Max Lucado Daily: START WITH JESUS
We can calmly take our concerns to God because he is as near as our next breath! This was the reassuring message from the miracle of the bread and the fish. In an event crafted to speak to the anxious heart, Jesus told his disciples to do the impossible: feed five thousand people.
Now you aren’t facing five thousand hungry bellies, but you are facing a deadline in two days, a loved one in need of a cure. On one hand you have a problem. On the other you have a limited quantity of wisdom, patience, or time. Typically you’d get anxious. You’d tell God, “You’ve given me too much to handle.” This time, instead of focusing on what you don’t have, start with Jesus. Start with his wealth, his resources, and his strength. Before you lash out in fear, look up in faith. Turn to your Heavenly Father for help.
Isaiah 24
Danger ahead! God’s about to ravish the earth
and leave it in ruins,
Rip everything out by the roots
and send everyone scurrying:
priests and laypeople alike,
owners and workers alike,
celebrities and nobodies alike,
buyers and sellers alike,
bankers and beggars alike,
the haves and have-nots alike.
The landscape will be a moonscape,
totally wasted.
And why? Because God says so.
He’s issued the orders.
4 The earth turns gaunt and gray,
the world silent and sad,
sky and land lifeless, colorless.
5-13 Earth is polluted by its very own people,
who have broken its laws,
Disrupted its order,
violated the sacred and eternal covenant.
Therefore a curse, like a cancer,
ravages the earth.
Its people pay the price of their sacrilege.
They dwindle away, dying out one by one.
No more wine, no more vineyards,
no more songs or singers.
The laughter of castanets is gone,
the shouts of celebrants, gone,
the laughter of fiddles, gone.
No more parties with toasts of champagne.
Serious drinkers gag on their drinks.
The chaotic cities are unlivable. Anarchy reigns.
Every house is boarded up, condemned.
People riot in the streets for wine,
but the good times are gone forever—
no more joy for this old world.
The city is dead and deserted,
bulldozed into piles of rubble.
That’s the way it will be on this earth.
This is the fate of all nations:
An olive tree shaken clean of its olives,
a grapevine picked clean of its grapes.
14-16 But there are some who will break into glad song.
Out of the west they’ll shout of God’s majesty.
Yes, from the east God’s glory will ascend.
Every island of the sea
Will broadcast God’s fame,
the fame of the God of Israel.
From the four winds and the seven seas we hear the singing:
“All praise to the Righteous One!”
16-20 But I said, “That’s all well and good for somebody,
but all I can see is doom, doom, and more doom.”
All of them at one another’s throats,
yes, all of them at one another’s throats.
Terror and pits and booby traps
are everywhere, whoever you are.
If you run from the terror,
you’ll fall into the pit.
If you climb out of the pit,
you’ll get caught in the trap.
Chaos pours out of the skies.
The foundations of earth are crumbling.
Earth is smashed to pieces,
earth is ripped to shreds,
earth is wobbling out of control,
Earth staggers like a drunk,
sways like a shack in a high wind.
Its piled-up sins are too much for it.
It collapses and won’t get up again.
21-23 That’s when God will call on the carpet
rebel powers in the skies and
Rebel kings on earth.
They’ll be rounded up like prisoners in a jail,
Corralled and locked up in a jail,
and then sentenced and put to hard labor.
Shamefaced moon will cower, humiliated,
red-faced sun will skulk, disgraced,
Because God-of-the-Angel-Armies will take over,
ruling from Mount Zion and Jerusalem,
Splendid and glorious
before all his leaders.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Romans 5:6–11
You see, at just the right time,s when we were still powerless,t Christ died for the ungodly.u 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.v
9 Since we have now been justifiedw by his blood,x how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrathy through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies,z we were reconcileda to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!b 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Insight
Reconciliation restores those who’ve been alienated. Paul uses the word reconcile more than any other New Testament author, often multiple times in a passage; for example, he uses it three times in Romans 5:10–11. He also uses it in Romans 11:15, 2 Corinthians 5:18–19, and 1 Corinthians 7:11 (related to human reconciliation).
Today’s passage highlights the necessity of Jesus’ death for our reconciliation to God. But that isn’t the end. Our reconciliation through His death leads to our salvation through His life. Paul writes, “How much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10). Notice that there are two different tenses used: we have been reconciled and we shall be saved. Paul says that both the death of Jesus and His resurrected life are necessary to our salvation.
Friends Again
How much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:10
A mother and her young daughter are sitting in church one day. During the service, opportunity is given for people to publicly receive God’s forgiveness. Every time someone walks forward to do so, the little girl begins to clap. “I’m so sorry,” the mother later tells the church leader. “I explained to my daughter that repentance makes us friends with God again, and she just wanted to cheer for everyone.”
Simplified for a child’s mind, the mother’s words were a good explanation of the gospel. Once God’s enemies, we have been reconciled to Him through Christ’s death and resurrection (Romans 5:9–10). Now we’re indeed God’s friends. Since we were the ones to break the friendship (v. 8), repentance is our part in completing the restoration process. And the little girl’s response couldn’t have been more appropriate. Since all heaven claps when just one person repents (Luke 15:10), she was unknowingly echoing its applause.
Jesus described His reconciling work in similar terms. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). As a result of this sacrificial act of friendship toward us, we can now be friends with Him. “I no longer call you servants . . . . Instead, I have called you friends” (15:15).
Once God’s enemies, we are now God’s friends. It’s an overwhelming thought. And one worth clapping about. By: Sheridan Voysey
Reflect & Pray
How often do you describe your relationship with God as one of friendship? In practical terms, how is your friendship with Him going today?
God, thank You for loving me when I was still Your enemy. I repent of everything that disappoints You and celebrate being Your friend.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Don’t Hurt the Lord
Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? —John 14:9
Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us— astounded at how “un-simple” we are. It is our own opinions that make us dense and slow to understand, but when we are simple we are never dense; we have discernment all the time. Philip expected the future revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in Jesus, the Person he thought he already knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be— it is now, though we look for it to be revealed in the future in some overwhelming, momentous event. We have no reluctance to obey Jesus, but it is highly probable that we are hurting Him by what we ask— “Lord, show us the Father…” (John 14:8). His response immediately comes back to us as He says, “Can’t you see Him? He is always right here or He is nowhere to be found.” We look for God to exhibit Himself to His children, but God only exhibits Himself in His children. And while others see the evidence, the child of God does not. We want to be fully aware of what God is doing in us, but we cannot have complete awareness and expect to remain reasonable or balanced in our expectations of Him. If all we are asking God to give us is experiences, and the awareness of those experiences is blocking our way, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus, because they are not the questions of a child.
“Let not your heart be troubled…” (14:1, 27). Am I then hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If I believe in Jesus and His attributes, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to disturb my heart, or am I allowing any questions to come in which are unsound or unbalanced? I have to get to the point of the absolute and unquestionable relationship that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him. God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the freedom you receive is immediate.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When you are joyful, be joyful; when you are sad, be sad. If God has given you a sweet cup, don’t make it bitter; and if He has given you a bitter cup, don’t try and make it sweet; take things as they come. Shade of His Hand, 1226 L
Bible in a Year: 2 Samuel 12-13; Luke 16
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
When God's Moving Too Slow - #8682
There's this two-lane highway that's a main link between communities. And when they had to close one lane for a short-term road project, it created some delays for all of us tremendously patient people. It was one of those projects where one flagger stops the traffic in one lane while another flagger allows the traffic for the other lane to proceed. All day long, open your lane, close your lane, open your lane, close your lane. They had a car with a "pilot car" sign on it that led the proceeding traffic to the end of the one-lane area. Then the pilot of the pilot car (How you doing with all this?) got to turn around and drive back with the traffic following him from the other side. That's got to be exciting work! One lady apparently was short on patience that day. Oh, she waited until her lane was open and the pilot car came. She happened to be the first in line, but her patience ended as soon as she started to follow the pilot car. She decided to floor it and pass the pilot car. Bad idea! She crashed right into their heavy equipment.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When God's Moving Too Slow."
Running ahead of the one you're supposed to be following can lead to a crash. Just ask Moses. He ran ahead of the Pilot - Jehovah God - and the results were not happy. We need to look at his mistake because there's got to be someone listening who's in the process of repeating that mistake. I can save you, I think, a lot of hurt and heartache if you'll look for yourself in our word for today from the Word of God.
Acts 7, beginning with verse 23, unfolds the story from a New Testament perspective. Moses' people, the Jews, had been slaves to the Egyptian Pharaohs for many years. God had miraculously spared Moses as a baby and arranged for him to be raised in Pharaoh's court. The story picks up there. "When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites." That day he witnessed a Jewish worker being mistreated by an Egyptian master. And the Bible says, "He went to his defense ... by killing the Egyptian."
The Bible goes on to explain, "Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not." Ultimately, Moses had to flee to a remote wilderness where he spent the next 40 years, until it was God's time for him to deliver his people. What had been so wrong 40 years before, was so right when it was God's plan and God's time.
Moses had the right idea. He was supposed to deliver his people, but he couldn't wait for God to do it His way. How many times have I made that mistake? How many times have you? Like Moses, we get impatient and we run ahead of the "pilot car" - the leading of our Lord. And like Moses, the results a crash.
There's something you've been waiting for God to do; to give you that person, that job, some financial relief, some love, some work for Him. And it's not happening. You're going to help God a little bit. You're going to figure out your own way to meet the need, to get it done now. You're tempted to pass Him because He's moving too slowly. Don't. You'll ruin it by trying to rush it. You'll get the bill for your impatience instead of the will of God.
There may be nothing that has cost more people God's best than impatience. We move so fast, we push so hard, we push right past God. He will, as He promised, make everything beautiful "in its time" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). And it's not time yet.
If you're tired of waiting and you're revving your engine, ready to pass God's "pilot car," get your foot off the accelerator. You're about to ruin the beautiful thing God's putting together by running ahead of Him.
Making something happen sooner is definitely not worth the pain. Waiting for God to do it His way, in His time, is definitely worth the wait.