Max Lucado Daily: Get Over Yourself
Proverbs 16:5 says, "The Lord despises pride." So, get over yourself!
An elementary boy came home from tryouts for the school play. "Mommy, mommy" he announced, "I got a part. I've been chosen to sit in the audience and clap and cheer." When you have a chance to clap and cheer, do you take it? If you do, your head is starting to fit your hat size.
Demanding respect is like chasing a butterfly. Chase it, and you'll never catch it. Sit still, and it may light on your shoulder. The Bible says in Proverbs 27:2, "Don't praise yourself. Let someone else do it." Does your self-esteem need attention? You need only pause at the base of the cross and be reminded of this: The maker of the stars would rather die for you than live without you. And that's a fact!
From Traveling Light
Isaiah 47
“Get off your high horse and sit in the dirt,
virgin daughter of Babylon.
No more throne for you—sit on the ground,
daughter of the Chaldeans.
Nobody will be calling you ‘charming’
and ‘alluring’ anymore. Get used to it.
Get a job, any old job:
Clean gutters, scrub toilets.
Hock your gowns and scarves,
put on overalls—the party’s over.
Your nude body will be on public display,
exposed to vulgar taunts.
It’s vengeance time, and I’m taking vengeance.
No one gets let off the hook.”
4-13 Our Redeemer speaks,
named God-of-the-Angel-Armies, The Holy of Israel:
“Shut up and get out of the way,
daughter of Chaldeans.
You’ll no longer be called
‘First Lady of the Kingdoms.’
I was fed up with my people,
thoroughly disgusted with my progeny.
I turned them over to you,
but you had no compassion.
You put old men and women
to cruel, hard labor.
You said, ‘I’m the First Lady.
I’ll always be the pampered darling.’
You took nothing seriously, took nothing to heart,
never gave tomorrow a thought.
Well, start thinking, playgirl.
You’re acting like the center of the universe,
Smugly saying to yourself, ‘I’m Number One. There’s nobody but me.
I’ll never be a widow, I’ll never lose my children.’
Those two things are going to hit you both at once,
suddenly, on the same day:
Spouse and children gone, a total loss,
despite your many enchantments and charms.
You were so confident and comfortable in your evil life,
saying, ‘No one sees me.’
You thought you knew so much, had everything figured out.
What delusion!
Smugly telling yourself, ‘I’m Number One. There’s nobody but me.’
Ruin descends—
you can’t charm it away.
Disaster strikes—
you can’t cast it off with spells.
Catastrophe, sudden and total—
and you’re totally at sea, totally bewildered!
But don’t give up. From your great repertoire
of enchantments there must be one you haven’t yet tried.
You’ve been at this a long time.
Surely something will work.
I know you’re exhausted trying out remedies,
but don’t give up.
Call in the astrologers and stargazers.
They’re good at this. Surely they can work up something!
14-15 “Fat chance. You’d be grasping at straws
that are already in the fire,
A fire that is even now raging.
Your ‘experts’ are in it and won’t get out.
It’s not a fire for cooking venison stew,
not a fire to warm you on a winter night!
That’s the fate of your friends in sorcery, your magician buddies
you’ve been in cahoots with all your life.
They reel, confused, bumping into one another.
None of them bother to help you.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 25, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 15:9–17
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
Insight
John’s gospel has a discernible outline. Between the prologue (1:1–18) and the epilogue (ch. 21), John focuses on Jesus’ ministry in word and deed to the masses (1:19–12:50). In the five chapters known as the Upper Room Discourse (chs. 13–17), Jesus specifically addresses His disciples. These chapters comprise roughly 20 percent of the book and cover a very short amount of time. In this section, we discover core truths for believers in Jesus: lessons regarding servanthood and humility (ch. 13); Jesus as the way to the Father (14:6); the promise, ministry, and work of the Holy Spirit (14:15–31; 16:4–15); the command to love (13:31–35); and the need to abide in the Father’s love (15:9–17). In chapters 18–20 John focuses on Jesus’ death and resurrection.
For a visual overview to the book of John, visit bit.ly/2MqOeOR.
Remembering
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13
On Memorial Day, I think of many military veterans but especially my dad and uncles, who served in the military during World War II. They made it home, but in that war hundreds of thousands of families tragically lost loved ones in service to their country. Yet, when asked, my dad and most soldiers from that era would say they were willing to give up their lives to protect their loved ones and stand for what they believed to be right.
When someone dies in defense of their country, John 15:13—“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”—is often recited during the funeral service to honor their sacrifice. But what were the circumstances behind this verse?
When Jesus spoke those words to His disciples during the Last Supper, He was about to die. And, in fact, one of His small group of disciples, Judas, had already left to betray Him (13:18–30). Yet Christ knew all of this and still chose to sacrifice His life for His friends and enemies.
Jesus was willing and ready to die for those who’d one day believe in Him, even for those who were still His enemies (Romans 5:10). In return, He asks His disciples (then and now) to “love each other” as He has loved them (John 15:12). His great love compels us to sacrificially love others—friend and foe alike. By: Alyson Kieda
Reflect & Pray
Before we believed in Jesus, we were His enemies. Yet Jesus died for us. How can you honor and remember Jesus for His death on the cross for you? How can you sacrificially love others?
Jesus, we’re so thankful that You were willing to die for us!
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 25, 2020
The Good or The Best?
If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or, if you go to the right, then I will go to the left. —Genesis 13:9
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.
Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, “…walk before Me…” (Genesis 17:1).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 25-27; John 9:1-23
