Max Lucado Daily: AN INVALUABLE BLESSING - October 4, 2023
The story of Jacob includes his challenging life with his father-in-law, Laban. Laban cheated Jacob. Jacob not only survived his season with Laban; he thrived. He had developed a deeper faith. God used Laban to shape Jacob. Is God using your Laban to shape you?
You’d prefer a life with no Laban. Who wouldn’t? But life comes with Labans. Try this: Talk to God about your Laban. Ask him, “Lord, what lessons are you teaching me?” And this: Thank God for your Laban. “When troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow” (James 1:2-3 NLT).
Life’s Labans can make you want to pull your hair out—but they can also make you desperate for God. And that is an invaluable blessing.
2 Chronicles 18
But even though Jehoshaphat was very rich and much honored, he made a marriage alliance with Ahab of Israel. Some time later he paid a visit to Ahab at Samaria. Ahab celebrated his visit with a feast—a huge barbecue with all the lamb and beef you could eat. But Ahab had a hidden agenda; he wanted Jehoshaphat’s support in attacking Ramoth Gilead. Then Ahab brought it into the open: “Will you join me in attacking Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat said, “You bet. I’m with you all the way; you can count on me and my troops.”
4 Then Jehoshaphat said, “But before you do anything, ask God for guidance.”
5 The king of Israel got the prophets together—all four hundred of them—and put the question to them: “Should I attack Ramoth Gilead or should I hold back?”
“Go for it,” they said. “God will hand it over to the king.”
6 But Jehoshaphat dragged his feet, “Is there another prophet of God around here we can consult? Let’s get a second opinion.”
7 The king of Israel told Jehoshaphat, “As a matter of fact, there is another. But I hate him. He never preaches anything good to me, only doom, doom, doom—Micaiah son of Imlah.”
“The king shouldn’t talk about a prophet like that!” said Jehoshaphat.
8 So the king of Israel ordered one of his men, “Quickly, get Micaiah son of Imlah.”
9–11 Meanwhile, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat were seated on their thrones, dressed in their royal robes, resplendent in front of the Samaria city gates. All the prophets were staging a prophecy-performance for their benefit. Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had even made a set of iron horns, and brandishing them, called out, “God’s word! With these horns you’ll gore Aram until there’s nothing left of them!” All the prophets chimed in, “Yes! Go for Ramoth Gilead! An easy victory! God’s gift to the king!”
12 The messenger who went to get Micaiah told him, “The prophets have all said Yes to the king. Make it unanimous—vote Yes!”
13 But Micaiah said, “As sure as God lives, what God says, I’ll say.”
14 With Micaiah before him, the king asked him, “So, Micaiah—do we attack Ramoth Gilead? Or do we hold back?”
“Go ahead,” he said, “an easy victory! God’s gift to the king.”
15 “Not so fast,” said the king. “How many times have I made you promise under oath to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth?”
16 “All right,” said Micaiah, “since you insist …
I saw all of Israel scattered over the hills,
sheep with no shepherd.
Then God spoke, ‘These poor people
have no one to tell them what to do.
Let them go home and do
the best they can for themselves.’ ”
17 The king of Israel turned to Jehoshaphat, “See! What did I tell you? He never has a good word for me from God, only doom.”
18–21 Micaiah kept on, “I’m not done yet; listen to God’s word:
I saw God enthroned,
and all the Angel Armies of heaven
standing at attention,
ranged on his right and his left.
And God said, “How can we seduce Ahab
into attacking Ramoth Gilead?”
Some said this,
and some said that.
Then a bold angel stepped out,
stood before God, and said,
“I’ll seduce him.”
“And how will you do it?” said God.
“Easy,” said the angel,
“I’ll get all the prophets to lie.”
“That should do it,” said God;
“On your way—seduce him!”
22 “And that’s what has happened. God filled the mouths of your puppet prophets with seductive lies. God has pronounced your doom.”
23 Just then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah came up and slapped Micaiah in the face, saying, “Since when did the Spirit of God leave me and take up with you?”
24 Micaiah said, “You’ll know soon enough; you’ll know it when you’re frantically and futilely looking for a place to hide.”
25–26 The king of Israel had heard enough: “Get Micaiah out of here! Turn him over to Amon the city magistrate and to Joash the king’s son with this message: ‘King’s orders! Lock him up in jail; keep him on bread and water until I’m back in one piece.’ ”
27 Micaiah said,
If you ever get back in one piece,
I’m no prophet of God.
He added,
When it happens, O people,
remember where you heard it!
28–29 So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went ahead and attacked Ramoth Gilead. The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Wear my kingly robe; I’m going into battle disguised.” So the king of Israel entered the battle in disguise.
30 Meanwhile, the king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders (there were thirty-two of them), “Don’t bother with anyone whether small or great; go after the king of Israel and him only.”
31–32 When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “There he is! The king of Israel!” and took after him. Jehoshaphat yelled out, and the chariot commanders realized they had the wrong man—it wasn’t the king of Israel after all. God intervened and they let him go.
33 Just then someone, without aiming, shot an arrow into the crowd and hit the king of Israel in the chink of his armor. The king told his charioteer, “Turn back! Get me out of here—I’m wounded.”
34 All day the fighting continued, hot and heavy. Propped up in his chariot, the king watched from the sidelines. He died that evening.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, October 04, 2023
Today's Scripture
1 John 5:1–5
Every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is
God-begotten. If we love the One who conceives the child, we’ll surely love the child who was conceived. The reality test on whether or not we love God’s children is this: Do we love God? Do we keep his commands? The proof that we love God comes when we keep his commandments and they are not at all troublesome.
The Power That Brings the World to Its Knees
4–5 Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. The person who wins out over the world’s ways is simply the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God.
Insight
The apostle John’s letters (1, 2, and 3 John) are considered brief—particularly in comparison to Paul’s lengthy epistles and other letters, such as Romans and 1 Corinthians. However, even 3 John—the shortest of the biblical letters—would’ve been considered long by ancient standards. Scholar Randy Richards wrote: “The average letter in the first century was 87 words.” Meanwhile 3 John has 219 words in the Greek and is the shortest New Testament letter. First John—at 2,517 words—is still quite brief yet much longer than the typical first-century letter. That common brevity in ancient letters was due to several factors including the cost of hiring a secretary, the cost of papyrus and ink (which had to be handmade), and the difficulty in getting letters to their destinations. By: Bill Crowder
Finding Life
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. 1 John 5:1
It was a natural step for Brett to attend a Christian college and study the Bible. After all, he’d been around people who knew Jesus his whole life—at home, at school, at church. He was even gearing his college studies toward a career in “Christian work.”
But at age twenty-one, as he sat with the small congregation in an old country church and listened to a pastor preach from 1 John, he made a startling discovery. He realized that he was depending on knowledge and the trappings of religion and that he’d never truly received salvation in Jesus. He felt that Christ was tugging at his heart that day with a sobering message: “You don’t know Me!”
The apostle John’s message is clear: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). We can “overcome the world,” as John puts it (v. 4), only by belief in Jesus. Not knowledge about Him, but deep, sincere faith—demonstrated by our belief in what He did for us on the cross. That day, Brett placed his faith in Christ alone.
Today, Brett’s deep passion for Jesus and His salvation are no secret. It comes through loud and clear every time he steps behind the pulpit and preaches as a pastor—my pastor.
“God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life” (vv. 11–12). For all who have found life in Jesus, what a comforting reminder this is! By: Dave Branon
Reflect & Pray
What’s your story of faith? What led you to understand you needed Jesus?
Jesus, thank You for the gift of salvation and for those who pointed me to faith in You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, October 04, 2023
The Vision and The Reality
…to those who are…called to be saints… —1 Corinthians 1:2
Thank God for being able to see all that you have not yet been. You have had the vision, but you are not yet to the reality of it by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the vision to be used by God? The beatings will always come in the most common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people.
There are times when we do know what God’s purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.
Our little “I am” always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little “I am” be shriveled up in God’s wrath and indignation— “I AM WHO I AM…has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn’t it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightning. No human being knows human beings as God does.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.
Biblical Psychology
Bible in a Year: Isaiah 20-22; Ephesians 6
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, October 04, 2023
A World That Needs You - #9583
I heard mooing from our kitchen, and it wasn't a cow in the kitchen. No, it was my wife. No, I don't mean... she wasn't mooing. No, she was doing something that caused the mooing sound. I bought my wife these charming salt and pepper shakers in honor of her farm upbringing. The pepper shaker is a pig and the salt shaker is a cow. Whenever you turn over the pepper shaker, you cause it to start this pig-snorting sound. Would you like to hear one? Nope, I will not demonstrate. The salt shaker? Well, that was a cow, and it worked in the same way. So when I hear that mooing from the kitchen, I know it's announcing that the salt is doing what salt is supposed to do-which is get out of that salt shaker!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A World That Needs You."
I'm sure God would love to hear the sounds of His salt getting out of the salt shaker more often. After all, the work salt is supposed to do is not inside the salt shaker, all clustered together with the other salt. It's supposed to get out and change the flavor of something!
Well, according to Jesus, "You are the salt of the earth." That's His word to His followers in our word for today from the Word of God in Matthew 5:13. He goes on to say that "You are the light of the world," and that light is supposed to be "put on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house." Look, you don't put all the light bulbs in one room in the house, do you? You'd have one blazing bright room and the rest of the house would be totally dark. You don't keep the salt all stored up together in the shaker. You scatter it around so it will be in contact with the things that need their flavor changed.
And Christians were never meant to be all clustered together in their spiritual salt shaker, just salting each other and soaking up more blessing and more fellowship. The salt's got to be in direct contact with the meat or the vegetables that need it. So guess what? You and I have to be in meaningful contact with the people who really, really need our Jesus. We're not supposed to be hiding out, playing defense all the time, trying to keep from being contaminated by avoiding the world that Jesus left us here to change!
If your social life, if your discretionary time is pretty much with Christians all the time, maybe you're missing your mission! We'll do that in heaven. We'll hang out together all that time. Right now we've got to be involved with some people who aren't going to heaven yet! It's time for you to take all that you've been storing up spiritually and start taking it to places and people where it's really needed.
It's time to be intentional about building relationships with that neighbor of yours, you know, with that lost co-worker, with some of your fellow students who need your Jesus. It's time to look around your community and find some human needs that you can be involved in meeting in Jesus' name; to build some bridges into those lives. They're all around us.
It's time to look around your community for a place to volunteer, maybe, so you can be in contact with some unreached people with some really deep needs. You just need a community connection of some kind, not just a church connection; something that will put the salt of your life in Jesus in contact with some of the lives that really need the flavor of Jesus; with some lives He gave His life for but they don't know it yet.
Don't you think we need to be actively involved in the life of our church? Absolutely no doubt! God wants that. You need it, but not to the exclusion of connecting with the world that God so loves. You are the spiritual salt where you live. So, get out of that salt shaker!
