Max Lucado Daily: THE REDEMPTION OF MANKIND
“And bowing His head, Jesus gave up His spirit” (John 19:30). His head did not fall forward or slump – He bowed his head. Jesus was no exhausted, swooning sufferer. “No one takes it [my life] from me,” he had promised, “but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). The man on the center cross commanded center stage. He was sovereign, even in—especially in—death. The family business to which he referred as a boy was finished some twenty-one years later and half a mile to the west, on the hill of Golgotha.
Exactly what was finished? Well there is one task to which he no longer needs to tend, and that is the redemption of humankind. Jesus, God’s sinless Son, absorbed in himself our sinful state. And we, his rebellious creation, can receive the goodness of Jesus Christ. Remember, my friend, you are never alone.
1 Timothy 2
Simple Faith and Plain Truth
The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.
4-7 He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned: that there’s one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free. Eventually the news is going to get out. This and this only has been my appointed work: getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it works by simple faith and plain truth.
8-10 Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.
11-15 I don’t let women take over and tell the men what to do. They should study to be quiet and obedient along with everyone else. Adam was made first, then Eve; woman was deceived first—our pioneer in sin!—with Adam right on her heels. On the other hand, her childbearing brought about salvation, reversing Eve. But this salvation only comes to those who continue in faith, love, and holiness, gathering it all into maturity. You can depend on this.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 13, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Isaiah 55:10–13
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”
Insight
This text in Isaiah 55 is a powerful reminder of one of the most important elements of our relationship with God—the element of mystery. We sometimes make the mistake of attempting to somehow categorize or distill the God of the universe into some small, understandable package. Any god who can be so reduced, however, is not the God of the Bible—nor the God we so desperately need. This issue seems to have been behind J. B. Phillips’ writing of the powerful little book Your God Is Too Small. Our God is too great, vast, and incomprehensible to be minimalized or neatly packaged. His ways and thoughts are beyond us (vv. 8–13), which means that we in our finiteness must learn to accept the mysteries of His greatness.
When God Speaks
So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty. Isaiah 55:11
Lily, a Bible translator, was flying home to her country when she was detained at the airport. Her mobile phone was searched, and when the officials found an audio copy of the New Testament on it, they confiscated the phone and questioned her for two hours. At one point they asked her to play the Scripture app, which happened to be set at Matthew 7:1–2: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Hearing these words in his own language, one of the officers turned pale. Later, she was released and no further action was taken.
We don’t know what happened in that official’s heart at the airport, but we know that the “word that goes out from [God’s] mouth” accomplishes what He desires (Isaiah 55:11). Isaiah prophesied these words of hope to God’s people in exile, assuring them that even as the rain and snow make the earth bud and grow, so too what goes “out from [His] mouth” achieves His purposes (vv. 10–11).
We can read this passage to bolster our confidence in God. When we’re facing unyielding circumstances, such as Lily with the airport officials, may we trust that God is working—even when we don’t see the final outcome. By: Amy Boucher Pye
Reflect & Pray
When was the last time you saw God at work? How have you received God’s love through the words He's declared?
Heavenly Father, thank You for what You’ve revealed, which brings me hope, peace, and love. Help me to grow in my love for You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 13, 2020
Faith or Experience?
…the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. —Galatians 2:20
We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, “I haven’t had this experience or that experience”! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides— He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith “in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God— and righteousness and sanctification and redemption…” (1 Corinthians 1:30). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!
We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ— not a “prayer meeting” Jesus Christ, or a “book” Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.
It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth. The Place of Help, 1005 R
Bible in a Year: Lamentations 1-2; Hebrews 10:1-18
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 13, 2020
The Wave and the Warning - #8830
When disaster as massive as the December 2004 tsunami hits our planet, you know there are going to be dramatic stories coming from it for years to come; the stories of people who survived, and those who didn't. There was this Austrian man who was enjoying a day at the beach in Thailand when he saw the water suddenly being sucked out to sea, virtually emptying the shore right in front of him. He recently had seen a show on the Discovery Channel about tsunamis, and as a result, he knew what was coming next. As he ran up the beach, he yelled as loud as he could, "Run for your life!" knowing full well that in seconds the full fury of a tsunami would hit anyone who was on that beach. He said he remembers one German lady in her beach chair who said, "I think I'll just sit here and watch." He said to the reporter interviewing him, "She didn't move." Then as he hung his head, he choked and he said, "She's dead."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Wave and the Warning."
Among the tens of thousands who died that day, many died because they went unwarned. But there were those like that woman on the beach. She was warned and she refused to respond. When we reach the end of our lives, when the tsunami of death that carries so many into eternity each day comes our way, many of us will find out that we have made that same deadly mistake. We were warned about God's judgment and the only way to escape it, but we didn't make a move.
In a way, the entire Bible is a warning from God about the consequences of our rebellious running of our own lives. And it's an invitation to come to the only high ground where we can escape His judgment. And in a sense, we're all in that scene on the beach the day the tsunami hit. Either we're the one who's giving the warning - or we should be - or we're the one who needs the warning to save our life...I mean our life forever.
Both of those people are in our word for today from the Word of God in Ezekiel 3:16-18. God begins by addressing those of us who have been rescued from the penalty of our sin. He says, "I have made you a watchman...so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked man..." By the way, when the Bible talks about a wicked person, it's referring to all of us who have broken God's laws - all of us who run our own lives - and that's all of us. God says, "When I say to him, 'You will surely die, and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.'"
That is sobering stuff. If you know about the sin-rescue that Jesus made possible when He died on the cross, you can't just sit idly by and let people you know live and die without knowing that. And if you've never gotten right with God, it's time to run to the only safe place there is.
The people who survived the tsunami were the people who ran to the higher ground where the waves couldn't come. The only way you can be safe and beyond the reach of God's judgment is to go to the high ground of a place called Skull Hill where God's judgment for your sin already fell on His Son. The judgment of God cannot reach you there; but only there. No other ground is high enough.
And if you've never gone to the cross of Jesus to let go of your sin and let Jesus forgive your sin, realize this is not a religious issue. This is a matter of life or death - forever. When you realize how awful the penalty for your sin is, when you realize the unexplainable love that drove Jesus to bear it for you, you'll run to Him. And you'll thank Him that He gave you one more chance to come to Him, and that chance might be today. It might be right now. If you've never given yourself to Him, would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
Listen, you want more information about how to begin this relationship, please go to our website as soon as you can today. ANewStory.com. See, Jesus has come your way today, warning you to the high ground of His cross. Waiting? Waiting could cost you everything.
From my daily reading of the bible, Our Daily Bread Devotionals, My Utmost for His Highest and Ron Hutchcraft "A Word with You" and occasionally others.