Max Lucado Daily: THE HEART ON TARGET
Jesus’ heart was so focused that his last words were “It is finished.” God wants us to have focused hearts like Jesus. Here are four simple questions to help us stay on course:
1) Am I fitting into God’s Plan? His plan is to save his children, and we are to tell others about the God who loves them.
2) What are my longings? Our assignment is found at the intersection of God’s plan and our pleasures. You are created to serve God in a unique way.
3) What are my abilities? Identify your strengths—and major in them.
4) Am I serving God now? As a young boy, Jesus sensed the call of God. But he went home and learned the family business.
Do the same. Go home, love your family, be a good employee. And get your life on course.
Read more Just Like Jesus
Psalm 14
A David Psalm
14 Bilious and bloated, they gas,
“God is gone.”
Their words are poison gas,
fouling the air; they poison
Rivers and skies;
thistles are their cash crop.
2 God sticks his head out of heaven.
He looks around.
He’s looking for someone not stupid—
one man, even, God-expectant,
just one God-ready woman.
3 He comes up empty. A string
of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
Sheep, taking turns pretending
to be Shepherd.
The ninety and nine
follow their fellow.
4 Don’t they know anything,
all these impostors?
Don’t they know
they can’t get away with this—
Treating people like a fast-food meal
over which they’re too busy to pray?
5-6 Night is coming for them, and nightmares,
for God takes the side of victims.
Do you think you can mess
with the dreams of the poor?
You can’t, for God
makes their dreams come true.
7 Is there anyone around to save Israel?
Yes. God is around; God turns life around.
Turned-around Jacob skips rope,
turned-around Israel sings laughter.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Romans 12:1-8
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
Insight
Paul tells us not to “conform to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of [our] mind” (Romans 12:2). What is the pattern of this world? Paul doesn’t define it for us, but we gain a hint when he immediately addresses the problem of pride. In verse 3 he says, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.” Then he emphasizes the need for us to use our God-given gifts to live in unity and community. “We, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (v. 5). God gifts us not so we may glorify ourselves but so that we might serve each other in love. By: Tim Gustafson
Living Sacrifice
I urge you . . . in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Romans 12:1
My great aunt had an exciting job in advertising and traveled between Chicago and New York City. But she chose to give up that career out of love for her parents. They lived in Minnesota and needed to be cared for. Both of her brothers had died young in tragic circumstances and she was her mom and dad’s only remaining child. For her, serving her parents was an expression of her faith.
The apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Rome urged Christian believers to be “a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1). He hoped they would extend Christ’s sacrificial love to each other. And he asked them not to think of themselves more highly than they should (v. 3). When they fell into disagreements and division, he called them to lay down their pride, because “in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (v. 5). He yearned that they would show each other sacrificial love.
Each day we have the opportunity to serve others. For instance, we might let someone go ahead of us in a line or we might, like my great aunt, care for someone who is ill. Or maybe we share from our experience as we give another advice and direction. When we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, we honor God. By Amy Boucher Pye
Today's Reflection
Lord Jesus Christ, You humbled Yourself and lay down Your life that I might live. May I never forget this most precious gift of grace and love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Do You Really Love Him?
She has done a good work for Me. —Mark 14:6
If what we call love doesn’t take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I’m not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things— things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? “She has done a good work for Me.”
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. “…but perfect love casts out fear…” once we are surrendered to God (1 John 4:18). We should quit asking ourselves, “Am I of any use?” and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 21, 2019
No Castaways - #8379
It's hard to imagine a movie that got rave reviews when there were about 45 minutes during which there was just one man on the screen, and he didn't even talk that whole time! Yeah, Tom Hanks pulled it off a few years ago in his blockbuster movie, "Cast Away." It's the story of the lone survivor of a Federal Express plane crash who ends up totally alone on an island. Well alone, except for his one friend-a volleyball he names Wilson. Tom Hanks' character is on that island, marooned and alone, for four years. He's the castaway.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have "A Word With You" today about "No Castaways."
You've probably never been marooned on a desert island. But you might know pretty well how it feels. In a world of bad relationships, superficial relationships, broken relationships, a lot of people know the feeling of being, well can we say, emotionally marooned, abandoned, maybe even discarded. Because of some of what you've been through, maybe you feel like the castaway.
But your days on that island may be almost over. In fact, it could be that all your failed, all your frustrating relationships have actually been preparing you to experience the central relationship you were made for. The one relationship that is so permanent and so secure that it even redefines your need for love, and it sets you free for healthier relationships all around.
Anyone who has ever felt like an emotional castaway needs to hear the fabulous promise of Jesus Christ in our word for today from the Word of God. In John 14:18, Jesus says to all those who belong to Him, "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." This is the same Savior who says, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). He's the One who promised, according to the Bible, "The one that comes to me, I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37).
That's it: unconditional love, unconditionally guaranteed by the One with more love to give than anyone in the world. And that's the kind of anchor love that your heart is so ready for, a kind of dependable love that maybe you've almost given up on, but a love that's guaranteed by the man who loved you so much that He died for you.
The Bible actually says that you and I were "created by Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16). Maybe you've never given yourself to Jesus until now. It's all the hurt of those other relationships that has softened your heart and made you realize how much you need the One who died to pay for all the wrong things you've ever done. We're not talking about a Christian religion here. No religion can love you, no religion can forgive you, be with you every moment of every day, or take you to heaven when you die. Only Jesus can do that.
So this is all about a relationship; a relationship that begins when you respond to this awesome love of Jesus. It begins when you welcome Him into your life, counting on Him and Him alone to remove the wall between you and God. When you do that, the relationship you were created for begins. And from now on, that promise of Jesus can be all about you, "The one that comes to Me I will certainly not cast out."
Why don't you tell Jesus now that the door on your heart is open to Him; that today you want to begin your personal love relationship with Him. You know, if that's something you're ready for, you can say to Him, "Lord Jesus, I'm sorry for running my own life. I am sorry for hijacking it from you. And now I believe that the death penalty for my sin was paid for by your death on the cross. I thank you that you love me that much, that you came back from the dead, that you're alive, and I'm yours today, Jesus, from today on. When you pray that with all your heart, your relationship with Him has begun and will be there forever.
Are you ready for that? You tell Him that right now. I think our website would be a help to you right now. It's there to support you at this crossroads moment of your life with the information you need to be sure you belong to Him. Go there - ANewStory.com. That's the website.
Look, you've lived long enough on that lonely island haven't you? It's time to meet the one person who will never, never leave you. If you do, you have just spent your last day alone.
