Max Lucado Daily: Study Your Children
Crankcase oil coursed my dad's veins. He repaired engines for a living. Dad loved machines.
But God gave my dad a mechanical moron, a son who couldn't differentiate between a differential and a brake disc. Dad tried to teach me. I tried to learn. Honestly, I did. Machines anesthetized me. But books fascinated me. What does a mechanic do with a son who loves books?
He gives him a library card. Buys him a few volumes for Christmas. Places a lamp by his bed so he can read at night. Pays tuition so his son can study college literature in high school. My dad did that. You know what he didn't do? Never once did he say: "Why can't you be a mechanic like your dad and granddad?"
Study your children while you can. The greatest gift you can give your child is not your riches, but revealing to them their own!
From The Lucado Inspirational Reader
Psalm 90
God, it seems you’ve been our home forever;
long before the mountains were born,
Long before you brought earth itself to birth,
from “once upon a time” to “kingdom come”—you are God.
3-11
So don’t return us to mud, saying,
“Back to where you came from!”
Patience! You’ve got all the time in the world—whether
a thousand years or a day, it’s all the same to you.
Are we no more to you than a wispy dream,
no more than a blade of grass
That springs up gloriously with the rising sun
and is cut down without a second thought?
Your anger is far and away too much for us;
we’re at the end of our rope.
You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed
since we were children is entered in your books.
All we can remember is that frown on your face.
Is that all we’re ever going to get?
We live for seventy years or so
(with luck we might make it to eighty),
And what do we have to show for it? Trouble.
Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.
Who can make sense of such rage,
such anger against the very ones who fear you?
12-17
Oh! Teach us to live well!
Teach us to live wisely and well!
Come back, God—how long do we have to wait?—
and treat your servants with kindness for a change.
Surprise us with love at daybreak;
then we’ll skip and dance all the day long.
Make up for the bad times with some good times;
we’ve seen enough evil to last a lifetime.
Let your servants see what you’re best at—
the ways you rule and bless your children.
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us,
confirming the work that we do.
Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 14, 2021
Today's Scripture
Deuteronomy 4:5–8 , 11–14 (NIV)
See, I have taughtv you decrees and lawsw as the Lord my God commandedx me, so that you may follow them in the land you are enteringy to take possession of it. 6 Observez them carefully, for this will show your wisdoma and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”b 7 What other nation is so greatc as to have their gods neard them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? 8 And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and lawse as this body of laws I am setting before you today?
You came near and stood at the foot of the mountainn while it blazed with fireo to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness.p 12 Then the Lord spokeq to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form;r there was only a voice.s 13 He declared to you his covenant,t the Ten Commandments,u which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets. 14 And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and lawsv you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.
Insight
The book of Deuteronomy concludes the five books of Moses (also known as Torah or the Pentateuch). The word deuteronomy means “second law,” which describes the contents of the book—a second telling of the law Israel had received at Mount Sinai (see Exodus 20). This was important because forty years had passed since those days at the base of Sinai. The generation who’d received the law and accepted it had died during their years of wandering in the wilderness. Now a new generation of Israelites stood at the threshold of the land God had promised them. Therefore, it was imperative that the law be reaffirmed as preparation for their entry into the land. By: Bill Crowder
Powerful and Loving
You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness.
Deuteronomy 4:11
In 2020, the Ecuadorian volcano Sangay erupted. The BBC described the “dark ash plume which reached a height of more than 12,000 m.” The discharge covered four provinces (about 198,000 acres) in gray ash and grimy soot. The sky turned dingy and grim, and the air was thick—making it difficult to breathe. Farmer Feliciano Inga described the unnerving scene to El Comercio newspaper: “We didn’t know where all this dust was coming from. . . . We saw the sky go dark and grew afraid.”
The Israelites experienced a similar fear at the base of Mount Sinai, as they “stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire . . . with black clouds and deep darkness” (Deuteronomy 4:11). God’s voice thundered, and the people trembled. It was terrifying. It’s an awesome, knee-buckling experience to encounter the living God.
“Then the Lord spoke,” and they “heard the sound of words but saw no form” (v. 12). The voice that rattled their bones provided life and hope. God gave Israel the Ten Commandments and renewed His covenant with them. The voice from the dark cloud caused them to quake, but also wooed and loved them with tenacity (Exodus 34:6–7).
God is powerful, beyond our reach, even startling. And yet He’s also full of love, always reaching out to us. A God both powerful and loving—this is who we desperately need. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
When has an encounter with God made you tremble? How did He also communicate love?
God, at times I’ve approached You too casually, assumed too much. Thank You for Your patience with me. And thank You for Your love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 14, 2021
Discovering Divine Design
As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me… —Genesis 24:27
We should be so one with God that we don’t need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child’s life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God’s will (see Romans 12:2). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. “…the Lord led me…” and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.
We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.
Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, “I will never do this or that,” in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.
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: Lamentations 3-5; Hebrews 10:19-39
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.