Max Lucado Daily: Stand Up and Stand Out - October 25, 2021
Can we talk honestly for a moment? You are weary, wounded, and worried. Weary of the struggle, wounded from the battle, worried that this winter will never cease. You feel far from home. Someone cut the ropes to the dock and set you adrift. This world can be a cruddy place – no one disagrees with that. Tough times can also be the petri dish for bad decisions. So I urge you, don’t make matters worse by caving in.
Living as a person of faith in a faithless world requires courage and acts of resistance. Chances are high that you’ll be tempted to compromise your beliefs or to remain silent in the face of injustice and evil. Tests are coming your way, instances in which our true allegiance is revealed. Everyone else gives in. May God give you the courage to stand up and stand out.
Exodus 27
The Altar
“Make an Altar of acacia wood. Make it seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high. Make horns at each of the four corners. The horns are to be of one piece with the Altar and covered with a veneer of bronze. Make buckets for removing the ashes, along with shovels, basins, forks, and fire pans. Make all these utensils from bronze. Make a grate of bronze mesh and attach bronze rings at each of the four corners. Put the grate under the ledge of the Altar at the halfway point of the Altar. Make acacia wood poles for the Altar and cover them with a veneer of bronze. Insert the poles through the rings on the two sides of the Altar for carrying. Use boards to make the Altar, keeping the interior hollow.
The Courtyard
9-11 “Make a Courtyard for The Dwelling. The south side is to be 150 feet long. The hangings for the Courtyard are to be woven from fine twisted linen, with their twenty posts, twenty bronze bases, and fastening hooks and bands of silver. The north side is to be exactly the same.
12-19 “For the west end of the Courtyard you will need seventy-five feet of hangings with their ten posts and bases. Across the seventy-five feet at the front, or east end, you will need twenty-two and a half feet of hangings, with their three posts and bases on one side and the same for the other side. At the door of the Courtyard make a screen thirty feet long woven from blue, purple, and scarlet stuff, with fine twisted linen, embroidered by a craftsman, and hung on its four posts and bases. All the posts around the Courtyard are to be banded with silver, with hooks of silver and bases of bronze. The Courtyard is to be 150 feet long and seventy-five feet wide. The hangings of fine twisted linen set on their bronze bases are to be seven and a half feet high. All the tools used for setting up The Holy Dwelling, including all the pegs in it and the Courtyard, are to be made of bronze.
20-21 “Now, order the Israelites to bring you pure, clear olive oil for light so that the lamps can be kept burning. In the Tent of Meeting, the area outside the curtain that veils The Testimony, Aaron and his sons will keep this light burning from evening until morning before God. This is to be a permanent practice down through the generations for Israelites.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, October 25, 2021
Today's Scripture
Genesis 22:1–3
,
6–12
(NIV)
Abraham Tested
22 Some time later God testeda Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,”b he replied.
2 Then God said, “Take your sonc, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah.d Sacrifice him there as a burnt offeringe on a mountain I will show you.f”
3 Early the next morningg Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac,i and he himself carried the fire and the knife.j As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lambk for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham answered, “God himself will providel the lambm for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
9 When they reached the place God had told him about,n Abraham built an altaro there and arranged the woodp on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar,q on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knifer to slay his son.s 11 But the angel of the Lordt called out to him from heaven,u “Abraham! Abraham!”v
“Here I am,”w he replied.
12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God,x because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.
Insight
Genesis 22:1, 15–18 make it clear that God tested Abraham to examine his heart. While God may test our faith and obedience (James 1:2–4), He never tempts us to do wrong (v. 13). The writer of Hebrews commended the patriarch’s deep faith: “Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again” (Hebrews 11:19 nlt). The apostle James said that “Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar. . . . His actions made his faith complete” (James 2:21–22 nlt). By: K. T. Sim
The Testing
Some time later God tested Abraham.
Genesis 22:1
The first time I took my sons to hike a Colorado Fourteener—a mountain with an elevation of a least 14,000 feet—they were nervous. Could they make it? Were they up to the challenge? My youngest stopped on the trail for extended breaks. “Dad, I can’t go any more,” he said repeatedly. But I believed this test would be good for them, and I wanted them to trust me. A mile from the peak, my son who’d insisted he could go no further caught his second wind and beat us to the summit. He was so glad he trusted me, even amid his fears.
I marvel at the trust Isaac had in his father as they climbed their mountain. Far more, I’m undone by the trust Abraham had in God as he raised his knife over his son (Genesis 22:10). Even with his confused and wrenching heart, Abraham obeyed. Mercifully, an angel stopped him. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” God’s messenger declared (v. 12). God never intended for Isaac to die.
As we draw parallels from this unique story to our own with caution, it’s crucial to note the opening line: “God tested Abraham” (v. 1). Through his test, Abraham learned how much he trusted God. He discovered His loving heart and profound provision.
In our confusion, darkness, and testing, we learn truths about ourselves and about God. And we may even find that our testing leads to a deeper trust in Him. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
How do you believe you’ve been tested by God? What was that experience like, and what did you take away from it?
God, I don’t know if what I’m experiencing is Your testing or not, but either way, I want to trust You. I give my future to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, October 25, 2021
Submitting to God’s Purpose
I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. —1 Corinthians 9:22
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, “If only I were somewhere else!” All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice. Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God’s almighty grace or His mighty Word in them. Paul’s whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact— “…Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).
“I chose you…” (John 15:16). Keep these words as a wonderful reminder in your theology. It is not that you have gotten God, but that He has gotten you. God is at work bending, breaking, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose— that He may be able to say, “This is My man, and this is My woman.” We have to be in God’s hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us.
Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you “turn aside…to the right or the left…” (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.
Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else. “Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord”;… The Highest Good—The Pilgrim’s Song Book, 537 L
Bible in a Year: Jeremiah 6-8; 1 Timothy 5
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, October 25, 2021
Never Forgetting What It Cost - #9076
It was the worst day of this dear woman's life. Her 13-year-old daughter was killed at the hands of a drunk driver. To make it worse, just two days earlier the offender had been released on bail for a hit-and-run drunk driving crash. And he already had two drunk driving convictions with a third that was plea-bargained to "reckless accident." Well, the grief in this Mom turned from grief into righteous anger. She and some friends got together at a steakhouse in California and discussed with them her plan to do something about what had killed her daughter. They formed a group called MADD - Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. And they have been a powerful force for helping to save lives since then.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Never Forgetting What It Cost."
Clearly, this mother has made a difference because she never forgot the death of the one she loved. I hate to say it, but too many of us tend to forget the death of the one who loved us the most, and that's why we aren't making much of a difference.
The vivid portrayal of the death and suffering of Jesus in the movie several years ago, "The Passion of the Christ," was one reminder of what we cannot afford to forget. Christianity Today magazine reported the telling comment of one woman after she saw His suffering portrayed in the movie. She said, "I'm sorry. I forgot." Jesus never meant for us to, but He knew we would.
That's one of the main reasons He did what He did at the Last Supper. Our word for today from the Word of God, Luke 22:19-20 says: "He took bread and gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, 'This is My body given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.' In the same way, after the supper, He took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.'" And later, the Apostle Paul said of communion, the visual reminder of Jesus' sacrifice for us: "Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26).
It's obvious Jesus did not want us to ever forget the total humiliation, the ripping of His flesh, the crown of thorns jammed into his forehead, the mangling of the body of the Son of God, the total abandonment. And above all, the agony of your eternal hell that He went through on the cross so you would never have to. We should not forget, but we tend to. The words "Jesus died for your sins" tend to become sterile and glib and just safely "theological." And that's when we start downhill.
When you forget the enormity of the price paid for you, you tend to become careless about your sin. You forget how horrific that sin is as displayed on that cross. And your love for Jesus starts to cool, and living His way deteriorates from being what you do because you love Him into just a spiritual performance.
Forget the cross, and you start feeling like trash again; forgetting how much Jesus thinks you're worth. Forget the cross, and you'll start settling for junk instead of holding out for the best that He died to give you. And if you forget the cross, you'll probably be ashamed of Him, ashamed to let people know you belong to Him and how they can belong to Him. But when I envision the shame He went through for me...when I remember that He was not ashamed of me, even when it meant hanging on that cross, how can I be ashamed of Him?"
Each new day, make your way in your heart up that skull-shaped hill again and picture yourself at the foot of that old rugged cross. Let His blood cover the sin that you brought with you. Let His love poured out there capture your heart again. And let His sacrifice there give you the courage to live for Him, whatever it takes, and whatever it costs.
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.