Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S GLOVE
God has work to do. And he uses our hands to do it. What the hand is to the glove, the Spirit is to the Christian. God gets his fingers into our lives, inch by inch reclaiming his territory. As a glove responds to the strength of the hand, so you will respond to the leading of Christ, saying, “I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
The question is not, how can I have more of the Spirit? But, rather, can the Spirit have more of me?
Accept his power. Be the glove and let him get his hand deep into your life.
Surrender to his plan. Harbored sin interferes with Spirit circulation. Confessed sin restores power.
And keep at it…unceasingly seek God’s Spirit.
Accept. Surrender. Keep at it. A-S-K.
Read more Come Thirsty
\Song of Solomon 5
The Man
I went to my garden, dear friend, best lover!
breathed the sweet fragrance.
I ate the fruit and honey,
I drank the nectar and wine.
Celebrate with me, friends!
Raise your glasses—“To life! To love!”
The Woman
2 I was sound asleep, but in my dreams I was wide awake.
Oh, listen! It’s the sound of my lover knocking, calling!
The Man
“Let me in, dear companion, dearest friend,
my dove, consummate lover!
I’m soaked with the dampness of the night,
drenched with dew, shivering and cold.”
The Woman
3 “But I’m in my nightgown—do you expect me to get dressed?
I’m bathed and in bed—do you want me to get dirty?”
4-7 But my lover wouldn’t take no for an answer,
and the longer he knocked, the more excited I became.
I got up to open the door to my lover,
sweetly ready to receive him,
Desiring and expectant
as I turned the door handle.
But when I opened the door he was gone.
My loved one had tired of waiting and left.
And I died inside—oh, I felt so bad!
I ran out looking for him
But he was nowhere to be found.
I called into the darkness—but no answer.
The night watchmen found me
as they patrolled the streets of the city.
They slapped and beat and bruised me,
ripping off my clothes,
These watchmen,
who were supposed to be guarding the city.
8 I beg you, sisters in Jerusalem—
if you find my lover,
Please tell him I want him,
that I’m heartsick with love for him.
The Chorus
9 What’s so great about your lover, fair lady?
What’s so special about him that you beg for our help?
The Woman
10-16 My dear lover glows with health—
red-blooded, radiant!
He’s one in a million.
There’s no one quite like him!
My golden one, pure and untarnished,
with raven black curls tumbling across his shoulders.
His eyes are like doves, soft and bright,
but deep-set, brimming with meaning, like wells of water.
His face is rugged, his beard smells like sage,
His voice, his words, warm and reassuring.
Fine muscles ripple beneath his skin,
quiet and beautiful.
His torso is the work of a sculptor,
hard and smooth as ivory.
He stands tall, like a cedar,
strong and deep-rooted,
A rugged mountain of a man,
aromatic with wood and stone.
His words are kisses, his kisses words.
Everything about him delights me, thrills me
through and through!
That’s my lover, that’s my man,
dear Jerusalem sisters.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Peter 2:4-10
Welcome to the living Stone, the source of life. The workmen took one look and threw it out; God set it in the place of honor. Present yourselves as building stones for the construction of a sanctuary vibrant with life, in which you’ll serve as holy priests offering Christ-approved lives up to God. The Scriptures provide precedent:
Look! I’m setting a stone in Zion,
a cornerstone in the place of honor.
Whoever trusts in this stone as a foundation
will never have cause to regret it.
To you who trust him, he’s a Stone to be proud of, but to those who refuse to trust him,
The stone the workmen threw out
is now the chief foundation stone.
For the untrusting it’s
. . . a stone to trip over,
a boulder blocking the way.
They trip and fall because they refuse to obey, just as predicted.
9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.
Insight
Peter’s writing in the New Testament demonstrated his familiarity with the Scriptures (what we know as our Old Testament). In 1 Peter 2 alone, Peter quotes or alludes to at least five different passages. In verse 6 the reference is to Isaiah 28:16, verse 7 is taken from Psalm 118:22, and verse 8 is from Isaiah 8:14. The choice words in verse 9, referring to believers in Jesus, were used in Exodus 19:5–6 to describe the nation of Israel: “Out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. . . . [Y]ou will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” And the writing of the prophet Hosea (Hosea 1:6, 9–10) was on his mind when Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:10, “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Only a Gypsy Boy
You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession. 1 Peter 2:9
“Oh, it’s only a gypsy boy,” someone whispered with disgust when Rodney Smith walked to the front of the chapel to receive Christ during a service in 1877. Nobody thought much of this teenager, the son of uneducated gypsy parents. Yet, Rodney didn’t listen to those voices. He was certain that God had a purpose for his life so he bought himself a Bible and an English dictionary and taught himself how to read and write. He once said, “The way to Jesus is not by Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, or the poets. It is . . . an old-fashioned hill called Calvary.” Against all odds, Rodney became an evangelist who God used to bring many to Jesus in the UK and US.
Peter too was just a simple man—untrained in the religious rabbinic schools (Acts 4:13), a fisherman from Galilee—when Jesus called him with two simple words: “Follow me” (Matthew 4:19). Yet the same Peter, despite his upbringing and the failures he experienced along the way, later affirmed that those who follow Jesus are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession” (1 Peter 2:9).
Through Jesus Christ all people—whatever their education, upbringing, gender, or ethnicity—can be a part of the family of God and be used by Him. Becoming God’s “special possession” is for all who believe in Jesus. By Estera Pirosca Escobar
Reflect & Pray
What does it mean for you to be part of a chosen people, a royal priesthood, God’s special possession? How are you encouraged by the fact that God can use you for His honor?
God, I thank You that my identity is found in You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Getting There (3)
…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 13, 2019
The Healing Edge - #8459
When one of our kids would be going through a sick spell, I used to tell them they needed to get lots of sleep. That's because (this is what I'd say) "when you're asleep, the good soldiers come out and fight those bad soldiers that are making you sick." Okay come on, it's not advanced microbiology, but it works for me. Actually, one of the amazing things about these bodies God has given us is how our body kicks into action when it's been invaded by an infection. All those antibodies go to work (good soldiers), and those white blood cells start coming out in force. In fact, one way doctors look for infection is to check your blood for the elevated presence of white blood cells. They're multiplying fast when the "bad soldier" germs try to take you out.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Healing Edge."
There's this infection that every human being on this planet is fighting - it's a spiritual infection. This spiritual cancer has a name. It's called "sin" in the Bible, and it can kill your future, your reputation, your marriage, your family, your joy, your closeness to God. And, if it isn't cured, it can ultimately kill you forever by keeping you out of God's heaven.
But for all of us who are carrying this deadly infection inside us, God has some awesome news. He has "good soldiers" that are more powerful than the forces of sin. In Romans 5:20, our word for today from the Word of God, He says, "Where sin increased, grace increased all the more." What an incredible promise! God always has more grace than we have sin, no matter what we've done.
Grace is God's undeserved, unconditional love. We're hung up on trying to do things to please people, to get them to like us, to get them to accept us. But there's nothing you're going to do that's going to impress a sinless, holy, infinite God. But because we're stuck on this "deserving" thing, we're sure God will have nothing to do with us when we've blown it royally. If His love and forgiving is based on our performance, we're done for. But it's not. It's based on His grace, which is all about what He's like and nothing about what you're like. And His sin-fighting agent, called grace, always outruns and outguns human sin. There's more healing grace than there is sinful infection...always.
That doesn't mean you go on sinning so you can abuse God's grace and take advantage of His love. In fact, if you really have Jesus in your heart, you won't be able to indefinitely stand doing the things that He died to keep you from doing. But God's "more grace than there is sin" equation means that there is no one in your life who is beyond God's grace. So keep praying for them, keep loving them. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven...no prodigal who can't come home. And it is never too late to be forgiven. Just look at the dying thief Jesus forgave on the cross in his last moments of his life.
Today could be your personal day to experience that healing grace of God for yourself. No matter what you've done, Jesus died to pay for it and to forgive it, if you'll give yourself to Him - if you'll trust Him to be your personal Rescuer from your personal sin. You don't have to carry the guilt anymore, you don't have to carry the death sentence of your sin one more day. If you want to begin this personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you need to tell Him something like this today. "Jesus, I was made by you. I was made for you. I have lived for me. I'm done with that. I believe you died for the sins I have done against you, and you walked out of your grave. You're alive today and I'm putting all my trust in you to rescue me from my sin. Jesus, I am yours."
I'll tell you, if you say that to Him, the wall between you and God comes down now and you have begun life's most important relationship which is, by the way, what our website is all about. And why I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today - ANewStory.com.
His grace is greater than the sins of a lifetime. That's why it's amazing grace. And it's grace for you.
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