Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS LOVE - May 28, 2018
“This is what real love is: it is not our love for God; it is God’s love for us. He sent his Son to die in our place to take away our sins” (1 John 4:10).
When it comes to love, be careful. Take a good look around. Don’t force what is wrong to be right. Be prayerful. Love is a fruit of the Spirit. Ask God to help you love as he loves. “God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fill our hearts with his love” (Romans 5:5).
Be grateful for those who’ve encouraged you to do what is right and applauded when you did. And isn’t it good to know that even when we don’t love with a perfect love, he does? God always nourishes what is right. He has never done wrong, led one person to do wrong, or rejoiced when anyone did wrong. For he IS love!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Numbers 17
Aaron’s Staff
1-5 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the People of Israel. Get staffs from them—twelve staffs in all, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write each man’s name on his staff. Start with Aaron; write Aaron’s name on the staff of Levi and then proceed with the rest, a staff for the leader of each ancestral tribe. Now lay them out in the Tent of Meeting in front of The Testimony where I keep appointments with you. What will happen next is this: The staff of the man I choose will sprout. I’m going to put a stop to this endless grumbling by the People of Israel against you.”
6-7 Moses spoke to the People of Israel. Their leaders handed over twelve staffs, one for the leader of each tribe. And Aaron’s staff was one of them. Moses laid out the staffs before God in the Tent of Testimony.
8-9 Moses walked into the Tent of Testimony the next day and saw that Aaron’s staff, the staff of the tribe of Levi, had in fact sprouted—buds, blossoms, and even ripe almonds! Moses brought out all the staffs from God’s presence and presented them to the People of Israel. They took a good look. Each leader took the staff with his name on it.
10 God said to Moses, “Return Aaron’s staff to the front of The Testimony. Keep it there as a sign to rebels. This will put a stop to the grumbling against me and save their lives.”
11 Moses did just as God commanded him.
12-13 The People of Israel said to Moses, “We’re as good as dead. This is our death sentence. Anyone who even gets close to The Dwelling of God is as good as dead. Are we all doomed?”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 28, 2018
Read: 2 Samuel 1:17–27
Then David sang this lament over Saul and his son Jonathan, and gave orders that everyone in Judah learn it by heart. Yes, it’s even inscribed in The Book of Jashar.
19-21 Oh, oh, Gazelles of Israel, struck down on your hills,
the mighty warriors—fallen, fallen!
Don’t announce it in the city of Gath,
don’t post the news in the streets of Ashkelon.
Don’t give those coarse Philistine girls
one more excuse for a drunken party!
No more dew or rain for you, hills of Gilboa,
and not a drop from springs and wells,
For there the warriors’ shields were dragged through the mud,
Saul’s shield left there to rot.
22 Jonathan’s bow was bold—
the bigger they were the harder they fell.
Saul’s sword was fearless—
once out of the scabbard, nothing could stop it.
23 Saul and Jonathan—beloved, beautiful!
Together in life, together in death.
Swifter than plummeting eagles,
stronger than proud lions.
24-25 Women of Israel, weep for Saul.
He dressed you in finest cottons and silks,
spared no expense in making you elegant.
The mighty warriors—fallen, fallen
in the middle of the fight!
Jonathan—struck down on your hills!
26 O my dear brother Jonathan,
I’m crushed by your death.
Your friendship was a miracle-wonder,
love far exceeding anything I’ve known—
or ever hope to know.
27 The mighty warriors—fallen, fallen.
And the arms of war broken to bits.
INSIGHT
Second Samuel 1:19–27 combines personal and communal grief. Jonathan’s death was not just a loss for David personally, but along with Jonathan’s father, King Saul, a loss to the entire nation (vv. 19, 17). Although Saul had tried to kill David, David invited the nation to grieve the loss of their king (v. 24).
How can mourning with a community, instead of alone, bring greater healing during grief? -Monica Brands
The Last Call
By Tim Gustafson
How the mighty have fallen! 2 Samuel 1:27
After serving his country for two decades as a helicopter pilot, James returned home to serve his community as a teacher. But he missed helicopters, so he took a job flying medical evacuations for a local hospital. He flew until late in his life.
Now it was time to say goodbye to him. As friends, family, and uniformed co-workers stood vigil at the cemetery, a colleague called in one last mission over the radio. Soon the distinctive sound of rotors beating the air could be heard. A helicopter circled over the memorial garden, hovered briefly to pay its respects, then headed back to the hospital. Not even the military personnel who were present could hold back the tears.
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When King Saul and his son Jonathan were killed in battle, David wrote an elegy for the ages called “the lament of the bow” (2 Samuel 1:18). “A gazelle lies slain on your heights,” he sang. “How the mighty have fallen!” (v. 19). Jonathan was David’s closest friend and brother-in-arms. And although David and Saul had been enemies, David honored them both. “Weep for Saul,” he wrote. “I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother” (vv. 24, 26).
Even the best goodbyes are oh-so-difficult. But for those who trust in the Lord, the memory is much more sweet than bitter, for it is never forever. How good it is when we can honor those who have served others!
Lord, we thank You for those who serve their communities as First Responders. We humbly ask You for their safety.
We honor the Creator when we honor the memory of those who honored Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 28, 2018
Unquestioned Revelation
In that day you will ask Me nothing. —John 16:23
When is “that day”? It is when the ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. “In that day” you will be one with the Father just as Jesus is, and He said, “In that day you will ask Me nothing.” Until the resurrection life of Jesus is fully exhibited in you, you have questions about many things. Then after a while you find that all your questions are gone— you don’t seem to have any left to ask. You have come to the point of total reliance on the resurrection life of Jesus, which brings you into complete oneness with the purpose of God. Are you living that life now? If not, why aren’t you?
“In that day” there may be any number of things still hidden to your understanding, but they will not come between your heart and God. “In that day you will ask Me nothing”— you will not need to ask, because you will be certain that God will reveal things in accordance with His will. The faith and peace of John 14:1 has become the real attitude of your heart, and there are no more questions to be asked. If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature— that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. “In that day you will ask Me nothing.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 28, 2018
Pillars that Hold Up Nothing - #8186
One of our new staff members had just discovered the secret in our headquarters dining room. As she was carrying her lunch to the table, she bumped into this white pillar that stretches from floor to ceiling, and it moved. The look on her face was priceless! She wasn't quite sure what she had just done, or if it was about to cause the collapse of the room on top of all of us. Well, that's the secret. The pillar looks real enough, it's just decorative. It's just made of plastic. It doesn't hold up anything!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Pillars that Hold Up Nothing."
People actually have pillars in their life like that; pillars that they're depending on to support them. Tragically, we've all had the experience of one of our pillars taking a hit and that's when we found out that, although it looked like something or someone we could depend on, it couldn't really hold up anything.
For some of us, our pillar is a person: our parents, our children, our husband or wife, a good friend, a boyfriend or a girlfriend. For others, the pillar that supports them is their own intelligence, their self-reliance, their looks, their talent, their skill. Maybe your position is your pillar, or your financial resources, maybe, you know, your prestige, or your popularity. But all those pillars have one fatal flaw. They're all something or someone that you can lose. Which means you can never really be secure, never really safe, because one unexpected disaster can knock your pillar down. Most of our life-pillars can honestly be gone in a moment...except for one.
In Luke 6:46-49, our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus says: "I will show you what he is like who comes to Me and hears My words and puts them into practice. He's like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it....But the one who hears My words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete."
So, here Jesus is saying, "Build your life on me, and nothing will be able to shake you. Build your life on anything else, and it will eventually collapse." Even if eventually doesn't come till the day you die when you discover that what you were depending on has left you horribly unprepared for eternity. Even religion-even Christian religion-will not get you to heaven. In Matthew 7, some Christian "lifers" stand before Jesus on Judgment Day, reminding Him of all the Christianity they have, to which He will respond, "I never knew you." The pillar of your religion will collapse on the very day your whole eternity depends on it because you had Christianity, but you didn't have Christ.
Jesus died a horrific death on the cross to pay for all the wrong things you've ever done, so the wall between you and God could come down and you could belong to the only one you'll never lose. And Jesus walked out of His grave to prove that He has the power to beat anything that could ever beat you. So the question is, do you belong to the one of whom the Bible says "Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:39). That's the only pillar that will never move.
You belong to Jesus by believing in Jesus, which means abandoning your faith in anything else to get you to God and hanging onto Jesus like He is your only hope, because He is. If you've never had a time when you've put your total trust in Jesus to forgive your sin, this could be that time. With all my heart, I urge you to tell Him you want to do that this very day.
I want to help you with that. That's why our website is there, and I hope you will go there and find the information that will help you be sure you finally belong to Jesus. That website is ANewStory.com.
The pillar you've been depending on will ultimately not be there to support you. Jesus will never leave you. He will never hurt you. He will never let you down.