Max Lucado Daily: THE PROBLEM WITH UNRESOLVED GUILT
What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, pretending. As one man admitted, “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me. I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”
Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess. In a psalm David wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the kind said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.” (Psalm 32:3-4)
As Paul told Titus, God’s grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts! “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).
Isaiah 13
The Message on Babylon. Isaiah son of Amoz saw it:
2-3 “Run up a flag on an open hill.
Yell loud. Get their attention.
Wave them into formation.
Direct them to the nerve center of power.
I’ve taken charge of my special forces,
called up my crack troops.
They’re bursting with pride and passion
to carry out my angry judgment.”
4-5 Thunder rolls off the mountains
like a mob huge and noisy—
Thunder of kingdoms in an uproar,
nations assembling for war.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling
his army into battle formation.
They come from far-off countries,
they pour in across the horizon.
It’s God on the move with the weapons of his wrath,
ready to destroy the whole country.
6-8 Wail! God’s Day of Judgment is near—
an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God!
Everyone paralyzed in the panic,
hysterical and unstrung,
Doubled up in pain
like a woman giving birth to a baby.
Horrified—everyone they see
is like a face out of a nightmare.
9-16 “Watch now. God’s Judgment Day comes.
Cruel it is, a day of wrath and anger,
A day to waste the earth
and clean out all the sinners.
The stars in the sky, the great parade of constellations,
will be nothing but black holes.
The sun will come up as a black disk,
and the moon a blank nothing.
I’ll put a full stop to the evil on earth,
terminate the dark acts of the wicked.
I’ll gag all braggarts and boasters—not a peep anymore from them—
and trip strutting tyrants, leave them flat on their faces.
Proud humanity will disappear from the earth.
I’ll make mortals rarer than hens’ teeth.
And yes, I’ll even make the sky shake,
and the earth quake to its roots
Under the wrath of God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
the Judgment Day of his raging anger.
Like a hunted white-tailed deer,
like lost sheep with no shepherd,
People will huddle with a few of their own kind,
run off to some makeshift shelter.
But tough luck to stragglers—they’ll be killed on the spot,
throats cut, bellies ripped open,
Babies smashed on the rocks
while mothers and fathers watch,
Houses looted,
wives raped.
17-22 “And now watch this:
Against Babylon, I’m inciting the Medes,
A ruthless bunch indifferent to bribes,
the kind of brutality that no one can blunt.
They massacre the young,
wantonly kick and kill even babies.
And Babylon, most glorious of all kingdoms,
the pride and joy of Chaldeans,
Will end up smoking and stinking like Sodom,
and, yes, like Gomorrah, when God had finished with them.
No one will live there anymore,
generation after generation a ghost town.
Not even Bedouins will pitch tents there.
Shepherds will give it a wide berth.
But strange and wild animals will like it just fine,
filling the vacant houses with eerie night sounds.
Skunks will make it their home,
and unspeakable night hags will haunt it.
Hyenas will curdle your blood with their laughing,
and the howling of coyotes will give you the shivers.
“Babylon is doomed.
It won’t be long now.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, April 06, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Romans 3:10–18
As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”b p
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”c q
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”d r
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”e s
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”f t
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Insight
In Romans 1–3, Paul demonstrates that all human beings are sinners. Six times in chapter 3 he emphatically uses the phrases “no one” or “not even one” to show the total sinfulness of all mankind (vv. 10–12). Sin rules the entire person—our words (vv. 13–14), works (vv. 15–17), and heart (v. 18) condemn us. Paul concludes that “all have sinned and fall short” of God’s standards (v. 23). Without the regenerating work of the Spirit, humans are incapable of having a right relationship with God. We don’t seek Him (v. 11) but willfully turn against Him (v. 12), for we have “no fear of God” (v. 18). But God, in His grace and mercy, makes sinners right with Him when we believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood to save us from our sins (vv. 24–25).
A Good Man
By grace you have been saved, through faith—and that is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8
“Jerry was a good man,” the pastor said at Jerald Stevens’ memorial service. “He loved his family. He was faithful to his wife. He served his country in the armed services. He was an excellent dad and grandfather. He was a great friend.”
But then the pastor went on to tell the friends and family gathered that Jerry’s good life and good deeds were not enough to assure him a place in heaven. And that Jerry himself would have been the first to tell them that!
Jerry believed these words from the Bible: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death” (6:23). Jerry’s final and eternal destination in life’s journey was not determined by whether he lived a really good life but entirely by Jesus—the perfect Son of God—dying in his place to pay sin’s penalty. He believed that each of us must personally accept the free gift of God, which is “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 23).
Jerry was a good man, but he could never be “good enough.” Watch Rasool Berry’s “Jesus, the Good Man” devotional video. He, like us, had to learn that salvation and righteousness aren’t the results of human effort. They’re gifts by God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8).
“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15). By: Cindy Hess Kasper
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, April 06, 2020
The Collision of God and Sin
…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree… —1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was manifested in the flesh…” from “…He made Him…to be sin for us…” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
WISDOM 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
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 4-6; Luke 9:1-17
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, April 06, 2020
Easter...On Both Sides of the Dirt - #8671
I had the last handful of dirt. Many of our dear Native American friends had led the way. They really loved my Karen. As I threw mine into that six-foot hole, I spoke three words engraved inside our wedding rings, "Til Jesus comes." And then just quietly I said, "See you soon, baby." And I know I will because of Easter. Easter didn't stop the tears. Easter didn't cushion her adoring grandchildren from the shock that they would not see again on this earth the one whose hugs and laugh and love had lit up their lives. Neither would I. Neither would her children who never stopped depending on her prayer and her wisdom. Easter doesn't shield us from the grim reality of the casket, that hole in the ground, the empty blue recliner. Or the gut-wrenching emotional ambushes when the "I'm missing her" feelings that usually whisper, suddenly scream. But the reality of that empty tomb near a skull-shaped hill in Jerusalem is a game-changer in so many ways. For the one by the grave, and the one in the grave on both sides of the dirt.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Easter...On Both Sides of the Dirt."
To be sure, most religions offer some form of hope beyond the grave. But no real evidence that they can deliver on that hope.
And then there's Jesus. Who is, in the Bible's words, and our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:3, "a living hope." And it's with proof, because it says, "Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Eyewitnesses - hundreds of them - followers who saw Jesus, dying because they wouldn't deny it, written contemporary history, and the power elite of government and religion, desperately wielding their power to prove Jesus wasn't alive - and they couldn't.
There is no need to speak of Jesus in the past tense. He's alive now. He's our future. And because He's proven He has eternal life, He's the One who can give eternal life. So it wasn't just some religious cop-out for me to look in that grave and know that my Karen wasn't there. Oh, her "earth suit" was - the body we need for this life, like an astronaut needs his space suit for the moon. But the real Karen - her soul - never stopped living.
When the thief on the cross next to Jesus expressed faith in Him, Jesus made this astonishing statement: "Today you will be with Me in paradise" (Matthew 23:43). I believe that's what He said to my Karen that May afternoon in our living room.
Standing by her grave, I remembered her actual new address: "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). That's why I call that May 16th her "Homegoing." That Easter reality didn't erase what I lost that day. Karen was with Jesus. I wasn't. But because our death-crushing Jesus promised that "because I live, you also will live" (John 14:19), grief doesn't own the death scale. There's something on the other side. Something more powerful. It's called hope. Separation now. Reunion coming!
Since Karen went Home, I kept finding journals of hers. They are essentially heart-dumps to Jesus. And they reflect a vibrant love for Him. She signs her prayers, "Your loving daughter, Karen." Many times I've stood in church with my arm around her waist as we joined in singing praises to Jesus. What blows me away is thinking she is now singing those songs face-to-face with Him!
Although she impacted - even rescued - many lives, she always had a hard time accepting my assurances of the difference that she was making for Christ. She knows now. He's told her Himself. I just love thinking that this incomparable woman I did life with is now experiencing what the Bible says, "no eye has seen, no ear has heard" (1 Corinthians 2:9).
But what about us on "the other side of the dirt"? Suddenly doing life without her. God says He is "close to the brokenhearted" (Psalm 34:18). All I can tell you is this living Savior has been closer to me these past three years than in all my life before.
I want to invite you if you've never made sure you have a relationship with Him, that you belong to Jesus, that you get that taken care of today. The power of Jesus' resurrection has taken my greatest treasure from her last heartbeat to His heaven and resurrected the broken man she left here, giving me so much hope it's overflowing into many other grieving hearts.
Make sure you belong to Jesus. And if you're not, go to our website and get the information you need - ANewStory.com. He's walked with me every step through "the valley of the shadow." I know He'll walk with you all the way home.
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