Max Lucado Daily: DELIVERANCE COMES
You’ll get through this! You fear you won’t. We all do. We feel stuck, trapped, locked in. Will we ever exit this pit? Yes! Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras— bold, brassy, and everywhere.
Out of the lion’s den for Daniel, the whale’s belly for Jonah, and prison for Paul. Through the Red Sea onto dry ground. Through the wilderness, through the valley of the shadow of death. Through! It’s a favorite word of God’s! Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.”
It won’t be painless. Have you wept your final tear, received your last round of chemotherapy? Not necessarily. Does God guarantee the absence of struggle? Not in this life. We see Satan’s tricks and ploys but God sees Satan tripped and foiled. You’ll get through this!
Isaiah 33
Doom to you, Destroyer,
not yet destroyed;
And doom to you, Betrayer,
not yet betrayed.
When you finish destroying,
your turn will come—destroyed!
When you quit betraying,
your turn will come—betrayed!
2-4 God, treat us kindly. You’re our only hope.
First thing in the morning, be there for us!
When things go bad, help us out!
You spoke in thunder and everyone ran.
You showed up and nations scattered.
Your people, for a change, got in on the loot,
picking the field clean of the enemy spoils.
5-6 God is supremely esteemed. His center holds.
Zion brims over with all that is just and right.
God keeps your days stable and secure—
salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in surplus,
and best of all, Zion’s treasure, Fear-of-God.
7-9 But look! Listen!
Tough men weep openly.
Peacemaking diplomats are in bitter tears.
The roads are empty—
not a soul out on the streets.
The peace treaty is broken,
its conditions violated,
its signers reviled.
The very ground under our feet mourns,
the Lebanon mountains hang their heads,
Flowering Sharon is a weed-choked gully,
and the forests of Bashan and Carmel? Bare branches.
10-12 “Now I’m stepping in,” God says.
“From now on, I’m taking over.
The gloves come off. Now see how mighty I am.
There’s nothing to you.
Pregnant with chaff, you produce straw babies;
full of hot air, you self-destruct.
You’re good for nothing but fertilizer and fuel.
Earth to earth—and the sooner the better.
13-14 “If you’re far away,
get the reports on what I’ve done,
And if you’re in the neighborhood,
pay attention to my record.
The sinners in Zion are rightly terrified;
the godless are at their wit’s end:
‘Who among us can survive this firestorm?
Who of us can get out of this purge with our lives?’”
15-16 The answer’s simple:
Live right,
speak the truth,
despise exploitation,
refuse bribes,
reject violence,
avoid evil amusements.
This is how you raise your standard of living!
A safe and stable way to live.
A nourishing, satisfying way to live.
17-19 Oh, you’ll see the king—a beautiful sight!
And you’ll take in the wide vistas of land.
In your mind you’ll go over the old terrors:
“What happened to that Assyrian inspector who condemned and confiscated?
And the one who gouged us of taxes?
And that cheating moneychanger?”
Gone! Out of sight forever! Their insolence
nothing now but a fading stain on the carpet!
No more putting up with a language you can’t understand,
no more sounds of gibberish in your ears.
20-22 Just take a look at Zion, will you?
Centering our worship in festival feasts!
Feast your eyes on Jerusalem,
a quiet and permanent place to live.
No more pulling up stakes and moving on,
no more patched-together lean-tos.
Instead, God! God majestic, God himself the place
in a country of broad rivers and streams,
But rivers blocked to invading ships,
off-limits to predatory pirates.
For God makes all the decisions here. God is our king.
God runs this place and he’ll keep us safe.
23 Ha! Your sails are in shreds,
your mast wobbling,
your hold leaking.
The plunder is free for the taking, free for all—
for weak and strong, insiders and outsiders.
24 No one in Zion will say, “I’m sick.”
Best of all, they’ll all live guilt-free.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 04, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Amos 8:9–12; 9:11–12
“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
“In that day
“I will restore David’s fallen shelter—
I will repair its broken walls
and restore its ruins—
and will rebuild it as it used to be,
12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations that bear my name,[a]”
declares the Lord, who will do these things.
Footnotes:
Amos 9:12 Hebrew; Septuagint so that the remnant of people / and all the nations that bear my name may seek me
Insight
Amos prophesied during the days when Uzziah ruled Judah and Jeroboam II ruled Israel (about 760–750 bc). Yet Amos claimed to be not a prophet but “one of the shepherds of Tekoa” (Amos 1:1). Tekoa is about five miles south of Bethlehem in Judah. And when commanded by Amaziah the priest of Bethel to stop prophesying, he answered, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’” God called Amos to drop everything to warn Israel’s people and leaders of God’s impending judgment (7:14–17). Although the people prospered, they were unjust, immoral, and mistreated the poor (2:6–8; 3:10; 5:11); and the judges were corrupt (5:12). Judgment was imminent (8:11–12), but a remnant would be preserved (9:11–12).
Eclipse
I will restore David’s fallen shelter—I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins—and will rebuild it as it used to be. Amos 9:11
I was prepared with eye protection, an ideal viewing location, and homemade moon pie desserts. Along with millions of people in the US, my family watched the rare occurrence of a total solar eclipse—the moon covering the entire disk of the sun.
The eclipse caused an unusual darkness to come over the typically bright summer afternoon. Although for us this eclipse was a fun celebration and a reminder of God’s incredible power over creation (Psalm 135:6–7), throughout history darkness during the day has been seen as abnormal and foreboding (Exodus 10:21; Matthew 27:45), a sign that everything is not as it should be.
This is what darkness signified for Amos, a prophet during the time of the divided monarchy in ancient Israel. Amos warned the Northern Kingdom that destruction would come if they continued to turn away from God. As a sign, God would “make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight” (Amos 8:9).
But God’s ultimate desire and purpose was—and is—to make all things right. Even when the people were taken into exile, God promised to one day bring a remnant back to Jerusalem and “repair its broken walls and restore its ruins” (9:11).
Even when life is at its darkest, like Israel, we can find comfort in knowing God is at work to bring light and hope back—to all people (Acts 15:14–18). By: Lisa M. Samra
Reflect & Pray
When was a time you chose to reject or disobey God? How did God provide rescue and bring light into your dark situation?
Jesus, as we read in Revelation 21:23, thank You that You shine brighter than the sun and turn back the darkness.
To learn more about the book of Amos, visit bit.ly/2YAfbqG.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 04, 2020
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1465 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 16-18; Luke 22:47-71
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 04, 2020
When it Hurts to Copy Your Father - #8691
Our daughter was just a toddler, and she'd often talk with me while I was brushing my teeth in the morning, or shaving, or combing my hair. But one morning, unbeknownst to my wife, our daughter got in the bathroom, stood on something, and got the blade razor that I shaved with. When her mother walked in, our daughter was stroking that razor across her face, minus any shaving cream and leaving some pretty serious scratches and scrapes behind.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When it Hurts to Copy Your Father."
All our daughter was doing was copying her father and inflicting wounds as a result. That's a mistake a lot of folks, grownup folks, have made...copying their father or their mother, and inflicting wounds as a result.
There are things our father and mother did and that they said, that we were determined we weren't going to repeat when we had kids. Well, so much for that good intention. All too often, the longer we live, the more we sound like or act like our father or mother in ways we never wanted to repeat. We know how much those things hurt us, and in spite of ourselves, they are hurting our children now: that same temper, that same critical spirit, that same manipulating, guilt tripping, the harsh words, the withdrawal or the selfishness.
It seems like we're almost powerless to change the dark side of us. We hate it, especially that part that was handed down to us by what I call "family sins." If we could have changed those things we would have changed them by now, which makes our word for today from the Word of God really, really good news. It's in 1 Peter 1:18-19.
God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers." In other words, there's actually hope of changing, of actually getting rid of some of those "empty ways" handed down to us by our father or mother. How does this "redeeming" happen? The Bible goes on to say "you were redeemed...with the precious blood of Christ." Wait! Then there's a connection between my family baggage and the violent death of Jesus Christ on the cross?
There's all the connection in the world. Because all this dark stuff inside us, whether it's from our past or from our own choices, is wrapped up in God's word for it - sin. And our sin is what Jesus died for on the cross to forgive it, to break its power, to make possible a relationship where Jesus comes right into your heart, your personality, and changes you from the inside out!
That is good news - not just for you, but for the people you love. There's a Savior who literally stands ready to save you from the sin that's already done way too much damage. The transformation begins when you reach out to Jesus and you trust Him to be your own personal Savior from your personal sin which He died to make possible that relationship. Yeah, that was the purpose of His death. If you've never begun your relationship with Him, you have yet to have your sins forgiven. You have yet to experience His life-changing power and what it can do inside you. This could be your day for that new beginning. Now, how do you do that?
Well, it's a matter of talking to Him and telling Him in total faith, and you can do it right where you are right now: "Jesus, I cannot change myself. I cannot forgive my own sin. I cannot get out from under my dark side. But I believe you died on the cross, and the reason you died was to deal with all that darkness and all that sin. You walked out of your grave; you're alive today! So, today I'm ready to turn from that sin and let go of it with both hands, so I have both hands to grab You. Jesus, beginning right here; beginning right now, I am Yours."
We'd love to help you be sure you have that relationship. And that's what our website is for. It's ANewStory.com. It's where your new story could begin; a new story for you and the people you love. I hope you go there today.
Here's what happens. When you open up your life to Jesus, you have for the first time in your life the power to say, "It stops in this generation!"
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