Max Lucado Daily: LINGERING SHEPHERDS - December 13, 2022
Christianity was born in one big heavenly interruption. Just ask the Bethlehem shepherds. They had no expectations of excitement – these are sheep they’re watching. We count sheep to go to sleep!
Shepherds, however, treasured the predictable. This was the night shift. Any excitement was bad excitement—wolves, lions, poachers. Just because they wanted a calm night, didn’t mean they would get it. Luke says, “Then an angel of the Lord stood before them. The glory of the Lord shining around them, and they became very frightened.”
We always assume the worst before we look for the best. Good thing the shepherds lingered. Otherwise they might have missed the second verse. “Today your Savior was born in the town of David. He is Christ the Lord.” I hope you’ll do what the shepherds did—linger near the manger.
Proverbs 8
Lady Wisdom Calls Out
Do you hear Lady Wisdom calling?
Can you hear Madame Insight raising her voice?
She’s taken her stand at First and Main,
at the busiest intersection.
Right in the city square
where the traffic is thickest, she shouts,
“You—I’m talking to all of you,
everyone out here on the streets!
Listen, you idiots—learn good sense!
You blockheads—shape up!
Don’t miss a word of this—I’m telling you how to live well,
I’m telling you how to live at your best.
My mouth chews and savors and relishes truth—
I can’t stand the taste of evil!
You’ll only hear true and right words from my mouth;
not one syllable will be twisted or skewed.
You’ll recognize this as true—you with open minds;
truth-ready minds will see it at once.
Prefer my life-disciplines over chasing after money,
and God-knowledge over a lucrative career.
For Wisdom is better than all the trappings of wealth;
nothing you could wish for holds a candle to her.
12-21 “I am Lady Wisdom, and I live next to Sanity;
Knowledge and Discretion live just down the street.
The Fear-of-God means hating Evil,
whose ways I hate with a passion—
pride and arrogance and crooked talk.
Good counsel and common sense are my characteristics;
I am both Insight and the Virtue to live it out.
With my help, leaders rule,
and lawmakers legislate fairly;
With my help, governors govern,
along with all in legitimate authority.
I love those who love me;
those who look for me find me.
Wealth and Glory accompany me—
also substantial Honor and a Good Name.
My benefits are worth more than a big salary, even a very big salary;
the returns on me exceed any imaginable bonus.
You can find me on Righteous Road—that’s where I walk—
at the intersection of Justice Avenue,
Handing out life to those who love me,
filling their arms with life—armloads of life!
22-31 “God sovereignly made me—the first, the basic—
before he did anything else.
I was brought into being a long time ago,
well before Earth got its start.
I arrived on the scene before Ocean,
yes, even before Springs and Rivers and Lakes.
Before Mountains were sculpted and Hills took shape,
I was already there, newborn;
Long before God stretched out Earth’s Horizons,
and tended to the minute details of Soil and Weather,
And set Sky firmly in place,
I was there.
When he mapped and gave borders to wild Ocean,
built the vast vault of Heaven,
and installed the fountains that fed Ocean,
When he drew a boundary for Sea,
posted a sign that said no trespassing,
And then staked out Earth’s Foundations,
I was right there with him, making sure everything fit.
Day after day I was there, with my joyful applause,
always enjoying his company,
Delighted with the world of things and creatures,
happily celebrating the human family.
32-36 “So, my dear friends, listen carefully;
those who embrace these my ways are most blessed.
Mark a life of discipline and live wisely;
don’t squander your precious life.
Blessed the man, blessed the woman, who listens to me,
awake and ready for me each morning,
alert and responsive as I start my day’s work.
When you find me, you find life, real life,
to say nothing of God’s good pleasure.
But if you wrong me, you damage your very soul;
when you reject me, you’re flirting with death.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Today's Scripture
1 Corinthians 15:50–58
I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don’t in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very “nature” is to die, so how could they “naturally” end up in the Life kingdom?
51-57 But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
Insight
As the apostle Paul concluded a masterful defense of bodily resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:54–55, he quoted from two Old Testament passages that highlight the defeat of death (see Isaiah 25:8; Hosea 13:14). The word victory is used three times in 1 Corinthians 15:54–57. The “Lord Jesus Christ” gets the credit for victory over death (v. 57). The Greek word for “victory” is nikos. A popular shoe company uses a form of this word as their brand name (nike). In Revelation, we see the word victorious (niv) from the same root (see 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 15:2; 21:7). Other translations use the terms overcomes or conquers. In Romans 8:37, the word appears in compound form and is translated “more than conquerors.” How assuring to know that the One who was victorious over death is our source of victory in all of life. By: Arthur Jackson
The Meaning of Life
Death has been swallowed up in victory. 1 Corinthians 15:54
A short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges tells of a Roman soldier, Marcus Rufus, who drinks from a “secret river that purifies men of death.” In time, though, Marcus realizes immortality wasn’t all it was cracked up to be: life without limits was life without significance. In fact, it is death itself that gives meaning to life. Marcus finds an antidote—a spring of clear water. After drinking from it, he scratches his hand on a thorn, and a drop of blood forms, signifying his restored mortality.
Like Marcus, we too sometimes despair over the decline of life and the prospect of death (Psalm 88:3). We agree that death gives significance to life. But this is where the stories diverge. Unlike Marcus, we know it’s in Christ’s death that we find the true meaning of our lives. With the shedding of His blood on the cross, Christ conquered death, swallowing it up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54). For us, the antidote is in the “living water” of Jesus Christ (John 4:10). Because we drink that, all the rules of life, death, and life immortal have changed (1 Corinthians 15:52).
It’s true, we won’t escape physical death, but that isn’t the point. Jesus upends all our despair about life and death (Hebrews 2:11–15). In Christ, we’re reassured with the hope of heaven and of meaningful joy in eternal life with Him. By: Kenneth Petersen
Reflect & Pray
What are you worried about? What are your thoughts about the prospect of death? How does 1 Corinthians 15 encourage you?
God, help me to embrace Your promises about deliverance into eternal life with You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Intercessory Prayer
…men always ought to pray and not lose heart. —Luke 18:1
You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption. Instead, you will simply be turning intercession into useless sympathy for others, which will serve only to increase the contentment they have for remaining out of touch with God. True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance. Intercession means to “fill up…[with] what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24), and this is precisely why there are so few intercessors. People describe intercession by saying, “It is putting yourself in someone else’s place.” That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and His perspective.
As an intercessor, be careful not to seek too much information from God regarding the situation you are praying about, because you may be overwhelmed. If you know too much, more than God has ordained for you to know, you can’t pray; the circumstances of the people become so overpowering that you are no longer able to get to the underlying truth.
Our work is to be in such close contact with God that we may have His mind about everything, but we shirk that responsibility by substituting doing for interceding. And yet intercession is the only thing that has no drawbacks, because it keeps our relationship completely open with God.
What we must avoid in intercession is praying for someone to be simply “patched up.” We must pray that person completely through into contact with the very life of God. Think of the number of people God has brought across our path, only to see us drop them! When we pray on the basis of redemption, God creates something He can create in no other way than through intercessory prayer.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The fiery furnaces are there by God’s direct permission. It is misleading to imagine that we are developed in spite of our circumstances; we are developed because of them. It is mastery in circumstances that is needed, not mastery over them. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 674 R
Bible in a Year: Hosea 12-14; Revelation 4
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, December 13, 2022
DELIVERING SOMEONE ELSE'S PACKAGES - #9372
Well, it's got to be the Christmas season! You know, you keep seeing the UPS trucks going up and down like a fleet, and those drivers are busy! They must collapse into bed at night after those long, long hours they work. But their job could be worse. I mean, what if they had to shop for all those packages, and buy them, and package them and deliver them? Well, fortunately it's not up to the UPS guy to create the package; he's just got to deliver it. It's kind of like you and me.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Delivering Someone Else's Packages."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 1. I'm going to begin reading at verse 31, where Mary is being given Mission Impossible. Oh, it's long before the TV program or the movies ever came along, but she's got mission impossible. Listen to this as the angel comes to her, "You will be with child and give birth to a son. You are to give Him the name Jesus."
This is the virgin named Mary. "You will give birth to a son. You will be with child." Well, her question is reasonable. "'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.'" Mary looks around and what God is asking her to do, and it just can't happen based on any human ability or anything human experience would support.
Is there something big in your life like that right now? You say, "Man, this one is so tough, so big, so beyond me, I just honestly can't see any way by any human plan or any human ability this could ever happen. This mountain cannot move." Well, Mary was there. If you're there, stay tuned.
God's answer to impossible situations is the same 2,000 years later. Mary's question might be your question, "How will..." God's answer, "He will." "How will it be?" "The Holy Spirit will" is His answer. You don't have to be the answer. You don't have to create the answer. You don't have to think up the answer. You're the UPS man; you just deliver the answer. You just deliver the package. You and I are his instruments. The instrument doesn't play its own music; someone plays through the instrument. The answer doesn't come from you any more than the packages come from the UPS man. They come through you.
The solution is God's intervention, not man's invention. As long as you try to face this challenge with human calculation you're going to be overwhelmed. But Mary found something better than being overwhelmed; it's overshadowed. The passage says, "You'll be overshadowed by the power of the Holy Spirit." You want to be overwhelmed? Well, you will be if you focus on your ability. Or you can be overshadowed by God's power.
When you realize that you only deliver God's packages, you develop two vital mindsets. First, you develop humility; you know that all the credit goes to the giver, not to the deliverer. We don't hug and kiss the UPS man when he comes and say, "Oh, thank you for this wonderful gift!" He didn't give it, he just delivered it. So you know now you have every reason for humility.
Secondly, it gives you confidence. I can row into this storm right now because God's power will be the difference, not mine. So, relax. Even if you're in the middle of mission impossible right now, God is getting the solution ready. All you have to do is be available to deliver someone else's package.