Max Lucado Daily: GOD WILL NEVER GIVE UP!
God never gives up. When on trial before the cross, people spat in his face, but he didn’t spit back. When a whip ripped his sides, he didn’t command the awaiting angels to stuff that whip down the soldier’s throat. When human hands fastened the divine hands to a cross with spikes, it wasn’t the soldiers who held the hands of Jesus steady. It was God who held them steady.
God never gives up. Not then, not now, not ever. So the next time doubt walks in. Escort him out. Out to the hill. Out to Calvary. Out to the cross where, with holy blood, holy hands wrote the promise: God would give up His only Son before He’d give up on you.
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John 15
“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.
4 “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.
5-8 “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
9-10 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.
11-15 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
16 “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
17 “But remember the root command: Love one another.
18-19 “If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you.
20 “When that happens, remember this: Servants don’t get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them.
21-25 “They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don’t know the One who sent me. If I hadn’t come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn’t be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse. Hate me, hate my Father—it’s all the same. If I hadn’t done what I have done among them, works no one has ever done, they wouldn’t be to blame. But they saw the God-signs and hated anyway, both me and my Father. Interesting—they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, ‘They hated me for no good reason.’
26-27 “When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes—the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father—he will confirm everything about me. You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, April 08, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Matthew 19:17–30
Jesus said, “Why do you question me about what’s good? God is the One who is good. If you want to enter the life of God, just do what he tells you.”
18-19 The man asked, “What in particular?”
Jesus said, “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as you do yourself.”
20 The young man said, “I’ve done all that. What’s left?”
21 “If you want to give it all you’ve got,” Jesus replied, “go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.”
22 That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crestfallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn’t bear to let go.
23-24 As he watched him go, Jesus told his disciples, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for the rich to enter God’s kingdom? Let me tell you, it’s easier to gallop a camel through a needle’s eye than for the rich to enter God’s kingdom.”
25 The disciples were staggered. “Then who has any chance at all?”
26 Jesus looked hard at them and said, “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.”
27 Then Peter chimed in, “We left everything and followed you. What do we get out of it?”
28-30 Jesus replied, “Yes, you have followed me. In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule, starting with the twelve tribes of Israel. And not only you, but anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields—whatever—because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life. This is the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.”
Insight
Jesus answered the question “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?” with commands from the second portion of the Ten Commandments, which focuses on our dealings with each other. The first portion, regarding our relationship with God, is clearly more difficult to keep.
Unexpected Winners
Many who are first will be last. Matthew 19:30
Perhaps the most preposterous, spellbinding moment in the 2018 Winter Olympics was when the Czech Republic’s world champion snowboarder Ester Ledecka won an event in a completely different sport: skiing! And she took the first-place gold medal even though she had the unenviable position of skiing 26th—a feat believed to be basically impossible.
Amazingly, Ledecka qualified to race the women’s super-G—an event that combines downhill skiing with a slalom course. After she won by .01 of a second on borrowed skis, she was just as shocked as the media and other contestants who had assumed the winner would be one of the top skiers.
This is how the world works. We assume the winners will keep winning while all the others will lose. It was a jolt, then, when the disciples heard Jesus say how “hard [it is] for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:23). Jesus turned everything upside down. How could being rich (a winner) offer a roadblock? Apparently, if we trust in what we have (what we can do, who we are), then it’s not only hard but actually impossible to trust God.
The kingdom of God doesn’t play by our rules. “Many who are first,” Jesus says, “will be last, and many who are last will be first” (v. 30). And, whether you’re first or last, everything we receive is purely by grace—by God’s unmerited favor. By Winn Collier
Today's Reflection
Consider how you view people, or how you view your own life. How does Jesus’s way of seeing so-called losers and winners change your perspective?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, April 08, 2019
His Resurrection Destiny
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26
Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life— a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Paul’s determined purpose was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
Jesus prayed, “…as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2). The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of isolation; beware of the idea that you have to develop a holy life alone. It is impossible to develop a holy life alone; you will develop into an oddity and a peculiarism, into something utterly unlike what God wants you to be. The only way to develop spiritually is to go into the society of God’s own children, and you will soon find how God alters your set. God does not contradict our social instincts; He alters them. Biblical Psychology, 189 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, April 08, 2019
Deadly Magic - #8411
When I was a kid, I used to like to put on shows for the other kids in the neighborhood. Hey, wait a minute, am I still doing shows for the kids in the neighborhood? Anyway, I bought a couple of cheap books on magic back then and I had this little kit of magic tricks. Even at my juvenile level, I soon learned that magic wasn't really magic - it was illusions. My beginner magic book talked about how this basic magician skill was called misdirection. The idea is that while you're doing the trick over here you do something that will get everybody looking over there. They said it helped to talk a lot. Well, I knew I'd at least be good at that part.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Deadly Magic."
So one of the secrets of fooling people is to get them looking at something other than what's really going on. Well, that's a tactic employed by someone with a far more sinister intention than some magician or illusionist. This misdirection thing is being used to keep a lot of people from going to heaven; maybe even you or someone you love.
This deadly strategy is revealed in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 4:4. The devil here is called "the god of this age." And it says, "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ." Satan doesn't really want you, or anyone, to see who Jesus really is and what Jesus could really do to light up your life. So he blinds you. He keeps you from seeing Jesus, because if you ever really give yourself to Jesus, the devil has lost you forever. And if you ever got a good look at him, you would probably want him in your life.
Of course, few people are going to knowingly follow the devil or cooperate with his plans to have them in hell forever. So Satan works his deadly magic of getting us to look at something other than Jesus, "Look over here!" - anything other than Jesus.
He may be trying that blinding, misdirecting strategy on you. Again, he doesn't care what you focus on, as long as it is not Jesus. So maybe the deceiver's got you focused on Christians, instead of Christ; those hypocrites, the professed Christians who've hurt you, the inconsistencies of the Church. But that isn't Jesus...and Jesus is the issue. Or maybe the devil's got you all wrapped up in your religion, even a religion that's all about Jesus. He doesn't care as long as you're depending on your religion that makes you miss Jesus.
Maybe the deceiver's blinding you by getting you focused on personal spirituality, or a career that's keeping you too busy for God. Maybe he's got you looking at your pain, your past, your family, a love relationship, the fine points of theology, a sin you can't let go of. Satan will use anything to keep your eyes off Jesus; to keep you from getting to that cross where God's only Son paid the awful price for your sin where you can finally face the sin of your life, be forgiven of the sin of your life, and receive the guarantee of being in heaven forever.
But today, right now, Jesus is coming to you where you are, reaching out His hand, and offering you His awesome love. The moment you die, you will know that the only thing that really mattered was what you did with Jesus. But then it will be too late to change it. But today, you can still open your heart to Him. Today you can finally turn your eyes to Jesus.
Look, wherever your gaze has been before, let this be the day when you in your heart walk up to that cross and say, "Jesus, what you're doing here is for me. And I am yours." If you're ready to belong to this One who loves you more than anybody ever could, I want to ask you to go to our website. You'll find there the information that will help you be sure you belong to Him. The website is ANewStory.com. I hope you'll check it out as soon as you can today.
Satan has desperately been trying to get you to look at anything but Jesus so he can have you forever. But today you can finally see the light he's been trying to keep you from for so long, because this is your Jesus-day!