Max Lucado Daily: A KINGDOM MESSAGE
Some months ago, I was late to catch a plane out of the San Antonio airport. I wasn’t terribly late but I was late enough to be bumped and have my seat given to a standby passenger. When the ticket agent told me I would have to miss the flight, I put to work my best persuasive powers. “But the flight hasn’t left yet!” “Yes, but you are here too late” she responded. “But m’am” I pleaded, “I’ve got to be in Houston by this evening.” She was patient but firm. “I’m sorry sir.” “I know what the rules say,” I said. “I’m not asking for justice, I’m asking for mercy.” She didn’t give it to me.
But God does. Even though by the book I’m guilty, by God’s love, I get another chance. Even though by the Law I’m indicted, by mercy, I’m given a fresh start. For it is by grace, you have been saved. And not by works, so that no one can boast.
Read more Applause of Heaven
Proverbs 26
We no more give honors to fools
than pray for snow in summer or rain during harvest.
2 You have as little to fear from an undeserved curse
as from the dart of a wren or the swoop of a swallow.
3 A whip for the racehorse, a tiller for the sailboat—
and a stick for the back of fools!
4 Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool;
you’ll only look foolish yourself.
5 Answer a fool in simple terms
so he doesn’t get a swelled head.
6 You’re only asking for trouble
when you send a message by a fool.
7 A proverb quoted by fools
is limp as a wet noodle.
8 Putting a fool in a place of honor
is like setting a mud brick on a marble column.
9 To ask a moron to quote a proverb
is like putting a scalpel in the hands of a drunk.
10 Hire a fool or a drunk
and you shoot yourself in the foot.
11 As a dog eats its own vomit,
so fools recycle silliness.
12 See that man who thinks he’s so smart?
You can expect far more from a fool than from him.
13 Loafers say, “It’s dangerous out there!
Tigers are prowling the streets!”
and then pull the covers back over their heads.
14 Just as a door turns on its hinges,
so a lazybones turns back over in bed.
15 A shiftless sluggard puts his fork in the pie,
but is too lazy to lift it to his mouth.
16 Dreamers fantasize their self-importance;
they think they are smarter
than a whole college faculty.
17 You grab a mad dog by the ears
when you butt into a quarrel that’s none of your business.
18-19 People who shrug off deliberate deceptions,
saying, “I didn’t mean it, I was only joking,”
Are worse than careless campers
who walk away from smoldering campfires.
20 When you run out of wood, the fire goes out;
when the gossip ends, the quarrel dies down.
21 A quarrelsome person in a dispute
is like kerosene thrown on a fire.
22 Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy;
do you want junk like that in your belly?
23 Smooth talk from an evil heart
is like glaze on cracked pottery.
24-26 Your enemy shakes hands and greets you like an old friend,
all the while conniving against you.
When he speaks warmly to you, don’t believe him for a minute;
he’s just waiting for the chance to rip you off.
No matter how cunningly he conceals his malice,
eventually his evil will be exposed in public.
27 Malice backfires;
spite boomerangs.
28 Liars hate their victims;
flatterers sabotage trust.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 John 4:7-12
My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
11-12 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
Insight
The New Testament uses four different words for love: phileo, storge, eros, and agape. Agape is the only word for love used in 1 John 4:7–12, and it’s used thirteen times. This is surprising since there are two subjects doing the loving: humans and God.
This means that John is telling us to love God and each other with the same kind of love with which God loves us. Agape love is born out of our hearts because of the preciousness of the thing that’s loved. It has the idea of prizing something and has nothing to do with the merit of the object being loved.
Fearless Love
We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19
For years I wore a shield of fear to protect my heart. It became an excuse to avoid trying new things, following my dreams, and obeying God. But fear of loss, heartache, and rejection hindered me from developing loving relationships with God and others. Fear made me an insecure, anxious, and jealous wife, and an overprotective, worrying mother. As I continue learning how much God loves me, however, He’s changing the way I relate to Him and to others. Because I know God will care for me, I feel more secure and willing to place the needs of others before mine.
God is love (1 John 4:7–8). Christ’s death on the cross—the ultimate demonstration of love—displays the depth of His passion for us (vv. 9–10). Because God loves us and lives in us, we can love others based on who He is and what He’s done (vv. 11–12).
When we receive Jesus as our Savior, He gives us His Holy Spirit (vv. 13–15). As the Spirit helps us know and rely on God’s love, He makes us more like Jesus (vv. 16–17). Growing in trust and faith can gradually eliminate fear, simply because we know without a doubt that God loves us deeply and completely (vv. 18–19).
As we experience God’s personal and unconditional love for us, we grow and can risk relating to Him and others with fearless love. By Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
What fears are found in your heart? As you ponder God’s great love for you, how does this help alleviate them?
Lord, thank You for pouring limitless love into us so we can love You and others without fear.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Yes—But…!
Lord, I will follow You, but... —Luke 9:61
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about…?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”
Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.
By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis— only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him. So Send I You, 1301 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, May 30, 2019
What Does All This Make? - #8449
If you want a unique dining experience, you could try my wife's Javanese Dinner recipe. Actually now my daughter has picked up that and I had it at her house just a couple days ago. Actually it's from a friend's recipe, but man it is a smash hit once people figure out what it is. I love to see people's reactions when they see all the ingredients that get spread out in bowls on the table. Your first impression is, "What does all this make?" There's rice, there's some chicken, there's a bowl of pineapple, there's celery over there, grated cheese, onions, there's a bowl of coconut, there are almonds, a bowl of crunchy noodles, and there's hot broth. I'm hungry now. Our guests invariably look kind of dubious, but we assure them they'll love it when it's all put together. And they always do! In fact, they always come back for more. Well, I do.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What Does All This Make?"
If you're looking for a recipe from this program, don't call - don't write. We can't be in the recipe business. But you may be looking at an interesting recipe of ingredients in your life right now. And you're asking the same question that our guests ask when they try that dinner, "What does all this make?"
God's ancient people were asking that when Jesus wrote our word for today from the Word of God in Jeremiah 29:11. I'm thinking the Jews didn't particularly like the ingredients God was putting in front of them. They had been carried into captivity in Babylon, they were forced to relocate, they were in strange surroundings, it was a hostile environment, and they were facing an uncertain future. Other than that it was great! "What does all this make, Lord?" Listen to what He says, "'I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" Translation: "You'll love it when it's all put together."
Let's look at that strange recipe of ingredients in your life right now. I remember a day our son came home and rehearsed a jumble of recent events - a major athletic injury, the emergence of his new musical ministry, rapid changes in his attitudes and his social life. It was a confusing, sometimes contradictory, swirl of events. And he asked one simple question that day, "Where is all this going?"
Today we know how to answer that a little better. God allowed that frustrating season-ending sports injury to turn our son to Him, and then to developing his music as an alternative to sports. That music has become a powerful tool in the unique ministry God has given him. For many years he had a Native American band that traveled all over and reached so many young people. Now he composes and does some incredible Warrior Worship projects that are reaching out to Native Americans all over the continent. And you know all those swirling social changes he was going through were actually preparing him ultimately for the wonderful life partner God eventually gave him. The daughter he brought to us. "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you." Now, the ingredients may not make sense, but what they're going to make will be amazing some day.
Meanwhile, will you relax in God's wisdom and His goodness, and go with His flow? I remember the day I was climbing a mountain trail with my family, and I was pushing everyone to get to the top. All I cared about was - of course, I'm a guy - my destination. And my wife said, "Honey, why don't you enjoy the process, not just the result?" God may be saying that to you right now. He said it to me. In fact, I think God's more interested in what you may become through the process than He even is in the result. So, don't just trust Him for the outcome, trust the process God is taking you through, too.
God's recipe for your future is a lot like that Javanese Dinner. It's a mixture of ingredients that don't seem to fit and maybe right now don't even seem too appetizing. But you are going to love what God is making!