Max Lucado Daily: YOUR OPPOSITE YOU - June 8, 2021
Matthew was an apostle, a gospel writer. But before he was Matthew, he was Levi: a Jew who worked for the Roman IRS. As long as Rome got its part, the tax collectors could take as much as they wanted. They got rich by making people poor.
One of the most difficult relationship questions is “What do we do with a Levi?” Your Levi is the person with whom you fundamentally disagree. You follow different value systems. Your Levi is your “opposite you.” What if your “opposite you” is your boss? Your parent or child?
How does God want us to respond to the Levis of the world? I wonder if the best answer might be found in: “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God” (Romans 15:7). This is how happiness happens.
Job 12
Job Answers Zophar
Put Your Ear to the Earth
Job answered:
“I’m sure you speak for all the experts,
and when you die there’ll be no one left to tell us how to live.
But don’t forget that I also have a brain—
I don’t intend to play second fiddle to you.
It doesn’t take an expert to know these things.
4-6 “I’m ridiculed by my friends:
‘So that’s the man who had conversations with God!’
Ridiculed without mercy:
‘Look at the man who never did wrong!’
It’s easy for the well-to-do to point their fingers in blame,
for the well-fixed to pour scorn on the strugglers.
Crooks reside safely in high-security houses,
insolent blasphemers live in luxury;
they’ve bought and paid for a god who’ll protect them.
7-12 “But ask the animals what they think—let them teach you;
let the birds tell you what’s going on.
Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics.
Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.
Isn’t it clear that they all know and agree
that God is sovereign, that he holds all things in his hand—
Every living soul, yes,
every breathing creature?
Isn’t this all just common sense,
as common as the sense of taste?
Do you think the elderly have a corner on wisdom,
that you have to grow old before you understand life?
From God We Learn How to Live
13-25 “True wisdom and real power belong to God;
from him we learn how to live,
and also what to live for.
If he tears something down, it’s down for good;
if he locks people up, they’re locked up for good.
If he holds back the rain, there’s a drought;
if he lets it loose, there’s a flood.
Strength and success belong to God;
both deceived and deceiver must answer to him.
He strips experts of their vaunted credentials,
exposes judges as witless fools.
He divests kings of their royal garments,
then ties a rag around their waists.
He strips priests of their robes,
and fires high officials from their jobs.
He forces trusted sages to keep silence,
deprives elders of their good sense and wisdom.
He dumps contempt on famous people,
disarms the strong and mighty.
He shines a spotlight into caves of darkness,
hauls deepest darkness into the noonday sun.
He makes nations rise and then fall,
builds up some and abandons others.
He robs world leaders of their reason,
and sends them off into no-man’s-land.
They grope in the dark without a clue,
lurching and staggering like drunks.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 08, 2021
Read: Exodus 3:7–10
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
NSIGHT
The book of Exodus describes the culmination of the Israelites’ time in Egypt. They’d been in the land for 430 years (Exodus 12:40) and had become so numerous that the Egyptians decided to treat them harshly to prevent their numbers from increasing (1:6–10). God had made a promise to Abraham to bring his descendants to the land of Canaan (Genesis 15:13–16; 17:8)—“a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:17)—and God always keeps His promises. When He appeared to Moses in the burning bush in chapter 3, it was part of His plan unfolding. However, Pharaoh wouldn’t allow the Israelites to go. Chapter 12 describes their final release, but they continued to face many challenges that left them wandering in the wilderness until they finally reached the promised land (see Joshua 3–4).
By Winn Collier
Divine Rescue
I have come down to rescue them. Exodus 3:8
After being informed of a 911 call from a concerned citizen, a police officer drove alongside the train tracks, shining his floodlight into the dark until he spotted the vehicle straddling the iron rails. The trooper’s dashboard camera captured the harrowing scene as a train barreled toward the car. “That train was coming fast,” the officer said, “Fifty to eighty miles per hour.” Acting without hesitation, he pulled an unconscious man from the car mere seconds before the train slammed into it.
Scripture reveals God as the One who rescues—often precisely when all seems lost. Trapped in Egypt and withering under suffocating oppression, the Israelites imagined no possibility for escape. In Exodus, however, we find God offering them words resounding with hope: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt,” He said. “I have heard them crying out . . . and I am concerned about their suffering” (3:7). And God not only saw—God acted. “I have come down to rescue them” (v. 8). God led Israel out of bondage. This was a divine rescue.
God’s rescue of Israel reveals God’s heart—and His power—to help all of us who are in need. He assists those of us who are destined for ruin unless God arrives to save us. Though our situation may be dire or impossible, we can lift our eyes and heart and watch for the One who loves to rescue.
Where does all seem lost and where do you need God’s rescue? How can you turn your hope to Him in this dire place?
God, I’m in real trouble, and if You don’t help me, I don’t see a good ending. Will You help me? Will You rescue me?
Read Why? Seeing God in Our Pain at DiscoverySeries.org/CB151.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 08, 2021
What’s Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. —John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
For the past three hundred years men have been pointing out how similar Jesus Christ’s teachings are to other good teachings. We have to remember that Christianity, if it is not a supernatural miracle, is a sham. The Highest Good, 548 L
Bible in a Year: 2 Chronicles 30-31; John 18:1-18
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 08, 2021
Making a Little a Lot - #8977
I really think my wife could have been a missionary about anywhere in the world. So resourceful! And that's what missionaries need to be. I mean, we were together missionaries in the United States over many years of ministry to teenagers and then to Native Americans for many years. And our ministry budget - like most ministry budgets - has always been somewhat limited over the years. That's where my wife's resourcefulness came into play.
I remember the time we had a hundred teenagers show up for a gathering and we weren't really expecting that many. She only had enough ground beef to put into these Sloppy Joe sandwiches for about 40 people. Now, you're gonna need a whip and a chair if you have some teenagers you can't feed! You don't really want to have those wild animals on the loose and unfed. So, she quickly found some dried bread crumbs, pulled out a recipe she had gotten from a home economist, and mixed all of that in with the ground beef. Well, not the recipe, but the rest. And it made that ground beef go a lot farther. In fact, we fed a hundred hungry teenagers with only enough for 40! We had some left over. Listen, sometimes you need someone who can make a little a lot.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Making a Little a Lot."
Our word for today from the Word of God (and you might have guessed this) comes from that familiar story in Mark 6. I'm going to begin reading at verse 37, after the disciples have concluded that this group of 5,000 people is not going to be fed. They're getting hungry. Jesus has been teaching quite a while, and here's their suggestion: "Send them away; the meeting's over." But Jesus answered, "You give them something to eat." It's not in here, but you can almost hear them saying, "What? How in the world are we going to feed them? What do you think; we got a catering service here? How are we going to do this?"
"Well they said to Him, 'That would take eight months of a man's wages. Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?' 'How many loaves do you have?' He asked. Go and see.' When they found out, they said, 'Five and two fish.' Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven..." It says this: "He gave thanks and broke the loaves, gave them to His disciples to set before the people. He divided the fish among them. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish." What do you know - leftovers!
That's kind of like our sloppy joe barbeque sandwich situation we had there when we were trying to feed all those teenagers. It wasn't enough. We had a whole lot more need than we had resource. The disciples' solution to a "not enough" situation was to give up. But Jesus said, "Instead, I want you to round up all the 'not enough' you can find. It won't be enough; it won't cover it. But I want you to gather all that you can and I'll make it more than enough."
Which brings us to your situation. What's your "not enough" right now? You say, "Well, I can't see where the money's going to come from. I can't see I'm going to have enough strength to face what I've got right now. I don't know where I'm going to find the time to get all this done. I don't know how I'm going to have the resources to make this relationship work anymore." Do you hear the Lord saying, "Bring Me your 'not enough.' Find all you can."
So, what you do is number one, you give all your resources - not enough - but all your resources to Jesus. Number two, you act as if there will be enough. Jesus had them sit down. He said, "Get ready to eat lunch" even though there was no lunch to eat. So you start to act as if it's going to be there. By faith in your Lord you do that, and then be grateful for the "not enough" that you already have. That's the hard part to say, "Lord, I know this isn't enough, but I'm grateful for what I've got." The Bible says, "Godliness with contentment is great gain."
I had the privilege to be married to a woman who could take a little and make it a lot. Better than that, my Lord - your Lord - can do that a thousand times over with your "not enough."
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.