Max Lucado Daily: BAG OF BURDENS - May 17, 2023
Worry is the burlap bag of burdens. It’s overflowing with “whaddifs” and “howells.” Whaddif after all my dieting, I find out lettuce is fattening and chocolate isn’t? Howell will we pay our baby’s tuition? Whaddifs and Howells. The burlap bag of worry. Cumbersome. Chunky. Unattractive. Scratchy. Irritating to carry and impossible to give away.
No one wants your worries. Truth is, you don’t want them either. No one has to remind you of the high cost of anxiety, but I will anyway. Worry divides the mind. It splits our energy between today’s priorities and tomorrow’s problems. The result is half-minded living.
Hebrews 4:16 encourages us to “boldly approached the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help.” God’s help is timely! God will do the right thing at the right time. And what a difference that makes.
Traveling Light: Releasing the Burdens You Were Never Meant to Carry
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Psalm 95
Come, let’s shout praises to God,
raise the roof for the Rock who saved us!
Let’s march into his presence singing praises,
lifting the rafters with our hymns!
3-5 And why? Because God is the best,
High King over all the gods.
In one hand he holds deep caves and caverns,
in the other hand grasps the high mountains.
He made Ocean—he owns it!
His hands sculpted Earth!
6-7 So come, let us worship: bow before him,
on your knees before God, who made us!
Oh yes, he’s our God,
and we’re the people he pastures, the flock he feeds.
7-11 Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks:
“Don’t turn a deaf ear as in the Bitter Uprising,
As on the day of the Wilderness Test,
when your ancestors turned and put me to the test.
For forty years they watched me at work among them,
as over and over they tried my patience.
And I was provoked—oh, was I provoked!
‘Can’t they keep their minds on God for five minutes?
Do they simply refuse to walk down my road?’
Exasperated, I exploded,
‘They’ll never get where they’re headed,
never be able to sit down and rest.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Today's Scripture
Isaiah 43:1–7
When You’re Between a Rock and a Hard Place
But now, God’s Message,
the God who made you in the first place, Jacob,
the One who got you started, Israel:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
it won’t be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God,
The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:
all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That’s how much you mean to me!
That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back,
trade the creation just for you.
5-7 “So don’t be afraid: I’m with you.
I’ll round up all your scattered children,
pull them in from east and west.
I’ll send orders north and south:
‘Send them back.
Return my sons from distant lands,
my daughters from faraway places.
I want them back, every last one who bears my name,
every man, woman, and child
Whom I created for my glory,
yes, personally formed and made each one.’”
* * *
Insight
God warned the Israelites that He’d use foreign armies to discipline them for their covenantal unfaithfulness. In 722 bc, the Assyrians destroyed Samaria, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel was exiled (see Isaiah 7:18–25; 10:3–6; 2 Kings 17:6–24). In 586 bc, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians and the Southern Kingdom of Judah was exiled (see Isaiah 39:6–7; 2 Kings 20:12–19). Despite God’s harsh and severe discipline, God reminded the Israelites that as His chosen people they had an unbreakable bond with Him and assured them of His unfailing love: “You are precious and honored in my sight, and . . . I love you” (Isaiah 43:4). God’s discipline isn’t inconsistent with His love: “The Lord disciplines those he loves” (Proverbs 3:12; see Job 5:17; Hebrews 12:5–6). Though His people remained unfaithful and unrepentant, God in His mercy had purposed to forgive them of their sins (Isaiah 43:22–25). By: K. T. Sim
God Remembers Names
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. Isaiah 43:1
The Sunday after I’d started working as a youth leader at a church and had met several of the young people, I spoke to a teen seated next to her mom. As I greeted the shy girl with a smile, I said her name and asked how she was doing. She lifted her head and her beautiful brown eyes widened. She too smiled and said in a small voice: “You remembered my name.” By simply calling that young girl by name—a girl who may have felt insignificant in a church filled with adults—I began a relationship of trust. She felt seen and valued.
In Isaiah 43, God is using the prophet Isaiah to convey a similar message to the Israelites: they were seen and valued. Even through captivity and time in the wilderness, God saw them and knew them “by name” (v. 1). They were not strangers; they belonged to Him. Even though they may have felt abandoned, they were “precious,” and His “love” was with them (v. 4). And along with the reminder that God knew them by name, He shared all that He would do for them, especially during trying times. When they went through trials, He would be with them (v. 2). They didn’t need to be afraid or worried since God remembered their names.
God knows each of His children’s names—and that’s good news, especially as we pass through the deep, difficult waters in life. By: Katara Patton
Reflect & Pray
What trials are you facing these days? How can focusing on the fact that God knows you by name help you walk through trying times with confidence?
Thank You for knowing me by name, dear God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
His Ascension and Our Access
It came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven. —Luke 24:51
We have no experiences in our lives that correspond to the events in our Lord’s life after the transfiguration. From that moment forward His life was altogether substitutionary. Up to the time of the transfiguration, He had exhibited the normal, perfect life of a man. But from the transfiguration forward— Gethsemane, the Cross, the resurrection— everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to anyone, and by His ascension our Lord entered heaven, keeping the door open for humanity.
The transfiguration was completed on the Mount of Ascension. If Jesus had gone to heaven directly from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone. He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the mountain to identify Himself with fallen humanity.
The ascension is the complete fulfillment of the transfiguration. Our Lord returned to His original glory, but not simply as the Son of God— He returned to His father as the Son of Man as well. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God because of the ascension of the Son of Man. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ deliberately limited His omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. But now they are His in absolute, full power. As the Son of Man, Jesus Christ now has all the power at the throne of God. From His ascension forward He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 1-3; John 5:25-47
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
DISTURBING HEADLINES, A MESSAGE FROM GOD - #9483
Are you sure you want to turn on the news tonight? Yeah, it will cheer you up. Right. We need a few laughs. That's unlikely. It has been pretty ugly. Things are happening environmentally that are difficult, the weather is kinda going crazy. You've got headlines about growing crime and financial turmoil, and gun violence. Boy, you know all those headlines.
Yeah, there's a lot of grim stuff. But for us who belong to Jesus, you know what we should be hearing? We should be hearing our spiritual phone ringing. It's a wakeup call from God. And this is no time to let it go into voicemail, because God's calling us. And He's saying "If you're ever going to do something about the people who don't know Jesus, do it now!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Disturbing Headlines, A Message from God."
Number one, it's time to live for what others are dying for. You can go online and you will graphically see the price that our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are paying for their allegiance to Jesus. Torture. Rape. Even crucifixion.
We have a faith that is paid for in blood. First by Jesus. Then by countless Jesus-followers, from the first-century Coliseum to crosses today. So I should be intimidated into silence because of what talking about Jesus might cost me? "I might be called a name, marginalized, rejected, disrespected." If I won't pay that puny price, I should be ashamed.
The old hymn asks - "Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb? And shall I fear to own His cause, or blush to speak His name? Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease? While others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?" Yeah, spiritual silence. Not an option any longer, because it can cost someone Jesus. It can cost someone heaven.
The second message in the headlines: hearts are open because the world is crazy. Yeah. God calls us to make "the most of every opportunity because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16). This is opportunity time. Hearts that are usually looking inward are suddenly open to looking upward. So many things they have looked to are letting them down. With storm clouds coming in from every direction, people feel vulnerable, they feel unsafe. In the Bible's words, "like the tossing sea, which cannot rest... there is no peace" (Isaiah 57:20-21).
These are Jesus-times. Not to be missed. He's the One who speaks to the storm in the human heart and says, "Peace, be still!" And "do not let your hearts be troubled."
There's one other lesson in those headlines: We have the hope people are starving for. Peter calls it, "The reason for the hope you have" (1 Peter 3:15). That's what God says will interest people in my Jesus. Especially now. But only if I tell them about His unloseable love that He proved on a cross.
And there's never been a better time to tell your "hope story" than now. Our word for today from the Word of God: Hebrews 6:19. What a verse for unraveling times like ours! Speaking of Jesus it says, "we have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure."
My friend Dave used to keep his sailboat in Stamford Harbor in Connecticut. They've got a hurricane gate that they close in the face of this approaching storm. To protect every craft that makes it into the harbor. Actually my friend rode out a hurricane on his boat! He was blown around but he was safe. Well, Jesus is the harbor where I'm safe in a Category 5 world.
How can I know where the peace is, where the anchor is, and not tell the people in my personal world? No more silence. No more letting fear win. No more wimping out on sharing my Jesus.
My brother, my sister, it's too late for that.