Max Lucado Daily: THERE’S A BETTER WAY - April 2, 2018
Anxiety weighs down the human heart (Proverbs 12:25 NRSV). But there’s a better way. Invite God to speak to the problem.“ Capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 NCV).
Slap handcuffs on the culprit, and march it before the One who has all authority! Jesus says, “Get away from here, Satan!” And as the discerning, sober-minded air traffic controller of your mind, you refuse to let the thought have the time of day.
Lay claim to every biblical promise you can remember, and set out to learn a few more. Give Satan no quarter. Give his lies no welcome. Resist the urge to exaggerate, overstate, or simplify. Focus on the facts. For all you know, God may want you to be a poster child for growth. What you can do is pray and trust!
Read more Anxious for Nothing
Leviticus 6
1-6 God spoke to Moses: “When anyone sins by betraying trust with God by deceiving his neighbor regarding something entrusted to him, or by robbing or cheating or threatening him; or if he has found something lost and lies about it and swears falsely regarding any of these sins that people commonly commit—when he sins and is found guilty, he must return what he stole or extorted, restore what was entrusted to him, return the lost thing he found, or anything else about which he swore falsely. He must make full compensation, add twenty percent to it, and hand it over to the owner on the same day he brings his Compensation-Offering. He must present to God as his Compensation-Offering a ram without any defect from the flock, assessed at the value of a Compensation-Offering.
7 “Thus the priest will make atonement for him before God and he’s forgiven of any of the things that one does that bring guilt.”
Further Instructions
8-13 God spoke to Moses: “Command Aaron and his sons. Tell them, These are the instructions for the Whole-Burnt-Offering. Leave the Whole-Burnt-Offering on the Altar hearth through the night until morning, with the fire kept burning on the Altar. Then dress in your linen clothes with linen underwear next to your body. Remove the ashes remaining from the Whole-Burnt-Offering and place them beside the Altar. Then change clothes and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. Meanwhile keep the fire on the Altar burning; it must not go out. Replenish the wood for the fire every morning, arrange the Whole-Burnt-Offering on it, and burn the fat of the Peace-Offering on top of it all. Keep the fire burning on the Altar continuously. It must not go out.
14-18 “These are the instructions for the Grain-Offering. Aaron’s sons are to present it to God in front of the Altar. The priest takes a handful of the fine flour of the Grain-Offering with its oil and all its incense and burns this as a memorial on the Altar, a pleasing fragrance to God. Aaron and his sons eat the rest of it. It is unraised bread and so eaten in a holy place—in the Courtyard of the Tent of Meeting. They must not bake it with yeast. I have designated it as their share of the gifts presented to me. It is very holy, like the Absolution-Offering and the Compensation-Offering. Any male descendant among Aaron’s sons may eat it. This is a fixed rule regarding God’s gifts, stretching down the generations. Anyone who touches these offerings must be holy.”
19-23 God spoke to Moses: “This is the offering which Aaron and his sons each are to present to God on the day he is anointed: two quarts of fine flour as a regular Grain-Offering, half in the morning and half in the evening. Prepare it with oil on a griddle. Bring it well-mixed and then present it crumbled in pieces as a pleasing fragrance to God. Aaron’s son who is anointed to succeed him offers it to God—this is a fixed rule. The whole thing is burned. Every Grain-Offering of a priest is burned completely; it must not be eaten.”
24-30 God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron and his sons, These are the instructions for the Absolution-Offering. Slaughter the Absolution-Offering in the place where the Whole-Burnt-Offering is slaughtered before God—the offering is most holy. The priest in charge eats it in a holy place, the Courtyard of the Tent of Meeting. Anyone who touches any of the meat must be holy. A garment that gets blood spattered on it must be washed in a holy place. Break the clay pot in which the meat was cooked. If it was cooked in a bronze pot, scour it and rinse it with water. Any male among the priestly families may eat it; it is most holy. But any Absolution-Offering whose blood is brought into the Tent of Meeting to make atonement in the Sanctuary must not be eaten, it has to be burned.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, April 02, 2018
Read: Matthew 6:1–4
Giving to the Needy
6 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
INSIGHT
Today’s article describes acts of giving motivated by humility and kindness. There is no greater example of kindness and generosity than our God. Paul wrote that God’s kindness was at the heart of our rescue: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us” (Titus 3:4–5). Peter challenged to spiritual growth those who had “tasted the kindness of the Lord” (1 Peter 2:3 NASB). And Paul wrote to the Romans: “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4 NASB). Paul made it clear that God’s kindness is behind the call to repent—to change our minds about our sin and our need of God’s forgiveness. When we are generous to others, we model the generosity and kindness our loving God has shown to us. - Bill Crowder
Anonymous Kindness
By Monica Brands |
When you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Matthew 6:3
When I first graduated from college, I found myself needing to adopt a strict grocery budget—twenty-five dollars a week, to be exact. One day, while entering the checkout line, I suspected the groceries I’d selected cost slightly more than my remaining money. “Just stop when we reach twenty dollars,” I told the cashier, and I was able to purchase everything I’d selected but a bag of peppers.
As I was about to drive home, a man stopped by my car. “Here’s your peppers, ma’am,” he said, handing the bag to me. Before I had time to thank him, he was already walking away.
We give only because of what our generous God has so lavishly given us
Remembering the simple goodness of this act of kindness still warms my heart and brings to mind Jesus’s words in Matthew 6. Criticizing those who made a show of giving to the needy (v. 2), Jesus taught His disciples a different way. Instead of making giving all about them and their generosity, He urged that giving should be done so secretly it’s like their left hand isn’t even aware their right is giving (v. 3)!
As one person’s anonymous kindness reminded me, giving should never be about us. We give only because of what our generous God has so lavishly given us (2 Corinthians 9:6–11). As we give quietly and generously, we reflect who He is—and God receives the thanksgiving only He deserves (v. 11).
Have you ever been the recipient of anonymous kindness? Share your story at Facebook.com/ourdailybread.
Giving quietly and generously reflects God’s generosity.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, April 02, 2018
The Glory That’s Unsurpassed
…the Lord Jesus…has sent me that you may receive your sight… —Acts 9:17
When Paul received his sight, he also received spiritual insight into the Person of Jesus Christ. His entire life and preaching from that point on were totally consumed with nothing but Jesus Christ— “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul never again allowed anything to attract and hold the attention of his mind and soul except the face of Jesus Christ.
We must learn to maintain a strong degree of character in our lives, even to the level that has been revealed in our vision of Jesus Christ.
The lasting characteristic of a spiritual man is the ability to understand correctly the meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, and the ability to explain the purposes of God to others. The overruling passion of his life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you see this quality in a person, you get the feeling that he is truly a man after God’s own heart (see Acts 13:22).
Never allow anything to divert you from your insight into Jesus Christ. It is the true test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you.
Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus,
I’ve lost sight of all beside,
So enchained my spirit’s vision,
Gazing on the Crucified.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We all have the trick of saying—If only I were not where I am!—If only I had not got the kind of people I have to live with! If our faith or our religion does not help us in the conditions we are in, we have either a further struggle to go through, or we had better abandon that faith and religion. The Shadow of an Agony, 1178 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, April 02, 2018
Someone to Trust With the Keys to Everything - #8146
It was home improvement time at our house, and I have a chronic sense of 'uncoordinitis', so we obviously needed some help. And our friend Tim, he was the man for the job for two reasons. First, he's good at designing and building and problem-solving. Of course, there are a lot of people who are craftsmen like that. The second reason is what really made Tim the man for the job. Sometimes we were gone when he was going to be at our house working. And since he was working in every part of the house, he needed keys to everything, and there was no place in our home he couldn't go. That meant we needed not only someone who could do the job, but right, you got it. We needed someone we could totally trust. And we had someone like that.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Someone to Trust With the Keys to Everything."
Finding someone to trust these days; I don't know about you, but I think it's getting harder and harder. Especially when it comes to someone you can trust with you; with your deepest hurts, your darkest secrets, your fondest hopes, your greatest needs. Someone from whom you have no fear of betrayal or desertion or rejection. I think we all hunger in our soul for one person we can just totally trust and we can trust them with all the keys to every corner of our life.
Ultimately, you need someone you're never going to lose, not after you've trusted them with your heart and soul.
Maybe it's hard for you to trust. Especially if you've been betrayed or disappointed or hurt by someone that you were relying on. Or possibly the person you were counting on just went away. Maybe they decided to leave, or maybe they had no choice. Either way, you trusted them with everything, and they are gone.
You know, deep in our soul there's this deep need for someone we can open up to, confide in, lean on completely, someone to give ourselves to. Actually, we were created for such a person. It's your Creator. He's the only one who can fill the vacuum at the center of you, because that vacuum was made for Him.
So many who have looked for a harbor relationship where they won't be hurt, won't be used, won't be left alone, have found that harbor in one man-Jesus Christ. If you read what the Bible says about the purpose of your life, that shouldn't be a surprise. For example, in Colossians 1:16, God says, about His Son, Jesus, "All things were created by Him and for Him." So, you were created by Jesus; you were created for Jesus, and you're going to have this huge hole in your heart until you have Jesus.
But He can be trusted with all the keys to your heart and your life. Why? Well, listen to Romans 8:32, our word for today from the Word of God, "God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all-will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?"
See, the answer to whether you can trust Jesus completely is settled at the foot of that cross where He proved He loves you so much that He died to pay for every wrong thing you've ever done. And this man who loved you enough to die for you will never do you wrong. Beyond that, He's proved there's nothing He can't do when He walked out of His grave under His own power. This is the end of your lifelong trust search. It's the greatest love there is and the greatest power there is. He'll never leave you, never divorce you, or never die on you. He wants you with Him forever. He gave His life to make that possible.
But He's not going to force His way into your life. He is waiting for you to reach out to Him in total trust, like a child trusting his daddy to protect him, like a dying person grabbing a rescuer's hand. If you've never given yourself to Jesus like that, you're still on your own. But this could be your last day without Him.
If you want to finally begin your personal relationship with Him, experience this love for yourself, would you tell Him that this very moment, this very day? And let me invite you to go to our website where you're going to find a lot of great information about how to be sure you belong to Him and where to go from here. It's ANewStory.com.
In an insecure world like ours, it's really hard to find a hand to hold that you can be sure will never let you go. There is one-that hand has nail prints in it because of His love for you. Would you grab His hand and give Him all the keys?
Because then, you're finally safe.
