Max Lucado Daily: ALL GOD, ALL MAN - November 1, 2024
“Who do you say I am?” Jesus asks of Peter. “I, uh, I believe…um, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Maybe he wasn’t that hesitant. But if he was, you can hardly fault him. How many times do you call a callous-handed nail bender from a one-camel town the Son of God?
You remember the drawings with the question, “What’s wrong with this picture?” We’d look closely for something that didn’t fit—like an astronaut on the moon with a pay phone in the background. Pay phones aren’t found on the moon, and God doesn’t chum with common folk or snooze in fishing boats. But Colossians 2:9 says he did: “For in Christ there is all of God in a human body.” All God, all man. Don’t we need a God-man Savior?
No Wonder They Call Him Savior: Experiencing the Truth of the Cross
Revelation 1
A revealing of Jesus, the Messiah. God gave it to make plain to his servants what is about to happen. He published and delivered it by Angel to his servant John. And John told everything he saw: God’s Word—the witness of Jesus Christ!
3 How blessed the reader! How blessed the hearers and keepers of these oracle words, all the words written in this book!
Time is just about up.
His Eyes Pouring Fire-Blaze
4–7 I, John, am writing this to the seven churches in Asia province: All the best to you from The God Who Is, The God Who Was, and The God About to Arrive, and from the Seven Spirits assembled before his throne, and from Jesus Christ—Loyal Witness, Firstborn from the dead, Ruler of all earthly kings.
Glory and strength to Christ, who loves us,
who blood-washed our sins from our lives,
Who made us a Kingdom, Priests for his Father,
forever—and yes, he’s on his way!
Riding the clouds, he’ll be seen by every eye,
those who mocked and killed him will see him,
People from all nations and all times
will tear their clothes in lament.
Oh, Yes.
8 The Master declares, “I’m A to Z. I’m The God Who Is, The God Who Was, and The God About to Arrive. I’m the Sovereign-Strong.”
9–17 I, John, with you all the way in the trial and the Kingdom and the passion of patience in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of God’s Word, the witness of Jesus. It was Sunday and I was in the Spirit, praying. I heard a loud voice behind me, trumpet-clear and piercing: “Write what you see into a book. Send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea.” I turned and saw the voice.
I saw a gold menorah
with seven branches,
And in the center, the Son of Man,
in a robe and gold breastplate,
hair a blizzard of white,
Eyes pouring fire-blaze,
both feet furnace-fired bronze,
His voice a cataract,
right hand holding the Seven Stars,
His mouth a sharp-biting sword,
his face a perigee sun.
I saw this and fainted dead at his feet. His right hand pulled me upright, his voice reassured me:
17–20 “Don’t fear: I am First, I am Last, I’m Alive. I died, but I came to life, and my life is now forever. See these keys in my hand? They open and lock Death’s doors, they open and lock Hell’s gates. Now write down everything you see: things that are, things about to be. The Seven Stars you saw in my right hand and the seven-branched gold menorah—do you want to know what’s behind them? The Seven Stars are the Angels of the seven churches; the menorah’s seven branches are the seven churches.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 01, 2024
Today's Scripture
Ephesians 5:15-20
So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!
17 Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.
18–20 Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.
Insight
Ephesians 5 tells us to “be very careful . . . how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity” (vv. 15-16). Part of using time wisely is remembering that life is filled with its different seasons, but we can rest in God’s wisdom and timing. This is beautifully captured by Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. . . . He has made everything beautiful in its time” (vv. 1, 11). Recognizing that God is in control of our lives can help us walk by faith as we anticipate our eternal home with Him forever. By: Bill Crowder
Time Well Spent
Be very careful, then, how you live . . . making the most of every opportunity. Ephesians 5:15-16
On March 14, 2019, NASA rockets ignited, catapulting astronaut Christina Koch toward the International Space Station. Koch wouldn’t return to Earth for 328 days, giving her the record for the longest continuous space flight by a woman. Every day, living roughly 254 miles above the Earth, a screen kept track of the astronaut’s time in five-minute increments. She had a myriad of daily tasks to complete (from meals to experiments), and—hour after hour—a red line inched along the display, constantly showing whether Koch was ahead or behind schedule. Not a moment to waste.
While certainly not recommending anything so intrusive as a red line ruling over our life, the apostle Paul did encourage us to carefully use our precious, limited resource of time. “Be very careful then, how you live,” he wrote, “not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16). God’s wisdom instructs us to fill our days with intention and care, employing them to practice obedience to Him, to love our neighbor, and to participate in Jesus’ ongoing redemption in the world. Sadly, it’s entirely possible to ignore wisdom’s instruction and instead use our time foolishly (v. 17), frittering away our years in selfish or destructive pursuits.
The point isn’t to obsessively fret about time but simply to follow God in obedience and trust. He will help us make the most of our days. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
What does time mean to you? How can you make the most of your time today?
Dear God, please help me make the most of my time
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 01, 2024
You Are Not Your Own
Know ye not that…ye are not your own? —1 Corinthians 6:19
There’s no such thing as a private life—a “world within the world”—for those who are brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ’s sufferings. God breaks up the private life of his saints and makes it a thoroughfare for the world on the one hand and for himself on the other. No human being can stand that without being fully identified with Jesus Christ.
God calls his saints into the fellowship of the gospel, and it is for this fellowship that we are sanctified, not for ourselves. In everything that happens, in every circumstance that arises, God is bringing us into fellowship with himself. We must let him have his way. If we don’t, we won’t be of the slightest use in his redemptive work in the world. Instead, we’ll be a hindrance.
The first thing God does with his saints is to get them based on rugged spiritual reality. When we are spiritually real, we don’t care what happens to us individually; we only care that God gets his way for the purpose of his redemption. Why shouldn’t we go through heartbreak? Heartbreaks are doorways that God is opening into fellowship with his Son. Most of us collapse at the first sign of heartbreak or pain. We sit down on the threshold of God’s purpose, then turn to the people around us for sympathy. So-called Christian sympathy will soothe us all the way to our deathbeds! God never soothes us when what we need is to be roused; God comes with the grip of the pierced hand of his Son and says, “Arise; shine. Enter into fellowship with me.”
If through a broken heart God can bring his purposes to pass in the world, thank him for breaking your heart.
Jeremiah 24-26; Titus 2
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray.
So Send I You, 1325 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 01, 2024
The Thought Detector - #9865
If you're up late enough - I'm saying really late - you might catch an episode of the old TV series "The Twilight Zone." Rod Serling, the host, wrote some very imaginative and actually sometimes strange stories that ended up on that series. And it's funny after all these years; I still remember one, even though it's been a long time. This bank teller suddenly develops the ability to know what people are thinking, and he thinks he has a great gift. The amusing part was that while people were speaking, he knew what they were really thinking as they said those words. Aren't you glad this was just fiction?
For example, he heard the banker saying to a customer that had a considerable amount of money in the bank, "We certainly enjoyed visiting with you." Meanwhile he's hearing his thoughts say, "I wouldn't even want to be in the same room with you if you didn't have so much money." Well, by the end of the story, as I recall it, he's not so sure he wants this gift anymore. Someone who knows what you're thinking about; aren't you glad that's just fiction? Or is it?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Thought Detector."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 5, and I'm going to begin reading at verse 20, where a young man has just been lowered through a roof by his determined friends. See, they want their paralyzed friend to have a healing touch from Jesus. You may remember the story. The Bible says, "When Jesus saw their faith, He said, 'Friend, your sins are forgiven.' The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, 'Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?' Jesus knew what they were thinking (oh, here we go!) and asked, 'Why are you thinking these things in your heart?'"
Now, these people didn't say they were doubting Jesus, but Jesus knew they were. See, a passage like this teaches us that if you think it, Jesus knows it. How does that make you feel? I mean, a lot of folks whose outer life is admirably righteous have a moral zoo going on inside. See, Jesus is interested in your thoughts, not just your actions. For example He told us, "If a man commits adultery in his heart; if he lusts after a woman, that's a form of adultery" - mental adultery.
Now, we work pretty hard to get the outside looking good, don't we? But 1 Samuel 16 says, "God looks on the heart." What you think about all day; that's the real you. Jesus knows the bitterness behind those nice words; He knows the jealousy behind the smiles, the lust behind your lectures on sin. He knows the pride behind all that Christian work you do. He knows the thoughts of unfaithfulness that maybe you're covering up with words of love. He wants to be the Lord of what you think about, not just what you do. In fact, the wonderful possibility is given to us in 2 Corinthians 10:5. Here's what it says: "We can bring every thought into the captivity and obedience of Christ."
So, fight the war on the first front, and that's where you think. Sin always lands as a thought first; repentance begins with the things I'm thinking about. That's why David said, "Lord, I want you to know my thoughts." So, let Christ invade the real you, not just the one everybody can see. You need Him in your mind all day. He already knows what's going on there. So talk to Him about it, be honest about it, release His power to change your mind. The Bible says that we can "be transformed by the renewing of our mind." That's the power of a living Christ inside of you if you will open up all the closets in your mind with all the darkness and monsters in it for Him to change.
The greatest strongholds for the kingship of Jesus Christ are in my mind, and they can be, and they must be, surrendered to His will.
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