Max Lucado Daily:
LEARNING TO LISTEN TO GOD
I believe we can learn to listen to God if we are equipped with the right tools. The first tool is a regular time and place. Select a slot on your schedule and a corner of your world, and claim it for God. Take enough time to say what you want and for God to say what he wants.
The second tool is an open Bible. Pray first, asking God to help you understand it. Study the Bible a little at a time. Read until a verse “hits” you. Then meditate on it and write it down.
The third tool is a listening heart. We know we’re listening when what we read in the Bible is what others see in our lives. If you want to be just like Jesus, spend time listening for him until you receive your lesson for the day—and then apply it.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 8
A David Psalm
8 God, brilliant Lord,
yours is a household name.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
5-8 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden’s dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.
9 God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 20:13-16
But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she knelt to look into the tomb and saw two angels sitting there, dressed in white, one at the head, the other at the foot of where Jesus’ body had been laid. They said to her, “Woman, why do you weep?”
13-14 “They took my Master,” she said, “and I don’t know where they put him.” After she said this, she turned away and saw Jesus standing there. But she didn’t recognize him.
15 Jesus spoke to her, “Woman, why do you weep? Who are you looking for?”
She, thinking that he was the gardener, said, “Mister, if you took him, tell me where you put him so I can care for him.”
16 Jesus said, “Mary.”
Turning to face him, she said in Hebrew, “Rabboni!” meaning “Teacher!”
Insight
Notice how each person identifies the other during the conversation in John 20:13–16. Mary Magdalene refers to Jesus as “Lord” (thinking Him dead, v. 13), “Sir” (thinking Him to be the gardener, v. 15), and “Rabboni” or “Teacher” (upon recognizing Him, v. 16). On His side of the dialogue, Jesus refers to Mary as “woman” (v. 15) before addressing her by name (v. 16).
Mary honors Jesus’s memory by calling Him “Lord,” and even in the midst of her grief she respects the supposed gardener by calling Him “sir” (a common, polite form of kurios or “lord”). It may appear that Jesus is being unwelcoming when He calls Mary “woman”; to our ears that may seem distant or even harsh. But in that culture, it was a respectful term and one Jesus had used to address His mother in John 2:4. Everything turns, however, when Jesus speaks her name and she sees Him as her risen Teacher. By: Bill Crowder
Out of Context
She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. John 20:14
As I queued up to board my flight, someone tapped my shoulder. I turned and received a warm greeting. “Elisa! Do you remember me? It’s Joan!” My mind flipped through various “Joans” I’d known, but I couldn’t place her. Was she a previous neighbor? A past coworker? Oh dear . . . I didn’t know.
Sensing my struggle, Joan responded, “Elisa, we knew each other in high school.” A memory rose: Friday night football games, cheering from the stands. Once the context was clarified, I recognized Joan.
After Jesus’s death, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early in the morning and found the stone rolled away and His body gone (John 20:1–2). She ran to get Peter and John, who returned with her to find the tomb empty (vv. 3–10). But Mary lingered outside in her grief (v. 11). When Jesus appeared there, “she did not realize that it was Jesus” (v. 14), thinking He was the gardener (v. 15).
How could she have not recognized Jesus? Was His resurrected body so changed that it was difficult to recognize Him? Did her grief blind her to His identity? Or, perhaps, like me, was it because Jesus was “out of context,” alive in the garden instead of dead in the tomb, that she didn’t recognize Him?
How might we too miss Jesus when He comes into our days—during prayer or Bible reading, or by simply whispering in our hearts? By Elisa Morgan
Today's Reflection
Dear God, give us eyes to see Jesus, however He comes—in a familiar context or surprising us in an unexpected one.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 14, 2019
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. —Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark…” — pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, “How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!” And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Beyond Platonic to Passionate - #8374
It was Valentine's Day and it turned out to be a milestone day in my relationship with the girl I considered to be the best catch in our class. I knew she had been seriously dating someone else for quite a while, and I had to plan my moves very shrewdly or I'd scare her off. So, we had what we both called this "brother/sister" relationship. Oh, sure I wanted it to be more, but at least I could spend some time with her this way without scaring her off. Well, one day I'd had enough of this platonic relationship stuff. She was actually bringing a Valentine's cake up to some radio staff at our college and I happened to be there. We got into a pretty intense discussion there, standing by the water fountain. And finally I blurted out what I'd been feeling for a long time, "I'm sick and tired of just being your 'brother.' I want it to be much more!" There it was, man, all or nothing. And what happened? I married the girl! (OK, this is the part where the audience cheers.)
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Beyond Platonic to Passionate."
Setting aside the romantic part of this, I can't help but wonder if Jesus doesn't want to have a conversation with you and me like I had with the woman I loved that day. "I'm tired of the level of relationship you've settled for with Me. I want it to be so much more!" So many of us have been settling for a static, humdrum, platonic relationship with Jesus, and He's calling us to something far more passionate with Him.
Simon Peter, the man who was always at Jesus' service, found out what Jesus cared about most the day Jesus asked him The Question. It's found in John 21, beginning with verse 15. It's our word for today from the Word of God. The risen Christ has called Peter aside for a private conversation on the lakeshore. "Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon...do you truly love Me more than these?' 'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'You know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Feed my lambs.' Again Jesus said, 'Simon...do you truly love Me?' He answered, 'Yes, Lord, you know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Take care of My sheep.' The third time he said to him, 'Simon...do you love Me?' Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' He said, 'Lord...You know that I love You.' Jesus said, 'Feed my sheep.'"
Now, notice what Jesus didn't ask: "Do you believe in Me?" or "Do you want to work hard for Me?" He only wanted to know one thing, "Do you really love Me?" That's all He really wants to know from you. One reason He asks it three times, I think, is because it's just so easy to say a cheap "yes." We know yes is the only right answer, but Jesus is saying, "Are you ready to take your commitment to me, your closeness to me, to a much deeper level? Do you want our relationship to be much more than it has been?" He does. He poured out His blood - His life for you. How can we settle for the same old level of loving Him; predictable, official, mechanical, playing it safe.
What will it mean to become more passionate in your love for Jesus? First, it's going to mean more time with Him - not just a rushed or occasional time with Jesus on the margins of your schedule. We're talking about like non-negotiable, daily "face time" with your Savior. More love also means more honesty - not just talking to Him from your head; not just saying to Him what you're "supposed to" say, but I mean pouring out the deepest corners of your heart to Him.
And going for more of Jesus means more praise - consciously, all day long, looking for Jesus all over your day and stopping to praise Him when you see Him. And enlarging your Jesus-love means more territory, letting go of that steering wheel in areas of your life where you've been holding onto control. Releasing what you love most completely to His control, because you can't love Him as He deserves if you're loving something else more. That's spiritual adultery.
Imagine Jesus standing there in front of you, looking you in the eyes saying, "Are you ready to really love Me? I died for our relationship to be more than this." The hymn writer said: "I love Thee because Thou has first loved me, and purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree; I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow; if ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, 'tis now."