Max Lucado Daily: THE HOPE-FILLED HEART
You and I live in a trashy world. Unwanted garbage comes our way on a regular basis. Haven’t you been handed a trash sack of mishaps and heartaches? Sure you have. May I ask, what are you going to do with it? You could hide it. Pretend it isn’t there. But sooner or later it will start to stink. So what will you do?
If you follow the example of Christ, you’ll learn to see tough times differently. He wants you to have a hope-filled heart… just like Jesus. Wouldn’t you want that? Jesus saw his Father’s presence in the problem. Sure, Max, but Jesus was God! I can’t see the way he saw. Not yet, maybe. But don’t underestimate God’s power. He can change the way you look at life.
1 Corinthians 10:19-33
Do you see the difference? Sacrifices offered to idols are offered to nothing, for what’s the idol but a nothing? Or worse than nothing, a minus, a demon! I don’t want you to become part of something that reduces you to less than yourself. And you can’t have it both ways, banqueting with the Master one day and slumming with demons the next. Besides, the Master won’t put up with it. He wants us—all or nothing. Do you think you can get off with anything less?
23-24 Looking at it one way, you could say, “Anything goes. Because of God’s immense generosity and grace, we don’t have to dissect and scrutinize every action to see if it will pass muster.” But the point is not to just get by. We want to live well, but our foremost efforts should be to help others live well.
25-28 With that as a base to work from, common sense can take you the rest of the way. Eat anything sold at the butcher shop, for instance; you don’t have to run an “idolatry test” on every item. “The earth,” after all, “is God’s, and everything in it.” That “everything” certainly includes the leg of lamb in the butcher shop. If a nonbeliever invites you to dinner and you feel like going, go ahead and enjoy yourself; eat everything placed before you. It would be both bad manners and bad spirituality to cross-examine your host on the ethical purity of each course as it is served. On the other hand, if he goes out of his way to tell you that this or that was sacrificed to god or goddess so-and-so, you should pass. Even though you may be indifferent as to where it came from, he isn’t, and you don’t want to send mixed messages to him about who you are worshiping.
29-30 But, except for these special cases, I’m not going to walk around on eggshells worrying about what small-minded people might say; I’m going to stride free and easy, knowing what our large-minded Master has already said. If I eat what is served to me, grateful to God for what is on the table, how can I worry about what someone will say? I thanked God for it and he blessed it!
31-33 So eat your meals heartily, not worrying about what others say about you—you’re eating to God’s glory, after all, not to please them. As a matter of fact, do everything that way, heartily and freely to God’s glory. At the same time, don’t be callous in your exercise of freedom, thoughtlessly stepping on the toes of those who aren’t as free as you are. I try my best to be considerate of everyone’s feelings in all these matters; I hope you will be, too.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 8:4–8, 11–15
While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5 “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. 6 Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”b
“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.e 12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.f 14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, richesg and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
Insight
When Christ’s disciples asked Him to interpret the story of the sower (Luke 8:9–10), He first quoted from the prophet Isaiah to explain why He spoke to the crowds in parables (Isaiah 6:1–10). As in the days of Isaiah, Israel still wasn’t ready to recognize the kind of good news they needed. While looking for political relief and material prosperity, they couldn’t imagine a rescue and kingdom found in the mercy and love of a rejected Messiah—and in a harvest of peace, joy, and goodwill that would grow in and by His Spirit. By: Mart DeHaan
Beautiful Fruit
The seed is the word of God. Luke 8:11
“Kids should be able to throw a seed anywhere they want [in the garden] and see what pops up,” suggests Rebecca Lemos-Otero, founder of City Blossoms. While this is not a model for careful gardening, it reflects the reality that each seed has the potential to burst forth with life. Since 2004, City Blossoms has created gardens for schools and neighborhoods in low-income areas. The kids are learning about nutrition and gaining job skills through gardening. Rebecca says, “Having a lively green space in an urban area . . . creates a way for kids to be outside doing something productive and beautiful.”
Jesus told a story about the scattering of seed that had the potential of producing “a hundred times more than was sown” (Luke 8:8). That seed was God’s good news planted on “good soil,” which He explained is “honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest” (v. 15 nlt).
The only way we can be fruitful, Jesus said, is to stay connected to Him (John 15:4). As we’re taught by Christ and cling to Him, the Spirit produces in us His fruit of “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). He uses the fruit He produces in us to touch the lives of others, who are then changed and grow fruit from their own lives. This makes for a beautiful life. By: Anne Cetas
Reflect & Pray
How are you staying connected to Jesus? What fruit do you want Him to produce in you?
I want a beautiful life, Father. Please produce Your fruit in me that I might live a life that points others to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Yesterday
You shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. —Isaiah 52:12
Security from Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.
Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Footprints the Tide Can't Touch - #8602
Man, our family loves the ocean! We love to walk the beach and, you know, if my wife had had a head start on me, I could figure out which way she went - oh, I would kid her about being a little paddle-footed - she'd leave behind footprints that made a slight "V" in the sand. Of course, when the tide started coming in you could forget all the footprints any of us left that day! When the waves finish giving the beach a bath, you can't even tell anyone walked there today. Notice when they want to commemorate the careers of those Hollywood stars, they have them put their footprints in cement in the sidewalk, not in sand at the beach.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Footprints the Tide Can't Touch."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Daniel 12:2. See, we only get to walk this beach once. What kind of marks do we leave behind? How much will it matter that you and I have ever walked this way? Daniel 12:2-3 say this, "Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever."
Now, the verse before it talks about eternal issues. It says, "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." That's why it's so important to lead people to righteousness. Two eternal destinations: everlasting life - that's heaven of course, and everlasting shame and contempt - that's hell. Now, he goes on here to say that you and I can have a vital part in which destination it will be for the people we know. If we lead them to righteousness, we'll shine like the stars forever and ever. People you influence for Jesus Christ will be the lasting legacy of your life. Everlasting! Footprints in cement, not in sand!
The problem is we get distracted from the eternal, don't we? We spend so much of our time and our energy on earth stuff. We want to make a financial mark, a career mark, an educational mark, but the tide will one day come along and erase all those footprints we left in the sand. Someone will get your position, they'll get your money, they'll get your house. Or maybe we'll get involved in causes that will help improve things a little but will have no impact on eternity...sand. Or we'll just get so busy or self-occupied we neglect the people around us for our schedule, our goals, and our security.
There's another poem I heard often as a young man and it puts everything in perspective, "Only one life, 'twill soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last." Daniel affirms the ultimate lasting thing you can do with your life is to lead someone else to eternal life. Take somebody to heaven with you! Is there going to be somebody there because of you? Are you working on leaving that kind of mark on the people around you?
Maybe you've become distracted by leaving marks in the sand; marks that just won't matter in eternity. The Lord's saying, "I've planted you among those people because I'm trusting you to tell them about Me. To let them know I love them enough to give My life for them. To tell them the difference I've made for you and how I can make all the difference for them."
How are you doing on the project that really matters; bringing people you know to heaven with you? It is, after all, what Jesus gave His life for. It ought to be what our lives are about, don't you think? Could it be that you've misplaced your priorities? That most of the marks of your life are in the sand of earth stuff rather than in the cement of eternity?
Why don't you begin to use your influence to bring people you know to your Jesus - the relationship they've been looking for their whole life? The tides of time can never erase a life that you have brought to Jesus.
You may not have made many tracks in earth's sand, but marks you have made in eternity cement will be there for 100 billion years and more - people who are in heaven because of Jesus and because you told them!
