Max Lucado Daily: HERE IS GOD - July 5, 2023
When ancient sailors sketched maps of the oceans, they disclosed their fears. On the vast unexplored waters, cartographers wrote words such as these: “Here be dragons.” “Here be demons.” “Here be sirens.” Were a map drawn of your world, would we read such phrases?
If so, take heart from the example of Sir John Franklin. He was a master mariner in the days of King Henry V. Unlike his colleagues, Sir Franklin was a man of faith. He had crossed out the phrases “Here be dragons,” “Here be demons,” “Here be sirens,” and in their place he wrote, “Here is God.”
Mark it down – you will never go where God is not. “I am with you always,” Jesus promised in Matthew 28:20. Don’t be afraid; just believe.
Calm Moments for Anxious Days
Read more Calm Moments for Anxious Days
Psalm 135
Hallelujah!
Praise the name of God,
praise the works of God.
All you priests on duty in God’s temple,
serving in the sacred halls of our God,
Shout “Hallelujah!” because God’s so good,
sing anthems to his beautiful name.
And why? Because God chose Jacob,
embraced Israel as a prize possession.
5-12 I, too, give witness to the greatness of God,
our Lord, high above all other gods.
He does just as he pleases—
however, wherever, whenever.
He makes the weather—clouds and thunder,
lightning and rain, wind pouring out of the north.
He struck down the Egyptian firstborn,
both human and animal firstborn.
He made Egypt sit up and take notice,
confronted Pharaoh and his servants with miracles.
Yes, he struck down great nations,
he slew mighty kings—
Sihon king of the Amorites, also Og of Bashan—
every last one of the Canaanite kings!
Then he turned their land over to Israel,
a gift of good land to his people.
13-18 God, your name is eternal,
God, you’ll never be out-of-date.
God stands up for his people,
God holds the hands of his people.
The gods of the godless nations are mere trinkets,
made for quick sale in the markets:
Chiseled mouths that can’t talk,
painted eyes that can’t see,
Carved ears that can’t hear—
dead wood! cold metal!
Those who make and trust them
become like them.
19-21 Family of Israel, bless God!
Family of Aaron, bless God!
Family of Levi, bless God!
You who fear God, bless God!
Oh, blessed be God of Zion,
First Citizen of Jerusalem!
Hallelujah!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 05, 2023
Today's Scripture
Romans 12:1-8
Place Your Life Before God
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
4-6 In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
6-8 If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
Insight
The Greek word translated “renewing” (Romans 12:2), anakainosis, is used sparsely in the New Testament. It means “a renewal, renovation, complete change for the better.” Rather than surrendering to the normal patterns of this world—“the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16)—believers in Jesus are to constantly undergo “adjustment of moral and spiritual vision and thinking to the mind of God.” How so? By the Holy Spirit’s renewal (see Titus 3:5), which “is not a fresh bestowment of the Spirit but a revival of His power, developing the Christian life” (Vine's Expository Dictionary). By: Arthur Jackson
Mimic Jesus
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2
A “master of disguise” lives in the waters of Indonesia and in the Great Barrier Reef. The mimic octopus, like other octopuses, can change its skin pigment to blend in with its surroundings. This intelligent creature also changes its shape, movement pattern, and behavior when threatened to mimic such creatures as the venomous lionfish and even deadly sea snakes.
Unlike the mimic octopus, believers in Jesus are meant to stand out in the world that surrounds us. We may feel threatened by those who disagree with us and become tempted to blend in so we won’t be recognized as followers of Christ. The apostle Paul, however, urges us to offer our bodies as a “living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1), representing Jesus in every aspect of our lives.
Friends or family members may try to pressure us to conform to the “pattern of this world” (v. 2). But we can show who we serve by aligning our lives with what we say we believe as God’s children. When we obey the Scriptures and reflect His loving character, our lives can demonstrate that the rewards of obedience are always greater than any loss. How will you mimic Jesus today? By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
When have you been tempted to become an unrecognizable believer in Jesus? When have you become alienated from family members or friends because you chose to represent Jesus through your words and actions?
Loving Jesus, please give me courage and confidence to reflect You to others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 05, 2023
Don’t Plan Without God
Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. —Psalm 37:5
Don’t plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account. We get ourselves into circumstances that were not chosen by God, and suddenly we realize that we have been making our plans without Him— that we have not even considered Him to be a vital, living factor in the planning of our lives. And yet the only thing that will keep us from even the possibility of worrying is to bring God in as the greatest factor in all of our planning.
In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our “spiritual face” before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are.
Don’t plan with a concern for evil in mind. Does God really mean for us to plan without taking the evil around us into account? “Love…thinks no evil” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). Love is not ignorant of the existence of evil, but it does not take it into account as a factor in planning. When we were apart from God, we did take evil into account, doing all of our planning with it in mind, and we tried to reason out all of our work from its standpoint.
Don’t plan with a rainy day in mind. You cannot hoard things for a rainy day if you are truly trusting Christ. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:1). God will not keep your heart from being troubled. It is a command— “Let not….” To do it, continually pick yourself up, even if you fall a hundred and one times a day, until you get into the habit of putting God first and planning with Him in mind.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony, 1166 R
Bible in a Year: Job 30-31; Acts 13:26-52
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 05, 2023
The Prayer That Can Change an Eternity - #9518
When our sons were playing high school football, their job was to run their body into other guys' bodies. Yeah, they were linemen - they blocked. Of course, one of their great rewards for all this body slamming was when they could stop or deflect an opposing lineman - thus opening up a hole through which their teammate could run with the ball. And the good ball carriers knew what they had to do: spot the opening and go through it as fast as they could!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Prayer That Can Change an Eternity."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Mark 2:2-4. There are four guys, and they're here with a friend who needed to get to Jesus. They looked for an opening to get this friend to Jesus, and they actually created an opening to do it.
Here's what it says: "So many gathered (to hear Jesus) that there was no room left, not even outside the door. Some men came bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Son, your sins are forgiven." Well, later Jesus healed him and gave him the power to walk. These four 'find an opening' men not only got their friend to Jesus, but a lot more than they could have ever imagined.
In your life, there is probably someone you would like to get to Jesus - someone who needs what only the Savior can do for them - someone you want to take to heaven with you. The stakes are a lot higher than any football game. We're talking eternity here, life or death. But like a player trying to get to the goal, you have to be determined to find an opening - to look for some natural opportunity to bring up Jesus. Most of us miss those openings because we're not consciously praying for them, looking for them, and hoping for them.
Paul gives us what I call the three-open prayer. You can't be around me too long and not heat this. It's a prayer you should be praying daily about the people you want to bring to Jesus. It's in Colossians 4:3-4 - "Pray for us, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ...Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should." The three-open prayer, pray with the name of a lost person you care about, "Lord, please open a door." What's a door? Well, that's a natural opportunity to tell him or her about You, Jesus. Secondly, "Open their heart." In other words, "Lord make them ready to hear about You." And then the third open, "Open my mouth when You open the door." Good news here, you don't have to add to your prayer, "if it be Your will." It is.
You won't find many openings to just dump your beliefs about Jesus on your friend. No. What you need to do is to be ready to share the difference Jesus makes in real life for you. That's what they want to know. Your "hope story." They don't necessarily want to know what all the beliefs are, what meetings you go to. They want to know, "What does Jesus change? What difference does having a Savior make for you in your lonely times, or your depressing times? How are you different as a parent or a husband or a wife? How about when there's not enough money? Or how does Jesus affect meeting the challenges of being single, or tragedy, or pain, in times of big decisions? What difference does He make at the funeral? Those kinds of things come up all the time. Are you ready to tell how Jesus has made the difference for you in times like these? And then to move from that into how the sin-wall comes down so you can have this kind of a life-changing relationship with Jesus.
Is there someone you want to take to heaven with you? pray for an opening to bring up Jesus, look for an opening, or like those determined friends tearing up the roof - make an opening! "Lord, open a door. Lord, open their heart. Lord, open my mouth." Do you follow the blocking of the Holy Spirit of God? You go through that opening with the life-saving news of a personal relationship with the Son of God.
