Max Lucado Daily: A PERFECT WORLD
Try this. Imagine a perfect world. Whatever that means to you…imagine it. Does that mean peace? Then envision absolute tranquility. Does a perfect world imply joy? Then create your highest happiness. Will a perfect world have love? Ponder a place where love has no bounds.
Whatever heaven means to you, imagine it. Get it firmly fixed in your mind. Delight in it. Dream about it. Long for it. And then smile as the Father reminds you from the apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.”
No one…no one has come close. Think of all the songs about heaven. All the artists’ portrayals. All the lessons preached, poems written and chapters drafted. When it comes to describing heaven, we are all happy failures!
Psalm 47
A Psalm of the Sons of Korah
Applause, everyone. Bravo, bravissimo!
Shout God-songs at the top of your lungs!
God Most High is stunning,
astride land and ocean.
He crushes hostile people,
puts nations at our feet.
He set us at the head of the line,
prize-winning Jacob, his favorite.
Loud cheers as God climbs the mountain,
a ram’s horn blast at the summit.
Sing songs to God, sing out!
Sing to our King, sing praise!
He’s Lord over earth,
so sing your best songs to God.
God is Lord of godless nations—
sovereign, he’s King of the mountain.
Princes from all over are gathered,
people of Abraham’s God.
The powers of earth are God’s—
he soars over all.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, December 30, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Isaiah 22:8–11
The Lord stripped away the defenses of Judah,
and you looked in that dayz
to the weaponsa in the Palace of the Forest.b
9 You saw that the walls of the City of David
were broken throughc in many places;
you stored up water
in the Lower Pool.d
10 You counted the buildings in Jerusalem
and tore down housese to strengthen the wall.f
11 You built a reservoir between the two wallsg
for the water of the Old Pool,h
but you did not look to the One who made it,
or have regardi for the One who plannedj it long ago.
Insight
During the reign of King Hezekiah (728–686 bc), the Southern Kingdom of Judah faced a significant military threat from the Assyrians, who’d already destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel (722 bc). To prepare Judah to fight the Assyrians, Hezekiah adopted the defensive strategy of denying the invading army access to their water supply (2 Chronicles 32:1–8). He “blocked all the springs and the stream that flowed through the land” (v. 4) and at the same time dug tunnels to bring water into the city to ensure they’d have sufficient water to last them through a prolonged siege (2 Kings 20:20). He also fortified the wall defenses that protected the city and the water supply and made large numbers of weapons and shields (2 Chronicles 32:5).
A Designed Deficiency
You did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago. Isaiah 22:11
There’s a natural spring that rises on the east side of the city of Jerusalem. In ancient times it was the city’s only water supply and was located outside the walls. Thus it was the point of Jerusalem’s greatest vulnerability. The exposed spring meant that the city, otherwise impenetrable, could be forced to surrender if an attacker were to divert or dam the spring.
King Hezekiah addressed this weakness by driving a tunnel through 1,750 feet of solid rock from the spring into the city where it flowed into the “Lower Pool” (see 2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:2–4). But in all of this, Hezekiah “did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago” (Isaiah 22:11). Planned what?
God Himself “planned” the city of Jerusalem in such a way that its water supply was unprotected. The spring outside the wall was a constant reminder that the inhabitants of the city must depend solely on Him for their salvation.
Can it be that our deficiencies exist for our good? Indeed, the apostle Paul said that he would “boast” in his limitations, because it was through weakness that the beauty and power of Jesus was seen in him (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). Can we then regard each limitation as a gift that reveals God as our strength? By: David H. Roper
Reflect & Pray
What are your deficiencies? How are they helping you gain trust in God?
God, I’m weak. I pray that others would see that You are my strength.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, December 30, 2019
…All my springs are in you. —Psalm 87:7
Our Lord never “patches up” our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside— “…put on the new man…” (Ephesians 4:24). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience!
The sign that God is at work in us is that He is destroying our confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but only a wasted reminder of what God created man to be. We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ— a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people who are trying to serve God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them. They are depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural virtues and transform them, because our natural virtues could never even come close to what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.
And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is in the middle that human choices are made; the beginning and the end remain with God. The decrees of God are birth and death, and in between those limits man makes his own distress or joy. Shade of His Hand, 1223 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, December 30, 2019
Growing Amazing Gardens - #8601
Our grandson couldn't wait to tell me back then. His Grandma had bought a little kit for him called the "Magic Garden." Together, they put together these little plastic pieces that formed the frame for an outdoor scene that had a mountain as its backdrop. Then Grandma helped our grandson pour the liquid from the kit over the crystals that were hiding in the designated areas of that frame. The next day our grandson came to our house to see what had happened. When he stopped by my office to tell me, his eyes got big and his hands were in motion to try to explain to me what he had seen, "It grow!" And he had this kind of sense of wonderment. He was right. The trees had sprouted full pink foliage overnight, colorful flowers and bushes had bloomed, and as our grandson said, "Mountain grow snow." Well, sure enough, the mountain had filled in with a cover of snow. Wow! So, what had been last night's plain plastic frame had suddenly exploded into this fully blooming, Technicolor show!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Growing Amazing Gardens."
That "Magic Garden" kit appeared pretty plain and unimpressive at first look. But the secret was that there was all kinds of potential beauty there. Of course, you'll never see that beauty if you don't water it to make it grow! By the way, people are like that, too, including some folks in your personal world right now. They may not look or feel like they're much, but they've got all kinds of potential for beauty if someone will water what needs to grow.
God gave us a hint of this life-changing chemistry in our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 4:15-16. He says, "Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."
The "water" in this chemistry for growth is it says, "speaking the truth in love" and things that "build up" those that we're in contact with. So if we nurture the good things in people, if we love them by telling them the truth about Jesus and about who they are in Him, we can actually help people start to become more like Jesus, to start producing His spiritual characteristics.
The problem is we often can't see past the basic "kit" in front of us. We look at our partner, our son or daughter, our mother or father, our fellow believer or co-worker, and all we can see is their "warts," their weaknesses, and the things they need to improve. We're experts at seeing the flaws and the areas for improvement in other people. Consequently, most of us have already had a lifetime's worth of criticism, putdowns, and harshness.
But the eyes of Jesus don't just see what a person is; they see what a person could be, if someone would just water their potential with some encouragement, and praise, and believing in them. Jesus told Simon, "You are Simon, but you will be 'the rock'." He saw what Simon could be, and in fact, what He did became in Jesus' amazing garden.
So, what you water will grow. People will become what you call them. And the people in your family, in your church, at the place where you work have so much beauty planted in them by our Creator. But somebody needs to believe in what they could be. So build them up. Don't ever tear them down. Build their confidence, don't take it away. Load them up with praise. They don't need the growth-stunting effects of our negatives.
You'll be amazed at what can happen in the garden of lives around you if you'll water them to bring out their latent beauty. In the words of my grandson, "They grow!"