Max Lucado Daily: GRACE IS GOD’S BEST IDEA
Your dad makes you come to church, but he can’t make you listen. At least that’s what you’ve always muttered to yourself. But this morning you listen because the preacher speaks of a God who loves prodigals, and you feel like the worst sort of one. You can’t keep the pregnancy a secret much longer. Soon your parents will know. The preacher will know. And the preacher says God already knows. You wonder what God thinks.
Could you use some grace? You know, grace is God’s best idea. Rather than tell us to change, he creates the change. Do we clean up so he can accept us? No, he accepts us and begins cleaning us up. What a difference this makes! Can’t forgive your past? Christ can, and he is on the move…aggressively budging you from grace-less to grace-shaped living. A forgiven person who forgives others. This is grace. Grace is everything Jesus!
Read more GRACE
Ecclesiastes 5
Watch your step when you enter God’s house.
Enter to learn. That’s far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice,
Doing more harm than good.
2 Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think.
Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear.
God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.
3 Overwork makes for restless sleep.
Overtalk shows you up as a fool.
4-5 When you tell God you’ll do something, do it—now.
God takes no pleasure in foolish gabble. Vow it, then do it.
Far better not to vow in the first place than to vow and not pay up.
6 Don’t let your mouth make a total sinner of you.
When called to account, you won’t get by with
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
Why risk provoking God to angry retaliation?
7 But against all illusion and fantasy and empty talk
There’s always this rock foundation: Fear God!
8-9 Don’t be too upset when you see the poor kicked around, and justice and right violated all over the place. Exploitation filters down from one petty official to another. There’s no end to it, and nothing can be done about it. But the good earth doesn’t cheat anyone—even a bad king is honestly served by a field.
10 The one who loves money is never satisfied with money,
Nor the one who loves wealth with big profits. More smoke.
11 The more loot you get, the more looters show up.
And what fun is that—to be robbed in broad daylight?
12 Hard and honest work earns a good night’s sleep,
Whether supper is beans or steak.
But a rich man’s belly gives him insomnia.
13-17 Here’s a piece of bad luck I’ve seen happen:
A man hoards far more wealth than is good for him
And then loses it all in a bad business deal.
He fathered a child but hasn’t a cent left to give him.
He arrived naked from the womb of his mother;
He’ll leave in the same condition—with nothing.
This is bad luck, for sure—naked he came, naked he went.
So what was the point of working for a salary of smoke?
All for a miserable life spent in the dark?
18-20 After looking at the way things are on this earth, here’s what I’ve decided is the best way to live: Take care of yourself, have a good time, and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life. And that’s about it. That’s the human lot. Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what’s given and delighting in the work. It’s God’s gift! God deals out joy in the present, the now. It’s useless to brood over how long we might live.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, July 04, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 24:17-27
He asked, “What’s this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?”
They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?”
19-24 He said, “What has happened?”
They said, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn’t see Jesus.”
25-27 Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” Then he started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.
Insight
Christ’s teaching in Luke 24 gives us insight as to how we should read the Old Testament—with Him at the center. In verse 27 Jesus referred to the Old Testament using the terms “Moses and all the Prophets.” Speaking of the same sacred writings in verse 44, He used the threefold division “the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” and stated that these writings spoke of Him. John 5:39 essentially says the same thing, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me.”
Every Story
Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Luke 24:27
I opened the whimsically illustrated children’s Bible and began to read to my grandson. Immediately we were enthralled as the story of God’s love and provision unfurled in prose. Marking our place, I turned the book over and read the title once again: The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name.
Every story whispers His name.
To be honest, sometimes the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is hard to understand. Why do those who don’t know God seem to triumph over God’s own? How can God permit such cruelty when we know that His character is pure and that His purposes are for our good?
After His resurrection, Jesus met two followers on the road to Emmaus who didn’t recognize Him and were struggling with disappointment over the death of their hoped-for Messiah (Luke 24:19–24). They had “hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel” (v. 21). Luke then records how Jesus reassured them: “Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (v. 27).
Every story whispers His name, even the hard stories, because they reveal the comprehensive brokenness of our world and our need for a Rescuer. Every act, every event, every intervention points to the redemption God designed for His wayward loved ones: to bring us back to Himself. By Elisa Morgan
Reflect & Pray
How is God’s rescue at work in your life? What stories trouble you today? In what ways (however small) can you see God at work in them?
Dear God, help me listen as You whisper Your name through the stories of Scripture. Every story.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, July 04, 2019
One of God’s Great “Don’ts”
Do not fret— it only causes harm. —Psalm 37:8
Fretting means getting ourselves “out of joint” mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say, “Do not fret,” but something very different to have such a nature that you find yourself unable to fret. It’s easy to say, “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Psalm 37:7) until our own little world is turned upside down and we are forced to live in confusion and agony like so many other people. Is it possible to “rest in the Lord” then? If this “Do not” doesn’t work there, then it will not work anywhere. This “Do not” must work during our days of difficulty and uncertainty, as well as our peaceful days, or it will never work. And if it will not work in your particular case, it will not work for anyone else. Resting in the Lord is not dependent on your external circumstances at all, but on your relationship with God Himself.
Worrying always results in sin. We tend to think that a little anxiety and worry are simply an indication of how wise we really are, yet it is actually a much better indication of just how wicked we are. Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God’s plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God.
Have you been propping up that foolish soul of yours with the idea that your circumstances are too much for God to handle? Set all your opinions and speculations aside and “abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91:1). Deliberately tell God that you will not fret about whatever concerns you. All our fretting and worrying is caused by planning without God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, July 04, 2019
Dependence Day - #8474
They keep it under glass that seals out any air getting to it. And when it's not on display, it's kept underground in a vault - actually a bomb proof vault. It's the most important document in the history of the United States. Yep, the Declaration of Independence.
The men who signed it on that hot July 4th in Philadelphia knew it was very important, but I wonder if they could have possibly conceived what a sacred piece of paper it would become to the nation that it birthed. Here were subjects of the English king, daring to declare their independence from their king. It changed their lives forever. It changed the world forever. And once a year, every Fourth of July, America stops to remember that Independence Day.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Dependence Day."
Now, for America's founding fathers, it was a Declaration of Independence from their king that changed everything. But for you, as a child of God, it's your "Declaration of Dependence" on your King that changes everything.
Now, when it comes to God running our lives, you know what? We've all declared our independence. Even if our theology compels us to officially say we trust God, we are, for the most part, "Sinatra-ites." Yeah, you know Frank Sinatra's signature song? I'll sing it for you. No, I won't. "I did it my way." Yeah, even for us Christians, that's often how we really live, I'll do it my way. We'll figure this out by ourselves, we'll find a way, we'll make it happen, we won't wait, we'll get it done now. We tend to depend on our plans, our schemes, our cleverness, our talent, our experience, our persuasiveness, our hard work, our connections. We'll count on our programs or our own strength.
That's why we need to declare our dependence daily! It's in our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus makes it very clear how anything that matters in our life really happens. In John 15:5, Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches." In other words, the fruit of your life doesn't come from you, it comes from Jesus, through you, like the life of the vine comes through the branch.
Then He goes on to say, "If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me, you can do nothing." Or nothing that matters, nothing eternal, nothing that really works over the long haul - nothing. He doesn't say, "Without Me, you can't do much." No, nothing! He says it all comes from Him.
So the size of your life depends on how big your dependency on God is, as opposed to cranking it out yourself. Joni Eareckson Tada once said that when she went to Africa, she was greeted by believers there who said, "Welcome to Africa, where our God is bigger. He is bigger because we need Him so much more!" Actually, we need Him every bit as much. We just have other things we can depend on. So our lives are smaller because our view of God is smaller, because we don't depend on Him desperately for each day's needs, each day's choices, each day's strength, and each day's answers.
You know what the language of dependency is? Prayer. You can pretty much tell how dependent you are on God by how often you feel the need to cry out to Him in prayer. There is so much more waiting for you if you'll only learn how powerful it is to recognize your powerlessness before God.
Look at the frequency and the fervency of your prayers in any given day, and you'll be able to tell how dependant you really are on Him. Each new morning, in the presence of Almighty God, you need to sign it again - your Declaration of Dependence on your King, because that signature will make all the difference.