Max Lucado Daily: HELP IS HERE - September 5, 2022
Some time ago I realized my car’s gas tank was nearly empty. I spotted a convenience store and parked next to a pump. I placed the nozzle in my tank, swiped my card, and began filling up my car. I then went into the store and bought a soda. I chatted with the store clerk. I went back to my car and washed the windshield. I was barely back on the road when I happened to look at my gas gauge. It was on empty!
Knowing my attention span, I probably forgot to squeeze the lever. I did everything except the one thing I needed to do. Have you done the same? Have you neglected the Holy Spirit? The Spirit of God longs to give you his great power. Challenges come with life, but they need not define your life. Help is here.
Some time ago I realized my car’s gas tank was nearly empty. I spotted a convenience store and parked next to a pump. I placed the nozzle in my tank, swiped my card, and began filling up my car. I then went into the store and bought a soda. I chatted with the store clerk. I went back to my car and washed the windshield. I was barely back on the road when I happened to look at my gas gauge. It was on empty!
Knowing my attention span, I probably forgot to squeeze the lever. I did everything except the one thing I needed to do. Have you done the same? Have you neglected the Holy Spirit? The Spirit of God longs to give you his great power. Challenges come with life, but they need not define your life. Help is here.
John 5:25-47
“It’s urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived—I mean right now!—when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive. Just as the Father has life in himself, he has conferred on the Son life in himself. And he has given him the authority, simply because he is the Son of Man, to decide and carry out matters of Judgment.
28-29 “Don’t act so surprised at all this. The time is coming when everyone dead and buried will hear his voice. Those who have lived the right way will walk out into a resurrection Life; those who have lived the wrong way, into a resurrection Judgment.
30-33 “I can’t do a solitary thing on my own: I listen, then I decide. You can trust my decision because I’m not out to get my own way but only to carry out orders. If I were simply speaking on my own account, it would be an empty, self-serving witness. But an independent witness confirms me, the most reliable Witness of all. Furthermore, you all saw and heard John, and he gave expert and reliable testimony about me, didn’t he?
34-38 “But my purpose is not to get your vote, and not to appeal to mere human testimony. I’m speaking to you this way so that you will be saved. John was a torch, blazing and bright, and you were glad enough to dance for an hour or so in his bright light. But the witness that really confirms me far exceeds John’s witness. It’s the work the Father gave me to complete. These very tasks, as I go about completing them, confirm that the Father, in fact, sent me. The Father who sent me, confirmed me. And you missed it. You never heard his voice, you never saw his appearance. There is nothing left in your memory of his Message because you do not take his Messenger seriously.
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39-40 “You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from me the life you say you want.
41-44 “I’m not interested in crowd approval. And do you know why? Because I know you and your crowds. I know that love, especially God’s love, is not on your working agenda. I came with the authority of my Father, and you either dismiss me or avoid me. If another came, acting self-important, you would welcome him with open arms. How do you expect to get anywhere with God when you spend all your time jockeying for position with each other, ranking your rivals and ignoring God?
45-47 “But don’t think I’m going to accuse you before my Father. Moses, in whom you put so much stock, is your accuser. If you believed, really believed, what Moses said, you would believe me. He wrote of me. If you won’t take seriously what he wrote, how can I expect you to take seriously what I speak?”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, September 05, 2022
Today's Scripture
James 1:2–12
Faith Under Pressure
2–4 Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.
5–8 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
9–11 When down-and-outers get a break, cheer! And when the arrogant rich are brought down to size, cheer! Prosperity is as short-lived as a wildflower, so don’t ever count on it. You know that as soon as the sun rises, pouring down its scorching heat, the flower withers. Its petals wilt and, before you know it, that beautiful face is a barren stem. Well, that’s a picture of the “prosperous life.” At the very moment everyone is looking on in admiration, it fades away to nothing.
12 Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.
Insight
James’ letter (most likely written by James the half-brother of Jesus) doesn’t address a specific church but “the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (v. 1)—suggesting its primary audience was Jewish believers in Jesus, perhaps those who left Judea fleeing persecution (see Acts 11:19).
James often calls believers in Jesus “brothers and sisters” (Greek adelphoi) in his letter (1:2, 16, 19; 2:1, 5, 14, 3:10, 12; 4:11; 5:7, 9, 10, 12, 19). Some scholars suggest that James’ frequent use of this term would connect well to a Jewish audience who saw fellow Jews as brothers and sisters in their shared faith and heritage (adelphoi refers to fellow Jews in Acts 2:29 and Romans 9:3). In early Christianity, this language expanded to include all believers, including gentiles (see Romans 12:10).
By: Monica La Rose
Lego Lessons
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial.
James 1:12
Approximately ten Lego pieces are sold for every person on earth each year—more than seventy-five billion of the little plastic bricks. But if it wasn’t for the perseverance of Danish toymaker Ole Kirk Christiansen, there wouldn't be any Legos to snap together.
Christiansen toiled away in Billund, Denmark, for decades before creating Leg Godt, which means “play well.” His workshop was destroyed by fire twice. He endured bankruptcy and a world war that caused a shortage of materials. Finally, in the late 1940s, he landed on the idea for self-locking plastic bricks. By the time Ole Kirk died in 1958, Legos was on the verge of becoming a household word.
Persevering in the challenges of work and life can be difficult. That’s also true in our spiritual life as we strive to grow to be more like Jesus. Trouble hits us, and we need God’s strength to persevere. James wrote: “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial” (James 1:12). Sometimes the trials we face are setbacks in relationships or finances or health. Sometimes they’re temptations that slow us down in our goal of honoring God with our lives.
But God promises wisdom for such times (v. 5), and He asks us to trust Him as He provides what we need (v. 6). Through it all, when we allow Him to help us persevere in honoring Him with our lives, we find true blessing (v. 12).
By: Dave Branon
Reflect & Pray
What trials are you facing these days? How can God help you live wholeheartedly for Him?
Dear Jesus, I know about perseverance from studying Your life. May Your example be my guide when trials come my way.
For further study, read How to Read the Bible: The General Epistles.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, September 05, 2022
Watching With Jesus
Stay here and watch with Me. —Matthew 26:38
“Watch with Me.” Jesus was saying, in effect, “Watch with no private point of view at all, but watch solely and entirely with Me.” In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revealed truth of the Bible even in the circumstances of our own lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identification with Himself through a particular “Gethsemane” experience of our own. But we refuse to go, saying, “No, Lord, I can’t see the meaning of this, and besides, it’s very painful.” And how can we possibly watch with Someone who is so incomprehensible? How are we going to understand Jesus sufficiently to watch with Him in His Gethsemane, when we don’t even know why He is suffering? We don’t know how to watch with Him— we are only used to the idea of Jesus watching with us.
The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose. In the Garden of Gethsemane they slept as a result of their own sorrow, and at the end of three years of the closest and most intimate relationship of their lives they “all…forsook Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56).
“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit…” (Acts 2:4). “They” refers to the same people, but something wonderful has happened between these two events— our Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension— and the disciples have now been invaded and “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Our Lord had said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8). This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. Our Brilliant Heritage
Bible in a Year: Psalms 146-147; 1 Corinthians 15:1-28
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, September 05, 2022
In the old Westerns, they said the hero was the guy in the white hat. Well, in the life-or-death moments of September 11, 2001, it was the man with the red bandana.
A red bandana had been Welles Crowther's trademark, I guess, since he was a boy. He still carried one even when he was a 24-year-old equities trader in the South Tower of the World Trade Center. And he had it on that fateful September day when the tower was in flames.
Ling Young will never forget the man that she called "the man with the red bandana." She was sitting, bloody, dazed, waiting with others for help in the Elevator Sky Lobby. That was on the 78th floor where the second hijacked plane had sliced through the tower, and that's where she was. She said, "All of a sudden I heard a gentleman come out of the corner saying, 'I found the stairs. Follow me.'" The man was carrying a woman on his back, and he had a red bandana in his hand. After leading the group to a stairwell and giving them a fire extinguisher, he disappeared back up the stairs to help some other people. That was the last time she saw him, and she said, "He's been on my mind every day."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Love That Could Not Leave You Lost."
Judy Wein was in that same Sky Lobby. She was badly injured, and that's when she saw a man with a red bandana over his nose and mouth come running across the room, and he led them to this unseen staircase that would take them to safety. And in her words, "He was the cowboy coming in to save the town." Ling Young is sure that "Without him, I would not be here" she said. "He definitely saved my life." Six months after the towers fell, they found his body in the rubble.
I can't read this story without remembering the man who gave His life to save mine, and to save so many others. On the fateful day when He died to rescue me, it was not a red bandana He wore. It was a crown of thorns. He bled red for me. And the way I'll know Him when I see Him is by those awful nail prints in His hands. The scars that will forever declare how much my sin cost and how deeply He loves me and you. Our word for today from the Word of God is Isaiah 49:15-16. He tells me, "I will not forget you! I have engraved you on the palms of My hands."
See, I'm not alone in my desperate need for a spiritual rescuer. We all sit in the darkness, the danger of being away from our God. We're all away from Him. We're on the edge of being swept into an awful eternity after our last heartbeat, because we've run our own lives. We've hijacked our life from God. It's His life, and we took it. We've said, "God, I'll do it my way instead of your way." And the only way to pay for that is to pay the penalty for an eternity in hell. But here comes Jesus with His hand extended saying, "I have made a way out. Come on, follow Me!"
Our eternal destiny depends on whether or not we do follow Him. He said, "Whoever believes in the Son" - that's the Son of God - "has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life" (John 3:36). That's the crossroads we all come to - it's the crossroads to which God might be bringing you today, "What will you do with Jesus, My Son, who gave His life for you?" God asks. The crown of thorns, the nails in His hands and feet, the spear in His side, the separation from God the Father Himself, all for you because of your sin and because of His love for you.
Today, as He reaches out His hand your direction, are you going to grab it or are you going to walk away? This could be the day you settle your eternity and trade in that hell for His heaven. Reach out and grab Him and say, "Jesus, I'm pinning all my hopes on You to be my Rescuer." Listen, you want to know more about this? Go to our website today - ANewStory.com.
Welles Crowther's father said, "His last hour was his legacy." Well, Jesus' last hour, when He was on that cross and chose to be cut off from God so we would never have to be, that was His legacy.
And with a very full heart, I can tell you, I'm part of that legacy, and you can be too.