Max Lucado Daily: AN OPPORTUNITY TO BEGIN AGAIN
God knows the way forward. No matter what kind of disappointment or grief or trouble or heartache you’ve encountered, God offers an opportunity to begin again. In his plan prodigals get a new robe, the weary find new strength, and the lonely find a friend.
Your current circumstances will not get the final say in your life. To all the Noahs of the world, to all who search the horizon for a glimpse of hope, God proclaims, “Yes!” And he comes—he comes as a dove, he comes bearing fruit from a distant land, from our future home. He comes with a leaf of promise that he can make all things new. By God’s grace you can find your way to dry land, you can watch the waters subside, you can step out on fresh soil. With God as your guide, you, yes you, can begin again.
2 Peter 2
Lying Religious Leaders
But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They’ll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other—biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They’ve put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can’t tell right from wrong.
2-3 They give the way of truth a bad name. They’re only out for themselves. They’ll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won’t, of course, get by with it. They’ll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on.
4-5 God didn’t let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day. Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people—Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.
6-8 God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left—grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life. But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued. Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.
9 So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.
Predators on the Prowl
10-11 God is especially incensed against these “teachers” who live by lust, addicted to a filthy existence. They despise interference from true authority, preferring to indulge in self-rule. Insolent egotists, they don’t hesitate to speak evil against the most splendid of creatures. Even angels, their superiors in every way, wouldn’t think of throwing their weight around like that, trying to slander others before God.
12-14 These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end. Their evil will boomerang on them. They’re so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight. They’re obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they’re experts at it. Dead souls!
15-16 They’ve left the main road and are directionless, having taken the way of Balaam, son of Beor, the prophet who turned profiteer, a connoisseur of evil. But Balaam was stopped in his wayward tracks: A dumb animal spoke in a human voice and prevented the prophet’s craziness.
17-19 There’s nothing to these people—they’re dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell. They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they’re dangerous. Men and women who have recently escaped from a deviant life are most susceptible to their brand of seduction. They promise these newcomers freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for if they’re addicted to corruption—and they are—they’re enslaved.
20-22 If they’ve escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they’re worse than if they had never left. Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command. They prove the point of the proverbs, “A dog goes back to its own vomit” and “A scrubbed-up pig heads for the mud.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, January 05, 2021
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Jeremiah 15:15–18
Lord, you understand;
remember me and care for me.
Avenge me on my persecutors.
You are long-suffering—do not take me away;
think of how I suffer reproach for your sake.
16 When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name,
Lord God Almighty.
17 I never sat in the company of revelers,
never made merry with them;
I sat alone because your hand was on me
and you had filled me with indignation.
18 Why is my pain unending
and my wound grievous and incurable?
You are to me like a deceptive brook,
like a spring that fails.
Insight
In Jeremiah 15:15–18, several metaphors vividly capture Jeremiah’s experience of his calling as a prophet. In verse 16, he uses the metaphor of eating to capture the idea of fully embracing and internalizing God’s words. Some scholars suggest that to “bear [God’s] name” in this context may allude to the shared name that results from marriage. In addition, the words joy and delight elsewhere in Jeremiah are always connected with wedding festivities (7:34; 16:9; 25:10; 33:11).
In Jeremiah 15:18, the prophet uses the metaphor of streambeds or wadis to capture his bewilderment at the stark contrast between his initial intimacy with God and his current anguish. Such streambeds in the summertime were often dried up and therefore unreliable sources of water. In this way, Jeremiah vividly captures a feeling of deep betrayal at experiencing God in this way, rather than as the everlasting “spring of living water” He’d described Himself as (2:13).
To learn more about how the geography of the Holy Land enhances our understanding of the Bible, visit ChristianUniversity.org/NT110.
A Ripening Process
When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight. Jeremiah 15:16
Early in his fifty-year ministry in Cambridge, England, Charles Simeon (1759–1836) met a neighboring pastor, Henry Venn, and his daughters. After the visit, the daughters remarked how harsh and self-assertive the young man seemed. In response, Venn asked his daughters to pick a peach from the trees. When they wondered why their father would want the unripe fruit, he responded, “Well, my dears, it is green now, and we must wait; but a little more sun, and a few more showers, and the peach will be ripe and sweet. So it is with Mr. Simeon.”
Over the years Simeon did soften through God’s transforming grace. One reason was his commitment to read the Bible and pray every day. A friend who stayed with him for a few months witnessed this practice and remarked, “Here was the secret of his great grace and spiritual strength.”
Simeon in his daily time with God followed the practice of the prophet Jeremiah, who faithfully listened for God’s words. Jeremiah depended on them so much that he said, “When your words came, I ate them.” He mulled and chewed over God’s words, which were his “joy” and “heart’s delight” (Jeremiah 15:16).
If we too resemble a sour green fruit, we can trust that God will help to soften us through His Spirit as we get to know Him through reading and obeying the Scriptures. By: Amy Boucher Pye
Reflect & Pray
How has reading the Bible changed you? Why might you sometimes not read it?
God, the Scriptures feed me and protect me from sin. Help me to read them every day.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, January 05, 2021
The Life of Power to Follow
Jesus answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward." —John 13:36
“And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ‘Follow Me’ ” (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, “Follow Me” (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. The first “Follow Me” was nothing mysterious; it was an external following. Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18).
Between these two times Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75). But then he came completely to the end of himself and all of his self-sufficiency. There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. In his state of destitution, he was finally ready to receive all that the risen Lord had for him. “…He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ ” (John 20:22). No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.
All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally but completely, we are able to “receive the Holy Spirit.” “Receive the Holy Spirit” — the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.
Not Knowing Whither
Bible in a Year: Genesis 13-15; Matthew 5:1-26
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, January 05, 2021
Two Broken Men, One Big Difference - #8867
Whenever we passed a park, I shifted into nagging mode to get my dad to stop, because I loved the swings. Didn't do that spinning carousel thing - never did enjoy throwing up. Then, the seesaw - now that was fun, too.
Of course, when it was little Ronnie and big Daddy, it didn't work too well. Somehow I kept ending up with my end of the seesaw suspended in the air as my dad thought it was fun to just sit there with his end on the ground for a while. Now here's what was really not fun - having no one on the other end. You just sit there with your end of that thing on the ground - and nothing on the other side to lift you up. That's what happened to my dad the night of the greatest loss of his life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Two Broken Men, One Big Difference."
Whenever you lose someone or something important to you, it triggers one of the most intense, potentially most destructive emotions there is. Grief. I was overwhelmed with it on the day in May when that became the worst day of my life. That's the day my Karen, the love of my life since I was 19, was suddenly gone. How could I have known the night before when I told her I loved her as I left for a trip, that I'd never be able to tell her that again?
For my dad, it was that night when I was four, when he and my mom left our little apartment in a panic to get my baby brother to the hospital. I never saw him again. The doctors couldn't do anything for little Steven. Six months old - he was gone.
I saw my dad totally crushed and devastated. Unable to recover. Crying all the time. Today I'd say he was inconsolable.
In my dad's unspeakable loss - and years later in mine - we were both broken men. Both with many tears. But as I compare my grief to what I saw in my dad, there is one massive difference. Hope. Because in my darkest hour, I had my relationship with Jesus. My dad had nowhere to turn.
He was "on the ground" with nothing on the other side to lift him up. But, praise God, the day I lost the love of my life, Jesus was there with His unloseable love enveloping my wounded heart.
That's the difference in knowing Jesus, spelled out in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, our word for today from the Word of God. Where Paul says to some grieving people who belong to Jesus: "You do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope." He goes on to say "for we believe that Jesus died and rose again."
Eventually, in his grief, my dad started dropping me off to go to Sunday School at a nearby church. That's where I learned how much Jesus loved me. So much that He died on an awful cross to pay for every bad thing that I've ever done or that you've ever done. And then three days later He crushed death as He walked out of His grave! One Sunday I came running out to the car and I gushed, "Daddy, today I asked Jesus into my heart." I know he didn't understand. But a few months later he did - and he came with all his sin and his brokenness to the only One who could forgive and heal - Jesus.
Here's the difference between someone who's listening right now who has begun a relationship with Jesus and someone who hasn't. With Jesus, yes, you grieve. But there's something on the other side of the scale - hope. Jesus. With His love, with His heaven, without Jesus, it's just the agony of grief with nothing on the other side to lift you up. Hurt with hope or hurt without hope.
If you're doing life; if you're doing heartbreak and death without Jesus in your heart, I pray today will be the day you reach out to Him and say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." I'd love to help you get that settled, if you'll just go and check out the life-giving information on our website. That's ANewStory.com.
So much loss. So much hurt. But, oh, there's hope. And hope has a name. His name is Jesus.
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.