Max Lucado Daily: Get Ready for a Surprise
Have you got God figured out? Get ready, you may be in for a surprise. Hear the rocks meant for the body of the adulterous woman drop to the ground. Listen as Jesus invites a death-row convict to ride with Him to the Kingdom in the front seat of the limo. Listen as the Messiah whispers to the Samaritan woman, “I who speak to you am He.” And listen to the surprise as Mary’s name is spoken by a man she had buried.
God appearing in the strangest of places. Doing the strangest of things. Stretching smiles where there had hung only frowns. Hanging a bright star in a dark sky. Many more knees will bow. And many more seekers will celebrate.
“For no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
from Six Hours One Friday
Acts 19:1-20
Now, it happened that while Apollos was away in Corinth, Paul made his way down through the mountains, came to Ephesus, and happened on some disciples there. The first thing he said was, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Did you take God into your mind only, or did you also embrace him with your heart? Did he get inside you?”
“We’ve never even heard of that—a Holy Spirit? God within us?”
3 “How were you baptized, then?” asked Paul.
“In John’s baptism.”
4 “That explains it,” said Paul. “John preached a baptism of radical life-change so that people would be ready to receive the One coming after him, who turned out to be Jesus. If you’ve been baptized in John’s baptism, you’re ready now for the real thing, for Jesus.”
5-7 And they were. As soon as they heard of it, they were baptized in the name of the Master Jesus. Paul put his hands on their heads and the Holy Spirit entered them. From that moment on, they were praising God in tongues and talking about God’s actions. Altogether there were about twelve people there that day.
8-10 Paul then went straight to the meeting place. He had the run of the place for three months, doing his best to make the things of the kingdom of God real and convincing to them. But then resistance began to form as some of them began spreading evil rumors through the congregation about the Christian way of life. So Paul left, taking the disciples with him, and set up shop in the school of Tyrannus, holding class there daily. He did this for two years, giving everyone in the province of Asia, Jews as well as Greeks, ample opportunity to hear the Message of the Master.
11-12 God did powerful things through Paul, things quite out of the ordinary. The word got around and people started taking pieces of clothing—handkerchiefs and scarves and the like—that had touched Paul’s skin and then touching the sick with them. The touch did it—they were healed and whole.
13-16 Some itinerant Jewish exorcists who happened to be in town at the time tried their hand at what they assumed to be Paul’s “game.” They pronounced the name of the Master Jesus over victims of evil spirits, saying, “I command you by the Jesus preached by Paul!” The seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were trying to do this on a man when the evil spirit talked back: “I know Jesus and I’ve heard of Paul, but who are you?” Then the possessed man went berserk—jumped the exorcists, beat them up, and tore off their clothes. Naked and bloody, they got away as best they could.
17-20 It was soon news all over Ephesus among both Jews and Greeks. The realization spread that God was in and behind this. Curiosity about Paul developed into reverence for the Master Jesus. Many of those who thus believed came out of the closet and made a clean break with their secret sorceries. All kinds of witches and warlocks came out of the woodwork with their books of spells and incantations and made a huge bonfire of them. Someone estimated their worth at fifty thousand silver coins. In such ways it became evident that the Word of the Master was now sovereign and prevailed in Ephesus.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 107:4–9
Some wandered in desertj wastelands,
finding no way to a cityk where they could settle.
5 They were hungryl and thirsty,m
and their lives ebbed away.
6 Then they cried outn to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
7 He led them by a straight wayo
to a cityp where they could settle.
8 Let them give thanksq to the Lord for his unfailing lover
and his wonderful deedss for mankind,
9 for he satisfiest the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.
Insight
This psalm by an unknown author is considered a hymn of national thanksgiving believed to be sung at the laying of the foundation of the second temple. Bible commentator Derek Kidner writes regarding Psalm 107: “The center-piece of this striking psalm is the set of four word-pictures of human predicaments and divine interventions. In themselves the adventures are not characteristically Israelite situations; yet the fact that this is a piece to celebrate the return of exiles raises the possibility that these episodes are four different ways of depicting the plight from which the nation had been delivered.” Today’s passage describes how Israel was like someone lost in the desert, whom God rescued and led back home. These verses also describe our lostness before God rescued us.
The Picture of Despair
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. Psalm 107:6
During the Great Depression in the United States, photographer Dorothea Lange snapped a photo of Florence Owens Thompson and her children. This well-known photograph, Migrant Mother, is the picture of a mother’s despair in the aftermath of the failed pea harvest. Lange took it in Nipomo, California, while working for the Farm Security Administration, hoping to make them aware of the needs of the desperate seasonal farm laborers.
The book of Lamentations presents another snapshot of despair—that of Judah in the wake of the destruction of Jerusalem. Before the army of Nebuchadnezzar swept in to destroy the city, the people had suffered from starvation thanks to a siege (2 Kings 24:10–11). Though their turmoil was the result of years of disobedience to God, the writer of Lamentations cried out to God on behalf of his people (Lamentations 2:11–12).
While the author of Psalm 107 also describes a desperate time in Israel’s history (during Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness, vv. 4–5), the focus shifts to an action step to be taken in hard times: “Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble” (v. 6). And what a wonderful result: “he delivered them from their distress.”
In despair? Don’t stay silent. Cry out to God. He hears and waits to restore your hope. Though He doesn’t always take us out of hard situations, He promises to be with us always.
By: Linda Washington
Reflect & Pray
When have you experienced God’s help in a stressful time? How will you encourage someone this week who’s facing a crisis?
Heavenly Father, I’m grateful for Your comforting presence.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, March 22, 2020
The Burning Heart
Did not our heart burn within us…? —Luke 24:32
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart— a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart— unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.
Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don’t allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the “mount of transfiguration,” basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.
We cannot kindle when we will
The fire which in the heart resides,
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides;
But tasks in hours of insight willed
Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“I have chosen you” (John 15:16). Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you. My Utmost for His Highest, October 25, 837 R
Bible in a Year: Joshua 10-12; Luke 1:39-56
