Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S LOVE FOR HIS CHILDREN
Certain things about God are easy to imagine. I can imagine him creating the world and suspending the stars. I can envision him as almighty, all-powerful, and in control. I can fathom a God who knows me, who made me, and I can even fathom a God who hears me.
But a God who is in love with me? A God who is crazy for me? A God who cheers for me? But that is the message of the Bible. Our Father is relentlessly in pursuit of his children. He has called us home with his word, paved the path with his blood, and is longing for our arrival. God’s love for his children is the message of the Bible.
Read more Applause of Heaven
John 19:23-42
When they crucified him, the Roman soldiers took his clothes and divided them up four ways, to each soldier a fourth. But his robe was seamless, a single piece of weaving, so they said to each other, “Let’s not tear it up. Let’s throw dice to see who gets it.” This confirmed the Scripture that said, “They divided up my clothes among them and threw dice for my coat.” (The soldiers validated the Scriptures!)
24-27 While the soldiers were looking after themselves, Jesus’ mother, his aunt, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her. He said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that moment the disciple accepted her as his own mother.
28 Jesus, seeing that everything had been completed so that the Scripture record might also be complete, then said, “I’m thirsty.”
29-30 A jug of sour wine was standing by. Someone put a sponge soaked with the wine on a javelin and lifted it to his mouth. After he took the wine, Jesus said, “It’s done . . . complete.” Bowing his head, he offered up his spirit.
31-34 Then the Jews, since it was the day of Sabbath preparation, and so the bodies wouldn’t stay on the crosses over the Sabbath (it was a high holy day that year), petitioned Pilate that their legs be broken to speed death, and the bodies taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man crucified with Jesus, and then the other. When they got to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. One of the soldiers stabbed him in the side with his spear. Blood and water gushed out.
35 The eyewitness to these things has presented an accurate report. He saw it himself and is telling the truth so that you, also, will believe.
36-37 These things that happened confirmed the Scripture, “Not a bone in his body was broken,” and the other Scripture that reads, “They will stare at the one they pierced.”
38 After all this, Joseph of Arimathea (he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, because he was intimidated by the Jews) petitioned Pilate to take the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission. So Joseph came and took the body.
39-42 Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, came now in broad daylight carrying a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. They took Jesus’ body and, following the Jewish burial custom, wrapped it in linen with the spices. There was a garden near the place he was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been placed. So, because it was Sabbath preparation for the Jews and the tomb was convenient, they placed Jesus in it.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight: Proverbs 17:19–22
The person who courts sin marries trouble;
build a wall, invite a burglar.
20 A bad motive can’t achieve a good end;
double-talk brings you double trouble.
21 Having a fool for a child is misery;
it’s no fun being the parent of a dolt.
22 A cheerful disposition is good for your health;
gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.
Insight
One of the challenges in studying the book of Proverbs is understanding the very nature of a proverb. Harper’s Bible Dictionary defines it as “a short, popular saying that communicates a familiar truth or observation in an expressive and easily remembered form. . . . The most common example is the folk saying drawn from human experience and characterized by picturesque, insightful, witty, or even amusing comment on human behavior or experience.” Sometimes we may be tempted to read the proverbs as if they are ironclad promises, but that isn’t what they are. Rather, they’re wise sayings that provide a base of general wisdom for life. Proverbs don’t offer guarantees; they present principles and ideas that can wisely guide us.
Biblical Prescription
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22
Greg and Elizabeth have a regular “Joke Night” with their four school-age children. Each child brings several jokes they’ve read or heard (or made up themselves!) during the week to tell at the dinner table. This tradition has created joyful memories of fun shared around the table. Greg and Elizabeth even noticed the laughter was healthy for their children, lifting their spirits on difficult days.
The benefit of joyful conversation around the dinner table was observed by C. S. Lewis, who wrote, “The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.”
The wisdom of fostering a joyful heart is found in Proverbs 17:22, where we read, “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” The proverb offers a “prescription” to stimulate health and healing—allowing joy to fill our hearts, a medicine that costs little and yields great results.
We all need this biblical prescription. When we bring joy into our conversations, it can put a disagreement into perspective. It can help us to experience peace, even after a stressful test at school or a difficult day at work. Laughter among family and friends can create a safe place where we both know and feel that we’re loved.
Do you need to incorporate more laughter into your life as “good medicine” for your spirit? Remember, you have encouragement from Scripture to cultivate a cheerful heart. By Lisa M. Samra
Today's Reflection
How has good humor helped you deal with life’s challenges recently? What does it mean for you to be filled with the joy of the Lord?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Faith— Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight. —2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God’s concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, “I cannot do anything else until God appears to me”? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, “Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!” Never live for those exceptional moments— they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life— our work is our standard.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We should always choose our books as God chooses our friends, just a bit beyond us, so that we have to do our level best to keep up with them. Shade of His Hand, 1216 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Prepared For Something Small - #8428
I have friends who really love to fish. So, in their honor I've got to tell you this great fisherman story. Actually, I have to credit Ravi Zacharias with it - that's where I heard it. It seems that two men were out fishing in separate boats. And the one was watched the other with this growing curiosity because he'd catch a fish, he'd keep it, then he'd catch another fish and he'd throw that one away. And he just kept doing this, you know, catch after catch. The really strange part was that it was always the big ones that he threw away. What kind of fisherman is this? Well, finally, the man watching all of that couldn't contain his curiosity, so he called out the obvious question, "How come you're throwing away the big ones?" The man answered, "Oh, because I only have an eight-inch frying pan!" Really?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Prepared For Something Small."
I guess if small is what you're prepared for, then small is all you get. Well, that's what the people of Nazareth found out when Jesus came home. In Mark 6:1, our word for today from the Word of God, the Bible says, "Jesus went to His hometown...He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed."
"'Where did this man get these things?' they asked. 'What's this wisdom that has been given Him, and that He even does miracles? Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon?'...And they took offense at Him. Jesus said to them, 'Only in His hometown, among His relatives and in His own house, is a prophet without honor.' He could not do any miracles there, except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them. And He was amazed at their lack of faith." The King James Version says it pretty bluntly, "He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief." Wow!
Let me tell you, it's a pretty scary incident for those of us who are church folks. Because the people who knew the most about Jesus back then expected the least and they got it! They had a very small frying pan, and it wasn't big enough for the kinds of things Jesus could do. Nazareth was the one place Jesus went where they had to settle for the natural and miss the supernatural. And the scary part is that today we're Nazareth. We Bible-believers, we're the ones who know a lot about Jesus, just like His neighbors in Nazareth. We analyze things just like they did. But those kinds of people are often so close, so used to Jesus, they put Him in a box, limiting Him to work the way they've always seen Him work before, or the way they think He ought to work. I'll tell you, He will not stay in our box.
Maybe our being "practical" and "sensible" - our avoidance of anything that might seem "radical" or "different" - is why so many Christians have so little power. We don't pray for God-sized interventions; we don't make plans that are so big they will fail if God isn't in them. We go to Bible studies, church services, and youth groups. We argue theology, prophecy, and spiritual gifts. We get involved in a merry-go-round of Christian activities, but we don't expect the supernatural! And we're mired, therefore, in good old spiritual mediocrity.
In reality, the more we learn about Jesus, the more we should believe Him for! Don't you think? We serve, we worship an awesome, all-powerful, death-crushing Savior. He's a miracle-worker! But we miss His miracles because we don't believe Him for them! It's time to get a bigger frying pan and let the Lord Christ fill it with something bigger than you ever dreamed!