Max Lucado Daily: Grace Makes All the Difference
If life is… "because I have to"-where's the joy in that? Too often I hear folks rejecting Christ because they think the Christian life is all about rules and regulations-all about stifling and suffocating ritual.
This happens when we confuse Christ with legalism. Legalism is joyless because it's endless. There's always another class to attend. Inmates incarcerated in self-salvation find work, but never joy!
Grace! It makes all the difference. I like this quote: "Gone are the exertions of law-keeping, gone the disciplines of legalism, the anxiety that having done everything we might not have done enough. We reach the goal, not by the stairs, but by the lift-God pledges his promised righteousness to those who will stop trying to save themselves!"1
Grace offers rest. Legalism? Never!
From GRACE
1 Corinthians 14:1-25
Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does. Give yourselves to the gifts God gives you. Most of all, try to proclaim his truth. If you praise him in the private language of tongues, God understands you but no one else does, for you are sharing intimacies just between you and him. But when you proclaim his truth in everyday speech, you’re letting others in on the truth so that they can grow and be strong and experience his presence with you.
4-5 The one who prays using a private “prayer language” certainly gets a lot out of it, but proclaiming God’s truth to the church in its common language brings the whole church into growth and strength. I want all of you to develop intimacies with God in prayer, but please don’t stop with that. Go on and proclaim his clear truth to others. It’s more important that everyone have access to the knowledge and love of God in language everyone understands than that you go off and cultivate God’s presence in a mysterious prayer language—unless, of course, there is someone who can interpret what you are saying for the benefit of all.
6-8 Think, friends: If I come to you and all I do is pray privately to God in a way only he can understand, what are you going to get out of that? If I don’t address you plainly with some insight or truth or proclamation or teaching, what help am I to you? If musical instruments—flutes, say, or harps—aren’t played so that each note is distinct and in tune, how will anyone be able to catch the melody and enjoy the music? If the trumpet call can’t be distinguished, will anyone show up for the battle?
9-12 So if you speak in a way no one can understand, what’s the point of opening your mouth? There are many languages in the world and they all mean something to someone. But if I don’t understand the language, it’s not going to do me much good. It’s no different with you. Since you’re so eager to participate in what God is doing, why don’t you concentrate on doing what helps everyone in the church?
13-17 So, when you pray in your private prayer language, don’t hoard the experience for yourself. Pray for the insight and ability to bring others into that intimacy. If I pray in tongues, my spirit prays but my mind lies fallow, and all that intelligence is wasted. So what’s the solution? The answer is simple enough. Do both. I should be spiritually free and expressive as I pray, but I should also be thoughtful and mindful as I pray. I should sing with my spirit, and sing with my mind. If you give a blessing using your private prayer language, which no one else understands, how can some outsider who has just shown up and has no idea what’s going on know when to say “Amen”? Your blessing might be beautiful, but you have very effectively cut that person out of it.
18-19 I’m grateful to God for the gift of praying in tongues that he gives us for praising him, which leads to wonderful intimacies we enjoy with him. I enter into this as much or more than any of you. But when I’m in a church assembled for worship, I’d rather say five words that everyone can understand and learn from than say ten thousand that sound to others like gibberish.
20-25 To be perfectly frank, I’m getting exasperated with your infantile thinking. How long before you grow up and use your head—your adult head? It’s all right to have a childlike unfamiliarity with evil; a simple no is all that’s needed there. But there’s far more to saying yes to something. Only mature and well-exercised intelligence can save you from falling into gullibility. It’s written in Scripture that God said,
In strange tongues
and from the mouths of strangers
I will preach to this people,
but they’ll neither listen nor believe.
So where does it get you, all this speaking in tongues no one understands? It doesn’t help believers, and it only gives unbelievers something to gawk at. Plain truth-speaking, on the other hand, goes straight to the heart of believers and doesn’t get in the way of unbelievers. If you come together as a congregation and some unbelieving outsiders walk in on you as you’re all praying in tongues, unintelligible to each other and to them, won’t they assume you’ve taken leave of your senses and get out of there as fast as they can? But if some unbelieving outsiders walk in on a service where people are speaking out God’s truth, the plain words will bring them up against the truth and probe their hearts. Before you know it, they’re going to be on their faces before God, recognizing that God is among you.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Romans 12:17–21
Do not repay anyone evil for evil.j Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.k 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.l 19 Do not take revenge,m my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”d n says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”e o
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Insight
Paul’s letter to the Romans follows the consistent pattern that marks most of his church letters. He opens with an extended discussion of important theological issues and then follows with practical application. It’s been said that the former shows us what we’re to believe, while the latter describes how we’re to behave because of what we believe. Romans 12, with its opening call to commitment and spiritual service, launches the application section, leading perfectly into today’s text (vv. 17–21). This list of practices is intended to be the outflow of a life lived in relationship with the God whose Son has purchased our forgiveness and new life.
For more on Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, check out Knowing God through Romans at discoveryseries.org/sb221. By: Bill Crowder
Instead of Revenge
If your enemy is hungry, feed him. Romans 12:20
After Jim Elliot and four other missionaries were killed by Huaorani tribesmen in 1956, no one expected what happened next. Jim’s wife, Elisabeth, their young daughter, and another missionary’s sister willingly chose to make their home among the very people who killed their loved ones. They spent several years living in the Huaorani community, learning their language, and translating the Bible for them. These women’s testimony of forgiveness and kindness convinced the Huaorani of God’s love for them and many received Jesus as their Savior.
What Elisabeth and her friend did is an incredible example of not repaying evil with evil but with good (Romans 12:17). The apostle Paul encouraged the church in Rome to show through their actions the transformation that God had brought into their own lives. What did Paul have in mind? They were to go beyond the natural desire to take revenge; instead, they were to show love to their enemies by meeting their needs, such as providing food or water.
Why do this? Paul quotes a proverb from the Old Testament: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (v. 20; Proverbs 25:21–22). The apostle was revealing that the kindness shown by believers to their enemies could win them over and light the fire of repentance in their hearts. By: Estera Pirosca Escobar
Reflect & Pray
How did Jesus live out the command to love one’s enemies? What will you do today to show God’s love to those who have harmed you?
Abba, Father, it’s difficult, even impossible, for us to love others in our own strength. Help us through Your Spirit to truly love our enemies, and use us to bring them to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, January 18, 2020
“It Is the Lord!”
Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" —John 20:28
“Jesus said to her, ‘Give Me a drink’ ” (John 4:7). How many of us are expecting Jesus Christ to quench our thirst when we should be satisfying Him! We should be pouring out our lives, investing our total beings, not drawing on Him to satisfy us. “You shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8). That means lives of pure, uncompromising, and unrestrained devotion to the Lord Jesus, which will be satisfying to Him wherever He may send us.
Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of true devotion to Jesus is the service we do for Him. It is easier to serve than to pour out our lives completely for Him. The goal of the call of God is His satisfaction, not simply that we should do something for Him. We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles. Are we more devoted to service than we are to Jesus Christ Himself?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
