Max Lucado Daily: The Nail of God
God has penned a list of our faults. The list God has made, however, cannot be read. The words can't be deciphered. The mistakes are covered. The sins are hidden. Those at the top are hidden by His hand; those down the list are covered by His blood. Your sins are blotted out by Jesus. The Bible says that He has forgiven you all your sins. He has utterly wiped out the written evidence of broken commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it to the cross.
He knew the source of those sins was you, and since He couldn't bear the thought of eternity without you, Jesus Himself chose the nails. The hand is the hand of God. The nail is the nail of God. And as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of heaven opened for you!
From He Chose the Nails
Amos 5
All Show, No Substance
Listen to this, family of Israel,
this Message I’m sending in bold print, this tragic warning:
2 “Virgin Israel has fallen flat on her face.
She’ll never stand up again.
She’s been left where she’s fallen.
No one offers to help her up.”
3 This is the Message, God’s Word:
“The city that marches out with a thousand
will end up with a hundred.
The city that marches out with a hundred
will end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!”
4-5 God’s Message to the family of Israel:
“Seek me and live.
Don’t fool around at those shrines of Bethel,
Don’t waste time taking trips to Gilgal,
and don’t bother going down to Beer-sheba.
Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow
and Bethel is all show, no substance.”
6 So seek God and live! You don’t want to end up
with nothing to show for your life
But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground.
For God will send just such a fire,
and the firefighters will show up too late.
Raw Truth Is Never Popular
7-9 Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar
and stomp righteousness into the mud.
Do you realize where you are? You’re in a cosmos
star-flung with constellations by God,
A world God wakes up each morning
and puts to bed each night.
God dips water from the ocean
and gives the land a drink.
God, God-revealed, does all this.
And he can destroy it as easily as make it.
He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.
10-12 People hate this kind of talk.
Raw truth is never popular.
But here it is, bluntly spoken:
Because you run roughshod over the poor
and take the bread right out of their mouths,
You’re never going to move into
the luxury homes you have built.
You’re never going to drink wine
from the expensive vineyards you’ve planted.
I know precisely the extent of your violations,
the enormity of your sins. Appalling!
You bully right-living people,
taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they’re down.
13 Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic.
Decent people throw up their hands.
Protest and rebuke are useless,
a waste of breath.
14 Seek good and not evil—
and live!
You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
being your best friend.
Well, live like it,
and maybe it will happen.
15 Hate evil and love good,
then work it out in the public square.
Maybe God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
will notice your remnant and be gracious.
16-17 Now again, my Master’s Message, God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies:
“Go out into the streets and lament loudly!
Fill the malls and shops with cries of doom!
Weep loudly, ‘Not me! Not us, Not now!’
Empty offices, stores, factories, workplaces.
Enlist everyone in the general lament.
I want to hear it loud and clear when I make my visit.”
God’s Decree.
Time to Face Hard Reality, Not Fantasy
18-20 Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day!
Why would you want to see God, want him to come?
When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news,
the worst of times, not the best of times.
Here’s what it’s like: A man runs from a lion
right into the jaws of a bear.
A woman goes home after a hard day’s work
and is raped by a neighbor.
At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy—
a black cloud with no silver lining.
21-24 “I can’t stand your religious meetings.
I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
That’s what I want. That’s all I want.
25-27 “Didn’t you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded? How is it you’ve stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there? Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus.” God’s Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, April 08, 2023
Today's Scripture
John 20:1–10
Resurrection!
Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, gasping for breath. “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”
3-10 Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.
Insight
When John wrote that the disciples “still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9), what Scripture was he referring to? Similarly, Luke says, “ ‘Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (24:26–27). What passages did Jesus expound here? The answer to these questions is found in the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts. Indeed, they’d experienced the resurrected Christ personally, but they also had Scripture to defend this crucial doctrine. The apostolic preaching of Peter in Acts 2 includes references to Psalm 16:8–11 (Acts 2:25–28) and Psalm 110:1 (Acts 2:34–35). Paul’s preaching in Acts 13 references Psalm 2:7 (Acts 13:33), Isaiah 55:3 (Acts 13:34), and Psalm 16:10 (Acts 13:35). By: Arthur Jackson
Running to Jesus
Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. John 20:4
On a trip to Paris, Ben and his friends found themselves at one of the renowned museums in the city. Though Ben wasn’t a student of art, he was in awe as he looked upon the painting titled The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection by Eugène Burnand. Without words, the looks on the faces of Peter and John and the position of their hands speak volumes, inviting onlookers to step into their shoes and share their adrenaline-charged emotions.
Based on John 20:1–10, the painting portrays the two running in the direction of the empty tomb of Jesus (v. 4). The masterpiece captures the intensity of the two emotionally conflicted disciples. Though at that juncture theirs wasn’t a fully formed faith, they were running in the right direction, and eventually the resurrected Jesus revealed Himself to them (vv. 19–29). Their search was not unlike that of Jesus seekers through the centuries. Although we may be removed from the experiences of an empty tomb or a brilliant piece of art, we can clearly see the good news. Scripture compels us to hope and seek and run in the direction of Jesus and His love—even with doubts, questions, and uncertainties. Tomorrow, as we celebrate Easter, may we remember Jesus’ words: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). By: Arthur Jackson
Reflect & Pray
If you don’t know Jesus, what will you do to begin running toward Him and His love? If you’re a believer, how will you share His love with others?
Dear Jesus, lead me into Your loving arms today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, April 08, 2023
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26
Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life— a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Paul’s determined purpose was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
Jesus prayed, “…as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2). The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.
Biblical Psychology
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 10-12; Luke 9:37-62
