Max Lucado Daily: GRACE GOES BEYOND MERCY
We are poor, spiritually for sure; monetarily, perhaps. We’ve buried our dreams, desires, and aspirations. Like the mother with Lupus or the businessman in the unemployment line, we’re out of options. Yet Christ approached us “while we were yet sinners!” “Will you cover us?” we asked him, and Grace smiled. He gave us grace. Not just mercy, mind you, but grace.
Grace goes beyond mercy. Mercy gave the prodigal son a second chance but Grace threw him a party. Mercy prompted the Samaritan to bandage the wounds of the victim. But grace prompted him to leave his credit card as payment for the victim’s care. Mercy forgave the thief on the cross. Grace escorted him into paradise. Mercy pardons us. Grace woos and weds us! Grace does this. God does this. Grace is God walking into your world with a sparkle in his eye and an offer that’s hard to resist!
Read more GRACE
Acts 13:1-25
The congregation in Antioch was blessed with a number of prophet-preachers and teachers:
Barnabas,
Simon, nicknamed Niger,
Lucius the Cyrenian,
Manaen, an advisor to the ruler Herod,
Saul.
One day as they were worshiping God—they were also fasting as they waited for guidance—the Holy Spirit spoke: “Take Barnabas and Saul and commission them for the work I have called them to do.”
3 So they commissioned them. In that circle of intensity and obedience, of fasting and praying, they laid hands on their heads and sent them off.
4-5 Sent off on their new assignment by the Holy Spirit, Barnabas and Saul went down to Seleucia and caught a ship for Cyprus. The first thing they did when they put in at Salamis was preach God’s Word in the Jewish meeting places. They had John along to help out as needed.
6-7 They traveled the length of the island, and at Paphos came upon a Jewish wizard who had worked himself into the confidence of the governor, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man not easily taken in by charlatans. The wizard’s name was Bar-Jesus. He was as crooked as a corkscrew.
7-11 The governor invited Barnabas and Saul in, wanting to hear God’s Word firsthand from them. But Dr. Know-It-All (that’s the wizard’s name in plain English) stirred up a ruckus, trying to divert the governor from becoming a believer. But Saul (or Paul), full of the Holy Spirit and looking him straight in the eye, said, “You bag of wind, you parody of a devil—why, you stay up nights inventing schemes to cheat people out of God. But now you’ve come up against God himself, and your game is up. You’re about to go blind—no sunlight for you for a good long stretch.” He was plunged immediately into a shadowy mist and stumbled around, begging people to take his hand and show him the way.
12 When the governor saw what happened, he became a believer, full of enthusiasm over what they were saying about the Master.
13-14 From Paphos, Paul and company put out to sea, sailing on to Perga in Pamphylia. That’s where John called it quits and went back to Jerusalem. From Perga the rest of them traveled on to Antioch in Pisidia.
14-15 On the Sabbath they went to the meeting place and took their places. After the reading of the Scriptures—God’s Law and the Prophets—the president of the meeting asked them, “Friends, do you have anything you want to say? A word of encouragement, perhaps?”
16-20 Paul stood up, paused and took a deep breath, then said, “Fellow Israelites and friends of God, listen. God took a special interest in our ancestors, pulled our people who were beaten down in Egyptian exile to their feet, and led them out of there in grand style. He took good care of them for nearly forty years in that godforsaken wilderness and then, having wiped out seven enemies who stood in the way, gave them the land of Canaan for their very own—a span in all of about 450 years.
20-22 “Up to the time of Samuel the prophet, God provided judges to lead them. But then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, out of the tribe of Benjamin. After Saul had ruled forty years, God removed him from office and put King David in his place, with this commendation: ‘I’ve searched the land and found this David, son of Jesse. He’s a man whose heart beats to my heart, a man who will do what I tell him.’
23-25 “From out of David’s descendants God produced a Savior for Israel, Jesus, exactly as he promised—but only after John had thoroughly alerted the people to his arrival by preparing them for a total life-change. As John was finishing up his work, he said, ‘Did you think I was the One? No, I’m not the One. But the One you’ve been waiting for all these years is just around the corner, about to appear. And I’m about to disappear.’
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Jeremiah 9:23–26
Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
25 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”
Insight
Circumcision was not exclusive to the Israelites, for it was widely practiced in the ancient world, including among the Egyptians and the Canaanite peoples (Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites) mentioned in Jeremiah 9:26. When God made a covenant with Abraham, He made circumcision the confirming sign that the Jews were God’s covenantal people (Genesis 17:10–14). For the Israelites, circumcision was the symbol of separation, purity, and loyalty to the covenant. This physical cutting of the body was to be a symbol of a more important spiritual transformation of the heart (Deuteronomy 10:16). Moses explained that “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts . . . so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live” (30:6). Circumcision was the outward reminder that God’s people were to have hearts that know, love, honor, and submit to Him (Jeremiah 9:24).
Something to Brag About
Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches. Jeremiah 9:23
What does it mean to be real? That’s the very big question answered in the small children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit. It’s the story of toys in a nursery and the velveteen rabbit’s journey to become real by allowing himself to be loved by a child. One of the other toys is the old and wise Skin Horse. He “had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by and by break . . . and pass away.” They looked and sounded impressive, but their bragging eventually amounted to nothing when it came to love.
Boasting starts out strong; but in the end, it always fades away. Jeremiah lists three areas where this is evident: “wisdom . . . strength . . . riches” (Jeremiah 9:23). The wise old prophet had been around long enough to know a thing or two, and he countered such boasting with the Lord’s truth: “But let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord” (v. 24).
Let us, the children, brag about God, our good Father. In the unfolding story of His great love, it’s the wonderful way you and I grow to become more and more real. By John Blase
Reflect & Pray
Think of a person you know who embodies the ability to “boast in the Lord.” What is one way this week you can follow their example?
Father, help me to remember Jeremiah’s words. May my only boasting be in the knowledge of You and Your great love which endures forever.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
His Nature and Our Motives
…unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, “If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind.” Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.
No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations— He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature— He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus. Facing Reality, 34 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Church Talk - #8488
He was a phenomenon on the American scene for well over 50 years - Dr. Billy Graham. Again and again, decade after decade, more than any other individual, he appeared on the list of America's most respected men. In the twilight of his long ministry, his crusades took on a great sense of poignant significance. His crusade in Los Angeles was near the end of 2004, and it attracted tens of thousands to the Rose Bowl, and many thousands to begin a personal relationship with the Savior that Billy Graham had proclaimed all these years. His message each night was translated instantaneously into 26 languages, including sign language. I happened to know the man in charge of translation - that's why I was closer to it than usual. Interpreters fed the translation to groups of people sitting in their language groups, hearing the translation via headsets tuned to appropriate low-wave frequencies on their little radios. It was pretty amazing! So Billy Graham's Crusades were translated since 1980, but they said never into so many languages as it was in Los Angeles those years ago. The translating coordinator explained that it was important that each person hear the message in "his own heart language."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Church Talk."
Billy Graham, and every missionary to a foreign culture, knows the message can't get through unless it's presented in a language the lost person can understand, no matter how important the message is. If a man ran into your church service next Sunday and started shouting say in Russian, "The building's on fire! Evacuate immediately!" Probably no one would move (unless you go to a Russian church). You might say, "That man is obviously sincere. He obviously has something important to tell us, but I have no idea what he's talking about." And you might sit there and ultimately die there. Not because he didn't transmit the life-saving information he had, but he didn't translate it into words you could understand.
Now if the people you know who are without Christ speak English, and that's your language, too, you could assume that they'll understand what Jesus did for them, right, if you just present it in English. Well, the problem is we church folks talk church talk - I call it "Christianese." Words only understood by people who've been around Christian things for a while.
Well, a lot of them may not understand it either. Researcher George Barna tells us that hearing what Jesus did in the same predictable words week after week has effectively immunized a lot of church folks to their need of Christ. They know the words, so they must know the Lord. Right? Wrong - dead wrong.
In Matthew 13:23, our word for today from the Word of God, Jesus is explaining His parable about four soils that the seed of His message fell into, with each soil producing a different result. It was only the good soil that produced the real, lasting fruit. Jesus said all the seeds and the people they represent "heard the Word," and some even "received" it.
But the fourth seed, the only one with lasting life, had one difference. He was "the man who hears the Word and understands it." When you share with someone the life-saving information you have about Jesus, are you translating it into everyday, non-religious words they can understand, or are you just transmitting the message in words that might keep them from understanding the most important news of all.
Of course, ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit who enables us to understand what Jesus did. But that doesn't diminish our responsibility to present it, as Paul said, "clearly as I should" (Colossians 4:3). So many people have no idea what "sin" means, or "believe," or "saved," or "accept Christ," "receive Christ," "personal Savior," or "born again." We can't fail them by just speaking words we're comfortable with, not if those words obscure the very things they have to understand about Jesus. We've got to ask God to help us get beyond our "Christianese" and to begin to explain the great words of God's rescue in non-religious words.
We've all got to be translators. Because it really is important. I mean, like life-or-death important that each person hears the message that their eternity depends on in a language they can understand.