stop beating. Something radical has got to be done to restart a heart for God that is in trouble. That's where God brings out His "paddles" to administer a shock to bring someone back to life.
Now our word for today from the Word of God is in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14. Verse 14 is that classic verse on spiritual revival. Well known. It lays out the steps we need to take to receive the answers to our seemingly unanswered prayers...to make a new beginning...to fix what's broken in our lives. Here's what God says. "If My people, who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
Those are pretty aggressive steps to get back a spiritual life and health that you have lost. What would make us come to the point where we would surrender our self-reliance and our pride, get on our knees, and abandon the sin and compromise we have been tolerating? What makes us come back to life is a jolt from God.
In verse 13, the one right before this great formula for revival, God says this. "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among My people, if My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves..." and so on...in other words God says, "I have to wake you up somehow so you will realize what you've lost and you will pay the price to get it back." So He sends the drought, the locusts, the plague - not because He doesn't love you, but because He does! The doctor administers that electric jolt, not because he doesn't care about the patient, but because he does. He knows it's what it will take to bring the patient back to life.
So maybe this explains why you've been having some of the jolts that you've been getting hit with lately. You've been asking, "Why?" and God is answering, "To restart your failing heart." The jolts are God's shocks to get your attention so you will listen to what He's been trying to say to you. You haven't responded to His gentler therapies, so now He has sent these jolts to bring you back.
So you've got the pain...now please get the point. It may be all about you returning to your first love for Jesus...to establishing your daily Jesus-time as the center of your life...maybe He's calling you to a new purity where there's a zero tolerance for sin in your life. In order to reach us, God sends situations - like plagues and droughts - that are totally beyond our power to fix so we will surrender again to the only One who can. Sometimes He allows us to become emotionally isolated so we are shut up alone with Him, to find our identity and our fulfillment totally in Him.
So, if you've been feeling the jolts lately, consider the possibility that God sent them to bring you back to life. He knows your heart for Him has been slowing down, even stopping. And He's not going to let you slip away. Your Father who loves you is sending those jolts to restart your heart.
