Max Lucado Daily: AS HUMAN AS HE INTENDED TO BE - December 6, 2022
It all happened in a moment, a most remarkable moment. God became a man. Heaven opened herself and placed her most precious one in a human womb.
Jesus came, not as a flash of light or as an unapproachable conqueror, but as one whose first cries were heard by a peasant girl and a sleepy carpenter. The hands that first held him were un-manicured, calloused, and dirty. For thirty-three years he would feel everything you and I have ever felt. Weak and weary and afraid of failure. His feelings got hurt.
To think of Jesus in such a light seems almost irreverent. There’s something about keeping him divine that keeps him distant and predictable. But don’t do it. For heaven’s sake, don’t! Let him be as human as he intended to be. Let him into the mire and muck of our world. For only if we let him in can he pull us out.
Proverbs 3
Don’t Assume You Know It All
Good friend, don’t forget all I’ve taught you;
take to heart my commands.
They’ll help you live a long, long time,
a long life lived full and well.
3-4 Don’t lose your grip on Love and Loyalty.
Tie them around your neck; carve their initials on your heart.
Earn a reputation for living well
in God’s eyes and the eyes of the people.
5-12 Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Don’t assume that you know it all.
Run to God! Run from evil!
Your body will glow with health,
your very bones will vibrate with life!
Honor God with everything you own;
give him the first and the best.
Your barns will burst,
your wine vats will brim over.
But don’t, dear friend, resent God’s discipline;
don’t sulk under his loving correction.
It’s the child he loves that God corrects;
a father’s delight is behind all this.
The Very Tree of Life
13-18 You’re blessed when you meet Lady Wisdom,
when you make friends with Madame Insight.
She’s worth far more than money in the bank;
her friendship is better than a big salary.
Her value exceeds all the trappings of wealth;
nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.
With one hand she gives long life,
with the other she confers recognition.
Her manner is beautiful,
her life wonderfully complete.
She’s the very Tree of Life to those who embrace her.
Hold her tight—and be blessed!
19-20 With Lady Wisdom, God formed Earth;
with Madame Insight, he raised Heaven.
They knew when to signal rivers and springs to the surface,
and dew to descend from the night skies.
Never Walk Away
21-26 Dear friend, guard Clear Thinking and Common Sense with your life;
don’t for a minute lose sight of them.
They’ll keep your soul alive and well,
they’ll keep you fit and attractive.
You’ll travel safely,
you’ll neither tire nor trip.
You’ll take afternoon naps without a worry,
you’ll enjoy a good night’s sleep.
No need to panic over alarms or surprises,
or predictions that doomsday’s just around the corner,
Because God will be right there with you;
he’ll keep you safe and sound.
27-29 Never walk away from someone who deserves help;
your hand is God’s hand for that person.
Don’t tell your neighbor “Maybe some other time”
or “Try me tomorrow”
when the money’s right there in your pocket.
Don’t figure ways of taking advantage of your neighbor
when he’s sitting there trusting and unsuspecting.
30-32 Don’t walk around with a chip on your shoulder,
always spoiling for a fight.
Don’t try to be like those who shoulder their way through life.
Why be a bully?
“Why not?” you say. Because God can’t stand twisted souls.
It’s the straightforward who get his respect.
33-35 God’s curse blights the house of the wicked,
but he blesses the home of the righteous.
He gives proud skeptics a cold shoulder,
but if you’re down on your luck, he’s right there to help.
Wise living gets rewarded with honor;
stupid living gets the booby prize.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, December 06, 2022
Today's Scripture
Luke 2:25–32 , 36–38
In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a good man, a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel. And the Holy Spirit was on him. The Holy Spirit had shown him that he would see the Messiah of God before he died. Led by the Spirit, he entered the Temple. As the parents of the child Jesus brought him in to carry out the rituals of the Law, Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God:
God, you can now release your servant;
release me in peace as you promised.
With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation;
it’s now out in the open for everyone to see:
A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations,
and of glory for your people Israel.
Anna the prophetess was also there, a daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher. She was by now a very old woman. She had been married seven years and a widow for eighty-four. She never left the Temple area, worshiping night and day with her fastings and prayers. At the very time Simeon was praying, she showed up, broke into an anthem of praise to God, and talked about the child to all who were waiting expectantly for the freeing of Jerusalem.
Insight
Most Israelites were anticipating the arrival of Messiah, and one might expect that the religious leaders would have been among them. Yet they seemed to miss Him despite the signs and prophecy (see Matthew 2:1–6). In contrast, Luke 2 informs us of Simeon and Anna, who recognized Him at once. What made the difference? In the case of Simeon and Anna, they actively sought out a close relationship with God. The text says of Simeon, “Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts” (v. 27), indicating that he was customarily sensitive to God’s leading. As for Anna, it appears she literally lived at the temple (v. 37). Both Simeon and Anna knew what the arrival of the Christ child meant. By: Tim Gustafson
Great Expectations
She . . . spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. Luke 2:38
On a busy day before Christmas, an aged woman approached the mail counter at my crowded neighborhood post office. Watching her slow pace, the patient postal clerk greeted her, “Well hello, young lady!” His words were friendly, but some might hear them saying that “younger” is better.
The Bible inspires us to see that advanced age can motivate our hope. As the infant Jesus is brought to the temple by Joseph and Mary, to be consecrated (Luke 2:23; see Exodus 13:2, 12), two elderly believers suddenly take center stage.
First, Simeon—who’d been waiting for years to see the Messiah—“took [Jesus] in his arms and praised God, saying: ‘Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations’ ” (Luke 2:28–31).
Then Anna, a “very old” prophet (v. 36), came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph. A widow who’d been married only seven years, she’d lived in the temple to age eighty-four. Never leaving, she “worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.” When she saw Jesus, she began praising God, explaining about “the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (vv. 37–38).
These two hopeful servants remind us to never stop waiting on God—no matter our age—with great expectations. By: Patricia Raybon
Reflect & Pray
What lessons have you learned from elderly believers about God’s faithfulness? How does their hopefulness inspire you?
Dear faithful Father, when I lose hope, remind me to wait expectantly for You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 06, 2022
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. —Genesis 9:13
It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose. Why doesn’t God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with Him. Why doesn’t God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is— will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won’t do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God— a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don’t believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, “Now I believe.” There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, “Look to Me, and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:22).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement— no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging; therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried. He Shall Glorify Me, 494 R
Bible in a Year: Daniel 3-4; 1 John 5
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, December 06, 2022
THE DEADLIEST "DISEASE" - #9367
My wife and I have had some of the most special weeks of our lives on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico. But there was a cloud over one visit during a summer ministry we had there. See, there had been this mystery illness; it was all over the news. It had already taken some 20 lives. People suddenly were developing severe breathing problems, and in a short time they were gone. Well, since then, that same disease has surfaced in places all over the country. That demonstrated that the killer was not a reservation disease. But in the early stages, there was panic on the reservation.
Health experts and researchers from all over descended on the area to find the cause. Finally, they isolated this rodent-born cause that they called the Hantavirus, and then victims had some hope of recovery. Before that, the medical personnel were just trying to treat the symptoms, but everyone knew that the killer would continue to claim victims until the culprit was identified.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Deadliest 'Disease.'"
The Bible - God's book - identifies the greatest killer of all time; the greatest problem you and I have. Strangely, many of us wouldn't even put this disease on our list of problems that need a solution. We'd put its deadly symptoms on our list. We see the damage from the disease in our family, our working relationships, some of the dark feelings inside of us, in the brokenness between people.
Okay, here's the diagnosis. Isaiah 59:1-2, our word for today from the Word of God. "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save nor His ear too dull to hear. But our iniquities (That's our sins; our wrong doings.) have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear." There is a spiritual killer on the loose in your world and mine. It's called sin. And because of it the Bible says here we are away from God, and that single missing relationship is responsible for so much of our misery.
First of all, sin needs a definition. What is it? Well, I think the middle letter says it pretty well - s-I-n. "I will run my life, not you, God." No matter how religious we are, the Bible says we have all made that defiant choice about the central control of our life. Romans 3:23 - "All have sinned and fallen short of God's glorious ideal." And out of that hijacking of our life has come thousands of little life choices that disregard what God wants and just plow ahead with what we want.
This sin virus puts a wall between us and the God that we can't live without. The symptoms? They read like a list of the greatest struggles and needs of our life: chronic loneliness. Why? We're lonely for God. We're away from Him. A low view of our worth. Why? Because we're away from the One who gave us our worth. Disappointing relationships. Why? Because we haven't got the central relationship right and all the others aren't working, a lot because of our selfishness.
Those dark feelings that frighten us sometimes, depression and anger. They're there because there's no God to help us control them and change them. We're nervous about death and we're nervous about eternity because we're not ready to meet God; we are away from Him. We've got struggles in our marriages, in our parenting, in finding peace and trying to find some closeness. It's all so hard because we're doing it without the love of God; without the power of God.
Maybe you have battled the symptoms all your life without knowing what caused them - the sin virus. If you're ready for a cure, listen to Isaiah 53:5-6. "The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him (that's Christ). We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity (the sin) of us all." Jesus took the punishment for your sin when He died on the cross, and the wall between you and God comes down the moment you make the Savior your Savior by saying, "Jesus, I'm pinning all my hopes on You."
Do that today! Let this new life begin. If you've never begun that relationship and you want to, please visit our website. You'll find out how to get this confirmed and how to be sure before this day is over. Go to ANewStory.com.
Right now, right where you are, you can open up your life up to the One, not who has the cure. No, He is the cure. "
