Max Lucado Daily: RECEIVE THE BREAD
Acts 2:38 records the sermon of the apostle Peter. In it, Peter said, “Turn back to God! Be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins will be forgiven.
We cherish pardon, don’t we? And God offers it. He does not give us what we deserve. He has drenched this world in grace. It has no end. It knows no limits. It empowers this life and enables us to live in the next. God offers second chances, like a soup kitchen offers meals to everyone who asks. And that includes you. Make sure you receive His pardon. And once you do, pass it on. We all need it.
1 Chronicles 19
Some time after this Nahash king of the Ammonites died and his son succeeded him as king. David said, “I’d like to show some kindness to Hanun son of Nahash—treat him as well and as kindly as his father treated me.” So David sent condolences about his father’s death.
2-3 But when David’s servants arrived in Ammonite country and came to Hanun to bring condolences, the Ammonite leaders warned Hanun, “Do you for a minute suppose that David is honoring your father by sending you comforters? Don’t you know that he’s sent these men to snoop around the city and size it up so that he can capture it?”
4 So Hanun seized David’s men, shaved them clean, cut off their robes half way up their buttocks, and sent them packing.
5 When this was all reported to David, he sent someone to meet them, for they were seriously humiliated. The king told them, “Stay in Jericho until your beards grow out; only then come back.”
6-7 When it dawned on the Ammonites that as far as David was concerned, they stank to high heaven, they hired, at a cost of a thousand talents of silver (thirty-seven and a half tons!), chariots and horsemen from the Arameans of Naharaim, Maacah, and Zobah—thirty-two thousand chariots and drivers; plus the king of Maacah with his troops who came and set up camp at Medeba; the Ammonites, too, were mobilized from their cities and got ready for battle.
8 When David heard this, he dispatched Joab with his strongest fighters in full force.
9-13 The Ammonites marched out and spread out in battle formation at the city gate; the kings who had come as allies took up a position in the open fields. When Joab saw that he had two fronts to fight, before and behind, he took his pick of the best of Israel and deployed them to confront the Arameans. The rest of the army he put under the command of Abishai, his brother, and deployed them to deal with the Ammonites. Then he said, “If the Arameans are too much for me, you help me; and if the Ammonites prove too much for you, I’ll come and help you. Courage! We’ll fight might and main for our people and for the cities of our God. And God will do whatever he sees needs doing!”
14-15 But when Joab and his soldiers moved in to fight the Arameans, they ran off in full retreat. Then the Ammonites, seeing the Arameans run for dear life, took to their heels and ran from Abishai into the city.
So Joab withdrew from the Ammonites and returned to Jerusalem.
16 When the Arameans saw how badly they’d been beaten by Israel, they picked up the pieces and regrouped; they sent for the Arameans who were across the river; Shophach, commander of Hadadezer’s army, led them.
17-19 When all this was reported to David, he mustered all Israel, crossed the Jordan, advanced, and prepared to fight. The Arameans went into battle formation, ready for David, and the fight was on. But the Arameans again scattered before Israel. David killed seven thousand chariot drivers and forty thousand infantry. He also killed Shophach, the army commander. When all the kings who were vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been routed by Israel, they made peace with David and served him. The Arameans were afraid to help the Ammonites ever again.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, January 13, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 9:27–38
Jesus Heals the Blind and the Mute
27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David!”m
28 When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they replied.n
29 Then he touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith let it be done to you”;o 30 and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, “See that no one knows about this.”p 31 But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.q
32 While they were going out, a man who was demon-possessedr and could not talks was brought to Jesus. 33 And when the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. The crowd was amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.”t
34 But the Pharisees said, “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”u
The Workers Are Few
35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.v 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them,w because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.x 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvesty is plentiful but the workers are few.z 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Insight
God’s sovereignty is described three times in Matthew 9:37–38. First, God is the Lord of the harvest. This means He owns the field and watches over it, and the results of the harvest are given to Him.
He’s also the one who hires and sends the workers. The workers perform the work, but they don’t go of their own accord—the Lord of the harvest sends them. Finally, the field belongs to Him. The field is His, He sends the workers, and the harvest goes to Him.
Everyone Needs Compassion
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36
When Jeff was a new believer in Jesus and fresh out of college, he worked for a major oil company. In his role as a salesman, he traveled; and in his travels he heard people’s stories—many of them heartbreaking. He realized that what his customers most needed wasn’t oil, but compassion. They needed God. This led Jeff to attend seminary to learn more about the heart of God and eventually to become a pastor.
Jeff’s compassion had its source in Jesus. In Matthew 9:27–33 we get a glimpse of Christ’s compassion in the miraculous healing of two blind men and one demon-possessed man. Throughout His earthly ministry, He went about preaching the gospel and healing “through all the towns and villages” (v. 35). Why? “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (v. 36).
The world today is still full of troubled and hurting people who need the Savior’s gentle care. Like a shepherd who leads, protects, and cares for his sheep, Jesus extends His compassion to all who come to Him (11:28). No matter where we are in life and what we’re experiencing, in Him we find a heart overflowing with tenderness and care. And when we’ve been a beneficiary of God’s loving compassion, we can’t help but want to extend it to others. By: Alyson Kieda
Reflect & Pray
When have you experienced God’s tender care? Who can you reach out to in compassion?
Heavenly Father, we’re so grateful You had compassion on us! We would be lost without You. Help us to extend Your overflowing compassion to others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, January 13, 2020
Have You Ever Been Alone with God? (2)
When He was alone…the twelve asked Him about the parable. —Mark 4:10
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship— when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. Notice Jesus Christ’s training of the Twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were confused. His disciples constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly explained things to them, but they didn’t understand until after they received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).
As you journey with God, the only thing He intends to be clear is the way He deals with your soul. The sorrows and difficulties in the lives of others will be absolutely confusing to you. We think we understand another person’s struggle until God reveals the same shortcomings in our lives. There are vast areas of stubbornness and ignorance the Holy Spirit has to reveal in each of us, but it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now? Or are we more concerned with our own ideas, friendships, and cares for our bodies? Jesus cannot teach us anything until we quiet all our intellectual questions and get alone with Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L
Bible in a Year: Genesis 31-32; Matthew 9:18-38
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, January 13, 2020
The Only Payment Plan You Can Afford - #8611
Metal mouth! Yeah, that's what they called my daughter in Junior High. Of course, there were plenty of kids you could call that. Those pre-teen and early teen years? Those are braces years a lot of times. All our kids got to take their turn at braces, and we were thankful, frankly, that we had a friend who was an orthodontist. The work was important, but the bills? They were challenging! Our friend allowed us to pay in installments, but even that was hard sometimes. We still had this large unpaid balance the day our latest bill arrived. We opened it and we couldn't believe the three beautiful words that were stamped across the bill - PAID IN FULL!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Only Payment Plan You Can Afford."
Now, I've had that experience twice in my life, once when the man I owed declared my bill "paid," and the second time was when the God I owed declared my bill "paid."
Our word for the day from the Word of God comes from John 19:30. Jesus has been hanging on that awful cross for six brutal hours, He's now breathing His last and it says, "When He had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished,' and with that, He bowed His head and He gave up His spirit." Now, if you were to read that three word sentence in the original Greek language, it's one word, tetelestai.
It's an interesting word that Jesus shouted from the cross. In fact, some archaeologists a few years ago dug up this tax collectors office that was really intact, and it still had the tax records there. There were two stacks and one of them had the word, tetelestai, on the top. In other words "paid in full." Those people didn't owe anything anymore.
Now, Jesus declared that His death was a payment, a full payment! He said, "It's paid in full," the price was paid by the life of God's one and only Son. It was a bill I couldn't pay myself, it's a bill you can't pay; none of us can.
The Bible describes the reason why we have such a massive debt with God. It says, "The wages of sin is death." Now, some of us religious folks will say, "Hey, I don't think that applies to me!" Well, the bad news is, the Bible says, "All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory." Sin is a whole lot more than just breaking some religious rules. It's taking this life God was supposed to run and running it our way instead. It's my way instead of God's way. And the penalty is clear, and it's sobering - it is death - separation from the God who made us now and ultimately forever, and that's hell.
You and I have this overwhelming sin bill with God and eternal separation from God's the only way to pay for it. Our religion doesn't even come close to covering it. But that verse has some good news, the one that says, "The wages of sin is death," it says, "But the gift of God is eternal life." Now, how can that be? It's like my orthodontist friend, the one we owed the debt to declared our bill "paid," in this case, at the cost of Jesus' life. When He was hanging on that cross, Jesus was absorbing every sin we've ever committed and all of its' penalty.
Eternal life is described by God as a gift, and the gift isn't yours until you take it. If there's never been a time when you've told Jesus you're putting your total trust in Him to forgive your sin and get you to heaven, then your deadly sin bill remains on your record this very day. But that could change this very day in these next few moments, if you would tell
Jesus you want Him to be your Savior from your sin.
This could be the day that you're forgiven, that you begin your relationship with Him and change your eternal address from hell to heaven. There's some wonderful information I'd love to give you at our website. At this threshold it's for you. ANewStory.com. I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today.
There's this little song that says, "He paid a debt He did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay, I needed someone to wash my sins away, and now I sing a brand new song, amazing grace, Christ Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay." Well, He's waiting to hear from you. He's waiting to stamp your bill forever "paid in full!"
