Max Lucado Daily: LIFT UP YOUR EYES
You could read David’s story in the Bible and wonder what God saw in him. He fell as often as he stood, he stumbled as often as he conquered. Yet, for those who know the sound of a Goliath, David gives us this reminder: Focus on giants — you stumble. Focus on God — your giants tumble.
You know a Goliath. You recognize his walk, his talk. David saw Goliath, yet he heard more. David showed up and raised the subject of the living God. He saw the giant, mind you, he just saw God more so. Listen carefully to David’s battle cry: “You come to me with a sword, with a spear and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel” (1 Samuel 17:45). Lift your eyes, giant-slayer! The God who made a miracle out of David stands ready to make one out of you.
Acts 21:18-40
Jerusalem
In Jerusalem, our friends, glad to see us, received us with open arms. The first thing next morning, we took Paul to see James. All the church leaders were there. After a time of greeting and small talk, Paul told the story, detail by detail, of what God had done among the non-Jewish people through his ministry. They listened with delight and gave God the glory.
20-21 They had a story to tell, too: “And just look at what’s been happening here—thousands upon thousands of God-fearing Jews have become believers in Jesus! But there’s also a problem because they are more zealous than ever in observing the laws of Moses. They’ve been told that you advise believing Jews who live surrounded by unbelieving outsiders to go light on Moses, telling them that they don’t need to circumcise their children or keep up the old traditions. This isn’t sitting at all well with them.
22-24 “We’re worried about what will happen when they discover you’re in town. There’s bound to be trouble. So here is what we want you to do: There are four men from our company who have taken a vow involving ritual purification, but have no money to pay the expenses. Join these men in their vows and pay their expenses. Then it will become obvious to everyone that there is nothing to the rumors going around about you and that you are in fact scrupulous in your reverence for the laws of Moses.
25 “In asking you to do this, we’re not going back on our agreement regarding non-Jews who have become believers. We continue to hold fast to what we wrote in that letter, namely, to be careful not to get involved in activities connected with idols; to avoid serving food offensive to Jewish Christians; to guard the morality of sex and marriage.”
26 So Paul did it—took the men, joined them in their vows, and paid their way. The next day he went to the Temple to make it official and stay there until the proper sacrifices had been offered and completed for each of them.
Paul Under Arrest
27-29 When the seven days of their purification were nearly up, some Jews from around Ephesus spotted him in the Temple. At once they turned the place upside-down. They grabbed Paul and started yelling at the top of their lungs, “Help! You Israelites, help! This is the man who is going all over the world telling lies against us and our religion and this place. He’s even brought Greeks in here and defiled this holy place.” (What had happened was that they had seen Paul and Trophimus, the Ephesian Greek, walking together in the city and had just assumed that he had also taken him to the Temple and shown him around.)
30 Soon the whole city was in an uproar, people running from everywhere to the Temple to get in on the action. They grabbed Paul, dragged him outside, and locked the Temple gates so he couldn’t get back in and gain sanctuary.
31-32 As they were trying to kill him, word came to the captain of the guard, “A riot! The whole city’s boiling over!” He acted swiftly. His soldiers and centurions ran to the scene at once. As soon as the mob saw the captain and his soldiers, they quit beating Paul.
33-36 The captain came up and put Paul under arrest. He first ordered him handcuffed, and then asked who he was and what he had done. All he got from the crowd were shouts, one yelling this, another that. It was impossible to tell one word from another in the mob hysteria, so the captain ordered Paul taken to the military barracks. But when they got to the Temple steps, the mob became so violent that the soldiers had to carry Paul. As they carried him away, the crowd followed, shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!”
37-38 When they got to the barracks and were about to go in, Paul said to the captain, “Can I say something to you?”
He answered, “Oh, I didn’t know you spoke Greek. I thought you were the Egyptian who not long ago started a riot here, and then hid out in the desert with his four thousand thugs.”
39 Paul said, “No, I’m a Jew, born in Tarsus. And I’m a citizen still of that influential city. I have a simple request: Let me speak to the crowd.”
Paul Tells His Story
40 Standing on the barracks steps, Paul turned and held his arms up. A hush fell over the crowd as Paul began to speak. He spoke in Hebrew.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, July 16, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 13:44–46
The Parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
Read full chapter
Insight
The eight parables Jesus taught in Matthew 13 are collectively known as “kingdom” parables because they mostly begin with the characteristic phrase “the kingdom of heaven is like” (vv. 24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47, 52). These parables also unveil a profound truth concerning “the secrets (Greek, mysterion) of the kingdom of heaven” (13:11). In the New Testament the word mysterion or mysteries is used to denote biblical truths which are now known to us only because God in His grace and with Jesus’ coming has been pleased to reveal them to us through the Holy Spirit (Daniel 2:18, 27–28, 47; Romans 16:25–26; Ephesians 1:9; 3:3–6; Colossians 1:25–27; 2:2).
Costly Joy
When a man found it, he . . . went and sold all he had and bought that field. Matthew 13:44
At the sound of the digital melody, all six of us sprang into action. Some slipped shoes on, others simply bolted for the door barefoot. Within seconds we were all sprinting down the driveway chasing the ice cream truck. It was the first warm day of summer, and there was no better way to celebrate than with a cold, sweet treat! There are things we do simply because of the joy it brings us, not out of discipline or obligation.
In the pair of parables found in Matthew 13:44–46, the emphasis is selling everything to gain something else. We might think the stories are about sacrifice. But that’s not the point. In fact, the first story declares it was “joy” that led the man to sell everything and buy the field. Joy drives change—not guilt or duty.
Jesus isn’t one segment of our lives; His claims on us are total. Both men in the stories “sold all” (v. 44). But here’s the best part: the result of this selling of everything is actually gain. We may not have guessed that. Isn’t life in Christ about taking up your cross? Yes. It is. But when we die, we live; when we lose our life, we find it. When we “sell all,” we gain the greatest treasure: Jesus! Joy is the reason; surrender is the response. The treasure of knowing Jesus is the reward. By: Glenn Packiam
Reflect & Pray
How have you experienced joy in your relationship with Jesus? What is He inviting you to surrender to Him?
Dear Jesus, open my eyes to see the treasure that You are! Direct my heart to You as the source of true and unfailing joy, and let me ever be fixed on You. Grant me the grace to surrender all to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, July 16, 2020
The Concept of Divine Control
…how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! —Matthew 7:11
Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct in this passage for those people who have His Spirit. He urges us to keep our minds filled with the concept of God’s control over everything, which means that a disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.
Fill your mind with the thought that God is there. And once your mind is truly filled with that thought, when you experience difficulties it will be as easy as breathing for you to remember, “My heavenly Father knows all about this!” This will be no effort at all, but will be a natural thing for you when difficulties and uncertainties arise. Before you formed this concept of divine control so powerfully in your mind, you used to go from person to person seeking help, but now you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those people who have His Spirit, and it works on the following principle: God is my Father, He loves me, and I will never think of anything that He will forget, so why should I worry?
Jesus said there are times when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but you should trust Him. At times God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the thought that the mind of God is behind all things strong and growing. Not even the smallest detail of life happens unless God’s will is behind it. Therefore, you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but is an attitude of the mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. “Ask, and it will be given to you…” (Matthew 7:7).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Bible in a Year: Psalms 16-17; Acts 20:1-16
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, July 16, 2020
Free From the Chain of a Lifetime - #8744
What could be more degrading than to be listed as property - owned by another human being - listed along with his corn and his cotton and his tools? But that's what you were if you were a slave for the first 150 years of America's history. It's no wonder many of those slaves risked their lives to try to be free. I saw a TV documentary on the people who risked their lives to help those slaves be free; the courageous men and women of that long escape route known as the Underground Railroad. Of course it wasn't a railroad and it wasn't underground, but it was a series of people and places that assisted runaway slaves to finally live liberated lives. Some of those African Americans who were rescued had just four words on their tombstones, words that powerfully told their whole life story: "Born slave, died free."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Free From the Chain of a Lifetime."
I saw those words and I said to myself, "Hey, that's me. That's my spiritual autobiography: born slave, died free." Because I've been a slave to what one NBA coach called "the disease of me" my whole life. We all have. We've all got this dark side of us that started rearing its ugly head when we were very small.
Babies are cute, but they're totally self-centered, right? I mean, as they grow, nobody teaches them to lie or demand their own way. It's like in the DNA. And I'll be honest, there are parts of me - these ways that I handle things - that I really don't like. The people I love don't like them. I'm sure God doesn't like them. We've all made choices that we're not proud of because of this dark part of us that we really don't want but we really can't change. It's like we're slaves to a darkness the Bible identifies as "sin" - a me-centered life instead of the God-centered life that I was created for.
One of the writers of the Bible can feel our pain on this one. He says, "What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do...I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. What I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing" (Romans 7:15, 18). Then he cries out like the sin-slave that we all are, "Who will rescue me?" That question is the edge of going free, because you realize you can't get yourself out of this. You need a rescuer. Then this writer finally crosses the river to freedom when he answers his own question, "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24-25)
Our word for today from the Word of God really bottom lines how we are born slave but how we can die and live free. In John 8, beginning with verse 34, Jesus says: "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." Amen to that. Then He speaks as the Liberator: "If the Son (of God) sets you free, you will be free indeed." Jesus went to the slave market of sin and He bid for you and me with His life. He said of Himself: "The Son of Man (came)...to give His life as a ransom" (Mark 10:45). It took the battering, the beating, and the butchering of God's Son on the cross to pay for my sin and yours. But His death, followed by His resurrection, broke any power, any claim that sin or Satan has ever had on you.
But you can't go free unless you drop what has chained you and you embrace Jesus, the Liberator who paid for you with His life. For many a slave, the Ohio River was the freedom line. For you, the freedom line runs by the cross of Jesus Christ. No religion can ever set you free. Only the Rescuer from heaven can do that, because only He died to make it possible, and He's reaching for you today.
You need to reach back and say, "Jesus, I'm grabbing you as my Rescuer. I'm yours beginning today." Talk to Him right where you are. And then I hope you'll go to our website. You will find there what will help you be sure that you have begun your relationship with Him. That website is ANewStory.com.
You may have been born sin's slave, you may have lived as sin's slave, but from this day on, you're going to live, and you're going to die, free!
