Max Lucado Daily: NO MORE BETHESDA
When Jesus found the just-healed man in the temple, he told him, “See, you have been made well. Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14). Stagnant, do-nothingness is deemed as a serious offense. No more Bethesda for you. No more waking up and going to sleep in the same mess. God is the God of forward motion, the God of tomorrow.
The man in John’s story had waited thirty-eight years, but something about the presence of Christ, the question of Christ, and the command of Christ convinced him not to wait another day. Let’s join him. Ask the Lord this question: What can I do today that will take me in the direction of a better tomorrow? Keep asking until you hear an answer. And once you hear it, do it. Stand up, take up, and walk. Remember, friends, You are never alone
Hebrews 11:1-19
Faith in What We Don’t See
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
3 By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.
4 By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
5-6 By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. “They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him.” We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken “he pleased God.” It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
7 By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.
8-10 By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations—the City designed and built by God.
11-12 By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
13-16 Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.
17-19 By faith, Abraham, at the time of testing, offered Isaac back to God. Acting in faith, he was as ready to return the promised son, his only son, as he had been to receive him—and this after he had already been told, “Your descendants shall come from Isaac.” Abraham figured that if God wanted to, he could raise the dead. In a sense, that’s what happened when he received Isaac back, alive from off the altar.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Isaiah 41:1–10
The Helper of Israel
“Be silent before me, you islands!
Let the nations renew their strength!
Let them come forward and speak;
let us meet together at the place of judgment.
2 “Who has stirred up one from the east,
calling him in righteousness to his service[a]?
He hands nations over to him
and subdues kings before him.
He turns them to dust with his sword,
to windblown chaff with his bow.
3 He pursues them and moves on unscathed,
by a path his feet have not traveled before.
4 Who has done this and carried it through,
calling forth the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord—with the first of them
and with the last—I am he.”
5 The islands have seen it and fear;
the ends of the earth tremble.
They approach and come forward;
6 they help each other
and say to their companions, “Be strong!”
7 The metalworker encourages the goldsmith,
and the one who smooths with the hammer
spurs on the one who strikes the anvil.
One says of the welding, “It is good.”
The other nails down the idol so it will not topple.
8 “But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
you descendants of Abraham my friend,
9 I took you from the ends of the earth,
from its farthest corners I called you.
I said, ‘You are my servant’;
I have chosen you and have not rejected you.
10 So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Footnotes
Isaiah 41:2 Or east, / whom victory meets at every step
Insight
Fear is one of the most common emotions portrayed in the Bible. The word fear found in Isaiah 41 is the translation of the Hebrew word yare. This word has a variety of meanings including “to be afraid; to stand in awe of; reverence, or honor.”
In verse 5, the “islands” and “the ends of the earth” fear the terrifying power of God. But in verse 10, God tells Israel not to fear because of what He’s done. Israel doesn’t need to react in the same way as the rest of the earth because God has chosen Israel and assures them of His love.
God Holds Us
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Isaiah 41:10
South African Fredie Blom turned 114 in 2018, widely recognized as the oldest living man. Born in 1904, the year the Wright Brothers built their Flyer II, he’s lived through both World Wars, apartheid, and the Great Depression. When asked for the secret for his longevity, Blom only shrugs. Like many of us, he hasn’t always chosen the foods and practices that promote wellness. However, Blom does offer one reason for his remarkable health: “There’s only one thing, it’s [God]. He’s got all the power . . . . He holds me.”
Blom echoes words similar to what God spoke to Israel, as the nation wilted under the oppression of fierce enemies. “I will strengthen you and help you,” God promised. “I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10). No matter how desperate their situation, how impossible the odds that they would ever find relief, God assured His people that they were held in His tender care. “Do not fear, for I am with you,” He insisted. “Do not be dismayed, for I am your God” (v. 10).
No matter how many years we’re given, life’s hardships will come knocking at our door. A troubled marriage. A child abandoning the family. Terrifying news from the doctor. Even persecution. However, our God reaches out to us and holds us firmly. He gathers us and holds us in His strong, tender hand. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
When have you felt isolated or exposed? How does it encourage you to know that your life is being held in God’s strong hand?
God, assure me that You’re holding me because I feel like I’m only hanging on by a thread. I trust that You’ll help and uphold me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
Individual Discouragement and Personal Growth
…when Moses was grown…he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. —Exodus 2:11
Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After he launched his first strike for God and for what was right, God allowed Moses to be driven into empty discouragement, sending him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared to Moses and said to him, “ ‘…bring My people…out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go…?’ ” (Exodus 3:10-11). In the beginning Moses had realized that he was the one to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in his individual perspective, but he was not the person for the work until he had learned true fellowship and oneness with God.
We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and yet when we start to do it, there comes to us something equivalent to Moses’ forty years in the wilderness. It’s as if God had ignored the entire thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged, God comes back and revives His call to us. And then we begin to tremble and say, “Who am I that I should go…?” We must learn that God’s great stride is summed up in these words— “I AM WHO I AM…has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). We must also learn that our individual effort for God shows nothing but disrespect for Him— our individuality is to be rendered radiant through a personal relationship with God, so that He may be “well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). We are focused on the right individual perspective of things; we have the vision and can say, “I know this is what God wants me to do.” But we have not yet learned to get into God’s stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible. Biblical Psychology, 199 R
Bible in a Year: Isaiah 41-42; 1 Thessalonians 1
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
A Makeover for the Woman You Love - #8807
I just think all the emphasis on body image is so sick. But there's plenty of it. It's no wonder so many American women are unhappy with their looks. They're comparing themselves to these magazine pictures of these flawless models. Of course, that woman doesn't really exist. She's the creation of hair stylists, makeup artists, wardrobe specialists, special lighting and hundreds of continuous-frame photos, from which one good one is selected and then airbrushed to remove all the imperfections. Nobody looks good compared to that mythical icon - including the real girl in the picture! But with our obsession with a certain kind of beauty, the word "makeover" has become more and more popular. In the past, there have been TV shows where they were totally devoted to transforming a woman thought of as "average" into someone much more stylish. Then they'll take them backstage, and the hair, makeup, and wardrobe magicians work on them. And then with the split screen showing her "before," out steps this glamorous "new woman" with her makeover!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Makeover for the Woman You Love."
There are husbands who, according to the Bible, have been doing makeovers for a long time, because they have, by the way they have loved sacrificially, helped a woman become more beautiful from the inside out. Let me say this before we get started, we guys have more work to do than I think the girls do. We'll do other programs where we talk about how desperately a man needs what only a woman can do to help him become what he needs to become. Boy, I can say that was true of my wife.
But we're not talking about changing makeup and hairstyle and clothing. That's the easy kind of makeover; it's totally superficial. But the Bible makes it clear that a husband can contribute to an internal makeover in the woman he loves; a makeover that actually God wants to do in his life, but maybe use this guy to help it happen. The true beautifying of a woman doesn't come through makeup or wardrobe. It comes through the love of God, and it can be expressed through the self-sacrificing love of a husband.
That's the makeover miracle God describes in our word for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 5, beginning with verse 25. He says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." Instinctively, a guy wants to be the center of everything. But with Christ in his life, it's supposed to be different. He has the potential to be something so much better - to love like Jesus loved. Jesus set aside all self-interest, all self-protection, and all self-seeking for us. He forgot about Himself, thought only of us, and sacrificed everything in the love that took Him to the cross. Guys, that's what God expects of us.
The high calling of a husband is to let the woman he loves taste that kind of love through his love as, several times a day, he sets aside what he needs for what she needs, what matters to him for what matters to her. Love, Jesus-style, is not a four-letter word. It's a nine-letter word: sacrifice.
Listen to the result of Christ loving us that way and ultimately of a man loving a woman that way. "Christ gave himself up for her, to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the Word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies."
The selfless love of a husband can, over time, help a woman feel safe enough to work on her weaknesses, to pour out her soul, and in so doing, to cleanse her soul. God's love through a loving husband can set her free from fears and scars of the past that she's carried for so long. His praise can restore a sense of worth that was stolen from her. His listening can offload what weighs her down.
His attentiveness can free her to trust him with her needs and to respond to him without reservation. It's a beautiful thing. You can tell a woman who's being loved selflessly like this. She glows. She's radiant. She's being loved as God intended, and by just being what God intended for him to be, a husband has contributed to her glowing beauty. And it starts with the man.
Our wife, in so many ways, is a mirror of the way we love her and we don't love her. God has always planned marriage to be a powerful makeover tool for both. Not because you're trying to change the person you love, but because you love them so much that something beautiful just happens.