Max Lucado Daily: SET FREE - July 3, 2023
Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop. Oversized and rude, unhealthy fear is unwilling to share the heart with happiness. Do you ever see the two together? Can one be happy and afraid at the same time? No. Fear herds us into a prison and slams the doors. Wouldn’t it be great to walk out?
What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats? If you could hover a fear magnet over your heart and extract every last shaving of dread, insecurity, and doubt, what would remain? Can you imagine a life with no fear? “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).
Calm Moments for Anxious Days
Read more Calm Moments for Anxious Days
Psalm 133
How wonderful, how beautiful,
when brothers and sisters get along!
It’s like costly anointing oil
flowing down head and beard,
Flowing down Aaron’s beard,
flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.
It’s like the dew on Mount Hermon
flowing down the slopes of Zion.
Yes, that’s where God commands the blessing,
ordains eternal life.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, July 03, 2023
Today's Scripture
Leviticus 19:9-18
“When you harvest your land, don’t harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don’t strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am God, your God.
11 “Don’t steal.
“Don’t lie.
“Don’t deceive anyone.
12 “Don’t swear falsely using my name, violating the name of your God. I am God.
13 “Don’t exploit your friend or rob him.
“Don’t hold back the wages of a hired hand overnight.
14 “Don’t curse the deaf; don’t put a stumbling block in front of the blind; fear your God. I am God.
15 “Don’t pervert justice. Don’t show favoritism to either the poor or the great. Judge on the basis of what is right.
16 “Don’t spread gossip and rumors.
“Don’t just stand by when your neighbor’s life is in danger. I am God.
17 “Don’t secretly hate your neighbor. If you have something against him, get it out into the open; otherwise you are an accomplice in his guilt.
18 “Don’t seek revenge or carry a grudge against any of your people.
“Love your neighbor as yourself. I am God.
Insight
Leviticus 19 contains the only Old Testament reference to “love your neighbor as yourself” (v. 18), a fundamental teaching in the Bible. In the New Testament, when an expert in the law asked, “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36), Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” And He continued, “The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (vv. 37–40). Paul said the commandments are “summed up in this one command” (Romans 13:9) and are “fulfilled in keeping [it]” (Galatians 5:14). Our love for God is evidenced in our loving treatment of our neighbors. By: Alyson Kieda
Love Your Neighbor
Love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19:18
It was just a fun game at youth group, but it held a lesson for us: rather than switching neighbors, learn to love the ones you have. Everyone is seated in a large circle, except for one person who stands in the middle of the circle. The standing person asks someone sitting down, “Do you love your neighbor?” The seated person can answer the question in two ways: yes or no. He gets to decide if he would like to swap his neighbor with someone else.
Don’t we wish we could choose our “neighbors” in real life too? Especially when we have a colleague whom we can’t get along with or a next-door neighbor who loves to mow the lawn at odd hours. More often than not, however, we have to learn to live with our difficult neighbors.
When the Israelites moved into the promised land, God gave them important instructions on how to live as people who belonged to Him. They’re told to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18), which includes not spreading gossip or rumors, not taking advantage of our neighbors, and confronting people directly if we have something against them (vv. 9–18).
While it’s difficult to love everyone, it’s possible to treat others in loving ways as Jesus works in and through us. God will supply the wisdom and ability to do so as we seek to live out our identity as His people. By: Poh Fang Chia
Reflect & Pray
Who are the “neighbors” you find hard to get along with? How can you love them better?
Father, please help me to reflect Your love to those around me—even the difficult ones.
For further study, read Healing a Broken Relationship.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, July 03, 2023
The Concentration of Personal Sin
Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips… —Isaiah 6:5
When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, “Oh yes, I know I am a sinner,” but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind’s attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.
This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone’s life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, “I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong,” but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah’s vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was “a man of unclean lips.” “He touched my mouth with it, and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged’ ” (Isaiah 6:7). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The emphasis to-day is placed on the furtherance of an organization; the note is, “We must keep this thing going.” If we are in God’s order the thing will go; if we are not in His order, it won’t. Conformed to His Image, 357 R
Bible in a Year: Job 25-27; Acts 12
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, July 03, 2023
RUNNING HARD IN THE WRONG DIRECTION - #9516
I guess every athlete would like to do something immortal - you know, something that will be remembered for a long time. Well, Roy Riegels did it - in a way. He played center in the 1929 Rose Bowl game. I don't remember it, but it was in Pasadena, California. I was not there. But, the game was almost over, the score was really close, and both teams knew any score could well decide the game. And then on one play, Roy Riegels suddenly found himself with a ball in his hands. Now, centers only know what to do with the ball when they're snapping it to the quarterback. But Roy Riegels had it whether he liked it or not.
So he started running as fast as he could, or at least as fast as a center can go, right for the goal line. He glanced back over his shoulder. There was something very strange going on . He was being frantically pursued by his own teammates. See, his instincts told him to just keep running, and he did till he was tackled just short of the goal by one of his own teammates. See, Roy Riegels was running toward the other team's goal! Yeah, and shortly the other team went on to score and win the game. And he did achieve athletic immortality. He went down in football history as Wrong Way Riegels.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Running Hard In the Wrong Direction."
That was the center's mistake. He was running as hard as he could - it just didn't count. Someone listening right now might be making that same mistake. Our word for today from the Word of God is from Matthew 6:32-33. Jesus has just been talking about a lot of the concerns that occupy our everyday lives - having enough for our basic necessities, for our body, for our appearance, all the earth stuff. You know? And then He says, "The pagans run after all these things." Well, see, that's those who think that earth is all there is. Well, of course, they're chasing after all the earth stuff they can get. Right?
But He goes on to say, "And your Heavenly Father knows that you need them." Message: You don't need to pursue those things. You need to trust your Heavenly Father for them, because He'll take care of them. Then Jesus goes on to say, "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well."
Message: Put your best energy into the things that matter to God and the things that will matter in eternity - the interests, the agenda of the work of God on earth, a lifestyle that majors on doing the right thing.
Now, we're wired to be runners. We're wired to be people who run hard toward a goal, but it's supposed to be an eternal goal. The problem is some of us are running hard, but we're running in the wrong direction. After all our hard running is done, it will turn out to be for a goal that just didn't count.
It may be you've been running so hard that you haven't thought about whether the goal was really worth it. Maybe the goal that gets the most of you is job advancement, or more money, or it could be that you're running very hard to please a certain group of people, or to have some security, or to get a boyfriend or get a girlfriend, get a husband or get a wife, or maybe to own something you really want. But after all is said and done, it's earth stuff isn't it - stuff the Lord wants to give you if and when it's best for you. But could it be that some earth stuff has become the central pursuit of your life? See, that's not what you were created to pursue.
This might be a good gut-check time. You know? If, in fact, you're running for the things that will last. Right now Jesus is pursuing you. He's trying to intercept you maybe as you're running toward a goal that doesn't count. He's trying to get you turned around and running in the right direction to "seek first His kingdom."
He doesn't want the epitaph that goes with your name to be those two hollow words - wrong way.