Max Lucado Daily: Our Ability to Hear
When our daughter Jenna was five years old, I took her to get a bike. And Andrea, age three, decided she wanted one as well. I explained to her she was too young for a two-wheeler. That when she was older she would get a bike too. No luck. She still wanted a bike. She turned her head and said nothing. Finally I sighed and said this time her daddy knew best.
Her response? She screamed it loud enough for everyone in the store to hear…“Then I want a new daddy!” Andrea, with three-year-old reasoning powers, couldn’t believe that a new bike would be anything less than ideal for her. And the one to grant that bliss was sitting on his hands.
If you’ve heard the silence of God, you may learn that the problem is not as much in God’s silence as it is in your ability to hear and your capacity to understand!
From Dad Time
Psalm 127
If God doesn’t build the house,
the builders only build shacks.
If God doesn’t guard the city,
the night watchman might as well nap.
It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late,
and work your worried fingers to the bone.
Don’t you know he enjoys
giving rest to those he loves?
3-5 Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?
the fruit of the womb his generous legacy?
Like a warrior’s fistful of arrows
are the children of a vigorous youth.
Oh, how blessed are you parents,
with your quivers full of children!
Your enemies don’t stand a chance against you;
you’ll sweep them right off your doorstep.
128 1-2 All you who fear God, how blessed you are!
how happily you walk on his smooth straight road!
You worked hard and deserve all you’ve got coming.
Enjoy the blessing! Soak in the goodness!
3-4 Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes,
your household lush as a vineyard,
The children around your table
as fresh and promising as young olive shoots.
Stand in awe of God’s Yes.
Oh, how he blesses the one who fears God!
5-6 Enjoy the good life in Jerusalem
every day of your life.
And enjoy your grandchildren.
Peace to Israel!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Today's Scripture
1 Corinthians 11:23–28
Let me go over with you again exactly what goes on in the Lord’s Supper and why it is so centrally important. I received my instructions from the Master himself and passed them on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread. Having given thanks, he broke it and said,
This is my body, broken for you.
Do this to remember me.
After supper, he did the same thing with the cup:
This cup is my blood, my new covenant with you.
Each time you drink this cup, remember me.
What you must solemnly realize is that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let familiarity breed contempt.
27-28 Anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Master irreverently is like part of the crowd that jeered and spit on him at his death. Is that the kind of “remembrance” you want to be part of? Examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe.
Insight
The Greek word epaineo means “to applaud—commend, laud, praise.” The word is used six times in the New Testament; it occurs four times in 1 Corinthians 11, where it’s translated “praise” (vv. 2, 17, 22 [2x]). Paul “praised” the Corinthians for their mindfulness of him and for following his teaching (vv. 2–16), but there was no such commendation (vv. 17–34) for the way they observed the Lord’s Supper. The self-centered indulgence that was going on among them was inconsiderate and harmful (vv. 18–22). What they were (supposedly) commemorating was the self-giving sacrifice of Jesus, yet they’d lost sight of it. Such irony and inconsistency compelled Paul to write, “So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat” (v. 20). His warning—for the Corinthians and for us—is that those who take Communion without due consideration for Christ and others do so in an unworthy manner. By: Arthur Jackson
Remembering the Sacrifice
Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 1 Corinthians 11:26
Following the Sunday morning worship service, my Moscow host took me to lunch at a restaurant outside the Kremlin. Upon arrival, we noticed a line of newlywed couples in wedding garb approaching the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin wall. The happiness of their wedding day intentionally included remembering the sacrifices others had made to help make such a day possible. It was a sobering sight as the couples took pictures by the memorial before laying wedding flowers at its base.
All of us have cause to be thankful for others who’ve made sacrifices to bring a measure of fullness to our lives. None of those sacrifices are unimportant, but neither are those sacrifices the most important. It’s only at the foot of the cross where we see the sacrifice Jesus made for us and begin to understand how thoroughly our lives are indebted to the Savior.
Coming to the Lord’s Table to take Communion reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice—pictured in the bread and cup. Paul wrote, “whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). May our times at His Table remind us to live every day in remembrance and gratitude of all Jesus has done in us and for us. By: Bill Crowder
Reflect & Pray
When you approach the Lord’s Table, how do you view it? How can you use it as an opportunity to give thanks for Christ’s sacrifice on your behalf?
Loving God, nothing could ever repay the priceless display of love evidenced in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Help me to display my gratitude for what He’s done for me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 25, 2023
Receiving Yourself in the Fires of Sorrow
…what shall I say? "Father, save Me from this hour"? But for this purpose I came to this hour. "Father, glorify Your name." —John 12:27-28
As a saint of God, my attitude toward sorrow and difficulty should not be to ask that they be prevented, but to ask that God protect me so that I may remain what He created me to be, in spite of all my fires of sorrow. Our Lord received Himself, accepting His position and realizing His purpose, in the midst of the fire of sorrow. He was saved not from the hour, but out of the hour.
We say that there ought to be no sorrow, but there is sorrow, and we have to accept and receive ourselves in its fires. If we try to evade sorrow, refusing to deal with it, we are foolish. Sorrow is one of the biggest facts in life, and there is no use in saying it should not be. Sin, sorrow, and suffering are, and it is not for us to say that God has made a mistake in allowing them.
Sorrow removes a great deal of a person’s shallowness, but it does not always make that person better. Suffering either gives me to myself or it destroys me. You cannot find or receive yourself through success, because you lose your head over pride. And you cannot receive yourself through the monotony of your daily life, because you give in to complaining. The only way to find yourself is in the fires of sorrow. Why it should be this way is immaterial. The fact is that it is true in the Scriptures and in human experience. You can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received himself, and you know that you can go to him in your moment of trouble and find that he has plenty of time for you. But if a person has not been through the fires of sorrow, he is apt to be contemptuous, having no respect or time for you, only turning you away. If you will receive yourself in the fires of sorrow, God will make you nourishment for other people.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth. The Place of Help, 1005 R
Bible in a Year: Job 3-4; Acts 7:44-60