Max Lucado Daily: GOD KNOWS YOU
Christ takes away your sin, and in doing so, he takes away your common-ness. You no longer need to say, “No one knows me” because God knows you. “LORD, you…know all about me,” David discovered. “You know when I sit down and when I get up. You know my thoughts before I think them. You know where I go and where I lie down. You know everything I do…You are all around me…and have put your hand on me” (Psalm 139:1-3, 5).
God knows you and he is near you. See how these four words look taped to your bathroom mirror: “God is for me!” (Psalm 56:9). And his kingdom needs you to discover and deploy your unique skill. The poor need you; the lonely need you; the church needs you, the cause of God needs you. Get the word out. God is with us. We are not alone!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Joshua 2 The Message (MSG)
Rahab
2 Joshua son of Nun secretly sent out from Shittim two men as spies: “Go. Look over the land. Check out Jericho.” They left and arrived at the house of a harlot named Rahab and stayed there.
2 The king of Jericho was told, “We’ve just learned that men arrived tonight to spy out the land. They’re from the People of Israel.”
3 The king of Jericho sent word to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you to stay the night in your house. They’re spies; they’ve come to spy out the whole country.”
4-7 The woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, two men did come to me, but I didn’t know where they’d come from. At dark, when the gate was about to be shut, the men left. But I have no idea where they went. Hurry up! Chase them—you can still catch them!” (She had actually taken them up on the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax that were spread out for her on the roof.) So the men set chase down the Jordan road toward the fords. As soon as they were gone, the gate was shut.
8-11 Before the spies were down for the night, the woman came up to them on the roof and said, “I know that God has given you the land. We’re all afraid. Everyone in the country feels hopeless. We heard how God dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you when you left Egypt, and what he did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you put under a holy curse and destroyed. We heard it and our hearts sank. We all had the wind knocked out of us. And all because of you, you and God, your God, God of the heavens above and God of the earth below.
12-13 “Now promise me by God. I showed you mercy; now show my family mercy. And give me some tangible proof, a guarantee of life for my father and mother, my brothers and sisters—everyone connected with my family. Save our souls from death!”
14 “Our lives for yours!” said the men. “But don’t tell anyone our business. When God turns this land over to us, we’ll do right by you in loyal mercy.”
15-16 She lowered them down out a window with a rope because her house was on the city wall to the outside. She told them, “Run for the hills so your pursuers won’t find you. Hide out for three days and give your pursuers time to return. Then get on your way.”
17-20 The men told her, “In order to keep this oath you made us swear, here is what you must do: Hang this red rope out the window through which you let us down and gather your entire family with you in your house—father, mother, brothers, and sisters. Anyone who goes out the doors of your house into the street and is killed, it’s his own fault—we aren’t responsible. But for everyone within the house we take full responsibility. If anyone lays a hand on one of them, it’s our fault. But if you tell anyone of our business here, the oath you made us swear is canceled—we’re no longer responsible.”
21 She said, “If that’s what you say, that’s the way it is,” and sent them off. They left and she hung the red rope out the window.
22 They headed for the hills and stayed there for three days until the pursuers had returned. The pursuers had looked high and low but found nothing.
23-24 The men headed back. They came down out of the hills, crossed the river, and returned to Joshua son of Nun and reported all their experiences. They told Joshua, “Yes! God has given the whole country to us. Everybody there is in a state of panic because of us.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Read: Colossians 1:13–23
God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.
Christ Holds It All Together
15-18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
18-20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
21-23 You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message. I, Paul, am a messenger of this Message.
INSIGHT
These few verses (Colossians 1:13–23) in Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae are a theological goldmine! In them we read about Jesus’s relationship to God—His kingship, redemption, and forgiveness—and His role in creating and sustaining the universe. How amazing to see everything point to one thing—our reconciliation to God (v. 22).
Why not praise God today for unlocking you from the prison of sin and reconciling you to Himself. - J.R. Hudberg
Unlocked
By Amy Boucher Pye
Once you were alienated from God . . . . But now he has reconciled you. Colossians 1:21–22
A boy born with cerebral palsy was unable to speak or communicate. But his mother, Chantal Bryan, never gave up, and when he was ten years old she figured out how to communicate with him through his eyes and a letter board. After this breakthrough, she said, “He was unlocked and we could ask him anything.” Now Jonathan reads and writes, including poetry, by communicating through his eyes. When asked what it’s like to “talk” with his family and friends, he said, “It is wonderful to tell them I love them.”
Jonathan’s story is profoundly moving and leads me to consider how God unlocks us from the prison of sin. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae, once we were “alienated from God” (Colossians 1:21), our evil behavior making us His enemy, but through Christ’s death on the cross we are now presented to God as “holy in his sight” (v. 22). We may now “live a life worthy of the Lord” as we bear fruit, grow in the knowledge of God, and are strengthened in His power (vv. 10–11).
We can use our unlocked voices to praise God and share His good news that we are no longer bound to a life of sin. As we continue in our faith, we can hold firm to our hope in Christ.
Lord God, You have released us from our chains of unbelief and given us words to praise You. May we share this freedom with others for Your glory.
The Lord unlocks us from our prison of sin.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
The Overshadowing of God’s Personal Deliverance
"…I am with you to deliver you," says the Lord. —Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally— “…your life shall be as a prize to you…” (Jeremiah 39:18). That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are to be a matter of indifference to us, and our hold on these things should be very loose. If this is not the case, we will have panic, heartache, and distress. Having the proper outlook is evidence of the deeply rooted belief in the overshadowing of God’s personal deliverance.
The Sermon on the Mount indicates that when we are on a mission for Jesus Christ, there is no time to stand up for ourselves. Jesus says, in effect, “Don’t worry about whether or not you are being treated justly.” Looking for justice is actually a sign that we have been diverted from our devotion to Him. Never look for justice in this world, but never cease to give it. If we look for justice, we will only begin to complain and to indulge ourselves in the discontent of self-pity, as if to say, “Why should I be treated like this?” If we are devoted to Jesus Christ, we have nothing to do with what we encounter, whether it is just or unjust. In essence, Jesus says, “Continue steadily on with what I have told you to do, and I will guard your life. If you try to guard it yourself, you remove yourself from My deliverance.” Even the most devout among us become atheistic in this regard— we do not believe Him. We put our common sense on the throne and then attach God’s name to it. We do lean to our own understanding, instead of trusting God with all our hearts (see Proverbs 3:5-6).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.
The Place of Help
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
The Great Lighthouse Shortage - #8208
Because we lived along the East Coast for so many years, we had the opportunity to see many of America's old lighthouses. I mean, not long ago we came up over the top of a hill on an interstate and I saw what I certainly never expected to see hundreds of miles from the ocean. It was a lighthouse with a bright, functioning light on top. Obviously, it wasn't there to point any ships in the right direction. Actually, it was part of a church that stands right near the highway. This lighthouse is for people!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Great Lighthouse Shortage."
It seems to me that Jesus intended for every church to be a lighthouse, whether or not they have a lighted tower as part of their building, as He intended for every Christian to be a lighthouse, every ministry. Tragically, there are so many lives around us headed for eternal disaster, and there is a terrible lighthouse shortage.
We know that Jesus said that those who belong to Him are "the light of the world" (Matthew 5:16). And Matthew 4:16, our word for today from the Word of God, tells us which direction our light should be pointing. Jesus says, "The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned." See, it's the people in spiritual darkness, the people who are spiritually dying who should be the focus of all this light that God has given us.
The problem is that often we're content to have all the lights inside the church, shining on those who are already headed for heaven. Meanwhile, we let countless lost people just get another day closer to hell. We do what's easy. We just work with the sheep who are already in, when Jesus said He would leave ninety-nine of those just to go out and find one lost one. But notice, you have to go out to find them. You can't just stay in the Christian cocoon waiting for someone to stick their head in the door and say, "Excuse me, but is there any light in here?" The lighthouse needs to be out where they are!
We can go to all our Christian meetings, and fellowship with all our Christian friends, and enjoy all our Christian books and programs, and we feel like we must be winning. Well, not when two-thirds of Americans can't tell you half of the Ten Commandments or who did the Sermon on the Mount! Not when the number of people who say they believe in nothing has doubled in just a few years, not when the number of those who are self-declared witches grew over 1,500% in a decade. Even in one Bible Belt state, the statistics just came in: two-thirds of the people even there are essentially un-churched! You have working near you, living near you, going to school with you people who have no idea that what Jesus did on the cross was for them and that He's their only hope! If our Christian subculture makes us feel like we're winning, it's the illusion of winning.
How can we be content to spend all our time with the already rescued when we're living surrounded by a sea of dying people? How can we say that we're following the One who came, as He said, to "seek and save what was lost" and not be doing that with all our heart?
If you're following Jesus, I'll tell you where He's going. He's always headed for a sea of lost people. That should be where we end up, too. Oh, it's bright inside the lighthouse, but it's very dark outside the walls.
So many headed for eternal destruction! They desperately need a lighthouse; a lighthouse that's out where they are, pointing them to life in Jesus Christ. Please, be their lighthouse!
