Maxlucado.com: Let Grace Happen
I became a Christian about the same time I became a Boy Scout and made the assumption God grades on a merit system. Good scouts move up. Good people go to heaven.
I resolved to amass a multitude of spiritual badges. I worked toward the day when God, amid falling confetti and dancing cherubim, would drape my badge-laden sash across my chest, welcome me into his eternal kingdom, where I could humbly display my badges for eternity.
But some thorny questions surfaced. How good is good? What is the permitted percentage of exaggeration?
Ephesians 2:8 says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”
Unearned. A gift. Our merits merit nothing.
Let grace happen, for heaven’s sake. Of all the things you must earn in life, God’s unending affection is not one of them. You have it!
From GRACE
Exodus 2
Moses
A man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and had a son. She saw there was something special about him and hid him. She hid him for three months. When she couldn’t hide him any longer she got a little basket-boat made of papyrus, waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and placed the child in it. Then she set it afloat in the reeds at the edge of the Nile.
4-6 The baby’s older sister found herself a vantage point a little way off and watched to see what would happen to him. Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it. She opened it and saw the child—a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, “This must be one of the Hebrew babies.”
7 Then his sister was before her: “Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?”
8 Pharaoh’s daughter said, “Yes. Go.” The girl went and called the child’s mother.
9 Pharaoh’s daughter told her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me. I’ll pay you.” The woman took the child and nursed him.
10 After the child was weaned, she presented him to Pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses (Pulled-Out), saying, “I pulled him out of the water.”
11-12 Time passed. Moses grew up. One day he went and saw his brothers, saw all that hard labor. Then he saw an Egyptian hit a Hebrew—one of his relatives! He looked this way and then that; when he realized there was no one in sight, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.
13 The next day he went out there again. Two Hebrew men were fighting. He spoke to the man who started it: “Why are you hitting your neighbor?”
14 The man shot back: “Who do you think you are, telling us what to do? Are you going to kill me the way you killed that Egyptian?”
Then Moses panicked: “Word’s gotten out—people know about this.”
* * *
15 Pharaoh heard about it and tried to kill Moses, but Moses got away to the land of Midian. He sat down by a well.
16-17 The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, filling the troughs and watering their father’s sheep. When some shepherds came and chased the girls off, Moses came to their rescue and helped them water their sheep.
18 When they got home to their father, Reuel, he said, “That didn’t take long. Why are you back so soon?”
19 “An Egyptian,” they said, “rescued us from a bunch of shepherds. Why, he even drew water for us and watered the sheep.”
20 He said, “So where is he? Why did you leave him behind? Invite him so he can have something to eat with us.”
21-22 Moses agreed to settle down there with the man, who then gave his daughter Zipporah (Bird) to him for his wife. She had a son, and Moses named him Gershom (Sojourner), saying, “I’m a sojourner in a foreign country.”
* * *
23 Many years later the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cries for relief from their hard labor ascended to God:
24 God listened to their groanings.
God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
25 God saw what was going on with Israel.
God understood.
* * *
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Today's Scripture 2 Corinthians 2:14–17 (NIV)
And I got it, thank God!
14–16 In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.
16–17 This is a terrific responsibility. Is anyone competent to take it on? No—but at least we don’t take God’s Word, water it down, and then take it to the streets to sell it cheap. We stand in Christ’s presence when we speak; God looks us in the face. We get what we say straight from God and say it as honestly as we can.
Insight
Paul often used military metaphors in his letters to illustrate spiritual truths. He writes of our spiritual warfare and the weapons needed to secure victory (2 Corinthians 10:3–5; Ephesians 6:10–18). He describes his coworkers using military terms: “fellow soldier” (Philippians 2:25); “good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:3). In 1 Timothy 1:18, he encourages Timothy to “fight the battle well.” In 2 Corinthians 2:14–17, Paul describes a Roman triumphal procession where the conquering general displays the captives and spoils of war in a victory parade through the city. Paul applied this image to himself in 1 Corinthians 4:9 and in Colossians used this triumphal metaphor to depict Christ as the victor over sin and Satan: “[Christ] canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross” (2:14–15 nlt). By: K. T. Sim
The Sweet Aroma of Christ
We are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
2 Corinthians 2:15
I knew a rancher who lived near Lometa, Texas. His two grandsons were my best friends. We would go into town with him and follow him around while he shopped and chatted with the folks he knew. He knew them all by name and he knew their stories. He’d stop here and there and ask about a sick child or a difficult marriage, and he’d offer a word of encouragement or two. He would share Scripture and pray if it seemed the right thing to do. I’ll never forget the man. He was something special. He didn’t force his faith on anyone, but he always seemed to leave it behind.
The elderly rancher had about him what Paul would call the sweet “aroma of Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:15). God used him to “spread the aroma of the knowledge of [Christ]” (v. 14). He’s gone to be with God now, but his fragrance lingers on in Lometa.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked with a mere mortal.” Put another way, every human contact has eternal consequences. Every day we have opportunities to make a difference in the lives of people around us through the quiet witness of a faithful and gentle life or through encouraging words to a weary soul. Never underestimate the effect a Christlike life can have on others. By: David H. Roper
Reflect & Pray
What do you think about the statement, “There are no neutral contacts”? What difference could it make in the way you view every contact and conversation throughout the day?
Fill me, Holy Spirit, with love, gentleness, and kindness toward others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Are You Going on With Jesus?
You are those who have continued with Me in My trials. —Luke 22:28
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us through our temptations, but are we going on with Him through His temptations? Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus, or siding with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We wear His name, but are we going on with Him? “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66).
The temptations of Jesus continued throughout His earthly life, and they will continue throughout the life of the Son of God in us. Are we going on with Jesus in the life we are living right now?
We have the idea that we ought to shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us. May it never be! It is God who engineers our circumstances, and whatever they may be we must see that we face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations. They are His temptations, not temptations to us, but temptations to the life of the Son of God in us. Jesus Christ’s honor is at stake in our bodily lives. Are we remaining faithful to the Son of God in everything that attacks His life in us?
Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on “outside the camp” (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow— but only the voice saying, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19).
Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
The Bible is the only Book that gives us any indication of the true nature of sin, and where it came from. The Philosophy of Sin, 1107 R
Bible in a Year: Ecclesiastes 1-3; 2 Corinthians 11:16-33