Max Lucado Daily: BEHOLD THE REDEEMER FROM HEAVEN
For some, Jesus is the Rabbit’s Foot Redeemer—a good luck charm used to get you out of a jam. For many he’s an Aladdin’s Lamp Redeemer— Your wish is his command. For others, Jesus is a Game Show Redeemer— Let’s make a deal! Few demands; no challenges; and no need for sacrifice or commitment.
That’s not the Redeemer described in the New Testament. And that’s not the Redeemer seen by the frightened woman who was caught in the act of adultery. The leaders were going to stone her, but Jesus intervened. If we could somehow transport her to Calvary she would recognize his hands—hands that still hold no stones. She would recognize his voice, “Father, forgive them…” And she would recognize his eyes; the eyes that saw her not as she was, but as she was intended to be. Behold! The Redeemer from Heaven.
Read more Six Hours One Friday
Psalm 141
A David Psalm
141 1-2 God, come close. Come quickly!
Open your ears—it’s my voice you’re hearing!
Treat my prayer as sweet incense rising;
my raised hands are my evening prayers.
3-7 Post a guard at my mouth, God,
set a watch at the door of my lips.
Don’t let me so much as dream of evil
or thoughtlessly fall into bad company.
And these people who only do wrong—
don’t let them lure me with their sweet talk!
May the Just One set me straight,
may the Kind One correct me,
Don’t let sin anoint my head.
I’m praying hard against their evil ways!
Oh, let their leaders be pushed off a high rock cliff;
make them face the music.
Like a rock pulverized by a maul,
let their bones be scattered at the gates of hell.
8-10 But God, dear Lord,
I only have eyes for you.
Since I’ve run for dear life to you,
take good care of me.
Protect me from their evil scheming,
from all their demonic subterfuge.
Let the wicked fall flat on their faces,
while I walk off without a scratch.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, April 15, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 15:9–17
“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.
11-15 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
16 “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
17 “But remember the root command: Love one another.
Insight
John 14–16 is often referred to as Jesus’s “Upper Room Discourse.” This would be His final teaching time with His disciples, and it’s wedged between His establishment of the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22) and the coming passion events, triggered by prayer and betrayal in Gethsemane (John 18).
In John 15:9–13, some form of the word love appears eight times. This love refers to the love of the Father and Son, their love for us, and our love for one another. In verses 14–17, the word friend or friends appears twice—describing the revolutionary nature of our relationship with Christ. The point? Relationship is the product of love, and, as verse 17 affirms, our relationships with one another are to be characterized by mutual love rooted in His love for us.
The Marks of Friendship
You are my friends if you do what I command. John 15:14
As a little boy growing up in Ghana, I enjoyed holding my father’s hand and walking with him in crowded places. He was both my father and my friend, for holding hands in my culture is a mark of true friendship. Walking along, we would talk about a variety of subjects. Whenever I felt lonely, I found consolation with my father. How I valued our companionship!
The Lord Jesus called His followers friends, and He showed them the marks of His friendship. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you,” He said (John 15:9), even laying down His life for them (v. 13). He showed them His kingdom business (v. 15). He taught them everything God had given Him (v. 15). And He gave them opportunity to share in His mission (v. 16).
As our Companion for life, Jesus walks with us. He listens to our heartaches and our desires. When we’re lonely and downhearted, our Friend Jesus keeps company with us.
And our companionship with Jesus is tighter when we love each other and obey His commands (vv. 10, 17). As we obey His commands, we will bear “fruit that will last” (v. 16).
Walking through the crowded alleys and dangerous roadways of our troubled world, we can count on the Lord’s companionship. It’s a mark of His friendship. By Lawrence Darmani
Today's Reflection
What does it mean for you to be a friend of Jesus? How has He revealed His presence to you?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, April 15, 2019
The Failure To Pay Close Attention
The high places were not removed from Israel. Nevertheless the heart of Asa was loyal all his days. —2 Chronicles 15:17
Asa was not completely obedient in the outward, visible areas of his life. He was obedient in what he considered the most important areas, but he was not entirely right. Beware of ever thinking, “Oh, that thing in my life doesn’t matter much.” The fact that it doesn’t matter much to you may mean that it matters a great deal to God. Nothing should be considered a trivial matter by a child of God. How much longer are we going to prevent God from teaching us even one thing? But He keeps trying to teach us and He never loses patience. You say, “I know I am right with God”— yet the “high places” still remain in your life. There is still an area of disobedience. Do you protest that your heart is right with God, and yet there is something in your life He causes you to doubt? Whenever God causes a doubt about something, stop it immediately, no matter what it may be. Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.
Are there some things regarding your physical or intellectual life to which you have been paying no attention at all? If so, you may think you are all correct in the important areas, but you are careless— you are failing to concentrate or to focus properly. You no more need a day off from spiritual concentration on matters in your life than your heart needs a day off from beating. As you cannot take a day off morally and remain moral, neither can you take a day off spiritually and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely His, and it requires paying close attention to keep yourself fit. It also takes a tremendous amount of time. Yet some of us expect to rise above all of our problems, going from one mountaintop experience to another, with only a few minutes’ effort.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
God created man to be master of the life in the earth and sea and sky, and the reason he is not is because he took the law into his own hands, and became master of himself, but of nothing else. The Shadow of an Agony, 1163 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, April 15, 2019
Not Always Miracles - #8416
Few things in life are so depressing as a boy's long-uncleaned room. Sometimes you might not even want to ask them to clean it. It might be better just to torch it or hose it out like a monkey cage. I remember one time my wife and I wanted to say "I love you" to our boys in a special way. So while they were gone one Saturday, we literally attacked their room. We thought it would be a little easier to keep it clean if we would, this one time, make it clean. When we were done, it was a great place to be again, and when the boys walked into their room, they became believers in miracles. And we did make two things really clear to them. First, "We love you guys." Secondly, "Don't expect us to make this a habit."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Not Always Miracles."
We intervened in that mess with a big "I love you" in the form of a room-cleaning "miracle." But most of the time, it wasn't going to get clean through a miracle. There's a lesson for us here in the ways of God in our everyday lives, believe it or not.
That lesson actually is exhibited in our word for today from the Word of God in Luke 9:17. It's just a little P.S. to one of Jesus' greatest miracles - you know, the day He multiplied one lunch into lunches for over 5,000 people. His disciples had this awesome thrill of handing out that miracle and watching the food multiply before their eyes. Now notice this postscript to that miracle, "They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over." Interestingly enough - 12 baskets - one for each of them.
Jesus demonstrated here that He can miraculously create a lunch. But what do you think the disciples ate the next few days? Did you ever think about that? Jesus could have kept doing miracle lunches for them, but He met their need through something much more day-to-day: the leftovers, taking good care of the resources they had - not wasting anything. The leftovers from the miracle lunch.
Miracles are special interventions, and God does them to dramatically show His love for us, like a dad cleaning his boys' room. But also like that dad, God doesn't do miracles all the time. God expects you and me, not only to pray for miracles, but to be good stewards of the everyday resources He gives us.
His provision often comes through our simply running our lives by His principles, to use everything we have wisely, to maintain what He's provided for you already, to plan wisely, to budget wisely, to stay out of debt, and to make things last. It's interesting that the Lord who extravagantly provided that miracle lunch is the same Lord who wanted the disciples not to waste anything that was left over. Maybe God operates on a principle similar to the one I heard in some management training one time: "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
Well, how are you doing using what God's already given you? How well are you doing caring for what God has already given you? We could pray for supernatural intervention, and often during our lives God will answer with one of His amazing miracles. But in between, He's watching how well you do with the baskets He's already supplied. He'll always see that you have what you need. It won't always be miracles, but it will always be there.
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