Max Lucado Daily: NO ROOM IN THE INN
Some of the saddest words on earth are we don’t have room for you. Jesus knew the sounds of those words. He was still in Mary’s womb when the innkeeper said, “We don’t have room for you.” And when he hung on the cross, wasn’t the message one of utter rejection? “We don’t have room for you in this world.”
Today Jesus is given the same treatment. He goes from heart to heart, asking if he might enter. Every so often, he is welcomed. Someone throws open the door of his or her heart and invites him to stay. And to that person Jesus gives this great promise. “In my Father’s house are many rooms” (John 14:2). We make room for him in our hearts, and Jesus makes room for us in his house!
1 Corinthians 9 The Message (MSG)
And don’t tell me that I have no authority to write like this. I’m perfectly free to do this—isn’t that obvious? Haven’t I been given a job to do? Wasn’t I commissioned to this work in a face-to-face meeting with Jesus, our Master? Aren’t you yourselves proof of the good work that I’ve done for the Master? Even if no one else admits the authority of my commission, you can’t deny it. Why, my work with you is living proof of my authority!
3-7 I’m not shy in standing up to my critics. We who are on missionary assignments for God have a right to decent accommodations, and we have a right to support for us and our families. You don’t seem to have raised questions with the other apostles and our Master’s brothers and Peter in these matters. So, why me? Is it just Barnabas and I who have to go it alone and pay our own way? Are soldiers self-employed? Are gardeners forbidden to eat vegetables from their own gardens? Don’t milkmaids get to drink their fill from the pail?
8-12 I’m not just sounding off because I’m irritated. This is all written in the scriptural law. Moses wrote, “Don’t muzzle an ox to keep it from eating the grain when it’s threshing.” Do you think Moses’ primary concern was the care of farm animals? Don’t you think his concern extends to us? Of course. Farmers plow and thresh expecting something when the crop comes in. So if we have planted spiritual seed among you, is it out of line to expect a meal or two from you? Others demand plenty from you in these ways. Don’t we who have never demanded deserve even more?
12-14 But we’re not going to start demanding now what we’ve always had a perfect right to. Our decision all along has been to put up with anything rather than to get in the way or detract from the Message of Christ. All I’m concerned with right now is that you not use our decision to take advantage of others, depriving them of what is rightly theirs. You know, don’t you, that it’s always been taken for granted that those who work in the Temple live off the proceeds of the Temple, and that those who offer sacrifices at the altar eat their meals from what has been sacrificed? Along the same lines, the Master directed that those who spread the Message be supported by those who believe the Message.
15-18 Still, I want it made clear that I’ve never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I’m not writing now to get something. I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it’s not to get something out of it for myself. I’m compelled to do it, and doomed if I don’t! If this was my own idea of just another way to make a living, I’d expect some pay. But since it’s not my idea but something solemnly entrusted to me, why would I expect to get paid? So am I getting anything out of it? Yes, as a matter of fact: the pleasure of proclaiming the Message at no cost to you. You don’t even have to pay my expenses!
19-23 Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!
24-25 You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally.
26-27 I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, December 23, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 2:15–19
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.c 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.d
Insight
In Luke 2:15–19, we see several responses to God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus. The shepherds responded by believing and then acting on their urgent desire to see what God had done (v. 15). After seeing Jesus, they shared the news (v. 17), which the people responded to with amazement (v. 18). But Mary’s response is arguably deeper than all of these responses, and likely one Luke intended to be a model of faith. When Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (v. 19), she continued a long tradition of God’s people responding to His revelation by internalizing it in their hearts through ongoing pondering or meditation (see Psalm 119:11; Proverbs 3:1–3). By: Monica La Rose
A String of Yeses
Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. Luke 2:19
One Christmas, my grandmother gave me a beautiful pearl necklace. The beautiful beads glowed about my neck until one day the string broke. Balls bounced in all directions off our home’s hardwood flooring. Crawling over the planks, I recovered each tiny orb. On their own, they were small. But oh, when strung together, those pearls made such an impression!
Sometimes my yeses to God seem so insignificant—like those individual pearls. I compare myself to Mary, the mother of Jesus who was so fantastically obedient. She said yes when she embraced God’s call for her to carry the Messiah. “‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled’” (Luke 1:38). Did she understand all that would be required of her? That an even bigger yes to relinquishing her Son on the cross loomed ahead?
After the visits of the angels and shepherds, Luke 2:19 tells us that Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” Treasure means to “store up.” Ponder means to “thread together.” The phrase is repeated of Mary in Luke 2:51. She would respond with many yeses over her lifetime.
As with Mary, the key to our obedience might be a threading together of various yeses to our Father’s invitations, one at a time, until they string into the treasure of a surrendered life. By: Elisa Morgan
Reflect & Pray
What yeses do you need to say to God? How can you learn to be more obedient?
Dear God, help us to respond, one yes at a time, to Your ongoing work in our lives.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, December 23, 2019
Sharing in the Atonement
God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ… —Galatians 6:14
The gospel of Jesus Christ always forces a decision of our will. Have I accepted God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ? Do I have even the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death— to be completely dead to all interest in sin, worldliness, and self? Do I long to be so closely identified with Jesus that I am of no value for anything except Him and His purposes? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can commit myself under the banner of His Cross, and that means death to sin. You must get alone with Jesus and either decide to tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you, or that at any cost you want to be identified with His death. When you act in confident faith in what our Lord did on the cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place immediately. And you will come to know through a higher knowledge that your old life was “crucified with Him” (Romans 6:6). The proof that your old life is dead, having been “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you now enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.
Every once in a while our Lord gives us a glimpse of what we would be like if it were not for Him. This is a confirmation of what He said— “…without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). That is why the underlying foundation of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus. We mistake the joy of our first introduction into God’s kingdom as His purpose for getting us there. Yet God’s purpose in getting us into His kingdom is that we may realize all that identification with Jesus Christ means.
SDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. Not Knowing Whither, 903 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, December 23, 2019
One Safe Place This Christmas - #8596
Christmas Eve at our house is anything but a "Silent Night." How about "Family Circus"? Each year brings a lot of high-energy, high-decibel giving and the opening of gifts. One year, somewhere in the flying wrapping paper, was one overwhelmed two-year-old. Quietly dazed amid the happy din. There was one person who noticed. Grandma, of course.
My Karen slipped unobtrusively to the floor. Found a corner where she and our little guy were quietly working on the toy he had just opened, oblivious to the mayhem all around them. Grandma had created a safe zone in the midst of the craziness. A bewildered little boy had found one safe place. The place was a person. Someone who loved him very, very much.
That's where I've found my one safe place. Along with countless millions of others like me; someone who loves me very, very much. His love is written in blood, shed on a cross to pay for my sins against Him so I could be forgiven and be with Him in heaven forever.
For many years, He blessed me beyond words by letting me do life with a woman who so radiantly embodied His love. But, in these years for the first time in my adult life, the queen of my Christmas continues to be missing at Christmas. She went Home very suddenly. It was a day like no other. So, you know, while we're singing and reading about Jesus, she'll be with Him, face-to-face.
I got a note from a friend that captured in a sentence the heart of this family. It said, "It seemed someone so fully alive and vibrant couldn't possibly have left us." That says it all. Back when it was our first "empty chair Christmas," she was so missing. She still is. And so missed. In many ways, she was a harbor for me on my stormiest days.
Then, in an instant, I was on my own. So I guess I'm that shell-shocked little boy this Christmas. And Grandma, well once again, not here.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "One Safe Place This Christmas."
My safe place still is here on Christmas. Because in the words of Romans 8:39, our word for today from the Word of God,"nothing can ever separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The only love on earth that death cannot take away. I have tested this love. I have proven it in my darkest hour - that "the name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and they are safe." (Proverbs 18:10) What a beautiful word "safe."
When the grief ambushes trigger the tears again, the anchor holds. When loneliness resurfaces without warning, Jesus just holds me closer. When the prospect of doing the years ahead without my baby chills my soul, He whispers, "I've got this, Ron. And I've got you."
You know, my greatest heartache this Christmas is not for me. Or even for our children and grandchildren who adored her so. They have her Jesus. No, my heart aches for so many who face great loss and brokenness without that one Safe Place. The death-conquering Savior who said, "I am leaving you with a gift - a peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don't be trou
bled or afraid." (John 14:27)
But I know that peace is within their reach as it has been for me. It's within your reach by pinning all their hopes on Jesus and what He did for us on the cross. What He won for us when he walked out of His grave at His empty tomb.
That's why I want you to go to our website. I've got nothing there except to tell you how to begin this relationship. That's the most important thing you'll find there. It's ANewStory.com. Please check it out.
Look, I know that for those of us who have lost someone we love last year, the years before, maybe a long time ago, there'll still be some tender - even overwhelming - moments. But someone who loves you and loves me very, very much will move in close. And in His arms I'll be safe. You'll be safe.