Max Lucado Daily: A MAN AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART - June 13, 2022
God called David “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22 NIV). One might read David’s story and wonder what God saw in him. The fellow fell as often as he stood, stumbled as often as he conquered. He stared down Goliath, yet he ogled at Bathsheba.
A man after God’s own heart? That God saw him as such gives hope to us all. We need David’s story. Giants lurk in our neighborhoods. Rejection, failure, revenge, remorse – giants. We must face them, yet we need not face them alone. Focus first, and most, on God. The times David did, giants like Goliath fell. The days he did not, David fell.
Lift your eyes, giant slayer. The God who made a miracle out of David stands ready to make one out of you.
1 Samuel 6
Gold Tumors and Rats
After the Chest of God had been among the Philistine people for seven months, the Philistine leaders called together their religious professionals, the priests, and experts on the supernatural for consultation: “How can we get rid of this Chest of God, get it off our hands without making things worse? Tell us!”
3 They said, “If you’re going to send the Chest of the God of Israel back, don’t just dump it on them. Pay compensation. Then you will be healed. After you’re in the clear again, God will let up on you. Why wouldn’t he?”
4-6 “And what exactly would make for adequate compensation?”
“Five gold tumors and five gold rats,” they said, “to match the number of Philistine leaders. Since all of you—leaders and people—suffered the same plague, make replicas of the tumors and rats that are devastating the country and present them as an offering to the glory of the God of Israel. Then maybe he’ll ease up and not be so hard on you and your gods, and on your country. Why be stubborn like the Egyptians and Pharaoh? God didn’t quit pounding on them until they let the people go. Only then did he let up.
7-9 “So here’s what you do: Take a brand-new oxcart and two cows that have never been in harness. Hitch the cows to the oxcart and send their calves back to the barn. Put the Chest of God on the cart. Secure the gold replicas of the tumors and rats that you are offering as compensation in a sack and set them next to the Chest. Then send it off. But keep your eyes on it. If it heads straight back home to where it came from, toward Beth Shemesh, it is clear that this catastrophe is a divine judgment, but if not, we’ll know that God had nothing to do with it—it was just an accident.”
10-12 So that’s what they did: They hitched two cows to the cart, put their calves in the barn, and placed the Chest of God and the sack of gold rats and tumors on the cart. The cows headed straight for home, down the road to Beth Shemesh, straying neither right nor left, mooing all the way. The Philistine leaders followed them to the outskirts of Beth Shemesh.
13-15 The people of Beth Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley. They looked up and saw the Chest. Elated, they ran to meet it. The cart came into the field of Joshua, a Beth Shemeshite, and stopped there beside a huge boulder. The harvesters tore the cart to pieces, then chopped up the wood and sacrificed the cows as a burnt offering to God. The Levites took charge of the Chest of God and the sack containing the gold offerings, placing them on the boulder. Offering the sacrifices, everyone in Beth Shemesh worshiped God most heartily that day.
16 When the five Philistine leaders saw what they came to see, they returned the same day to Ekron.
17-18 The five gold replicas of the tumors were offered by the Philistines in compensation for the cities of Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. The five gold rats matched the number of Philistine towns, both large and small, ruled by the five leaders. The big boulder on which they placed the Chest of God is still there in the field of Joshua of Beth Shemesh, a landmark.
If You Are Serious About Coming Back to God
19-20 God struck some of the men of Beth Shemesh who, out of curiosity, irreverently peeked into the Chest of God. Seventy died. The whole town was in mourning, reeling under the hard blow from God, and questioning, “Who can stand before God, this holy God? And who can we get to take this Chest off our hands?”
21 They sent emissaries to Kiriath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the Chest of God. Come down and get it.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Kings 19:4–10, 15–18
and then went on into the desert another day’s journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die: “Enough of this, God! Take my life—I’m ready to join my ancestors in the grave!” Exhausted, he fell asleep under the lone broom bush.
Suddenly an angel shook him awake and said, “Get up and eat!”
6 He looked around and, to his surprise, right by his head were a loaf of bread baked on some coals and a jug of water. He ate the meal and went back to sleep.
7 The angel of God came back, shook him awake again, and said, “Get up and eat some more—you’ve got a long journey ahead of you.”
8–9 He got up, ate and drank his fill, and set out. Nourished by that meal, he walked forty days and nights, all the way to the mountain of God, to Horeb. When he got there, he crawled into a cave and went to sleep.
Then the word of God came to him: “So Elijah, what are you doing here?”
10 “I’ve been working my heart out for the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,” said Elijah. “The people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed the places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me.”
God said, “Go back the way you came through the desert to Damascus. When you get there anoint Hazael; make him king over Aram. Then anoint Jehu son of Nimshi; make him king over Israel. Finally, anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Anyone who escapes death by Hazael will be killed by Jehu; and anyone who escapes death by Jehu will be killed by Elisha. Meanwhile, I’m preserving for myself seven thousand souls: the knees that haven’t bowed to the god Baal, the mouths that haven’t kissed his image.”
Insight
The “angel of the Lord” who ministered to the despairing prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:7) is a mysterious figure throughout the Old Testament. More than just an angel, this figure appears to reveal God Himself. Hagar, for example, saw an “angel of the Lord” who speaks directly as God, promising “I will increase your descendants” (Genesis 16:10). Hagar then addressed God directly, confessing, “I have now seen the One who sees me” (v. 13). Exodus describes Moses encountering the “angel of the Lord” from a mysterious burning bush (Exodus 3:2), then God Himself speaks with Moses from this bush (vv. 4–22). By: Monica La Rose
Divine Tenderness
[Elijah] looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
1 Kings 19:6
I once heard a businessman describe his years in college as a time when he often felt “helpless and hopeless” from bouts of depression. Sadly, he never talked to a doctor about these feelings, but instead started making more drastic plans—ordering a book on suicide from his local library and setting a date to take his life.
God cares for the helpless and hopeless. We see this in His treatment of biblical characters during their own dark times. When Jonah wanted to die, God engaged him in tender conversation (Jonah 4:3–10). When Elijah asked God to take his life (1 Kings 19:4), God provided bread and water to refresh him (vv. 5–9), spoke gently to him (vv. 11–13), and helped him see he wasn’t as alone as he thought (v. 18). God approaches the downhearted with tender, practical help.
The library notified the student when his book on suicide was ready to collect. But in a mix-up, the note went to his parents’ address instead. When his mother called him, distraught, he realized the devastation his suicide would bring. Without that address mix-up, he says, he wouldn’t be here today.
I don’t believe that student was saved by luck or chance. Whether it’s bread and water when we need it, or a timely wrong address, when mysterious intervention saves our lives, we’ve encountered divine tenderness. By: Sheridan Voysey
Reflect & Pray
How has God come through for you in a time of desperation? Where else have you seen divine tenderness in action?
Loving God, I praise You for Your tender, practical care for the helpless and hopeless.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
June 13, 2022
Getting There (3)
By Oswald Chambers
…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand. Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft Monday, June 13, 2022
THE PROBLEM WITH "PUSHY" - #9241
There's a lot of sheep-talk in the Bible, which puts "city boy" here at a distinct disadvantage. I grew up in Chicago, we didn't have them there. No, if the Bible used like cockroaches as an example, I'd be all set. But I've had to learn about sheep from friends who have been around them a lot. One of our ministry team worked with ranchers a lot with their sheep. And he told me about how the shepherd gets his sheep to go where he wants them to go! There's a way that works and a way that doesn't work. My co-worker said that he has seen people get behind sheep and try to push them along. Notice I said, try! It doesn't work, no matter how much noise he makes or how he waves his arms. When they are pushed by a shepherd, sheep just scatter. But when he gets out in front of them; when he leads them the way he wants them to go, the sheep follow after him. Not a bad idea.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Problem With 'Pushy.'"
Over and over in God's Word we're described as being like sheep, and Jesus is described as being our Shepherd. Our word for today from the Word of God, Isaiah 40:11 (I love this), "He tends His flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and He carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those who have young." Notice the Lord gets us to go where He wants us to go not by pushing. It says He gently leads. Remember the 23rd Psalm, "He leads me beside quiet waters."
Now it may be that God's put you in a position where you're doing some shepherding. In other words, there are some people under your influence who need to go in a certain direction, and you're trying to get them to go there. The sheep could be your own children, or some people in ministry with you, or people you minister to, or people who work with you, or just some folks you're trying to motivate to go a certain way. If you're trying to do any shepherding, take a lesson from the Great Shepherd and many other shepherds...gently lead them. Even though you sometimes feel like you really need to push them. Leading just works so much better than pushing.
If you're trying to push your "sheep," you tend to be impatient with them. In fact, that's why we often start pushing because, "Hey, they're not responding!" If you're leading them, you'll be willing to take time for them to get it right. If you're pushing, you probably dwell a lot on what they're doing wrong. If you're leading, you're dwelling on the things they're doing right and you're encouraging them from that point to work on the rest. When you're behind the sheep trying to forcibly direct them, you tend to make moving the most important thing. When you're in front of the sheep leading them, you tend to communicate that the sheep are what's most important.
Honestly now, which one best describes you? Are you behind those sheep, nagging, criticizing, coercing? You're pushing, and they'll probably just run away. Or are you modeling where you want them to go, giving correction gently and privately, praising, encouraging, enabling? If so, you're leading the sheep. And they're a lot more likely to follow.
Now, sheep sometimes wander off and they require some strong bringing back with a staff. But most of the time, all of us sheep follow gentle, consistent leadership the best. We don't like to be pushed. We like to be led. The destination the shepherd wants the sheep to go is the same, whether he's up front leading or behind them pushing. What's different is how the sheep respond. If you have a sheep that isn't going where you're trying to make him or her go, consider it part of the problem might be the shepherd.
Maybe it's time for a little less of that hard pushing from behind, and maybe it's time for a little more of that gentle leading from out in front.