Max Lucado Daily: GOD VS. DEATH
Death is the bully on the block of life. “Your time is coming,” he taunts. Oh, we try to prove him wrong. We jog. We diet. But we know that we will only, at best, postpone it. That is why you should never face him alone. That is why you need a big brother.
Take heart from these words, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-16).
Yes, the Christian can face the bully nose to nose and claim the promise that echoed in the empty tomb. My death is not final!
Read more Six Hours One Friday
Psalm 144
A David Psalm
144 1-2 Blessed be God, my mountain,
who trains me to fight fair and well.
He’s the bedrock on which I stand,
the castle in which I live,
my rescuing knight,
The high crag where I run for dear life,
while he lays my enemies low.
3-4 I wonder why you care, God—
why do you bother with us at all?
All we are is a puff of air;
we’re like shadows in a campfire.
5-8 Step down out of heaven, God;
ignite volcanoes in the hearts of the mountains.
Hurl your lightnings in every direction;
shoot your arrows this way and that.
Reach all the way from sky to sea:
pull me out of the ocean of hate,
out of the grip of those barbarians
Who lie through their teeth,
who shake your hand
then knife you in the back.
9-10 O God, let me sing a new song to you,
let me play it on a twelve-string guitar—
A song to the God who saved the king,
the God who rescued David, his servant.
11 Rescue me from the enemy sword,
release me from the grip of those barbarians
Who lie through their teeth,
who shake your hand
then knife you in the back.
12-14 Make our sons in their prime
like sturdy oak trees,
Our daughters as shapely and bright
as fields of wildflowers.
Fill our barns with great harvest,
fill our fields with huge flocks;
Protect us from invasion and exile—
eliminate the crime in our streets.
15 How blessed the people who have all this!
How blessed the people who have God for God!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Luke 23:32–46
Two others, both criminals, were taken along with him for execution.
33 When they got to the place called Skull Hill, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.
34-35 Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.”
Dividing up his clothes, they threw dice for them. The people stood there staring at Jesus, and the ringleaders made faces, taunting, “He saved others. Let’s see him save himself! The Messiah of God—ha! The Chosen—ha!”
36-37 The soldiers also came up and poked fun at him, making a game of it. They toasted him with sour wine: “So you’re King of the Jews! Save yourself!”
38 Printed over him was a sign: this is the king of the jews.
39 One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!”
40-41 But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.”
43 He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.”
44-46 By now it was noon. The whole earth became dark, the darkness lasting three hours—a total blackout. The Temple curtain split right down the middle. Jesus called loudly, “Father, I place my life in your hands!” Then he breathed his last.
Insight
Jesus’s death forever changed those present. One of the two criminals who had been crucified alongside Him said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:39–43). The centurion tasked with executing Him exclaimed, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39).
In the Moment
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life . . . . No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. John 10:17–18
The ambulance door was about to close—with me on the inside. Outside, my son was on the phone to my wife. From my concussed fog, I called his name. As he recalls the moment, I slowly said, “Tell your mom I love her very much.”
Apparently I thought this might be goodbye, and I wanted those to be my parting words. In the moment, that’s what mattered most to me.
As Jesus endured His darkest moment, He didn’t merely tell us He loved us; He showed it in specific ways. He showed it to the mocking soldiers who had just nailed Him to a cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). He gave hope to a criminal crucified with Him: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (v. 43). Nearing the end, He looked at His mother. “Here is your son,” He said to her, and to His close friend John He said, “Here is your mother” (John 19:26–27). Then, as His life slipped from Him, Jesus’s last act of love was to trust His Father: “Into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).
Jesus purposefully chose the cross in order to show His obedience to His Father—and the depth of His love for us. To the very end, He showed us His relentless love. By Tim Gustafson
Today's Reflection
What matters most to you? How do love and obedience fit together?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Readiness
God called to him….And he said, "Here I am." —Exodus 3:4
When God speaks, many of us are like people in a fog, and we give no answer. Moses’ reply to God revealed that he knew where he was and that he was ready. Readiness means having a right relationship to God and having the knowledge of where we are. We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, “Here I am.” Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty.
Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing— it makes no difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever God’s plans may be, we are there and ready. Whenever any duty presents itself, we hear God’s voice as our Lord heard His Father’s voice, and we are ready for it with the total readiness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do with us just as His Father did with Him. He can put us wherever He wants, in pleasant duties or in menial ones, because our union with Him is the same as His union with the Father. “…that they may be one just as We are one…” (John 17:22).
Be ready for the sudden surprise visits of God. A ready person never needs to get ready— he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the person who is ready, and it is on fire with the presence of God Himself.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold. Baffled to Fight Better, 69 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Goodbye, Ordinary! - #8419
I was more of a Superman and Batman fan. I never really got into Spider-Man. But when the blockbuster Spider-Man movie came out, the first one, a lot of people did get into Spider-Man. And you know what? There have been a couple more movies since then, they've got more than a couple now. I'm still not tremendously interested in this web-spinning, skyscraper-climbing, crime-fighting guy in the spider suit, but I am interested in something he said in the first movie about him. Peter Parker, yeah you probably know this as the bookish teenager who gets bitten by a radioactive spider one day. (You never know when that's going to happen to you.) And he begins to discover that he has suddenly developed some amazing spiderish capabilities. (All right, look, I'm reporting the story, I didn't write it. Okay?) Now, it dawns on him that he can't just use these abilities for himself. He has to use them to make a difference. Here's the great line. Here's what he says. I like it: "For me, living an ordinary life is no longer an option." Oh, that's good!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Goodbye, Ordinary!"
An ordinary guy who suddenly realizes he has some extraordinary powers available to him, and he realizes he can't settle for ordinary anymore. Well, hello, is that a picture of any man or woman in whom Jesus Christ lives! I mean, this is the Jesus who blew the doors off His grave on Easter morning, who has conquered death, the most powerful force on earth - the force that has stopped every man except one man. And the day you gave yourself to this Jesus, He moved into your life to stay with all His resurrection power.
That's what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, our word for today from the Word of God. "Christ's love compels us...He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again." So what's supposed to be the practical result of Good Friday and Easter? That you stop living for yourself, you stop settling for small and ordinary, and you start living a life worthy of Jesus' Good Friday love and His resurrection power.
How can anyone in whom this death-conquering Christ lives ever settle for ordinary again? Paul expressed his lifelong passion in this way: "I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection..." (Philippians 3:10). Exploring, unleashing, experiencing the awesome power of the Jesus who lives in you!
Maybe you're like so many believers I've met in recent years. You've got this unexplainable restlessness inside. It's saying, "There's got to be something more than this." It's saying, "I want to make a greater difference with the rest of my life than I've made until now." Well, you know what? It's God who's made you restless. He wants you to realize that power that you got when you got Jesus. He wants you to give yourself to a mission far larger than your little kingdom, your little comfort zone.
Those chains that have bound you for so long; you don't have to settle for those anymore. Jesus Christ has resurrection power to set you free! So start to live like it. If you'll commit yourself to resurrection living, you can confront those monsters from your past finally; the ones that have haunted you and even defined you for way too long. You can face those fears you have. You can move beyond that bitterness. You can throw yourself into doing some things that will last forever! You have resurrection power, man!
Tell Jesus you're tired of business as usual; that you've been settling for a life that's just way too small, that's only as big as you can make it. Then sell out to His plans, sell out to His power. We stand by Jesus at the empty tomb that He blew away and we say, "For me, living an ordinary life is no longer an option!"
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