Max Lucado Daily: TOUCHES OF TENDERNESS
My child’s feelings are hurt. I tell her she’s special. My child is injured. I do whatever it takes to make her feel better. My child is scared. I won’t go to sleep until she is secure.
Moments of comfort from a parent come naturally, willingly and joyfully. So why am I so reluctant to let my heavenly Father do the same for me? Why do I think he wouldn’t want to hear about my problems? Why do I think he’s too busy for me?
When I am criticized, injured, or afraid, there is a Father who is ready to comfort me. The same goes for you, my friend. There is a Father who will hold us until we are better, help us until we can live with the hurt, and who won’t go to sleep when we’re afraid of the dark. Ever! And that’s enough.
Read more Applause of Heaven
Proverbs 11
God hates cheating in the marketplace;
he loves it when business is aboveboard.
2 The stuck-up fall flat on their faces,
but down-to-earth people stand firm.
3 The integrity of the honest keeps them on track;
the deviousness of crooks brings them to ruin.
4 A thick bankroll is no help when life falls apart,
but a principled life can stand up to the worst.
5 Moral character makes for smooth traveling;
an evil life is a hard life.
6 Good character is the best insurance;
crooks get trapped in their sinful lust.
7 When the wicked die, that’s it—
the story’s over, end of hope.
8 A good person is saved from much trouble;
a bad person runs straight into it.
9 The loose tongue of the godless spreads destruction;
the common sense of the godly preserves them.
10 When it goes well for good people, the whole town cheers;
when it goes badly for bad people, the town celebrates.
11 When right-living people bless the city, it flourishes;
evil talk turns it into a ghost town in no time.
12 Mean-spirited slander is heartless;
quiet discretion accompanies good sense.
13 A gadabout gossip can’t be trusted with a secret,
but someone of integrity won’t violate a confidence.
14 Without good direction, people lose their way;
the more wise counsel you follow, the better your chances.
15 Whoever makes deals with strangers is sure to get burned;
if you keep a cool head, you’ll avoid rash bargains.
16 A woman of gentle grace gets respect,
but men of rough violence grab for loot.
17 When you’re kind to others, you help yourself;
when you’re cruel to others, you hurt yourself.
18 Bad work gets paid with a bad check;
good work gets solid pay.
19 Take your stand with God’s loyal community and live,
or chase after phantoms of evil and die.
20 God can’t stand deceivers,
but oh how he relishes integrity.
21 Count on this: The wicked won’t get off scot-free,
and God’s loyal people will triumph.
22 Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout
is a beautiful face on an empty head.
23 The desires of good people lead straight to the best,
but wicked ambition ends in angry frustration.
24 The world of the generous gets larger and larger;
the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller.
25 The one who blesses others is abundantly blessed;
those who help others are helped.
26 Curses on those who drive a hard bargain!
Blessings on all who play fair and square!
27 The one who seeks good finds delight;
the student of evil becomes evil.
28 A life devoted to things is a dead life, a stump;
a God-shaped life is a flourishing tree.
29 Exploit or abuse your family, and end up with a fistful of air;
common sense tells you it’s a stupid way to live.
30 A good life is a fruit-bearing tree;
a violent life destroys souls.
31 If good people barely make it,
what’s in store for the bad!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, May 10, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Hebrews 13:1–8
Stay on good terms with each other, held together by love. Be ready with a meal or a bed when it’s needed. Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it! Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you. Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex.
5-6 Don’t be obsessed with getting more material things. Be relaxed with what you have. Since God assured us, “I’ll never let you down, never walk off and leave you,” we can boldly quote,
God is there, ready to help;
I’m fearless no matter what.
Who or what can get to me?
7-8 Appreciate your pastoral leaders who gave you the Word of God. Take a good look at the way they live, and let their faithfulness instruct you, as well as their truthfulness. There should be a consistency that runs through us all. For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself.
Insight
Many of the letters of the New Testament close with what is called a hortatory section. Hortatory means “to exhort; to encourage the reader to do something or act in a certain way.” This is what we have at the end of the letter to the Hebrews.
In rapid succession, the writer lists a number of things the reader is to do, and very few of them are connected. What’s unique about this list is that a reason is usually given for each instruction. For example, we are to show hospitality to strangers (v. 2), because we may be entertaining angels. We’re to keep the marriage bed pure (v. 4), because God will judge. And we’re to be content with what we have (v. 5), because God is with us. We’re not given instruction for instruction’s sake, but for our good.
Minister of Loneliness
Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. Hebrews 13:1
Following her husband’s death, Betsy has spent most days in her flat, watching television and boiling tea for one. She’s not alone in her loneliness. More than nine million Brits (15 percent of the population) say they often or always feel lonely, and Great Britain has appointed a minister of loneliness to find out why and how to help.
Some causes of loneliness are well known: We move too often to put down roots. We believe we can take care of ourselves, and we don’t have a reason to reach out. We’re separated by technology—each of us immersed in our own flickering screens.
I feel the dark edge of loneliness, and you may too. This is one reason we need fellow believers. Hebrews concludes its deep discussion of Jesus’s sacrifice by encouraging us to meet together continually (10:25). We belong to the family of God, so we’re to love “one another as brothers and sisters” and “show hospitality to strangers” (13:1–2). If we each made an effort, everyone would feel cared for.
Lonely people may not return our kindness, but this is no reason to give up. Jesus has promised to never leave nor forsake us (13:5), and we can use His friendship to fuel our love for others. Are you lonely? What ways can you find to serve the family of God? The friends you make in Jesus last forever, through this life and beyond. By Mike Wittmer
Today's Reflection
Who needs your friendship? How might you serve someone in your church or neighborhood this week?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 10, 2019
Take the Initiative
…add to your faith virtue… —2 Peter 1:5
Add means that we have to do something. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves— God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. We must “work out” our “own salvation” which God has worked in us (Philippians 2:12). Add means that we must get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages that is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning— to instruct yourself in the way you must go.
Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative— stop hesitating— take the first step. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless, spurning the grace in which you stand. Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, “I will write that letter,” or “I will pay that debt”; and then do it! Make it irrevocable.
We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we will know that the habit has been formed in us. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we have not yet been.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.
Disciples Indeed
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 10, 2019
Mom's Greatest Gift - #8435
Nine years old and I was oh so proud! I was proud of the gift I had just bought for my mom for Mother's Day. I picked it out myself. I paid for it with my own allowance. And I ruined it all by myself. It was a two-carnation corsage with a plastic bumblebee. I still remember it - it was really cool, especially the bumblebee. I was pushing the speed limit on my bicycle with the white florist box perched on my handlebars. You've probably got the rest right? I hit a bump, it went flying, I ran over my Mother's Day present. The flowers were crushed and so was I.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Mom's Greatest Gift."
Maybe that's why I love the idea of a crushproof Mother's Day gift. And there is one. It might be the greatest gift Mom could ever receive. And it's intimately tied to an amazing gift a Mom can give her son or daughter. I know. If it weren't for those two gifts, the wife I've loved all these years might never have been born.
Bill was the apple of his mother's eye. He had a great job, a good income, and an insatiable appetite for alcohol. From the time he was nine years old, Bill entertained the men at the local store by lapping booze from a saucer like a kitten.
By the time Bill was in his 20s, his drinking cost him his great job, his dignity and almost some of the people he loved. After drinking heavily one night, he actually returned home, flew into a rage and chased his sisters with a butcher knife. Later, his drinking - and then his cocaine use - took him to jail and then federal prison. You talk about hopeless. Except for the gift his mother gave him - her relentless prayer for him. In 1907, Bill's mama wrote this on the back of a picture of him, dressed so fashionably at the time: "Will, O dear Will, when will you cease from your wandering ways and return to Jesus Christ? You may see this long after I am gone from this earth, but may you know that your mother always prayed for you."
One night those prayers reached all the way to her "Billy Boy" as she called him, walking down Chicago's South State Street. He was heading for Lake Michigan - he wanted to end his life that night. Then he heard the music - a hymn he remembered from his childhood. It was coming from a rescue mission. And it drew Bill inside. There, a mission worker reached out to him with these words that are our word for today from the Word of God, John 3:16. You may have never heard them before; you may have heard them a thousand times. Listen like your life depends on it. It does. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him (that's how they said it that night) shall not perish but have everlasting life."
On the night Bill planned to end his life, he gave his life to Jesus. And he would say, from that day on, "I was not a reformed man - I was a transformed man." He spent the rest of his life traveling this country, telling people about the Rescuer of "hopeless" lives. Living in a trailer, his "Little Church on Wheels" he called it, with John 3:16 emblazoned on the side. His Mama actually lived to see the miracle she prayed for. She saw his transformed life for ten wonderful years before she went Home to Jesus. She gave her son the gift of her never-give-up praying. And he gave her the greatest gift of all. He gave her a child who loved and lived for her Savior.
Without those gifts, my wife would not have ever been born. Because Bill - that young man saved by Jesus minutes before he planned to die - was her grandfather. The mother would not give up praying for her wandering child. As a result, she experienced the miracle a widowed mother long ago experienced at the funeral of her only son. Jesus touched that coffin and commanded her dead boy to "get up!" "The dead man sat up...and Jesus gave him back to his mother" (Luke 7:14-15). He is still the Savior who gives back lost sons and daughters to a mother who loves them.
There is no greater gift a mother can give her children than to pray them to the foot of Jesus' cross. There is no greater gift a child can give a mother than to live their life for Jesus. for most of my life I have had living proof of the power of those gifts. My wife, who many times I could say "Happy Mother's Day" because of the gift Bill gave his mother.
Maybe you're the son or daughter of a praying mother, but you've never given your heart to Jesus. He's waiting with open arms to welcome you so you can see that mom someday again. If you don't know Jesus, go to our website and find out how. ANewStory.com.
It's time to come home.