Max Lucado Daily: Family Expectations
Many of us have a fantasy that our family will be like the Waltons or the expectation that our friends will be like members of our family. Jesus did not have that expectation. Look how Jesus defined his family in Mark 3:35: "My true brother and sister and mother are those who do what God wants." When Jesus' brothers did not share his convictions, he didn't try to force them. He recognized that his spiritual family could give him what his physical family did not.
We cannot control how our families respond to us. Our hands are tied. We have to move beyond the expectation that if we do good, our family will treat us right! The fact is they may; and then again, they may not! Let God give you what your physical, earthly family does not. And don't lose heart! God still changes families.
From Grace for the Moment
1 Corinthians 6
And how dare you take each other to court! When you think you have been wronged, does it make any sense to go before a court that knows nothing of God’s ways instead of a family of Christians? The day is coming when the world is going to stand before a jury made up of followers of Jesus. If someday you are going to rule on the world’s fate, wouldn’t it be a good idea to practice on some of these smaller cases? Why, we’re even going to judge angels! So why not these everyday affairs? As these disagreements and wrongs surface, why would you ever entrust them to the judgment of people you don’t trust in any other way?
5-6 I say this as bluntly as I can to wake you up to the stupidity of what you’re doing. Is it possible that there isn’t one levelheaded person among you who can make fair decisions when disagreements and disputes come up? I don’t believe it. And here you are taking each other to court before people who don’t even believe in God! How can they render justice if they don’t believe in the God of justice?
7-8 These court cases are an ugly blot on your community. Wouldn’t it be far better to just take it, to let yourselves be wronged and forget it? All you’re doing is providing fuel for more wrong, more injustice, bringing more hurt to the people of your own spiritual family.
9-11 Don’t you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I’m talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you’ve been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.
12 Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.
13 You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!
14-15 God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.
16-20 There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, December 07, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Deuteronomy 6:4–12
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.a y 5 Lovez the Lord your God with all your hearta and with all your soul and with all your strength.b 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.c 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.d 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.e 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.f
10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build,g 11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig,h and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,i 12 be careful that you do not forgetj the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
Insight
Orthodox Jews take the command of Deuteronomy 6:8 literally. A devout Jewish man will tie leather cases known as tefillin (Greek, phylactery) on his left arm or hand and on his forehead. The tefillin contain the portion of Scripture known as the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–9). In Mark 12:29–31, Jesus quoted from the Shema and Leviticus 19:18 when He said “there is no commandment greater” than “to love the Lord your God . . . [and] your neighbor as yourself.”
The tefillin usually include Scriptures from Exodus 13:1–16 and Deuteronomy 11:13–21. The Exodus portion refers to the first Passover when God said, “This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that this law of the Lord is to be on your lips” (Exodus 13:9). A time will come when those who reject God must have a mark either on their hands or on their foreheads (Revelation 13:16; 14:9). Satan loves to counterfeit God’s ways. By: Tim Gustafson
Don’t Forget the Giver
Be careful that you do not forget the Lord. Deuteronomy 6:12
It was just before Christmas, and her kids were having a difficult time with gratitude. She knew how easy it was to slip into that kind of thinking, but she also knew she wanted something better for the hearts of her children. So she went through the house and placed red bows on light switches, the pantry and refrigerator doors, the washing machine and dryer, and the water faucets. With each bow there was a handwritten note: “Some of the gifts God gives us are easy to overlook, so I’ve put a bow on them. He is so good to our family. Let’s not forget where the gifts come from.”
In Deuteronomy 6, we see that the future of the nation of Israel involved the conquest of existing places. So they would move into large flourishing cities they did not build (v. 10), occupy houses filled with good things they didn’t provide, and benefit from wells and vineyards and olive groves they didn’t dig or plant (v. 11). All these blessings could be easily traced back to a single source—“the Lord your God” (v. 10). And while God lovingly provided these things and more, Moses wanted to make sure the people were careful not to forget (v. 12).
During certain seasons of life it’s easy to forget. But let’s not lose sight of God’s goodness, the source of all our blessings. By: John Blase
Reflect & Pray
Name five blessings in your life. Why are you grateful for them? How will you thank God for them today?
Loving Father, You are the source of every blessing in our lives. In our pride we often imagine otherwise, but we know better. We do. Thank You for all Your gifts.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, December 07, 2019
Repentance
Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation… —2 Corinthians 7:10
Conviction of sin is best described in the words:
My sins, my sins, my Savior,
How sad on Thee they fall.
Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person’s relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God— “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight…” (Psalm 51:4). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously, by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, “I have sinned.” The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes— a reflex action caused by self-disgust.
The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man’s respectable “goodness.” Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person’s life (see Galatians 4:19). This new life will reveal itself in conscious repentance followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses— repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
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