Max Lucado Daily: IT’S ALL ABOUT ME - May 21, 2018
The self-centered see everything through self. Their motto? “It’s all about me!” To the self-centered– the flight schedule, the traffic, the worship styles—everything is filtered through the mini-me in the eye.
Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.” Looking after your personal interests is proper life management. Doing so to the exclusion of the rest of the world is selfishness. Desire success? Fine. Just don’t hurt others in achieving it. Love isn’t selfish! Love builds up relationships but selfishness corrodes relationships.
What’s the cure for selfishness? A smaller “I” and a greater Christ! Don’t focus on yourself; focus on all that you have in Christ—the encouragement in Christ, the fellowship of the Spirit, the affection and compassion of heaven!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Mark 14:27-54
27-28 Jesus told them, “You’re all going to feel that your world is falling apart and that it’s my fault. There’s a Scripture that says,
I will strike the shepherd;
The sheep will go helter-skelter.
“But after I am raised up, I will go ahead of you, leading the way to Galilee.”
29 Peter blurted out, “Even if everyone else is ashamed of you when things fall to pieces, I won’t be.”
30 Jesus said, “Don’t be so sure. Today, this very night in fact, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”
31 He blustered in protest, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you.” All the others said the same thing.
Gethsemane
32-34 They came to an area called Gethsemane. Jesus told his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James, and John with him. He plunged into a sinkhole of dreadful agony. He told them, “I feel bad enough right now to die. Stay here and keep vigil with me.”
35-36 Going a little ahead, he fell to the ground and prayed for a way out: “Papa, Father, you can—can’t you?—get me out of this. Take this cup away from me. But please, not what I want—what do you want?”
37-38 He came back and found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, “Simon, you went to sleep on me? Can’t you stick it out with me a single hour? Stay alert, be in prayer, so you don’t enter the danger zone without even knowing it. Don’t be naive. Part of you is eager, ready for anything in God; but another part is as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.”
39-40 He then went back and prayed the same prayer. Returning, he again found them sound asleep. They simply couldn’t keep their eyes open, and they didn’t have a plausible excuse.
41-42 He came back a third time and said, “Are you going to sleep all night? No—you’ve slept long enough. Time’s up. The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up. Let’s get going. My betrayer has arrived.”
A Gang of Ruffians
43-47 No sooner were the words out of his mouth when Judas, the one out of the Twelve, showed up, and with him a gang of ruffians, sent by the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders, brandishing swords and clubs. The betrayer had worked out a signal with them: “The one I kiss, that’s the one—seize him. Make sure he doesn’t get away.” He went straight to Jesus and said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. The others then grabbed him and roughed him up. One of the men standing there unsheathed his sword, swung, and came down on the Chief Priest’s servant, lopping off the man’s ear.
48-50 Jesus said to them, “What is this, coming after me with swords and clubs as if I were a dangerous criminal? Day after day I’ve been sitting in the Temple teaching, and you never so much as lifted a hand against me. What you in fact have done is confirm the prophetic writings.” All the disciples cut and ran.
51-52 A young man was following along. All he had on was a bedsheet. Some of the men grabbed him but he got away, running off naked, leaving them holding the sheet.
Condemned to Death
53-54 They led Jesus to the Chief Priest, where the high priests, religious leaders, and scholars had gathered together. Peter followed at a safe distance until they got to the Chief Priest’s courtyard, where he mingled with the servants and warmed himself at the fire.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 21, 2018
Read: Luke 6:27–36
27-30 “To you who are ready for the truth, I say this: Love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer for that person. If someone slaps you in the face, stand there and take it. If someone grabs your shirt, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. If someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.
31-34 “Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.
35-36 “I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.
INSIGHT
Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive [someone] who sins against me? Up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21). In that day, if you forgave a person three times, you were considered magnanimous. So Peter must have thought he was a super saint to forgive an offender seven times. Jesus corrected him, “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (v. 22). Jesus is saying that when it comes to forgiving another, you can’t keep score. We never reach a limit when we can say we have forgiven enough. Although forgiveness doesn’t excuse an offense, we can choose to “be kind and compassionate to one another, [forgive] each other, just as in Christ God forgave [us]” (Ephesians 4:32).
Is there someone who needs your forgiveness today, yet again? - K. T. Sim
A Prayer of Forgiveness
By David C. McCasland
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27–28
In 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges was the first African-American child to integrate an all-white public elementary school in the American South. Every day for months, federal marshals escorted Ruby past a mob of angry parents shouting curses, threats, and insults at her. Safely inside, she sat in a classroom alone with Barbara Henry, the only teacher willing to instruct her while parents kept their children from attending school with Ruby.
Noted child psychologist Robert Coles met with Ruby for several months to help her cope with the fear and stress she experienced. He was amazed by the prayer Ruby said every day as she walked to school and back home. “Please, God, forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing” (see Luke 23:34).
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
The words of Jesus spoken from the cross were stronger than the hatred and insults hurled at Him. In the most agonizing hours of His life, our Lord demonstrated the radical response He taught His followers: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you . . . . Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:27–28, 36).
This remarkable approach is possible only as we consider the powerful love Jesus has given us—love stronger than even the deepest hatred.
Ruby Bridges helped show us the way.
Father, You have so graciously forgiven us. Help us today to forgive others who have wronged us.
Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 21, 2018
Having God’s “Unreasonable” Faith
Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. —Matthew 6:33
When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. “…seek first the kingdom of God….” Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, “But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed.” The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.
“…do not worry about your life…” (Matthew 6:25). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed— no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, “Don’t make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God.” Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.
It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.
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
Monday, May 21, 2018
The Sobering Truth about the Missing Man - #8181
It was a day of national mourning; an unusual outpouring of emotion and affection for the man who had died. The final farewell to former President Ronald Reagan began with official funeral observances in the nation's Capitol. There were these long, all-night lines of everyday Americans paying their respects at his coffin in the Capitol Rotunda, the highest officials of the land paying tribute to the former President, the memorial service in the National Cathedral, and then that final journey on Air Force One to a family service at his ranch in California. One of the more moving moments of a day with many such moments was when Air Force jets flew over in what is known as the "missing man maneuver." Clusters of jets flew overhead, with one jet in the final cluster suddenly peeling up, away, and out of sight. That's symbol says a lot.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Sobering Truth about the Missing Man."
On that day of national mourning, Ronald Reagan was the missing man-the one who was suddenly not with us anymore. Someday I'll be the missing man. Someday you'll be the missing man, the missing woman. For many of us, that day will come with no warning. In the words of the Bible, "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth" (Proverbs 27:1).
For many people, that "tomorrow" was going to be when they finally got around to making sure they were right with God, and that tomorrow never came. Eternity did and they weren't ready. For you and me, the means of leaving this world may be an accident, a blood clot, a heart attack. But in reality, the "cause of death" really doesn't matter much does it? We're all terminal. That's why the Bible gives this critical warning: "Prepare to meet your God." (Amos 4:12) And there's really only one way to be prepared for that day when you and I are the missing man or missing woman.
In John 3:36, the Bible reveals that, from God's perspective, which is the only perspective that really matters, the whole human race is in one of two groups, facing one of two eternities. For some-eternal life in heaven. For others, what the Bible calls "the wrath of God." What makes the difference is really clear here. John 3:36 says: "Whoever believes in the Son (that's the Son of God, Jesus Christ) has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."
Why is your commitment to Jesus the deciding issue in where you'll spend eternity? Because only Jesus died as your spiritual substitute, paying the death penalty for every wrong thing you've ever done. If you don't grab the only rescuer there is and put your total trust in Him, you're not going to make it. There's just no other way to have your sins forgiven than to stake everything on the only One who paid the price for those sins.
You may say, "Well, I haven't really rejected Christ." Look, if I just sit in the flight lounge, making no decision about boarding my flight, I won't be going on that flight. By not deciding, I decided. That's the way it is with Jesus. If there's never been a moment when you reached out to Him in total faith, making the Savior your Savior, you're not ready for eternity...or even for the rest of this life. And in 2 Corinthians 6:2, our word for today from the Word of God, it says bluntly, "Now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation." When heaven and hell hang in the balance, it makes no sense to wait another day to give yourself to the Man who died so you could be with Him forever.
Don't you want to get this settled? Well, if you're ready to finally get this done, to make your personal commitment to Jesus Christ, tell Him that today. Tell Him that now. Our website is there to help you cross that line and know you belong to Him. I invite you to go there as soon as you can today - ANewStory.com.
Beginning today, you can be ready for eternity whenever it comes, however it comes. And that day, you won't be missing at all. No, you'll be with the Savior who gave His life for you so you could be with Him forever.