Max Lucado Daily: GOD LOVES YOU
God needs no name tag to jog his memory about you. He has more thoughts about you than the Pacific coast has grains of sand!
I read a story about a man walking the shores of a lake in silence with his uncle. The man noticed his uncle was smiling. “Uncle,” he said, “you look very happy.” “I am” his uncle agreed. “How come?” the man asked. “The Father of Jesus is very fond of me,” his uncle said.
He’s fond of you, too, dear friend. What’s that? Do you think I’m talking to someone who is holier, better, or nicer? Someone who didn’t screw up his marriage or mess up her career. I’m not. I’m talking directly to you. God loves you. And His love for you will not end or fade if you lose your way. You have never lived one unloved day. This is God’s promise. And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
Read more Unshakable Hope
Joshua 16
The lot for the people of Joseph went from the Jordan near Jericho, east of the spring of Jericho, north through the desert mountains to Bethel. It went on from Bethel (that is, Luz) to the territory of the Arkites in Ataroth. It then descended westward to the territory of the Japhletites to the region of Lower Beth Horon and on to Gezer, ending at the Sea.
4 This is the region from which the people of Joseph—Manasseh and Ephraim—got their inheritance.
5-9 Ephraim’s territory by clans:
The boundary of their inheritance went from Ataroth Addar in the east to Upper Beth Horon and then west to the Sea. From Micmethath on the north it turned eastward to Taanath Shiloh and passed along, still eastward, to Janoah. The border then descended from Janoah to Ataroth and Naarah; it touched Jericho and came out at the Jordan. From Tappuah the border went westward to the Brook Kanah and ended at the Sea. This was the inheritance of the tribe of Ephraim by clans, including the cities set aside for Ephraim within the inheritance of Manasseh—all those towns and their villages.
10 But they didn’t get rid of the Canaanites who were living in Gezer. Canaanites are still living among the people of Ephraim, but they are made to do forced labor.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Read: Isaiah 49:14–18
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
17 Your builders make haste;[a]
your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you.
18 Lift up your eyes around and see;
they all gather, they come to you.
As I live, declares the Lord,
you shall put them all on as an ornament;
you shall bind them on as a bride does.
Footnotes:
Isaiah 49:17 Dead Sea Scroll; Masoretic Text Your children make haste
INSIGHT
Our God remembers us and keeps His promises. A study of the word remember bears this out. Throughout the Old Testament we read passages about how God “remembered” specific people (Genesis 8:1; 19:29; 30:22). Still other passages recall what He has done for us all. “The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations. He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (Psalm 98:2–3). God specifically worked in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses to fulfill His promises, for He remembers His covenant (see Psalm 105.)
Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of God’s Old Testament promises. We see this in the words of Zechariah’s song (Luke 1:67–73): “Praise to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.” He “remember[ed] his holy covenant” (vv. 68, 72).
God hasn’t forgotten us. He is with us through the Spirit (John 14:26). And one day He will return to establish a new heaven and earth where He will dwell with us forever (Revelation 21:1–3).
In what ways has God shown you He hasn’t forgotten you? - Alyson Kieda
Engraved on His Hands
By Amy Boucher Pye
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Isaiah 49:16
In Charles Spurgeon’s many years at his London church during the 1800s, he loved to preach on the riches of Isaiah 49:16, which says that God engraves us on the palms of His hands. He said, “Such a text as this is to be preached hundreds of times!” This thought is so precious that we can run over it in our minds again and again.
Spurgeon makes the wonderful connection between this promise of the Lord to His people, the Israelites, and God’s Son, Jesus, on the cross as He died for us. Spurgeon asked, “What are these wounds in Your hands? . . . The engraver’s tool was the nail, backed by the hammer. He must be fastened to the Cross, that His people might be truly engraved on the palms of His hands.” As the Lord promised to engrave His people on His palms, so Jesus stretched out His arms on the cross, receiving the nails in His hands so we could be free of our sins.
If and when we’re tempted to think that God has forgotten us, we only need to look at our palms and remember God’s promise. He has put indelible marks on His hands for us; He loves us that much.
Lord God, how vast is Your love for me! You keep me ever before You. I know You’ll never leave me, and I’m grateful.
The Lord engraves us on the palms of His hands.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
His Temptation and Ours
We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. —Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in James 1:14, “Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.” But through regeneration we are lifted into another realm where there are other temptations to face, namely, the kind of temptations our Lord faced. The temptations of Jesus had no appeal to us as unbelievers because they were not at home in our human nature. Our Lord’s temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus are not those of a mere man, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us (see Galatians 4:19), and in our physical life He has the same setting that He had on earth. Satan does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things— he tempts us to make us lose what God has put into us through regeneration, namely, the possibility of being of value to God. He does not come to us on the premise of tempting us to sin, but on the premise of shifting our point of view, and only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
Temptation means a test of the possessions held within the inner, spiritual part of our being by a power outside us and foreign to us. This makes the temptation of our Lord explainable. After Jesus’ baptism, having accepted His mission of being the One “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) He “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matthew 4:1) and into the testing devices of the devil. Yet He did not become weary or exhausted. He went through the temptation “without sin,” and He retained all the possessions of His spiritual nature completely intact.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
The Real Incredibles - #8267
There's a family of superheroes with super capabilities that normal humans don't have. And they're the subject of a couple of animated movies. Yep! They're called "The Incredibles." And because of the powers they have, they are incredible. Or they could be. But the movie shows them living a very un-super life; just going through the motions of everyday life, living in the same kind of mediocrity everyone else is. They're the "Incredibles," but when the movie starts they're sure not living like it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Real Incredibles."
People with the power to make a tremendous difference – but they're living ordinary. That's not just the plot of a movie. It's the sad story of many followers of Jesus Christ.
The day you invited Jesus Christ into your life, He brought with Him all His resurrection power – power that was great enough to raise Him from the dead. He gave you His Holy Spirit who is all-powerful. The same Holy Spirit lives in you who lived in those first-century believers; those ordinary folks who turned their world upside down for Jesus in one generation. He's just as powerful as He was then, but something happened to us along the way.
If you belong to Jesus, the Bible says some amazing things about who you are now. You are "the light of the world" (Matt. 5:14)..."the temple of the living God" (2 Corinthians 6:16)...you are (the Bible says) a "son" or "daughter" of "the Lord Almighty" (2 Corinthians 6:18). That's incredible stuff! But tragically, like that cartoon family of superheroes, maybe you've been settling for ordinary – living in maintenance mode; doing your daily drill but not making much of a difference. And you're restless inside, aren't you? Sure, that's because the Jesus in you is saying, "Hey, there's more, man. I made you mine to make you so much more than this."
Our word for today from the Word of God spells out part of the amazing assignment God has given you. Second Corinthians 5, beginning with verse 15, tells us that Jesus "died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again." A small life is a life that's all about you and your agenda. This passage goes on to say that Christ has made you "a new creation" and given you a powerful purpose to live your life for. He says: "We are, therefore, Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."
The President of the United States has a personal representative in each country – his ambassador. The Son of God has a personal representative in your corner of the world – it's you! And that assignment is what should define each new day in your life – you look in the mirror and you say, "Everywhere I go, everything I do today, I am there ‘in Christ's behalf.' I am the face of Jesus where I am. I am the voice of Jesus, to say what He would say. I am the hands of Jesus to do what He would do." Suddenly, the most everyday stuff becomes eternity stuff because you're going to be there representing Jesus!
How can you ever be content again to just live like a "space taker-upper"? You're not here primarily to make money or make friends or make an impression or just make it through. You're here to make a difference like Jesus would in that same situation! How are you doing? Your heart's telling you that there's got to be more. And there is... much more.
Don't settle for ordinary anymore! Lay down "business as usual" and tell Jesus you are ready to step up to what He made you for, what He saved you for! Because of the risen Christ living in you, you have the power to make a difference in every life you touch. You ready? You are one of God's "Incredibles"!