MAX LUCADO: VICTORY OVER SIN - October 13, 2022
The Holy Spirit will give you power over the struggle of sin. Many Christians can relate to these words of the apostle Paul: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24 ESV). This sobering confession is the exclamation point on the apostle’s remembrance of his life before he followed Christ. Each day was a day of defeat. Many people feel the same way today.
If that is you, observe what Paul says just a few verses later. Romans 8 is Paul’s great statement of liberation. In contrast to the previous chapter, he speaks of victory and assurance and grace. The difference? Chapter 7 was life under the old law; chapter 8 is life in the Spirit.
The point? Victory over sin is the result of the presence of God’s Spirit within us.
Psalm 26
Clear my name, God;
I’ve kept an honest shop.
I’ve thrown in my lot with you, God, and
I’m not budging.
2
Examine me, God, from head to foot,
order your battery of tests.
Make sure I’m fit
inside and out
3
So I never lose
sight of your love,
But keep in step with you,
never missing a beat.
4-5
I don’t hang out with tricksters,
I don’t pal around with thugs;
I hate that pack of gangsters,
I don’t deal with double-dealers.
6-7
I scrub my hands with purest soap,
then join hands with the others in the great circle,
dancing around your altar, God,
Singing God-songs at the top of my lungs,
telling God-stories.
8-10
God, I love living with you;
your house glows with your glory.
When it’s time for spring cleaning,
don’t sweep me out with the quacks and crooks,
Men with bags of dirty tricks,
women with purses stuffed with bribe-money.
11-12
You know I’ve been aboveboard with you;
now be aboveboard with me.
I’m on the level with you, God;
I bless you every chance I get.
Our Daily Bread
Read: Romans 5:6–11
Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
9-11 Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life! Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose. We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah!
Insight:
In Romans 5, the apostle Paul sets up one of the most beautiful pictures of Jesus’ work on the cross. Shortly after saying that God proved His love for humanity through Christ’s death, Paul turns his attention to our death. Death, he says, became a plague over all humanity because the first Adam chose rebellion over obedience. As a result, every human dies. But Jesus—the last Adam—chose obedience to the Father. As a result, He opened the path through death to eternal life for everyone who will believe in Him.
We were God’s enemies when He sent Jesus. We were doomed to die because of Adam’s and our own rebellion. But God didn’t give up on us. Instead, He showed us love through Jesus. And His faithfulness broke both the power of sin and death, leading us back to life.
Will you still love me?
By Karen Huang
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Ten-year-old Lyn-Lyn had finally been adopted, but she was afraid. In the orphanage where she’d grown up, she was punished over the slightest mistake. Lyn-Lyn asked her adoptive mom, who was a friend of mine: “Mommy, do you love me?” When my friend replied yes, Lyn-Lyn asked, “If I make a mistake, will you still love me?”
Although unspoken, some of us might ask that same question when we feel we’ve disappointed God: “Will You still love me?” We know that as long as we live in this world, we’ll fail and sin at times. And we wonder, Do my mistakes affect God’s love for me?
John 3:16 assures us of God’s love. He gave His Son, Jesus, to die on our behalf so that if we believe in Him, we’ll receive eternal life. But what if we fail Him even after we place our trust in Him? That’s when we need to remember that “Christ died for us” even when we were still sinners (Romans 5:8). If He could love us at our worst, how can we doubt His love today when we’re His children?
When we sin, our Father lovingly corrects and disciplines us. That’s not rejection (8:1); that’s love (Hebrews 12:6). Let’s live as God’s beloved children, resting in the blessed assurance that His love for us is steadfast and everlasting.
Reflect: How does understanding God’s love for you strengthen you to obey Him? How does it impact your view of sin?
Pray:Heavenly Father, thank You for Your steadfast and unchanging love.
My Utmost for His Highest
Individual Discouragement and Personal Growth
By Oswald Chambers
…when Moses was grown…he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. —Exodus 2:11
Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. After he launched his first strike for God and for what was right, God allowed Moses to be driven into empty discouragement, sending him into the desert to feed sheep for forty years. At the end of that time, God appeared to Moses and said to him, “ ‘…bring My people…out of Egypt.’ But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go…?’ ” (Exodus 3:10-11). In the beginning Moses had realized that he was the one to deliver the people, but he had to be trained and disciplined by God first. He was right in his individual perspective, but he was not the person for the work until he had learned true fellowship and oneness with God.
We may have the vision of God and a very clear understanding of what God wants, and yet when we start to do it, there comes to us something equivalent to Moses’ forty years in the wilderness. It’s as if God had ignored the entire thing, and when we are thoroughly discouraged, God comes back and revives His call to us. And then we begin to tremble and say, “Who am I that I should go…?” We must learn that God’s great stride is summed up in these words— “I AM WHO I AM…has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). We must also learn that our individual effort for God shows nothing but disrespect for Him— our individuality is to be rendered radiant through a personal relationship with God, so that He may be “well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). We are focused on the right individual perspective of things; we have the vision and can say, “I know this is what God wants me to do.” But we have not yet learned to get into God’s stride. If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time of great personal growth ahead.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
Bible in a Year: Isaiah 41-42; 1 Thessalonians 1
A Word With You by Ron Hutchcraft
MAKING IT THROUGH THE PAIN - #9329
Our three-year-old grandson had been around long enough to show us that he's gonna be the one who lived on the edge. You know, trying daring things, and basically a physical kind of guy. Consequently, he might be on a first name basis with the folks in the emergency room. We hope not, but you know, he's already visited there more than once in his short career. The first time he got a bad cut on his lip from a fall - lots of bleeding, run to the emergency room, stitches. This medical stuff was all new to him. Oh, listen he fought it. It took four people to hold down this tiger while the stitches were put in. It was traumatic for everybody involved - including my wife who was one of those E. R. wrestlers that night trying to hold him down. The second time was when another fall caused a big cut in his chin. Lots of bleeding, run to the emergency room, stitches. Get a pattern here? Less fighting this time. Oh, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't as bad as the first time. Who knows, maybe pretty soon he'll be helping them put the stitches in!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Making It Through The Pain."
We figured out two reasons that the second time was a little less traumatic than the first time for our grandson. First, he knew from experience that the pain of this process didn't last forever. Secondly, he knew from his first time around that he got a reward when this was over - let's hear it for popsicles and stickers!
Maybe there's something we can all gain from a little boy's emergency room experiences with pain - maybe it can even help you get through the painful time you're going through right now. What were those two things that helped you get through a process that's really hurting you? You know it won't last forever. You know there's a reward when it's over.
God's great ambassador, Paul, learned those secrets of making it through the pain, and he had a postgraduate degree in suffering - beatings, imprisonments, attacks on his reputation, death threats, excruciating physical conditions. This is a man who's got the credentials to talk to us about the great hurts of life. And he does in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
With all he's enduring, Paul says: "We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal."
Well, you know, you can lose your health, you can lose your business, you can lose your marriage, you can lose people you love and still not lose heart. How? First, remember these four letters - TTSP. Yep, they stand for, "This too shall pass." Your ordeal is, in Paul's words "momentary" and "temporary" against the backdrop of your eternity in heaven. It won't always be this way. Secondly, think about the reward for finishing your painful assignment faithfully. Paul called it "eternal glory." At the end of this, you've got something really good, and it will last forever.
One other thing that our grandson might ultimately learn about the pain of the doctor's procedures - the purpose of the pain is to make him better. That's the purpose of your pain too. To make you more like Jesus, to make you more of a helper and a healer for hurting people. And, by the way, they're all around you. The relatively short duration of your pain, the reward you'll get for bearing it, the good it can produce in your life - none of those take away the pain, but they sure make it bearable. They give it meaning, and they make you bearable, too.
What you're going through has an end, it has a reward, and it has a point. So you don't have to fight it. The doctor who's got your case - Dr. Jesus - loves you deeply, holds you tightly, and He knows exactly what He's doing.