Max Lucado Daily: Today's Pop Quiz
Each day has a pop quiz. And some seasons are final exams. Brutal, sudden pitfalls of stress, sickness, or sadness. What is the purpose of the test? James 1:3-4 says, "For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything."
God hasn't forgotten you. Just the opposite. He has chosen to train you. The Hebrew verb for test comes from a word that means "to take a keen look at; to choose." Dismiss the notion that God does not see your struggle. On the contrary, God is fully engaged. He is the Teacher; we are the students. Trust His training. You'll get through this. He can make something good out of your mess!
From You'll Get Through This
Acts 7:44-60
“And all this time our ancestors had a tent shrine for true worship, made to the exact specifications God provided Moses. They had it with them as they followed Joshua, when God cleared the land of pagans, and still had it right down to the time of David. David asked God for a permanent place for worship. But Solomon built it.
48-50 “Yet that doesn’t mean that Most High God lives in a building made by carpenters and masons. The prophet Isaiah put it well when he wrote,
“Heaven is my throne room;
I rest my feet on earth.
So what kind of house
will you build me?” says God.
“Where I can get away and relax?
It’s already built, and I built it.”
51-53 “And you continue, so bullheaded! Calluses on your hearts, flaps on your ears! Deliberately ignoring the Holy Spirit, you’re just like your ancestors. Was there ever a prophet who didn’t get the same treatment? Your ancestors killed anyone who dared talk about the coming of the Just One. And you’ve kept up the family tradition—traitors and murderers, all of you. You had God’s Law handed to you by angels—gift-wrapped!—and you squandered it!”
54-56 At that point they went wild, a rioting mob of catcalls and whistles and invective. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed—he only had eyes for God, whom he saw in all his glory with Jesus standing at his side. He said, “Oh! I see heaven wide open and the Son of Man standing at God’s side!”
57-58 Yelling and hissing, the mob drowned him out. Now in full stampede, they dragged him out of town and pelted him with rocks. The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to watch them.
59-60 As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, “Master Jesus, take my life.” Then he knelt down, praying loud enough for everyone to hear, “Master, don’t blame them for this sin”—his last words. Then he died.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Genesis 3:1-10
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
Insight
In today’s reading, we see how Satan misquoted God’s words. Adam and Eve were restricted from only one tree—“the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:16–17)—not every tree (3:1). “You will not certainly die” (v. 4) was a deliberate lie (2:17). Eve also added to God’s instruction and said, “You must not touch it” (3:3). Paul says Eve was deceived by Satan’s cunning ways (2 Corinthians 11:3). We’re to be alert (1 Peter 5:8) so that “Satan might not outwit us” (2 Corinthians 2:11).
Hide-and-Seek
But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9
“He’s going to find me,” I thought. I felt my little heart pound faster as I heard my five-year-old cousin’s footsteps around the corner. He was coming closer. Five steps away. Three. Two. “Found you!”
Hide-and-seek. Most have fond memories of playing the game as children. Yet sometimes in life the fear of being found isn’t fun but is rooted in a deep instinct to flee. People may dislike what they see.
As children of a fallen world, we’re prone to play what a friend of mine labels, “a mixed-up game of hide-and-seek” between God and us. It’s more like a game of pretending to hide—because either way, He sees all the way through to our messy thoughts and wrong choices. We know it, though we like to pretend He can’t really see.
Yet God continues to seek. “Come out,” He calls to us. “I want to see you, even your most shameful parts”—an echo of the same voice that called to the first human who hid out of fear: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). Such a warm invitation voiced in the form of a piercing question. “Come out of hiding, dear child, and come back into relationship with Me.”
It may seem far too risky, preposterous even. But there, within the safe confines of our Father’s care, any of us, no matter what we’ve done or failed to do, can be fully known and loved. By Jeff Olson
Reflect & Pray
How is it comforting to know that God sees you and yet still longs for you to come to Him? How is that knowledge freeing?
The One who fully knows us unconditionally loves us.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 22, 2019
The Unchanging Law of Judgment
With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. —Matthew 7:2
This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give will be the very way you are judged. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus said that the basis of life is retribution— “with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” If you have been shrewd in finding out the shortcomings of others, remember that will be exactly how you will be measured. The way you pay is the way life will pay you back. This eternal law works from God’s throne down to us (see Psalm 18:25-26).
Romans 2:1 applies it in even a more definite way by saying that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act itself, but also at the possibility of committing it, which He sees by looking at our hearts. To begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible. For instance, do we really believe the statement that says we criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts. The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, “Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in me if it were not for the grace of God. Therefore, I have no right to judge.”
Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). He went on to say, in effect, “If you do judge, you will be judged in exactly the same way.” Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, “My God, judge me as I have judged others”? We have judged others as sinners— if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
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