Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS IN THIS CRISIS
Do you recite your woes more naturally than you do heaven’s strength? No wonder life’s tough. You’re assuming God isn’t in this crisis.
Isabel spent her first three and a half years in a Nicaraguan orphanage. As with all orphans, her odds of adoption diminished with time. And then the door slammed on her finger! Why would God permit this innocent girl to feel even more pain? Might He be calling the attention of Ryan Schnoke sitting in the playroom nearby? He and his wife had been trying to adopt a child for months. Ryan walked over, picked her up, and comforted her. Several months later, Ryan and Christina were close to giving up, and Ryan remembered Isabel. Little Isabel is growing up now in a happy, healthy home.
A finger in the door? God doesn’t manufacture pain, but He certainly puts it to use. Your crisis? You’ll get through this!
Isaiah 65
The People Who Bothered to Reach Out to God
“I’ve made myself available
to those who haven’t bothered to ask.
I’m here, ready to be found
by those who haven’t bothered to look.
I kept saying ‘I’m here, I’m right here’
to a nation that ignored me.
I reached out day after day
to a people who turned their backs on me,
People who make wrong turns,
who insist on doing things their own way.
They get on my nerves,
are rude to my face day after day,
Make up their own kitchen religion,
a potluck religious stew.
They spend the night in tombs
to get messages from the dead,
Eat forbidden foods
and drink a witch’s brew of potions and charms.
They say, ‘Keep your distance.
Don’t touch me. I’m holier than thou.’
These people gag me.
I can’t stand their stench.
Look at this! Their sins are all written out—
I have the list before me.
I’m not putting up with this any longer.
I’ll pay them the wages
They have coming for their sins.
And for the sins of their parents lumped in,
a bonus.” God says so.
“Because they’ve practiced their blasphemous worship,
mocking me at their hillside shrines,
I’ll let loose the consequences
and pay them in full for their actions.”
8-10 God’s Message:
“But just as one bad apple doesn’t ruin the whole bushel,
there are still plenty of good apples left.
So I’ll preserve those in Israel who obey me.
I won’t destroy the whole nation.
I’ll bring out my true children from Jacob
and the heirs of my mountains from Judah.
My chosen will inherit the land,
my servants will move in.
The lush valley of Sharon in the west
will be a pasture for flocks,
And in the east, the valley of Achor,
a place for herds to graze.
These will be for the people
who bothered to reach out to me, who wanted me in their lives,
who actually bothered to look for me.
11-12 “But you who abandon me, your God,
who forget the holy mountains,
Who hold dinners for Lady Luck
and throw cocktail parties for Sir Fate,
Well, you asked for it. Fate it will be:
your destiny, Death.
For when I invited you, you ignored me;
when I spoke to you, you brushed me off.
You did the very things I exposed as evil;
you chose what I hate.”
13-16 Therefore, this is the Message from the Master, God:
“My servants will eat,
and you’ll go hungry;
My servants will drink,
and you’ll go thirsty;
My servants will rejoice,
and you’ll hang your heads.
My servants will laugh from full hearts,
and you’ll cry out heartbroken,
yes, wail from crushed spirits.
Your legacy to my chosen
will be your name reduced to a cussword.
I, God, will put you to death
and give a new name to my servants.
Then whoever prays a blessing in the land
will use my faithful name for the blessing,
And whoever takes an oath in the land
will use my faithful name for the oath,
Because the earlier troubles are gone and forgotten,
banished far from my sight.
New Heavens and a New Earth
17-25 “Pay close attention now:
I’m creating new heavens and a new earth.
All the earlier troubles, chaos, and pain
are things of the past, to be forgotten.
Look ahead with joy.
Anticipate what I’m creating:
I’ll create Jerusalem as sheer joy,
create my people as pure delight.
I’ll take joy in Jerusalem,
take delight in my people:
No more sounds of weeping in the city,
no cries of anguish;
No more babies dying in the cradle,
or old people who don’t enjoy a full lifetime;
One-hundredth birthdays will be considered normal—
anything less will seem like a cheat.
They’ll build houses
and move in.
They’ll plant fields
and eat what they grow.
No more building a house
that some outsider takes over,
No more planting fields
that some enemy confiscates,
For my people will be as long-lived as trees,
my chosen ones will have satisfaction in their work.
They won’t work and have nothing come of it,
they won’t have children snatched out from under them.
For they themselves are plantings blessed by God,
with their children and grandchildren likewise God-blessed.
Before they call out, I’ll answer.
Before they’ve finished speaking, I’ll have heard.
Wolf and lamb will graze the same meadow,
lion and ox eat straw from the same trough,
but snakes—they’ll get a diet of dirt!
Neither animal nor human will hurt or kill
anywhere on my Holy Mountain,” says God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 19, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 10:7–11
Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. 9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.[a] They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Footnotes:
John 10:9 Or kept safe
Insight
At the time of Jesus, shepherds used two kinds of enclosures for their sheep. In the villages, shepherds often kept their sheep in communal stone-walled and gated sheep pens guarded by gatekeepers. Out in the fields, sheepfolds were often makeshift enclosures made of stones, and the shepherd would guard his sheep by sleeping across a narrow opening in front. In John 10, Jesus uses the picture of a shepherd and his sheep to assure us of His personal protection. He says He’s “the gate for the sheep” (vv. 7, 9) who “lays down his life for the sheep” (vv. 11, 15). A communal sheepfold would have included many flocks. But as the shepherd called among the mixed flocks, only his own sheep would respond to him. Recognizing the shepherd’s voice, his sheep would draw near to him and follow him out of the sheepfold to the pasture (vv. 3–5).
Life to the Full
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. John 10:10–11
Seventeenth-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously wrote that human life in its natural state is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes argued that our instincts tend toward war in a bid to attain dominance over others; thus the establishment of government would be necessary to maintain law and order.
The bleak view of humanity sounds like the state of affairs that Jesus described when He said, “All who have come before me are thieves and robbers” (John 10:8). But Jesus offers hope in the midst of despair. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” but then the good news: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (v. 10).
Psalm 23 paints a refreshing portrait of the life our Shepherd gives us. In Him, we “lack nothing” (v. 1) and are refreshed (v. 3). He leads us down the right paths of His perfect will, so that even when we face dark times, we need not be afraid; for He is present to comfort us (vv. 3–4). He causes us to triumph in the face of adversity and overwhelms us with blessings (v. 5). His goodness and love follow us every day, and we have the privilege of His presence forever (v. 6).
May we answer the Shepherd’s call and experience the full, abundant life He came to give us. By: Remi Oyedele
Reflect & Pray
How would you describe the life that Jesus came to give? How can you share this life with others?
Jesus, You’re the source of true life, abundant and full. Help me seek my fulfillment only in You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 19, 2020
The Service of Passionate Devotion
…do you love Me?…Tend My sheep. —John 21:16
Jesus did not say to make converts to your way of thinking, but He said to look after His sheep, to see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Him. We consider what we do in the way of Christian work as service, yet Jesus Christ calls service to be what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine. “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate…, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). In this verse, there is no argument and no pressure from Jesus to follow Him; He is simply saying, in effect, “If you want to be My disciple, you must be devoted solely to Me.” A person touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says, “Now I see who Jesus is!”— that is the source of devotion.
Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other way. Our Lord’s primary obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of people— the saving of people was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted solely to the cause of humanity, I will soon be exhausted and come to the point where my love will waver and stumble. But if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity, even though people may treat me like a “doormat.” The secret of a disciple’s life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness. Yet it is like a grain of wheat that “falls into the ground and dies”— it will spring up and change the entire landscape (John 12:24).
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: Nehemiah 12-13; Acts 4:23-37
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 19, 2020
Finding Your Father - #8725
Our friend - we'll call her Diane - shocked her family years ago when she announced at the age of 17 that she was pregnant. Even with some folks urging her to have an abortion, she made the choice to have that child - a son. When her son was seven, Diane met a guy we'll call Gary, and she knew they were falling in love. So, with some fear and trembling, she told him about her son. Gary said, "Let's go meet him." And Diane's boy took to Gary immediately. Diane and Gary got married, and the boy grew up with a wonderful relationship with Gary. But something happened when he turned 17 - this unexplainable rebellion that ultimately made him decide to go live with his biological father. A few months later, he returned to the home he'd grown up in. He'd made a powerful discovery in those intervening months. He said to Gary, "You're the one I walk like, you're the one I talk like, and I do things the way you taught me. You are my father!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Finding Your Father."
In that emotional, unforgettable moment, a young man decided who his father really was, and who would be the anchor for his identity as a son. It might be someone listening today needs to make a choice like that about the One the Bible calls the "father to the fatherless" (Psalm 68:5). There's a reason that God chose, out of all the names He could have asked us to call Him, He chose the name "Heavenly Father."
In my lifetime, I've known many people who have come from a really rugged background, sometimes a fatherless background, either because they never knew their father or they had one that never acted like one. I've known people who have come from a background where they never really felt like they belonged and they still feel that way. Maybe one of those is you.
I have to tell you that so many people who have lived emotionally unanchored and painful lives have found something amazing when they found Jesus Christ: they found the Father that their heart had yearned for so long. There's so much hope for hurting people in our word for today from the Word of God in Psalm 10:14. It says, "But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; You consider to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless."
But like that young man who made the choice that Gary was his father, you have to come to the place where you make that deliberate choice about the God who made you; about Jesus Christ, who loved you enough to come all the way from His throne in heaven to an old rugged cross to die to get you back. Nobody can love you like He does. But you have to decide that you'll no longer define yourself as "the victim," that you will no longer define yourself by some other relationship that can never be what you really need. And maybe you will, from this day forward say, "I know who I am. I belong to Jesus Christ. I am totally His, for now and forever!"
That's coming home to the identity you were made for. You've been away, trying to get other people and other things to do for you what only Jesus can do. Let this be the day that you come home to Him and say, "Jesus, you died for me. I'm Yours." Look, this would be the best possible day. Don't wait another day to begin that anchor relationship with Jesus Christ.
A good place to start is simply to stop where you are as soon as you can and say, "Jesus, I've run my own life. I'm done doing that. You were meant to run it. I turn from that, and I believe that You love me so much You died the death penalty for every wrong thing I have ever done, and you walked out of your grave. I want you to walk into my life. I'm Yours from this day on."
You know, from that moment, you have a relationship and a love you will never ever lose. I think you'll find some things that will help you get started in this relationship if you go visit our website as soon as you can today. That site is ANewStory.com.
Let Him be the one you follow, and live with that sense of security that belongs only to those who belong to Jesus Christ.
