Max Lucado Daily: MAKE A LIST - February 17, 2023
Everyone likes a list. Lists are reassuring. They comfort us. To list is to understand and solve, even control. Moses brought a list down the mountain. There are lists of the gifts of the Spirit, lists of good fruit and bad. I’ve compiled a list. Some God-given, time-tested truths that define the way to navigate your life. Can I share it with you?
Here it is: When no one is watching, live as if someone is. Succeed at home first. Pray twice as much as you fret. Listen twice as much as you speak. God has forgiven you; you’d be wise to do the same. Once a week, let a child take you on a walk. Only harbor a grudge when God does. Never let the important be the victim of the trivial.
Just some ideas on my list. Why don’t you compile your own?
Acts 10:1-23
Peter’s Vision
There was a man named Cornelius who lived in Caesarea, captain of the Italian Guard stationed there. He was a thoroughly good man. He had led everyone in his house to live worshipfully before God, was always helping people in need, and had the habit of prayer. One day about three o’clock in the afternoon he had a vision. An angel of God, as real as his next-door neighbor, came in and said, “Cornelius.”
4-6 Cornelius stared hard, wondering if he was seeing things. Then he said, “What do you want, sir?”
The angel said, “Your prayers and neighborly acts have brought you to God’s attention. Here’s what you are to do. Send men to Joppa to get Simon, the one everyone calls Peter. He is staying with Simon the Tanner, whose house is down by the sea.”
7-8 As soon as the angel was gone, Cornelius called two servants and one particularly devout soldier from the guard. He went over with them in great detail everything that had just happened, and then sent them off to Joppa.
9-13 The next day as the three travelers were approaching the town, Peter went out on the balcony to pray. It was about noon. Peter got hungry and started thinking about lunch. While lunch was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the skies open up. Something that looked like a huge blanket lowered by ropes at its four corners settled on the ground. Every kind of animal and reptile and bird you could think of was on it. Then a voice came: “Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.”
14 Peter said, “Oh, no, Lord. I’ve never so much as tasted food that was not kosher.”
15 The voice came a second time: “If God says it’s okay, it’s okay.”
16 This happened three times, and then the blanket was pulled back up into the skies.
17-20 As Peter, puzzled, sat there trying to figure out what it all meant, the men sent by Cornelius showed up at Simon’s front door. They called in, asking if there was a Simon, also called Peter, staying there. Peter, lost in thought, didn’t hear them, so the Spirit whispered to him, “Three men are knocking at the door looking for you. Get down there and go with them. Don’t ask any questions. I sent them to get you.”
21 Peter went down and said to the men, “I think I’m the man you’re looking for. What’s up?”
22-23 They said, “Captain Cornelius, a God-fearing man well-known for his fair play—ask any Jew in this part of the country—was commanded by a holy angel to get you and bring you to his house so he could hear what you had to say.” Peter invited them in and made them feel at home.
God Plays No Favorites
23-26 The next morning he got up and went with them. Some of his friends from Joppa went along. A day later they entered Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had his relatives and close friends waiting with him. The minute Peter came through the door, Cornelius was up on his feet greeting him—and then down on his face worshiping him! Peter pulled him up and said, “None of that—I’m a man and only a man, no different from you.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 17, 2023
Today's Scripture
Isaiah 64:1–8
Can We Be Saved?
Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend,
make the mountains shudder at your presence—
As when a forest catches fire,
as when fire makes a pot to boil—
To shock your enemies into facing you,
make the nations shake in their boots!
You did terrible things we never expected,
descended and made the mountains shudder at your presence.
Since before time began
no one has ever imagined,
No ear heard, no eye seen, a God like you
who works for those who wait for him.
You meet those who happily do what is right,
who keep a good memory of the way you work.
But how angry you’ve been with us!
We’ve sinned and kept at it so long!
Is there any hope for us? Can we be saved?
We’re all sin-infected, sin-contaminated.
Our best efforts are grease-stained rags.
We dry up like autumn leaves—
sin-dried, we’re blown off by the wind.
No one prays to you
or makes the effort to reach out to you
Because you’ve turned away from us,
left us to stew in our sins.
8-12 Still, God, you are our Father.
We’re the clay and you’re our potter:
All of us are what you made us.
Don’t be too angry with us, O God.
Don’t keep a permanent account of wrongdoing.
Keep in mind, please, we are your people—all of us.
Your holy cities are all ghost towns:
Zion’s a ghost town,
Jerusalem’s a field of weeds.
Our holy and beautiful Temple,
which our ancestors filled with your praises,
Was burned down by fire,
all our lovely parks and gardens in ruins.
In the face of all this,
are you going to sit there unmoved, God?
Aren’t you going to say something?
Haven’t you made us miserable long enough?
Insight
The potter-clay motif is an image used by the prophet Isaiah to depict the strained relationship God had with His people. This metaphor points to a sovereign Creator and submissive creature relationship. As clay, we’re the intricate work of the Father’s hand (Isaiah 64:8). Choosing to go our own way, we reject God’s authority over our lives and “turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!” (29:16). It’s like the pot telling the potter what to do. Isaiah warned, “Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker” (45:9). As our Maker, He has every right to do what He pleases (vv. 10–12). Some sixty years after these words from Isaiah were written, the prophet Jeremiah went to a potter’s house to give God’s people this same message: “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel” (Jeremiah 18:6). By: K. T. Sim
Cleansed Completely
All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. Isaiah 64:6
Recently, my wife and I were cleaning our house before having guests over. I noticed some dark stains on our white kitchen tile floor—the kind that required getting on my knees to scrub.
But I soon had a sinking realization: the more I scrubbed, the more I noticed other stains. Each stain I eliminated only made the others that much more obvious. Our kitchen floor suddenly seemed impossibly dirty. And with each moment, I realized, No matter how hard I work, I can never get this floor completely clean.
Scripture says something similar about self-cleansing—our best efforts at dealing with sin on our own always fall short. Seeming to despair of God’s people, the Israelites, ever experiencing God’s salvation (Isaiah 64:5), the prophet Isaiah wrote, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (v. 6).
But Isaiah knew there is always hope through God’s goodness. So he prayed, “You, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter” (v. 8). He knew that God alone can cleanse what we cannot, until the deepest stains are “white as snow” (1:18).
We can’t scrub away the smudges and smears of sin on our souls. Thankfully, we can receive salvation in the One whose sacrifice allows us to be cleansed completely (1 John 1:7). By: Adam Holz
Reflect & Pray
Why is it hard to accept God’s forgiveness? Why do you think you’re tempted to try to deal with sin on your own?
Father, help me to rest in Your forgiveness instead of trying to earn what You’ve already freely given.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 17, 2023
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat. —1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive— only material things don’t suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God’s creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things— things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L
Bible in a Year: Leviticus 21-22; Matthew 28
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 17, 2023
ENTERTAINMENT FAITH - #9420
OK, try to picture this. Here's a group of maybe 100 teenagers in a seminar for two hours, sitting on concrete the whole time, taking notes the whole time, and asking for more when the seminar is dismissed. You say, "Whoa! What planet were you on?" It was in Haiti when I was there a few years ago, teaching in a workshop in the gymnasium. Now, the only place to sit was in the balcony, and in the balcony of that gym it was all concrete. They told me to take two hours. Wow! I said, "Oh, I could talk here all the time!" I could probably figure out something to say for two hours, and I did. Believe it or not, I was the first one finished! I know that's pretty hard for you to believe that I finished first, but I really did. Give me two hours and I can. Well, they quickly ran to the next seminar to get some more.
Now, I returned to America, and you know you'd better be done in 20 minutes here or you'll be talking to yourself. Unless, of course, you're funny enough to be like a Christian comedian or something. Let's not be too rough on our teenagers though; they happen to have a disease that afflicts the whole American church. And it is a disease that produces spiritual wimps.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Entertainment Faith."
Our word for today from the Word of God follows the feeding of the 5,000, where it says in John 6:14, "After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, 'Surely this is the prophet who was to come into the world.'" Well, they chased Him all the way across the lake of Galilee, and when they found Him on the other side of the lake, it says they asked Him, "'Rabbi, when did you get here?' Jesus answered, 'I tell you the truth, you're looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.'" In verse 30 they asked Him, "What miraculous sign will You give that we may see it and believe You? What will you do?"
Finally, after Jesus begins to talk to them about the shedding of blood and a cross, in verse 66 it says, "From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him." Now, here's a crowd, and they're ready to follow Jesus as long as there was a good show: miracles, excited crowds, cheers, surprises, songs, good feelings. But as soon as it got serious or demanding, as soon as it cost something, they checked out - the first known case of entertainitis. Yep, interest in spiritual input as long as it's easy to take.
I didn't realize how shallow our faith here is until I met Christians in other countries. They know how to pray powerfully, extensively. They're hungry, not for jokes and stories. They want solid, biblical teaching. They're interested in the substance of Christianity, not the style of the speaker. And while we're having socials, they're having revivals. While we accept mediocrity, they're expecting miracles.
Now, we're a product of a media culture; kind of a Sesame Street, Internet pop-up approach that changes the subject every 60 seconds. But compared to believers in the rest of the world, they have a Sesame Street faith. The first step toward the cure of entertainitis is to recognize the disease and to want a cure. We need to begin to re-train our hearts to look for the truth in a message, not the entertainment value; to look for the Bible in a song, not the beat; to quit expecting speakers to do all the work for us; to pack the auditorium for a sermon, not just for a concert or a special event; to understand this is a war, not a picnic.
Most important, we need to commit ourselves to the spiritual discipline of a personal Bible study, just plain ol' time with Jesus that starts your day every day. That is the anchor of an authentic Christian life. Maybe it's time we say, "Lord, I'm tired of being so deep into my shallow, entertaining faith. I want to get rid of this disease of shallowness, or entertainitis."
Remember what happened to the people who had it first? They eventually abandoned Jesus.