Max Lucado Daily: A Modern-Day Christmas Story - September 3, 2021
You have bills to pay, beds to make, and grass to cut. Your face won’t grace any magazine covers, and you aren’t expecting a call from the White House. Congratulations—you qualify for a modern-day Christmas story!
Step into the stable, cradle in your arms the infant Jesus. Listen as one who knew him well puts lyrics to the event. What no theologian conceived, what no rabbi dared to dream, God did. John 1:14 proclaims: “The Word became flesh.”
Christ in Mary. God in Christ. The Word of God entered the world with the cry of a baby. God writes his story with ordinary people like Joseph, like Mary…people like you. Like me.
Matthew 21:23-46
The Authority of Jesus Questioned
23 Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
24 Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
27 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
The Parable of the Two Sons
28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32 For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.
The Parable of the Tenants
33 “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
35 “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
38 “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ 39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40 “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
41 “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’[a]?
43 “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44 Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”[b]
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. 46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.
Footnotes
Matthew 21:42 Psalm 118:22,23
Matthew 21:44 Some manuscripts do not have verse 44.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 03, 2021
Today's Scripture
Genesis 11:26–32
(NIV)
After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram,m Nahorn and Haran.o
Abram’s Family
27 This is the accountp of Terah’s family line.
Terah became the father of Abram, Nahorq and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.r 28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans,s in the land of his birth. 29 Abram and Nahort both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai,u and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah;v she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah. 30 Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.w
31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lotx son of Haran, and his daughter-in-lawy Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeansz to go to Canaan.a But when they came to Harran,b they settled there.
32 Terahc lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.
Insight
In the ancient world, genealogies weren’t always simply a straightforward record of “who begat whom.” Instead, they were sometimes used to show legitimacy of relation or position. This is particularly true when it came to tracing the lineage of royalty. Ancestry (often traced back to a deity) was intended to show that the person with whom the lineage ended was the rightful and true heir. For example, the genealogy of Jesus in the book of Luke traces Jesus’ human lineage back to God Himself (Luke 3:23–38).
Ancestry records often provided key information as well, as we see in today’s text. In Genesis 11:26–32, Sarai’s childlessness is one of the striking features (v. 30) and becomes one of the important elements of the story later on (18:10–14).
The Big Story of the Bible
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. 2 Timothy 3:16
When Colin opened the box of stained-glass pieces he’d purchased, instead of finding the fragments he’d ordered for a project, he discovered intact, whole windows. He sleuthed out the windows’ origin and learned they’d been removed from a church to protect them from World War II bombings. Colin marveled at the quality of work and how the “fragments” formed a beautiful picture.
If I’m honest, there are times when I open particular passages of the Bible—such as chapters containing lists of genealogies—and I don’t immediately see how they fit within the bigger picture of Scripture. Such is the case with Genesis 11—a chapter that contains a repetitive cadence of unfamiliar names and their families, such as Shem, Shelah, Eber, Nahor, and Terah (vv. 10–32). I’m often tempted to gloss over these sections and skip to a part that contains something that feels familiar and fits more easily into my “window” of understanding of the Bible’s narrative.
Since “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful” (2 Timothy 3:16), the Holy Spirit can help us better understand how a fragment fits into the whole, opening our eyes to see, for example, how Shelah is related to Abram (Genesis 11:12–26), the ancestor of David and—more importantly—Jesus (Matthew 1:2, 6, 16). He delights in surprising us with the treasure of a perfectly intact window where even the smaller parts reveal the story of God’s mission throughout the Bible. By: Kirsten Holmberg
Reflect & Pray
Why is it important to recognize each portion of Scripture as a fragment of God's bigger story?
Father, please help me to see You and Your work more clearly.
Grow deeper in your understanding of the Bible.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 03, 2021
Pouring Out the Water of Satisfaction
He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord. —2 Samuel 23:16
What has been like “water from the well of Bethlehem” to you recently— love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing (2 Samuel 23:16)? Have you taken whatever it may be, even at the risk of damaging your own soul, simply to satisfy yourself? If you have, then you cannot pour it out “to the Lord.” You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God— something that your common sense says is an absurd waste.
How can I pour out “to the Lord” natural love and spiritual blessings? There is only one way— I must make a determination in my mind to do so. There are certain things other people do that could never be received by someone who does not know God, because it is humanly impossible to repay them. As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out “to the Lord.” Then these very things that have come to me will be poured out as “rivers of living water” all around me (John 7:38). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out “to the Lord.”
If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything “to the Lord,” other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.
Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
Bible in a Year: Psalms 140-142; 1 Corinthians 14:1-20
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 03, 2021
Fresh Each Day - #9040
OK, I'll confess. I can drive by the candy store. I can drive by the ice cream shop. I can pass up the pizza place, but it's very hard for me not to stop at the bakery. Yeah, bakeries are my weakness, and it's a good thing I don't work in one - I'd weigh 500 pounds I think. Now most bakeries have this discount stuff, you know, in a corner; it's like the day old baked goods. Oh it's cheaper, but there's a reason. There's a big difference between day-old and fresh baked. That line at the bakery early in the morning; no, that's not for yesterday's goodies, let me tell you. Those folks are there to get the doughnuts or the bread that just came out of the oven. And I might just be at the head of the line.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fresh Each Day."
Getting it fresh-that's not only a good idea at the bakery, but also when it comes to picking up your provisions from heaven, too. God's got new resources for you each new day; mercies that are according to the Bible, "new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23). The reason so many of us are spiritually up and down, lacking the power we need, the strength we need, constantly being overwhelmed by the day's events? The reason is that we aren't stopping at God's "bakery" each morning to pick up that day's "bread."
God gives us an enlightening picture of how to stay spiritually strong in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in Exodus 16, beginning in verse 4, and it records God's delivery system for feeding His people as they wandered in the desert. Here's our word for today from the Word of God: "'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day' ... So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites ... 'In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord.'"
Through Moses, the Lord went on to command His people not to store any of His manna overnight. "However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning" - it's a very bad idea! - "but it was full of maggots and began to smell" (let me tell you, that's day-old at its worst!). But God's plan worked. The Bible says, "Each morning everyone gathered as much as he needed."
That's been God's plan ever since; that each of His children would gather each morning all the spiritual resources he or she needs for that day. Speaking of Himself, Jesus said, "The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world" (John 6:33). Each day, we're to get a fresh helping of Jesus: His thinking, His perspective, His strength, His outlook. And that means consistent time with Him, through His love letter, the Bible, each new day.
You can't store up the resources to live the Christ-life anymore than the ancient Jews could store up manna. You can't let your personal Jesus-time be something you do occasionally or when you feel like it or when you can fit Him into your busy schedule. Make your daily time with Jesus Christ non-negotiable. Everything else is going to have to revolve around your time with Him instead of what usually happens, your time with Him, you know, having to revolve around everything else.
If you'll anchor your day to a personal time with Jesus Christ, you'll start to experience a realness, a closeness, a consistency, a victory in your relationship with Him that you've always wanted but maybe never had. You need to hear from heaven each day if you're going to live for heaven while you're on earth. And day-old or week-old stuff just won't cut it for this new day. You need what Jesus has prepared for you fresh each day!
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.