Max Lucado Daily: WHOM WILL I HEAR? - October 5, 2022
Why do we, at times, fail to detect the Holy Spirit? How can we be led by him? Here is a direct answer: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2 NLT).
God’s voice must outrank the voices of society. God wants us to be different. Not odd. Not peculiar. Our aim is not to blend in but to look up. If you want to hear from God, the first question you need to ask is not “What should I do?” but “Whom will I hear?” Stop following a culture that doesn’t follow God and start listening for the Spirit, who speaks on behalf of God.
John 9:1-23
True Blindness
Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?”
3-5 Jesus said, “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. For as long as I am in the world, there is plenty of light. I am the world’s Light.”
6-7 He said this and then spit in the dust, made a clay paste with the saliva, rubbed the paste on the blind man’s eyes, and said, “Go, wash at the Pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “Sent”). The man went and washed—and saw.
8 Soon the town was buzzing. His relatives and those who year after year had seen him as a blind man begging were saying, “Why, isn’t this the man we knew, who sat here and begged?”
9 Others said, “It’s him all right!”
But others objected, “It’s not the same man at all. It just looks like him.”
He said, “It’s me, the very one.”
10 They said, “How did your eyes get opened?”
11 “A man named Jesus made a paste and rubbed it on my eyes and told me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ I did what he said. When I washed, I saw.”
12 “So where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
13-15 They marched the man to the Pharisees. This day when Jesus made the paste and healed his blindness was the Sabbath. The Pharisees grilled him again on how he had come to see. He said, “He put a clay paste on my eyes, and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “Obviously, this man can’t be from God. He doesn’t keep the Sabbath.”
Others countered, “How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?” There was a split in their ranks.
17 They came back at the blind man, “You’re the expert. He opened your eyes. What do you say about him?”
He said, “He is a prophet.”
18-19 The Jews didn’t believe it, didn’t believe the man was blind to begin with. So they called the parents of the man now bright-eyed with sight. They asked them, “Is this your son, the one you say was born blind? So how is it that he now sees?”
20-23 His parents said, “We know he is our son, and we know he was born blind. But we don’t know how he came to see—haven’t a clue about who opened his eyes. Why don’t you ask him? He’s a grown man and can speak for himself.” (His parents were talking like this because they were intimidated by the Jewish leaders, who had already decided that anyone who took a stand that this was the Messiah would be kicked out of the meeting place. That’s why his parents said, “Ask him. He’s a grown man.”)
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, October 05, 2022
Today's Scripture
Job 1:13–22
Sometime later, while Job’s children were having one of their parties at the home of the oldest son, a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys grazing in the field next to us when Sabeans attacked. They stole the animals and killed the field hands. I’m the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened.”
16 While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, “Bolts of lightning struck the sheep and the shepherds and fried them—burned them to a crisp. I’m the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened.”
17 While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, “Chaldeans coming from three directions raided the camels and massacred the camel drivers. I’m the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened.”
18–19 While he was still talking, another messenger arrived and said, “Your children were having a party at the home of the oldest brother when a tornado swept in off the desert and struck the house. It collapsed on the young people and they died. I’m the only one to get out alive and tell you what happened.”
20 Job got to his feet, ripped his robe, shaved his head, then fell to the ground and worshiped:
21 Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
naked I’ll return to the womb of the earth.
God gives, God takes.
God’s name be ever blessed.
22 Not once through all this did Job sin; not once did he blame God.
Insight
Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “When sorrowws come, they come not single spies but in battalions.” Job would certainly have understood. Perhaps any of those trials by themselves would have been devastating, but he experienced multiple trials at once as pictured in the phrase, “while he was still speaking, another messenger came and said” (vv. 16–18). Before even having time to process one tragedy, the next was upon him. The trials described in these events picture life in a broken world.
By: Bill Crowder
Grieving and Grateful
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.
Job 1:21
After my mom died, one of her fellow cancer patients approached me. “Your mom was so kind to me," she said, sobbing. “I’m sorry she died . . . instead of me.”
“My mom loved you,” I said. “We prayed God would let you see your boys grow up.” Holding her hands, I wept with her and asked God to help her grieve peacefully. I also thanked Him for her remission that allowed her to continue loving her husband and two growing children.
The Bible reveals the complexity of grief when Job lost almost everything, including all his children. Job grieved and “fell to the ground in worship” (Job 1:20). With a heartbreaking and hopeful act of surrender and expression of gratitude, he declared, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (v. 21). While Job would struggle mightily later through his grieving and God’s rebuilding of his life, in this moment he accepted and even rejoiced in His authority over the good and bad situations.
God understands the many ways we process and struggle with emotions. He invites us to grieve with honesty and vulnerability. Even when sorrow seems endless and unbearable, God affirms that He hasn’t and won’t change. With this promise, He comforts us and empowers us to be grateful for His presence.
By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
When have you experienced gratitude toward God while grieving a great loss? How has He revealed His presence when you felt alone or misunderstood in your grief?
Compassionate God, thank You for knowing me and carrying me through every step of my grieving process.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, October 05, 2022
The Nature of Degeneration
Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned… —Romans 5:12
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away— an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, “I am my own god.” This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis— my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25).
Sin is something I am born with and cannot touch— only God touches sin through redemption. It is through the Cross of Christ that God redeemed the entire human race from the possibility of damnation through the heredity of sin. God nowhere holds a person responsible for having the heredity of sin, and does not condemn anyone because of it. Condemnation comes when I realize that Jesus Christ came to deliver me from this heredity of sin, and yet I refuse to let Him do so. From that moment I begin to get the seal of damnation. “This is the condemnation [and the critical moment], that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light…” (John 3:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ. My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R
Bible in a Year: Isaiah 23-25; Philippians 1
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, October 05, 2022
THEY NEED TO HEAR YOUR STORY - #9323
It was shocking and it came on the day my Dad went to heaven. I flew in; I couldn't make it back in time before he took his last breath. But we had some great conversations before he died. And that was the day that my Mother made an announcement. She said, "You have a brother." Okay, here I am a grown man with children of my own. Now, I knew I'd had a baby brother who died when he was six months old, and that's how all of us came to know Jesus as a result of the tragedy that went into our family through that. But that was the day I learned about a brother I never knew about all those years. Now, there's some complicated circumstances that would explain why I didn't know. But the fact is, my Dad and Mom had never told me about this brother by another mother. Since then I've had a chance to meet that brother I never knew about, and wow, what a blessing. And it's so enriched both of our lives, along with our wives as well. But it was a story I'd never heard. It was a story I wish I had heard. It was a story that changed my life. But it was a story that I almost never heard.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "They Need to Hear Your Story."
You have a story! You have a story to tell that literally lives depend on; that can change lives forever. But you can't sit on it! Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 28. What an exciting chapter! It's the resurrection of Jesus. The angel has just appeared to these crest-fallen women who think the body of their Savior was stolen. He said, "He is not here; he has risen!" Now listen to these words, "Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has risen from the dead…' So, the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples."
Now, what good is a story, especially if it's good news and you don't tell it? Well, this is the good news about a death-crushing, life-changing Savior who conquered death that morning. The greatest fear we all have. The story you've got to tell is the story you probably know so well if you've been around Christian things very long.
You know about Jesus dying on the cross to carry the wrath of God upon Him for all our sin, to set us free, to make it possible for us to be free and clean and forgiven and heaven-bound. And He's powerful enough to walk out of His grave under His own power. I mean, your Jesus is the greatest love a person can experience; a love that would die for you. The greatest power a person can experience; a power that can conquer death. Wow! Don't you want to tell that story to someone? You know it; they don't.
We're living in a post Christian world; people around us probably aren't going to go to a religious meeting to hear a religious speaker talk on a religious subject in a religious place. They may be surrounded by Christian resources, and TV and radio, and websites. But they don't know about all that. They have yet to find out what Jesus did on the cross for them. And the only way they're going to know is if you tell them the story you know so well.
They desperately need to hear about that. They desperately need to hear about a Jesus who is alive, who changes people, who does things that no one else can do and saves lives. It may be old hat to you about the sin and Christ dying for sin. But it's life-saving news for somebody you know. The words of the angel on that resurrection morning were, "You've come and seen. Now, go and tell." That's Jesus' command to you. "Go and tell!"
And you have a Hope Story. You are living proof that Jesus is alive, because He's done things in your life that no one else could have done. Right? He has fixed what no one else could fix. He's changing what no one else could change. He's providing hope where nothing else could. You have a Hope Story my brother or sister, and that story of what Jesus did on the cross and how He's changed you? Well, that could be the difference between life and death and heaven and hell for somebody in your world.
Would you tell them the story you know? Give them the good news! You have a life-changing story to tell. But what good is a story if you don't tell it?