Max Lucado Daily: REMIND GOD OF HIS PROMISES
I remember sitting in high school Algebra class staring at my textbook as if it were written in Mandarin Chinese. Fortunately I had a patient teacher. He issued the invitation and stuck to it: “If you cannot solve a problem, come to me and I will help you.” I wore a trail between his desk and mine. I would remind him, “Remember how you promised you would help?” I still had the problem, mind you, but I entrusted the problem to one who knew how to solve it.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said, “Put the Lord in remembrance of His promises, keep not silence” (Isaiah 62:6). God invites you—yes, commands you—to remind him of his promises. Find a promise that fits your problem, and build your prayer around it! These prayers of faith touch the heart of God and miracles are set in motion!
Isaiah 30
“Doom, rebel children!”
God’s Decree.
“You make plans, but not mine.
You make deals, but not in my Spirit.
You pile sin on sin,
one sin on top of another,
Going off to Egypt
without so much as asking me,
Running off to Pharaoh for protection,
expecting to hide out in Egypt.
Well, some protection Pharaoh will be!
Some hideout, Egypt!
They look big and important, true,
with officials strategically established in
Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south,
but there’s nothing to them.
Anyone stupid enough to trust them
will end up looking stupid—
All show, no substance,
an embarrassing farce.”
6-7 And this note on the animals of the Negev
encountered on the road to Egypt:
A most dangerous, treacherous route,
menaced by lions and deadly snakes.
And you’re going to lug all your stuff down there,
your donkeys and camels loaded down with bribes,
Thinking you can buy protection
from that hollow farce of a nation?
Egypt is all show, no substance.
My name for her is Toothless Dragon.
8-11 So, go now and write all this down.
Put it in a book
So that the record will be there
to instruct the coming generations,
Because this is a rebel generation,
a people who lie,
A people unwilling to listen
to anything God tells them.
They tell their spiritual leaders,
“Don’t bother us with irrelevancies.”
They tell their preachers,
“Don’t waste our time on impracticalities.
Tell us what makes us feel better.
Don’t bore us with obsolete religion.
That stuff means nothing to us.
Quit hounding us with The Holy of Israel.”
12-14 Therefore, The Holy of Israel says this:
“Because you scorn this Message,
Preferring to live by injustice
and shape your lives on lies,
This perverse way of life
will be like a towering, badly built wall
That slowly, slowly tilts and shifts,
and then one day, without warning, collapses—
Smashed to bits like a piece of pottery,
smashed beyond recognition or repair,
Useless, a pile of debris
to be swept up and thrown in the trash.”
15-17 God, the Master, The Holy of Israel,
has this solemn counsel:
“Your salvation requires you to turn back to me
and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.
Your strength will come from settling down
in complete dependence on me—
The very thing
you’ve been unwilling to do.
You’ve said, ‘Nothing doing! We’ll rush off on horseback!’
You’ll rush off, all right! Just not far enough!
You’ve said, ‘We’ll ride off on fast horses!’
Do you think your pursuers ride old nags?
Think again: A thousand of you will scatter before one attacker.
Before a mere five you’ll all run off.
There’ll be nothing left of you—
a flagpole on a hill with no flag,
a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off.”
18 But God’s not finished. He’s waiting around to be gracious to you.
He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you.
God takes the time to do everything right—everything.
Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.
19-22 Oh yes, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, your time of tears is over. Cry for help and you’ll find it’s grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he’ll answer. Just as the Master kept you alive during the hard times, he’ll keep your teacher alive and present among you. Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job, urging you on whenever you wander left or right: “This is the right road. Walk down this road.” You’ll scrap your expensive and fashionable god-images. You’ll throw them in the trash as so much garbage, saying, “Good riddance!”
23-26 God will provide rain for the seeds you sow. The grain that grows will be abundant. Your cattle will range far and wide. Oblivious to war and earthquake, the oxen and donkeys you use for hauling and plowing will be fed well near running brooks that flow freely from mountains and hills. Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land.
27-28 Look, God’s on his way,
and from a long way off!
Smoking with anger,
immense as he comes into view,
Words steaming from his mouth,
searing, indicting words!
A torrent of words, a flash flood of words
sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words.
He’ll shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction,
herd them into a dead end.
29-33 But you will sing,
sing through an all-night holy feast!
Your hearts will burst with song,
make music like the sound of flutes on parade,
En route to the mountain of God,
on the way to the Rock of Israel.
God will sound out in grandiose thunder,
display his hammering arm,
Furiously angry, showering sparks—
cloudburst, storm, hail!
Oh yes, at God’s thunder
Assyria will cower under the clubbing.
Every blow God lands on them with his club
is in time to the music of drums and pipes,
God in all-out, two-fisted battle,
fighting against them.
Topheth’s fierce fires are well prepared,
ready for the Assyrian king.
The Topheth furnace is deep and wide,
well stoked with hot-burning wood.
God’s breath, like a river of burning pitch,
starts the fire.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 8:31–36
Dispute Over Whose Children Jesus’ Opponents Are
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching,b you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”c
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendantsd and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.e 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.f 36 So if the Son sets you free,g you will be free indeed.
Insight
The debate that started in John 7:25–27 over Jesus’ identity and whether He was the Messiah intensified in chapter 8. The people asked Him, “Who are you?” (v. 25). John tells us that “many believed in him” (v. 30). Then Jesus clarified the identity of His true disciples: those who not only know Jesus, but also obey Him (v. 31). Jesus also cautioned the Jews that their privileged status as God’s chosen people and their heritage standing as descendants of Abraham had blinded them. They refused to see that they too were slaves to sin (vv. 31–36). Only when they accepted and believed the truth that Jesus is their Messiah—that He’s “the way and the truth and the life” (14:6)—would they be truly set free. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (8:36).
Free Indeed
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
The film Amistad tells the story of West African slaves in 1839 taking over the boat that was transporting them and killing the captain and some of the crew. Eventually they were recaptured, imprisoned, and taken to trial. An unforgettable courtroom scene features Cinqué, leader of the slaves, passionately pleading for freedom. Three simple words—repeated with increasing force by a shackled man with broken English—eventually silenced the courtroom, “Give us free!” Justice was served and the men were freed.
Most people today aren’t in danger of being physically bound, yet true liberation from the spiritual bondage of sin remains elusive. The words of Jesus in John 8:36 offer sweet relief: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus pointed to Himself as the source of true emancipation because He offers forgiveness to anyone who believes in Him. Though some in Christ’s audience claimed freedom (v. 33), their words, attitudes, and actions regarding Jesus betrayed their claim.
Jesus longs to hear those who would echo Cinqué’s plea and say, “Give me freedom!” With compassion He awaits the cries of those who are shackled by unbelief or fear or failure. Freedom is a matter of the heart. Such liberty is reserved for those who believe that Jesus is God’s Son who was sent into the world to break the power of sin’s hold on us through His death and resurrection. By: Arthur Jackson
Reflect & Pray
How has Jesus set you free? What can you share with others about God’s liberating power?
Jesus, help me to believe that You can set me free.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Spontaneous Love
Love suffers long and is kind… —1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is not premeditated– it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul’s description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, “Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe.” No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don’t deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.
The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it “has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5).
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don’t love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 8-9; Luke 21:1-19
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Bridges to Nowhere - #8689
A few summers ago, I went on a river trip with some young people. It was a river that had not been nearly so friendly just three months before. The spring rains had been record breakers and the resulting floods had even redirected parts of the river. Our guide took us down a whole new channel of the river that hadn't even been there three months earlier, and he pointed out this palatial home that was built near the river by a multi-millionaire. The flood had suddenly made his home very vulnerable. It was saved only by a hastily-constructed brick wall. A lot of the landscaping around that home couldn't be saved, like the bridges for example. See, since this had just been a little stream before the flood, the homeowner built some charming wooden bridges across it at several points. Now the bridges weren't really destroyed, they were just, like, relocated. As we moved downstream, we saw this charming wooden bridge sitting in the middle of an island of mud in the middle of the river. Later we saw another bridge, pretty intact, just sitting on the riverbank. Oh, they were nice bridges all right, they just didn't go anywhere.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Bridges to Nowhere."
One of the most defining, most bottom-lining statements in all of the Bible is our word for today from the Word of God. It's Acts 4:12 - the disciples of Jesus have just been talking about the name of Jesus Christ. Listen to this. "Salvation is found in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Wow! Let me tell you, in our age of pluralism and tolerance and eclectic spirituality, those are pretty loaded words about Jesus.
Salvation is in no one else. We have to be saved by His name. How can this be? Mankind seems to know instinctively that we need some kind of bridge to get to God. We feel the distance between us and the one who made us, and maybe you do. We're trying to discover what will get us to Him. So, we have the Protestant bridge to God with good works that are supposed to take us to God, and the Catholic bridge with good Catholic things to do, and the Jewish bridge, and the Muslim bridge, and the Buddhist bridge, the Hindu bridge, the bridge of New Age spirituality, etc.
Our human nature wants to believe that all those bridges end up the same place with God. But Jesus defied our preferences when He made this incredible claim. He said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In other words, even though all those religious bridges are beautiful, they're bridges to nowhere.
Why? Because of what it is that stands between us and the God that we're desperately trying to get to. In simple words, it's a death penalty. The Bible says, "The wages of our sin is death." All of us have missed the way we were created to live with God running things. We've hijacked our lives from our Creator, we've run our lives our own way, and the penalty is death. You can't pay a death penalty by any amount of doing good. There's only one way. Somebody has to die, and someone did. But not the one who deserved to die for my sin. I should have, but the Bible says, "Christ died for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God." Out of His amazing love, Jesus, God's Son, did all the dying for all the sinning we've ever done. And while there are many religions, there's only one Savior, and only He can take me across that gap between me and my Creator.
So, everything depends on what you do with Jesus. Maybe you've been on a spiritual bridge trying to find a relationship with God but it's been a bridge to nowhere. But right now, God, who loves you so very much, is pointing you to the bridge He built to bring you to Him. It's the cross where His one and only Son paid for you. The bridge God has provided cost Him what mattered most to Him. It cost Him His Son.
That Jesus came out of his grave. He was resurrected, and today he's ready to walk into your life. He is your bridge to God and to heaven. Tell him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." I hope you can get to our website. We've tried there to tell you the way across that bridge and know you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com.
Don't depend on any other bridge, because every other bridge is a bridge to nowhere.
