Max Lucado Daily: NO GREATER PASSION - August 11, 2023
When our oldest daughter was two, I lost her in a department store. I panicked. All of a sudden only one thing mattered—I had to find Jenna. Shopping was forgotten. The list of things I came to get was unimportant. I yelled her name. What people thought did not matter. Every ounce of energy had one goal: to find my lost child.
I did, by the way. She was hiding behind some jackets. No price is too high for a parent to pay to redeem his child. No energy is too great. No effort too demanding. A parent will go to any length to find his or her own. So will God.
Mark it down. God’s greatest creation is not the flung stars or the gorged canyons. It’s his eternal plan to reach his children. Heaven and earth know no greater passion than God’s personal passion for you and your return.
Psalm 46
God is a safe place to hide,
ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,
courageous in seastorm and earthquake,
Before the rush and roar of oceans,
the tremors that shift mountains.
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
4-6 River fountains splash joy, cooling God’s city,
this sacred haunt of the Most High.
God lives here, the streets are safe,
God at your service from crack of dawn.
Godless nations rant and rave, kings and kingdoms threaten,
but Earth does anything he says.
7 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
8-10 Attention, all! See the marvels of God!
He plants flowers and trees all over the earth,
Bans war from pole to pole,
breaks all the weapons across his knee.
“Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything.”
11 Jacob-wrestling God fights for us,
God-of-Angel-Armies protects us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 11, 2023
Today's Scripture
Romans 5:6–10
Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
9–11 Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way. If, when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!
Insight
A central theme of Romans 5:6–10 is our reconciliation to God—something we might doubt if we focus on our struggles and the things we regret. Paul discusses justification by faith in Jesus (v. 1). This justification brings us a wonderful hope: complete salvation from our sins and eternity with God the Father. Paul notes how we’ve been “justified by [Christ’s] blood” (v. 9). Then he makes the point that if Jesus’ death was enough to rescue us when we were dead in our sins, how much more so is His life (v. 10)! This salvation rescues us from God’s righteous wrath against sin. In chapter 6, Paul deals with the dangerous heresy that it’s okay to go on sinning since Christ’s blood brings complete forgiveness from sin. He says, “We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” (v. 2). By: Tim Gustafson
Who Am I?
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Robert Todd Lincoln lived under the extensive shadow of his father, beloved American president Abraham Lincoln. Long after his father’s death, Robert’s identity was engulfed by his father’s overwhelming presence. Lincoln’s close friend, Nicholas Murray Butler, wrote that Robert often said, “No one wanted me for secretary of war; they wanted Abraham Lincoln’s son. No one wanted me for minister to England; they wanted Abraham Lincoln’s son. No one wanted me for president of the Pullman Company; they wanted Abraham Lincoln’s son.”
Such frustration isn’t limited to the children of the famous. We all are familiar with the feeling of not being valued for who we are. Yet nowhere is the depth of our value more evident than in the way God loves us.
The apostle Paul recognized us for who we were in our sins, and for who we become in Christ. He wrote, “At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). God loves us because of who we are—even at our worst! Paul wrote, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8). God values us so much that He allowed His Son to go to the cross on our behalf.
Who are we? We’re God’s beloved children. Who could ask for more? By: Bill Crowder
Reflect & Pray
When have you felt lost in another person’s shadow? How will you permit this to teach you about God’s concern for you individually?
Father, I thank You that You love me for who I am and what I am, and that Your forgiveness and love are mine.
For further study, explore Finding Our Identity in Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 11, 2023
This Experience Must Come
Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha…saw him no more. —2 Kings 2:11-12
It is not wrong for you to depend on your “Elijah” for as long as God gives him to you. But remember that the time will come when he must leave and will no longer be your guide and your leader, because God does not intend for him to stay. Even the thought of that causes you to say, “I cannot continue without my ‘Elijah.’ ” Yet God says you must continue.
Alone at Your “Jordan” (2 Kings 2:14). The Jordan River represents the type of separation where you have no fellowship with anyone else, and where no one else can take your responsibility from you. You now have to put to the test what you learned when you were with your “Elijah.” You have been to the Jordan over and over again with Elijah, but now you are facing it alone. There is no use in saying that you cannot go— the experience is here, and you must go. If you truly want to know whether or not God is the God your faith believes Him to be, then go through your “Jordan” alone.
Alone at Your “Jericho” (2 Kings 2:15). Jericho represents the place where you have seen your “Elijah” do great things. Yet when you come alone to your “Jericho,” you have a strong reluctance to take the initiative and trust in God, wanting, instead, for someone else to take it for you. But if you remain true to what you learned while with your “Elijah,” you will receive a sign, as Elisha did, that God is with you.
Alone at Your “Bethel” (2 Kings 2:23). At your “Bethel” you will find yourself at your wits’ end but at the beginning of God’s wisdom. When you come to your wits’ end and feel inclined to panic— don’t! Stand true to God and He will bring out His truth in a way that will make your life an expression of worship. Put into practice what you learned while with your “Elijah”— use his mantle and pray (see 2 Kings 2:13-14). Make a determination to trust in God, and do not even look for Elijah anymore.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves. The Place of Help, 1051 L
Bible in a Year: Psalms 81-83; Romans 11:19-36
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 11, 2023
GOD OF THE LITTLE PROBLEMS - #9545
In ongoing attempts to establish more regular exercise in our lives, my wife and I had moved into this walking kick. And, you know, that was a good idea. Actually, my wife took the research approach, including reading books on walking, which I wasn't sure was necessary since I've been walking since I was about a year old. One of those books was by a man who literally walked across America. I was hoping that was not one of my wife's goals for our exercise program. I was intrigued, though, by an observation made by this super-walker. When someone asked him what the greatest obstacle was in his long hike across the country, (You want to guess?) he gave a pretty surprising answer. He said, "The little pebbles I got in my shoes."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "God of the Little Problems."
It's interesting that the Bible actually describes our life-journey with Jesus as a walk. And some of us share with that man who hiked America the same obstacle in getting to our destination.
In Song of Solomon 2:15, our word for today from the Word of God, we find an intriguing insight about our life journey. It says, "Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom." It's the little foxes that ruin things; that spoil what could have been a good result. If it's a big fox, it's easy to shoot it. But it's harder to fight the little foxes that just kind of nibble away. Sounds like an animal kingdom equivalent of a hiker's "little pebbles in your shoes."
And we all experience the aggravation of those little pebbles; the car trouble, the sick child, an inconvenient illness, the appliance on the blink, the banking problems, the office politics, those little injustices, or that unexpected expense. The peace of God is one of a child of God's greatest gifts, but often these little stresses do more to rob us of that peace than even the big crises.
When a major crisis comes, we tend to run to God for His grace. We know we can't fight a giant by ourselves. But when we run into those little mini-headaches of everyday life, we often try to handle those on our own. We fight the big foxes with spiritual weapons and the little foxes with human weapons.
So we lose, not to huge temptations or overwhelming problems, but to flat tires and the flu, to bills and bad traffic. Not because they're so big, but because we don't think to go to Jesus about them. I'm so glad that Jesus is a sparrow-counting, hair-counting, daily bread kind of Savior, aren't you? But I need to go to Him with the small frustrations! We could live much more victoriously if we would immediately go to Jesus for the grace He's promised us in the mini-messes - not just the big ones.
Why let those "little foxes" create a negative, angry, stressed-out you? Turn them over to your Lord who told us He cares about those things. In 1 Peter 5:7 it says, "Casting all your care on Him because He cares for you." You'll walk much longer; you'll walk much lighter if your God is the God of the little pebbles - not just the big boulders.