Max Lucado Daily: THE SHADOW OF DEATH
Ducking the shadow of death dominates our days. Sleep more. Exercise regularly. Eat less fat, more protein. But you know, no one ducks death forever. God’s perspective is different in Ecclesiastes 7:1, “The day you die is better than the day you are born.” And Psalms 116:15 tells us, “When they arrive at the gates of death, God welcomes those who love him.”
Is your fear of dying robbing your joy of living? Why don’t you do this: give God your death. Envision your final minutes and offer them to him. “Lord, I receive your work on the cross and in your resurrection. I entrust you with my departure from earth.” With Christ as your friend and heaven as your home, the day of death becomes sweeter than the day of birth.
Read more Come Thirsty
Acts 5:22-42
Meanwhile, the Chief Priest and his cronies convened the High Council, Israel’s senate, and sent to the jail to have the prisoners brought in. When the police got there, they couldn’t find them anywhere in the jail. They went back and reported, “We found the jail locked tight as a drum and the guards posted at the doors, but when we went inside we didn’t find a soul.”
24 The chief of the Temple police and the high priests were puzzled. “What’s going on here anyway?”
25-26 Just then someone showed up and said, “Did you know that the men you put in jail are back in the Temple teaching the people?” The chief and his police went and got them, but they handled them gently, fearful that the people would riot and turn on them.
27-28 Bringing them back, they stood them before the High Council. The Chief Priest said, “Didn’t we give you strict orders not to teach in Jesus’ name? And here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are trying your best to blame us for the death of this man.”
29-32 Peter and the apostles answered, “It’s necessary to obey God rather than men. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, the One you killed by hanging him on a cross. God set him on high at his side, Prince and Savior, to give Israel the gift of a changed life and sins forgiven. And we are witnesses to these things. The Holy Spirit, whom God gives to those who obey him, corroborates every detail.”
33-37 When they heard that, they were furious and wanted to kill them on the spot. But one of the council members stood up, a Pharisee by the name of Gamaliel, a teacher of God’s Law who was honored by everyone. He ordered the men taken out of the room for a short time, then said, “Fellow Israelites, be careful what you do to these men. Not long ago Theudas made something of a splash, claiming to be somebody, and got about four hundred men to join him. He was killed, his followers dispersed, and nothing came of it. A little later, at the time of the census, Judas the Galilean appeared and acquired a following. He also fizzled out and the people following him were scattered to the four winds.
38-39 “So I am telling you: Hands off these men! Let them alone. If this program or this work is merely human, it will fall apart, but if it is of God, there is nothing you can do about it—and you better not be found fighting against God!”
40-42 That convinced them. They called the apostles back in. After giving them a thorough whipping, they warned them not to speak in Jesus’ name and sent them off. The apostles went out of the High Council overjoyed because they had been given the honor of being dishonored on account of the Name. Every day they were in the Temple and homes, teaching and preaching Christ Jesus, not letting up for a minute.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 07, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 19:1-4
A David Psalm
19 1-2 God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God-craft on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.
3-4 Their words aren’t heard,
their voices aren’t recorded,
But their silence fills the earth:
unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.
4-5 God makes a huge dome
for the sun—a superdome!
The morning sun’s a new husband
leaping from his honeymoon bed,
The daybreaking sun an athlete
racing to the tape.
Insight
In C. S. Lewis’s Reflections on the Psalms, he refers to Psalm 19 as the greatest poem in the Hebrew songbook with some of the most beautiful lyrics in the world. He goes on to note, however, that it can be easy to miss the connection and progression of “six verses about Nature, five about the Law, and four of personal prayer.” According to Lewis, “The key phrase on which the whole poem depends is ‘there is nothing hid from the heat thereof’ ” (v. 6 kjv). Like the relentless light and heat of the Middle Eastern sun, the words of our Creator (v. 1), Lord (v. 7), and Redeemer (v. 14) pursue the runaway thoughts that hide in our hearts (vv. 11–14). Hearing God’s voice, the poet and songwriter prays, “May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer” (v. 14).
Don’t Miss the Chance
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Psalm 19:1
“Don’t ever miss the chance to show your babies the moon!” she said. Before our mid-week prayer service began, a group of us talked about the previous night’s harvest moon. The full moon was striking, as it seemed to sit on the horizon. Mrs. Webb was the eldest voice in our conversation, a gray-haired lover of God’s grand creation. She knew my wife and I had two children in our home at the time, and she wanted to help me train them in a way worth going. Don’t ever miss the chance to show your babies the moon!
Mrs. Webb would’ve made a good psalmist. Her brand of attentiveness is reflected in David’s description of the heavenly bodies that “have no speech . . . . Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world” (Psalm 19:3–4). Neither the psalmist nor Mrs. Webb had any intention of worshiping the moon or the stars, but rather the creative hands behind them. The heavens and skies reveal nothing less than the glory of God (v. 1).
We too can encourage those around us—from babies and teenagers to spouses and neighbors—to stop, look, and listen, for declarations and proclamations of God’s glory are all around us. Drawing attention to the work of His hands in turn leads to worshiping the awesome God behind the whole show. Don’t ever miss the chance. By John Blase
Reflect & Pray
How can you slow down and notice the work of God’s hands right now? How can you encourage others to do the same?
If we stop, look, and listen, we’ll see creation declaring God’s glory.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 07, 2019
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do… —John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point— the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? “If you abide in Me…”— that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point— “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these— what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
“Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do….” The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God’s foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance. Notes on Isaiah, 1376 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 07, 2019
Taming the Final Frontier - #8455
I know advertisers have to hate it, but the truth is that a lot of times we remember their commercial, but we forget their product. Recently, I saw a commercial like that. The ad really impressed me, but I have no idea what they were advertising. Anyway, it showed some scenes from explorations of space and some appropriate galactic scenery. And then, these words appeared on the screen, "The last frontier isn't space." OK, then what is it? The next words answered that question. "It's the human imagination."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Taming the Final Frontier."
I'd say that idea is close, but it's not the prize winner. The last frontier isn't outer space - in fact, it's inner space...what's inside you and me. Which includes our imagination, but a whole lot more. God's view would seem to be that the "last frontier is the human heart." That is the vast and violent wilderness that remains untamed inside us. And it's usually the people closest to us who can attest to the fact that our dark side is alive and well and yes, it is untamed. They get to see it and feel it all too often.
In our word for today from the Word of God in Jeremiah 17:9, our Creator says this: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Then God reveals that He isn't going to judge us based on the exterior that humans can see. He says, "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind."
What the Lord finds in our heart may be things others can't see, but things we know all too well - things we are either ashamed of, or ought to be ashamed of. God knows all about the stubborn selfishness in our heart. He's knows about those unspeakable desires, the lust, the arrogance, the anger, the moral pollution. But it's not just God who knows that dark side of us. The people around us do too - ften the people we love. They experience it through the way we treat them sometimes, the devastating things we say, the meanness, the self-centeredness, the dirt.
Beneath our carefully cultivated image, beneath our impressive religiosity, is this untamed monster that God has called "sin." And no person, no matter how religious, can have a relationship with a perfect God or live in His perfect heaven with this sin not dealt with. But God, who knows all about us, knew that all of our best human efforts to tame the monster, all of our best efforts at being good, were no match for the beast inside us.
So, God sent His Son to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. In 1 John 4:9-10, He put it this way: "God sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." When Jesus died on the cross, He absorbed all the guilt, all the depravity, and all the hellish death penalty for our sin. So we could have every wrong thing we've ever done erased from God's records. So we could live the rest of our life totally forgiven, possessing His power to beat what's always beaten us, and knowing we are going to heaven when we die.
So if you're tired of that darkness in your heart, if you're ready to put your total trust in Jesus Christ to forgive you and change you as only He can, would you tell Him that right now? "Jesus, I believe when You died on the cross it was for me. I believe you are alive. I am inviting You into my life. I am Yours from this day on."
If you're at the point where you want to begin with Jesus, you need to get to our website. It's called ANewStory.com because there's information there that will help you be sure you belong to Him.
Something very miraculous, something transforming happens when Jesus enters the darkness in our heart. The lights go on. The darkness isn't winning anymore, and He's waiting to make that miracle your miracle.