Max Lucado Daily: JESUS STANDS UP FOR YOU
Lingering among the unspoken expectations of many Christian hearts is this: Now that I belong to God, I get a pass on the tribulations of life. Others face storms. I live to help them. But face my own? No way.
Jesus, however, assures us, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). But ponder this promise: In the midst of your storm Jesus is interceding for you, calling out to your heavenly Father, urging the help of the Holy Spirit.
When Stephen was about to be martyred for his faith, he “gazed steadily into heaven and saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Acts 7:55). Jesus stood up for Stephen. Ever had anyone stand up for you? The answer is yes. Jesus stands at this very moment, offering intercession on your behalf! That is his promise to you; and because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
Read more Unshakable Hope
Judges 2
God’s angel went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you out of Egypt; I led you to the land that I promised to your fathers; and I said, I’ll never break my covenant with you—never! And you’re never to make a covenant with the people who live in this land. Tear down their altars! But you haven’t obeyed me! What’s this that you’re doing?
3 “So now I’m telling you that I won’t drive them out before you. They’ll trip you up and their gods will become a trap.”
4-5 When God’s angel had spoken these words to all the People of Israel, they cried out—oh! how they wept! They named the place Bokim (Weepers). And there they sacrificed to God.
6-9 After Joshua had dismissed them, the People of Israel went off to claim their allotted territories and take possession of the land. The people worshiped God throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the time of the leaders who survived him, leaders who had been in on all of God’s great work that he had done for Israel. Then Joshua son of Nun, the servant of God, died. He was 110 years old. They buried him in his allotted inheritance at Timnath Heres in the hills of Ephraim north of Mount Gaash.
10 Eventually that entire generation died and was buried. Then another generation grew up that didn’t know anything of God or the work he had done for Israel.
11-15 The People of Israel did evil in God’s sight: they served Baal-gods; they deserted God, the God of their parents who had led them out of Egypt; they took up with other gods, gods of the peoples around them. They actually worshiped them! And oh, how they angered God as they worshiped god Baal and goddess Astarte! God’s anger was hot against Israel: He handed them off to plunderers who stripped them; he sold them cheap to enemies on all sides. They were helpless before their enemies. Every time they walked out the door God was with them—but for evil, just as God had said, just as he had sworn he would do. They were in a bad way.
16-17 But then God raised up judges who saved them from their plunderers. But they wouldn’t listen to their judges; they prostituted themselves to other gods—worshiped them! They lost no time leaving the road walked by their parents, the road of obedience to God’s commands. They refused to have anything to do with it.
18-19 When God was setting up judges for them, he would be right there with the judge: He would save them from their enemies’ oppression as long as the judge was alive, for God was moved to compassion when he heard their groaning because of those who afflicted and beat them. But when the judge died, the people went right back to their old ways—but even worse than their parents!—running after other gods, serving and worshiping them. Stubborn as mules, they didn’t drop a single evil practice.
20-22 And God’s anger blazed against Israel. He said, “Because these people have thrown out my covenant that I commanded their parents and haven’t listened to me, I’m not driving out one more person from the nations that Joshua left behind when he died. I’ll use them to test Israel and see whether they stay on God’s road and walk down it as their parents did.”
23 That’s why God let those nations remain. He didn’t drive them out or let Joshua get rid of them.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, October 01, 2018
Read: John 15:5–17
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants,[a] for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
Footnotes:
John 15:15 Or bondservants, or slaves (for the contextual rendering of the Greek word doulos, see Preface); likewise for servant later in this verse and in verse 20
INSIGHT
The important idea of love for one another found in John 15:12–14 is rooted in one of Jesus’s most enduring teaching images—the vine and the branches (vv. 1–8). Our life so completely flows from being connected to Christ that everything we do, including our ability to love one another, is drawn from His life and power.- Bill Crowder
For Our Friends
By Monica Brands
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. John 15:12
In Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights, a cantankerous man who often quotes the Bible to criticize others is memorably described as “the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake [apply] the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours.”
It’s a funny line; and it may even bring particular people to mind. But aren’t we all a bit like this—prone to condemn others’ failures while excusing our own?
In Scripture some people amazingly did the exact opposite; they were willing to give up God’s promises for them and even be cursed if it would save others. Consider Moses, who said he’d rather be blotted out of God’s book than see the Israelites unforgiven (Exodus 32:32). Or Paul, who said he’d choose to be “cut off from Christ” if it meant his people would find Him (Romans 9:3).
As self-righteous as we naturally are, Scripture highlights those who love others more than themselves.
Because ultimately such love points to Jesus. “Greater love has no one than this,” Jesus taught, than “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Even before we knew Him, Jesus loved us “to the end” (13:1)—choosing death to give us life.
Now we are invited into the family of God, to love and be loved like this (15:9–12). And as we pour into others Christ’s unimaginable love, the world will catch a glimpse of Him.
Lord, thank You for showing us what it means to love. Help us to love like You.
When we love Christ, we love others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, October 01, 2018
The Place of Exaltation
By Oswald Chambers
…Jesus took…them up on a high mountain apart by themselves… —Mark 9:2
We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God’s perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley (see Mark 9:14-18). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life— those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.
We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, “What’s the use of this experience?” We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God’s purpose.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“I have chosen you” (John 15:16). Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. My Utmost for His Highest, October 25, 837 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, October 01, 2018
The Missing Pieces - #8276
Our three-year-old grandson was turning out to be quite an engineer. He was loving to figure out how things work and to build things that do. When he was at Grandma and Grandad's house, he would play with our Lincoln Logs. One day he had built a couple of cabins in the middle of our living room and we noticed he'd stopped and he was just lying on his tummy with his head cradled in his hands, studying the pictures on the Lincoln Logs container. When his mom asked him what he was doing just staring at that container, he said, "There are some pieces missing here." And he began to point out exactly what pieces were pictured on the can but missing in front of him.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Missing Pieces."
Every once in a while we hit one of those seasons in our life when we stop building long enough to realize that "there are some pieces missing here." A lot of our emotional and spiritual searching in life is for whatever missing pieces are keeping us from feeling complete. We seem to be missing the meaning in it all; the purpose of why we're here. You know? We wonder why there's never been enough love to fill the hole in our heart...never any real, lasting peace inside. It's in those moments when we back off from just messing with the pieces for a moment and we stand back to look at the big picture. That's when we're most likely to discover what really matters and what really doesn't.
It happened some years ago to novelist Stephen King when he almost died on a lonely rural highway. Here's what he wrote then: "I found that you can't take it with you. I found out what that means. I found that while I was lying in a ditch on a country road, covered with mud and blood. I had a Mastercard in my pocket. When you're lying in a ditch with broken glass in your hair, no one takes Mastercard. You come in naked and broke. We may be dressed when we go out, but we go out just as broke." Wow! And then Stephen King continued, "Warren Buffett, going out broke. Bill Gates, going out broke. Tom Hanks, going out broke. Steve King, broke, not a crying dime. All the money you earn, all the stocks you buy, all the mutual funds you trade, all of that is mostly smoke and mirrors."
At the moment he wrote those words, Stephen King was seeing very clearly, and seeing that a lot of what our life is about just doesn't really matter. Jesus told us what does matter in one of His ultimate values-clarifying statements. It's in Mark 8:36. That's our word for today from the Word of God. He said: "What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" Jesus says that what matters is what happens to your soul. Those feelings that "something's missing inside" are actually echoes of the emptiness in your soul. And if we don't stop, as the Bible says, to "prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12), we'll lose our soul forever. The pursuits of this world-its relationships, its accomplishments, its stuff-can cost you your eternal soul. You can be so busy with earth that you miss heaven forever.
The most important stop you'll ever make in your life is at the cross of Jesus Christ, because that's where He died to literally save your soul from the punishment for your sins. Ultimately, your God is the missing piece in your life. And the only way to Him is through His Son, the One He sent to die for you. Maybe you've been too busy for Jesus. Then you're fatally busy.
God has tapped you on the shoulder today to say, "Stop and take care of your soul, man, while there's time." You can finally make things right with God. You can have every wrong thing you've ever done forgiven, if you'll reach for Jesus and tell Him today you are putting all your trust in Him, because today is all you're sure you've got. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours."
Get to our website if you can today, please. Because there's the information you need to make sure you go to sleep tonight belonging to Jesus Christ, safe with Him. That website is ANewStory.com.
Right now, nothing else is as important as getting this settled, because you need to be ready for eternity, whenever it comes.
