Max Lucado Daily: Jesus Chose the Nails
God has penned a list of our faults. The list God has made, however, cannot be read. The words can't be deciphered. The mistakes are covered. The sins are hidden. Those at the top are hidden by His hand; those down the list are covered by His blood. Your sins are blotted out by Jesus. The Bible says He has forgiven you all your sins. He has utterly wiped out the written evidence of broken commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it to the cross.
He knew the source of those sins was you, and since He couldn't bear the thought of eternity without you, Jesus Himself chose the nails. The hand is the hand of God. The nail is the nail of God. And as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of heaven opened for you!
From He Chose the Nails
Deuteronomy 22
If you see your kinsman’s ox or sheep wandering off loose, don’t look the other way as if you didn’t see it. Return it promptly. If your fellow Israelite is not close by or you don’t know whose it is, take the animal home with you and take care of it until your fellow asks about it. Then return it to him. Do the same if it’s his donkey or a piece of clothing or anything else your fellow Israelite loses. Don’t look the other way as if you didn’t see it.
4 If you see your fellow’s donkey or ox injured along the road, don’t look the other way. Help him get it up and on its way.
5 A woman must not wear a man’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing. This kind of thing is an abomination to God, your God.
6-7 When you come across a bird’s nest alongside the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, don’t take the mother with the young. You may take the babies, but let the mother go so that you will live a good and long life.
8 When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof to make it safe so that someone doesn’t fall off and die and your family become responsible for the death.
9 Don’t plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard. If you do, you will forfeit what you’ve sown, the total production of the vineyard.
10 Don’t plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
11 Don’t wear clothes of mixed fabrics, wool and linen together.
12 Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you use to cover yourself.
13-19 If a man marries a woman, sleeps with her, and then turns on her, calling her loose, giving her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I slept with her I discovered she wasn’t a virgin,” then the father and mother of the girl are to take her with the proof of her virginity to the town leaders at the gate. The father is to tell the leaders, “I gave my daughter to this man as wife and he turned on her, rejecting her. And now he has slanderously accused her, claiming that she wasn’t a virgin. But look at this, here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” And then he is to spread out her bloodstained wedding garment before the leaders for their examination. The town leaders then are to take the husband, whip him, fine him a hundred pieces of silver, and give it to the father of the girl. The man gave a virgin girl of Israel a bad name. He has to keep her as his wife and can never divorce her.
20-21 But if it turns out that the accusation is true and there is no evidence of the girl’s virginity, the men of the town are to take her to the door of her father’s house and stone her to death. She acted disgracefully in Israel. She lived like a whore while still in her parents’ home. Purge the evil from among you.
22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both must die. Purge that evil from Israel.
23-24 If a man comes upon a virgin in town, a girl who is engaged to another man, and sleeps with her, take both of them to the town gate and stone them until they die—the girl because she didn’t yell out for help in the town and the man because he raped her, violating the fiancée of his neighbor. You must purge the evil from among you.
25-27 But if it was out in the country that the man found the engaged girl and grabbed and raped her, only the man is to die, the man who raped her. Don’t do anything to the girl; she did nothing wrong. This is similar to the case of a man who comes across his neighbor out in the country and murders him; when the engaged girl yelled out for help, there was no one around to hear or help her.
28-29 When a man comes upon a virgin who has never been engaged and grabs and rapes her and they are found out, the man who raped her has to give her father fifty pieces of silver. He has to marry her because he took advantage of her. And he can never divorce her.
30 A man may not marry his father’s ex-wife—that would violate his father’s rights.
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Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, March 13, 2022
Today's Scripture
Colossians 3:12–15
(NIV)
You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13*Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. 14And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity. 15The peace that Christ gives is to guide you in the decisions you make; for it is to this peace that God has called you together in the one body. And be thankful.
Insight
Nearly every epistle in the Bible mentions that we who believe in Jesus were “chosen” or “called” by God. Some people believe that if God does the choosing, we have no role to play. Yet the apostles dedicated their lives to sharing the good news of Jesus with the world. They knew that our privileged position brings a tremendous obligation.
A crucial way we share this good news is by living a different kind of life. In Colossians 3:5–9, Paul wrote about the things we must get rid of: sexual impurity, rage, malice, slander, lying, and the like (Colossians 3:5–9). Now, as God’s “chosen people” (v. 12), we’re to “clothe” ourselves in a completely different lifestyle—one marked by Christlike qualities. When we react to life’s irritations and injustices with the grace and peace of the Spirit of Jesus, the world will see the difference. By: Tim Gustafson
Warts and All
Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Colossians 3:13
Oliver Cromwell, known as the “Protector of England,” was a military commander in the seventeenth century. It was common practice during those days for people of importance to have their portraits painted. And it wasn’t unusual for an artist to avoid depicting the less attractive aspects of a person’s face. Cromwell, however, wanted nothing to do with a likeness that would flatter him. He cautioned the artist, “You must paint me just as I am—warts and all—or I won’t pay you.”
Apparently, the artist complied. The finished portrait of Cromwell displays a couple of prominent facial warts that in the present day would surely be filtered or airbrushed before being posted on social media.
The expression “warts and all” has come to mean that people should be accepted just as they are—with all their annoying faults, attitudes, and issues. In some cases, we feel that’s too difficult a task. Yet, when we take a hard inward look, we might find some pretty unattractive aspects of our own character.
We’re grateful that God forgives our “warts.” And in Colossians 3, we’re taught to extend grace to others. The apostle Paul encourages us to be more patient, kind, and compassionate—even to those who aren’t easy to love. He urges us to have a forgiving spirit because of the way God forgives us (vv. 12–13). By His example, we’re taught to love others the way God loves us—warts and all. By: Cindy Hess Kasper
Reflect & Pray
What faults do you find in others that are hard to accept or forgive? How can you follow God’s example in the way you interact with others?
Loving God, show me my shortcomings or flaws that detract from letting others know who You are. Help me to be more patient and to love and forgive as You do.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, March 13, 2022
God’s Total Surrender to Us
For God so loved the world that He gave… —John 3:16
Salvation does not mean merely deliverance from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect union with Him. When I think of my salvation experience, I think of being delivered from sin and gaining personal holiness. But salvation is so much more! It means that the Spirit of God has brought me into intimate contact with the true Person of God Himself. And as I am caught up into total surrender to God, I become thrilled with something infinitely greater than myself.
To say that we are called to preach holiness or sanctification is to miss the main point. We are called to proclaim Jesus Christ (see 1 Corinthians 2:2). The fact that He saves from sin and makes us holy is actually part of the effect of His wonderful and total surrender to us.
If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. Beware of talking about surrender if you know nothing about it. In fact, you will never know anything about it until you understand that John 3:16 means that God completely and absolutely gave Himself to us. In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us— totally, unconditionally, and without reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.
Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.
The Place of Help
Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 20-22; Mark 13:21-37
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.