Max Lucado Daily: MOVE THE STONE
Standing in a cemetery, Jesus issued a command, “Move the stone.”
There was no singing at the funeral Jesus attended. Mourning. Weeping. Wailing. People shuffled about aimlessly, their eyes full of fear. The foreboding news reminded them of their own fate. Another prisoner had been marched from death row to the gallows. Lazarus was dead.
And Jesus wept—not for the dead but for the living. He wept not for the one in the cave of death but for those in the cave of fear. He wept for those who, though alive, were dead. He wept for those who, though free, were prisoners, held captive by their fear of death.
Stones have never stood in God’s way. They didn’t in Bethany two thousand years ago. And stones don’t stand in His way today. He called Lazarus out of the grave of death. And He calls us out of the grave of fear.
Read more Six Hours One Friday
John 18:19-40
Annas interrogated Jesus regarding his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered, “I’ve spoken openly in public. I’ve taught regularly in meeting places and the Temple, where the Jews all come together. Everything has been out in the open. I’ve said nothing in secret. So why are you treating me like a conspirator? Question those who have been listening to me. They know well what I have said. My teachings have all been aboveboard.”
22 When he said this, one of the policemen standing there slapped Jesus across the face, saying, “How dare you speak to the Chief Priest like that!”
23 Jesus replied, “If I’ve said something wrong, prove it. But if I’ve spoken the plain truth, why this slapping around?”
24 Then Annas sent him, still tied up, to the Chief Priest Caiaphas.
25 Meanwhile, Simon Peter was back at the fire, still trying to get warm. The others there said to him, “Aren’t you one of his disciples?”
He denied it, “Not me.”
26 One of the Chief Priest’s servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”
27 Again, Peter denied it. Just then a rooster crowed.
28-29 They led Jesus then from Caiaphas to the Roman governor’s palace. It was early morning. They themselves didn’t enter the palace because they didn’t want to be disqualified from eating the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and spoke. “What charge do you bring against this man?”
30 They said, “If he hadn’t been doing something evil, do you think we’d be here bothering you?”
31-32 Pilate said, “You take him. Judge him by your law.”
The Jews said, “We’re not allowed to kill anyone.” (This would confirm Jesus’ word indicating the way he would die.)
33 Pilate went back into the palace and called for Jesus. He said, “Are you the ‘King of the Jews’?”
34 Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you this about me?”
35 Pilate said, “Do I look like a Jew? Your people and your high priests turned you over to me. What did you do?”
36 “My kingdom,” said Jesus, “doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.”
37 Then Pilate said, “So, are you a king or not?”
Jesus answered, “You tell me. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth. Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice.”
38-39 Pilate said, “What is truth?”
Then he went back out to the Jews and told them, “I find nothing wrong in this man. It’s your custom that I pardon one prisoner at Passover. Do you want me to pardon the ‘King of the Jews’?”
40 They shouted back, “Not this one, but Barabbas!” Barabbas was a Jewish freedom fighter.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:Matthew 4:12–25
When Jesus got word that John had been arrested, he returned to Galilee. He moved from his hometown, Nazareth, to the lakeside village Capernaum, nestled at the base of the Zebulun and Naphtali hills. This move completed Isaiah’s sermon:
Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
road to the sea, over Jordan,
Galilee, crossroads for the nations.
People sitting out their lives in the dark
saw a huge light;
Sitting in that dark, dark country of death,
they watched the sun come up.
This Isaiah-prophesied sermon came to life in Galilee the moment Jesus started preaching. He picked up where John left off: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.”
18-20 Walking along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers: Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. They were fishing, throwing their nets into the lake. It was their regular work. Jesus said to them, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” They didn’t ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed.
21-22 A short distance down the beach they came upon another pair of brothers, James and John, Zebedee’s sons. These two were sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their fishnets. Jesus made the same offer to them, and they were just as quick to follow, abandoning boat and father.
23-25 From there he went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God’s kingdom was his theme—that beginning right now they were under God’s government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the bad effects of their bad lives. Word got around the entire Roman province of Syria. People brought anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all. More and more people came, the momentum gathering. Besides those from Galilee, crowds came from the “Ten Towns” across the lake, others up from Jerusalem and Judea, still others from across the Jordan.
Insight
God’s kingdom is an alternative way of life to that imposed by the “empire”—the dominant cultural forces determined by those in power. While the Roman Empire proclaimed that its reign was the gospel (literally “good news”), Christ insisted that only God’s reign is good news.
Seeing the Light
On those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2
On the streets of Los Angeles, a homeless man struggling with addictions stepped into The Midnight Mission and asked for help. Thus began Brian’s long road to recovery.
In the process Brian rediscovered his love for music. Eventually he joined Street Symphony—a group of music professionals with a heart for the homeless. They asked Brian to perform a solo from Handel’s Messiah known as “The People That Walked in Darkness.” In words written by the prophet Isaiah during a dark period of Israel’s history, he sang, “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2 kjv). A music critic for The New Yorker magazine wrote that Brian “made the text sound as though it had been taken from his own life.”
The gospel writer Matthew quoted that same passage. Called by Jesus from a life of cheating his fellow Israelites, Matthew describes how Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy by taking His salvation “beyond the Jordan” to “Galilee of the Gentiles” (Matthew 4:13–15).
Who would have believed one of Caesar’s tax collector thugs (see Matthew 9:9), a street addict like Brian, or people like us would get a chance to show the difference between light and darkness in our own lives? By Mart DeHaan
Today's Reflection
How has the light of Christ affected you? In what ways are you reflecting it to others?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Do You Worship The Work?
We are God’s fellow workers… —1 Corinthians 3:9
Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God’s blessing cannot rest on him.
But the opposite case is equally true– once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone. There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work. The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him. The freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to hold your life down are gone. But be careful to remember that you have been freed for only one thing– to be absolutely devoted to your co-Worker.
We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might…” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them. The Place of Help, 1032 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Poison in a Package Called Love - #8422
It was the fastest-moving, hardest-hitting, most widespread computer virus there'd ever been up to that time, and it was called of all things, the love bug. It came cleverly wrapped in an email that was designed to look like a love letter. So, of course, people wanted to open it. When the email was opened, the virus was activated, and it spread rapidly. In fact, it even sent copies of itself to everyone in the email address book on that computer. So, it jammed computers and damaged files in Asia, Europe, North and South America and companies and organizations from one end of the earth to the other. They had to shut down their email. The list included the Pentagon, Congress, and the British Parliament. Oh, it advertised love, but in the long run, it just delivered destruction.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Poison in a Package Called Love."
Long before there were computers, people have been opening up to things that seemed to promise love but ultimately delivered destruction. In fact, it could be a mistake you're in the process of making right now.
King David sure fell for a package called love, and he paid for it the rest of his life. Our word for today from the Word of God is one of the saddest chapters in the Bible. Before it, David's life is all about great victories and great successes. After the incident recorded here, his life is filled with death, tragedy, defeat, even the rebellion in his own family. The turning point is the day David fell for what destroyed him. It was a virus that could have been called the love bug.
Second Samuel 11:2 says, "One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing." It makes me sad to even read these scriptures. I know what happened. Well, the king sends someone to find out who this woman is and he learns it's Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, one of his most trusted and loyal soldiers. The Bible says in verse 3, "and David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her." Now, when he goes for what probably felt like love, he opens up a virus that eventually causes him to plot Uriah's death to cover up his sin. And the word from heaven in 2 Samuel 11:27 is, "The thing David had done displeased the Lord."
Later, David will cry out in Psalm 51, "My sin is always before me...create in me a pure heart, O God...restore to me the joy of my salvation." His sin is haunting him all the time, he's lost the joy of his relationship with God and, though he is totally forgiven, his life is never the same.
David opened himself up to something that advertised love and delivered destruction. That tragic mistake might be a personal warning from God to you. Maybe you're considering, or you're already involved in, a sexual relationship - not so much for the sex, but for the love you hope it will give you. Or maybe you're flirting with an adulterous relationship - again, because it seems to offer love.
Maybe the temptation is to get romantically involved or even married to someone who doesn't know Christ as you do. The Bible calls that being unequally yoked. It's for love, right? Even though God forbids it. Or it could be you're doing what your friends or associates want you to do even though you know it's wrong, because you don't want them to stop loving you.
You're walking on that same mine-filled ground that David did. You're getting into something that one day will deeply hurt you, it will hurt the people you love, it will hurt Jesus - the one who loves you most - all because it's advertised as love. Some of life's biggest, most devastating mistakes have been made for love, or what looked like it would be love. But take it from David and millions who have fallen for a love bug. The destruction it will cause just isn't worth it.