Max Lucado Daily: THE PROMISE REMAINS - April 4, 2023
I’ve often thought it strange that Matthew would begin his book with a genealogy. Certainly not good journalism. A list of who sired whom? Wouldn’t get past most editors. But then again, Matthew was not a journalist, and the Holy Spirit was making a point. God had promised he would give a Messiah through the bloodline of Abraham, and he did. Matthew 1:16 (NCV) says, “Joseph was the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus. Jesus is called the Christ.” Period. No more names are listed. No more are needed.
The promise of the Messiah threads its way through forty-two generations of rough-cut stones, forming a necklace fit for the King who came. Just as promised. And the promise remains. “Those people who keep their faith until the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13 NCV). God always keeps his promises.
Amos 2
God’s Message:
“Because of the three great sins of Moab
—make that four—I’m not putting up with her any longer.
She violated the corpse of Edom’s king,
burning it to cinders.
For that, I’m burning down Moab,
burning down the forts of Kerioth.
Moab will die in the shouting,
go out in the blare of war trumpets.
I’ll remove the king from the center
and kill all his princes with him.”
God’s Decree.
4-5 God’s Message:
“Because of the three great sins of Judah
—make that four—I’m not putting up with them any longer.
They rejected God’s revelation,
refused to keep my commands.
But they swallowed the same old lies
that got their ancestors onto dead-end roads.
For that, I’m burning down Judah,
burning down all the forts of Jerusalem.”
Destroyed from the Roots Up
6-8 God’s Message:
“Because of the three great sins of Israel
—make that four—I’m not putting up with them any longer.
They buy and sell upstanding people.
People for them are only things—ways of making money.
They’d sell a poor man for a pair of shoes.
They’d sell their own grandmother!
They grind the penniless into the dirt,
shove the luckless into the ditch.
Everyone and his brother sleeps with the ‘sacred whore’—
a sacrilege against my Holy Name.
Stuff they’ve extorted from the poor
is piled up at the shrine of their god,
While they sit around drinking wine
they’ve conned from their victims.
9-11 “In contrast, I was always on your side.
I destroyed the Amorites who confronted you,
Amorites with the stature of great cedars,
tough as thick oaks.
I destroyed them from the top branches down.
I destroyed them from the roots up.
And yes, I’m the One who delivered you from Egypt,
led you safely through the wilderness for forty years
And then handed you the country of the Amorites
like a piece of cake on a platter.
I raised up some of your young men to be prophets,
set aside your best youth for training in holiness.
Isn’t this so, Israel?”
God’s Decree.
12-13 “But you made the youth-in-training break training,
and you told the young prophets, ‘Don’t prophesy!’
You’re too much for me.
I’m hard-pressed—to the breaking point.
I’m like a wagon piled high and overloaded,
creaking and groaning.
14-16 “When I go into action, what will you do?
There’s no place to run no matter how fast you run.
The strength of the strong won’t count.
Fighters won’t make it.
Skilled archers won’t make it.
Fast runners won’t make it.
Chariot drivers won’t make it.
Even the bravest of all your warriors
Won’t make it.
He’ll run off for dear life, stripped naked.”
God’s Decree.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, April 04, 2023
Today's Scripture
John 15:1–11
The Vine and the Branches
“I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.
4 “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.
5-8 “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
9-10 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.
11-15 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
Insight
One of the central emphases of the gospel of John is on the incarnation—God becoming human to be with us (John 1:14)—as a gift of God’s love (3:16–17).
While church tradition and other evidence suggests John the disciple was likely the author of this gospel, the author is intentional about being identified only as someone “whom Jesus loved” (21:20), whose testimony is trustworthy (v. 24). What’s most important is that the gospel points us to Jesus as the One through whom we can rest in God’s love (15:9). By: Monica La Rose
At Home in Jesus
Remain in me, as I also remain in you. John 15:4
Several years ago, we brought home an adult black cat named Juno from the local animal shelter. Truthfully, I only wanted help thinning our mice population, but the rest of the family wanted a pet. The shelter gave us rigorous instructions on how to establish a feeding routine that first week so Juno would learn our house was his home, the place he belonged and where he’d always have food and safety. This way, even if Juno might roam, he would always eventually come home.
If we don’t know our true home, we’re forever tempted to roam in vain search for goodness, love, and meaning. If we want to find our true life, however, Jesus said, “Abide in me” (John 15:4 esv). Biblical scholar Frederick Dale Bruner highlights how abide (like a similar word abode) evokes a sense of family and home. So Bruner translates Jesus’ words this way: “Stay at home in me.”
To drive this idea home, Jesus used the illustration of branches attached to a vine. Branches, if they want to live, must always stay at home, tenaciously fixed (abiding) where they belong.
There are many voices beckoning us with hollow promises to fix our problems or provide us some new “wisdom” or exhilarating future. But if we’re to truly live, we must remain in Jesus. We must stay at home. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
What pulls you away from your home in Jesus? How has Jesus shown Himself to be your true source of life?
Jesus, I like to roam. I’m pulled in all kinds of directions. But I want to stay at home with You. You’re my life. Help me to abide in You.
Learn more about abiding in Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 04, 2023
The Way to Permanent Faith
Indeed the hour is coming…that you will be scattered… —John 16:32
Jesus was not rebuking the disciples in this passage. Their faith was real, but it was disordered and unfocused, and was not at work in the important realities of life. The disciples were scattered to their own concerns and they had interests apart from Jesus Christ. After we have the perfect relationship with God, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, our faith must be exercised in the realities of everyday life. We will be scattered, not into service but into the emptiness of our lives where we will see ruin and barrenness, to know what internal death to God’s blessings means. Are we prepared for this? It is certainly not of our own choosing, but God engineers our circumstances to take us there. Until we have been through that experience, our faith is sustained only by feelings and by blessings. But once we get there, no matter where God may place us or what inner emptiness we experience, we can praise God that all is well. That is what is meant by faith being exercised in the realities of life.
“…you…will leave Me alone.” Have we been scattered and have we left Jesus alone by not seeing His providential care for us? Do we not see God at work in our circumstances? Dark times are allowed and come to us through the sovereignty of God. Are we prepared to let God do what He wants with us? Are we prepared to be separated from the outward, evident blessings of God? Until Jesus Christ is truly our Lord, we each have goals of our own which we serve. Our faith is real, but it is not yet permanent. And God is never in a hurry. If we are willing to wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God’s blessings is fundamental.
“…be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need.
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: Ruth 1-4; Luke 8:1-25
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, April 04, 2023
WHAT YOU GAIN FROM YOUR LOSS - #9452
Beep ball. Yep, I'd never heard of it until I received an email from a listener who told me she's blind. Beep ball sounds like fun, unless you're sighted like I am. Apparently, beep ball is a lot like softball except the bases beep. That helps the player know where the bases are or where the ball is coming from, if you have good ears; which, of course, blind people develop. The sighted people have to play blindfolded, and they just can't process the beeps like the blind players can. They're used to hearing more than a sound. They hear the direction of the sound. So the sighted people don't stand a chance playing beep ball!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What You Gain From Your Loss."
No one would question, obviously, that you miss an awful lot if you can't see. But you also gain some things that other people don't have—like an amazing sense of hearing and the sharpening of your other senses. Just ask those sighted people who keep losing to blind people in beep ball!
See, God has a wonderful way of adding or deepening some precious qualities through our times of loss and limitation and pain. Some of the most unforgettable people I've ever met have been people who've suffered much more than I have, and they will tell you it was their struggle that made them strong. You may not like the process; probably don't. But you'll like the beautiful results that can come from the process, if you choose to let it make you better instead of making you bitter.
There's a wonderful statement of how we gain from what we lose in our word for today from the Word of God. It sheds light on those suffering times when we're asking that perplexing question, "Why?" 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 tell us this: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."
If you never go through a hurting time, you'll never experience that special compassion and comfort of Almighty God. If you've never experienced that compassion and comfort, you don't have much to give to hurting people around you. If you'll seek God in your suffering, He'll pour those caring qualities into you when you're feeling crushed, overwhelmed, agonizing. But they're not just to get you through. No, He fills you up with resources you never had before, resources to make you a well of compassion and comfort for a world of broken people, people in pain; resources that can only be developed through hard times...through hurting times.
What senses does God want to deepen through your pain? Incredible qualities like radar for the deep needs behind people's deeds. A sense of compassion, which literally means the ability to "feel with" someone. God can use your pain to cultivate a wonderful tenderness in your heart and in your responses. People who have been through the valley with Jesus emerge with this amazing ability to care, to wait, and to trust God. And there's this sense of quiet confidence and deep peace in someone who has been kept afloat by the total sufficiency of Christ when there was nothing else to hang onto. They have this "nothing can sink me" poise of a person who's found out when Jesus was all they had that Jesus is all you need.
Honestly, having those kind of hardship-sharpened senses gives you an edge in the game of life. God wants you to use what you're going through to give you the emotional equipment to make you a powerful "make a difference" person; one of God's wounded healers. This painful process that you're going through? It can give you a powerful tool kit from which to be one of God's wounded healers in a hurting world.