Max Lucado Daily: FROM NOTHING INTO SOMETHING - January 8, 2024
You’re more than statistical chance, a marriage of heredity and society. Thanks to God, you have been “sculpted from nothing into something” (Psalm 139:15 MSG). He made you you-nique.
Secular thinking, as a whole, doesn’t buy this. Society simply says, “You can be anything you want to be.” But can you? God never prefabs or mass-produces people. “I make all things new,” he declares (Revelation 21:5 NKJV). So, you can do something no one else can do in a fashion no one else can do it. “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that” (Galatians 6:4 MSG).
When you do the most what you do the best, you put a smile on God’s face. And what could be better than that?
Isaiah 47-
The Party’s Over
1–3 47 “Get off your high horse and sit in the dirt,
virgin daughter of Babylon.
No more throne for you—sit on the ground,
daughter of the Chaldeans.
Nobody will be calling you ‘charming’
and ‘alluring’ anymore. Get used to it.
Get a job, any old job:
Clean gutters, scrub toilets.
Hock your gowns and scarves,
put on overalls—the party’s over.
Your nude body will be on public display,
exposed to vulgar taunts.
It’s vengeance time, and I’m taking vengeance.
No one gets let off the hook.”
You’re Acting Like the Center of the Universe
4–13 Our Redeemer speaks,
named God-of-the-Angel-Armies, The Holy of Israel:
“Shut up and get out of the way,
daughter of Chaldeans.
You’ll no longer be called
‘First Lady of the Kingdoms.’
I was fed up with my people,
thoroughly disgusted with my progeny.
I turned them over to you,
but you had no compassion.
You put old men and women
to cruel, hard labor.
You said, ‘I’m the First Lady.
I’ll always be the pampered darling.’
You took nothing seriously, took nothing to heart,
never gave tomorrow a thought.
Well, start thinking, playgirl.
You’re acting like the center of the universe,
Smugly saying to yourself, ‘I’m Number One. There’s nobody but me.
I’ll never be a widow, I’ll never lose my children.’
Those two things are going to hit you both at once,
suddenly, on the same day:
Spouse and children gone, a total loss,
despite your many enchantments and charms.
You were so confident and comfortable in your evil life,
saying, ‘No one sees me.’
You thought you knew so much, had everything figured out.
What delusion!
Smugly telling yourself, ‘I’m Number One. There’s nobody but me.’
Ruin descends—
you can’t charm it away.
Disaster strikes—
you can’t cast it off with spells.
Catastrophe, sudden and total—
and you’re totally at sea, totally bewildered!
But don’t give up. From your great repertoire
of enchantments there must be one you haven’t yet tried.
You’ve been at this a long time.
Surely something will work.
I know you’re exhausted trying out remedies,
but don’t give up.
Call in the astrologers and stargazers.
They’re good at this. Surely they can work up something!
14–15 “Fat chance. You’d be grasping at straws
that are already in the fire,
A fire that is even now raging.
Your ‘experts’ are in it and won’t get out.
It’s not a fire for cooking venison stew,
not a fire to warm you on a winter night!
That’s the fate of your friends in sorcery, your magician buddies
you’ve been in cahoots with all your life.
They reel, confused, bumping into one another.
None of them bother to help you.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, January 08, 2024
Today's Scripture
Romans 5:6–8
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.
Insight
What does Paul mean when he says, “at just the right time” (Romans 5:6)? Elsewhere, he writes, “When the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship” (Galatians 4:4-5). The timing of Jesus’ arrival on earth was perfectly fitted to God’s plan. This plan unfolded in ways we couldn’t have imagined, yet everything is just as He ordained it. That’s good news! Mark says in his gospel account, “It is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you’ ” (Mark 1:2). This messenger was John the Baptist, the prophesied forerunner to Jesus’ ministry (vv. 2-3; see Isaiah 40:3; Malachi 3:1). His mission complete, John was imprisoned. Only then did Christ announce, “The time has come . . . . The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15).
By: Tim Gustafson
Willing Savior
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
While driving late at night, Nicholas saw a house on fire. He parked in the driveway, rushed into the burning home, and led four children to safety. When the teenage babysitter realized one of the siblings was still inside, she told Nicholas. Without hesitation, he reentered the inferno. Trapped on the second floor with the six-year-old girl, Nicholas broke a window. He jumped to safety with the child in his arms, just as emergency teams arrived at the scene. Choosing concern for others over himself, he rescued all the children.
Nicholas demonstrated heroism by his willingness to sacrifice his safety for the sake of others. This powerful act of love reflects the kind of sacrificial love shown by another willing rescuer who gave His life to deliver us from sin and death—Jesus. “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). The apostle Paul emphasized that Jesus—fully God in the flesh and fully man—chose to lay His life down and pay the price for our sins, a price we could never pay on our own. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (v. 8).
As we thank and trust Jesus, our willing Savior, He can empower us to love others sacrificially with our words and actions. By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How do you feel when you consider the price Jesus willingly paid because He loves you? How can you put the needs of others before yourself this week?
Dear Jesus, help me trust in Your provision as I place others first today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, January 08, 2024
Is My Sacrifice Living?
Abraham built an altar…; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar… —Genesis 22:9
This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not— “Lord, I am ready to go with You…to death” (Luke 22:33). But— “I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God.”
We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from this error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself. It is a matter of loosening the bands that hold back our lives. Those bands are loosened immediately by identification with the death of Jesus. Then we enter into a relationship with God whereby we may sacrifice our lives to Him.
It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a “living sacrifice”— to let Him have all your strengths that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus (Romans 12:1). This is what is acceptable to God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. Disciples Indeed, 388 L
Bible in a Year: Genesis 20-22; Matthew 6:19-34
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, January 08, 2024
Just Beyond Your Last Heartbeat - #9651
Our daughter was driving through town with our four-year-old grandson in the back seat. As she passed a local senior housing facility, she said, "Honey, that's where my grandfather lived until he died." At that point, our four-year-old jumped in with a respectful correction of his Mommy's choice of words. "Until Jesus called him home," he said. There was a pause - and then our grandson added - "Someday Jesus will call me home, too."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Just Beyond Your Last Heartbeat."
Not bad for a four-year-old! I'm sounding like his grandfather now. But that little guy actually has this death thing figured out better than a lot of us grownup people do, because we don't decide when it's over. God does. And the thing you want to have happen on the day you take your last breath is for Jesus to call you home to heaven. Unfortunately, not everyone's going home. And the alternative is too eternally awful to contemplate.
The Bible makes this clear in 1 John 5:11-12. It's our word for today from the Word of God, and it says that we're all in one of two groups, headed for one of two possible destinations. You are in one of these. It says, "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." Notice - it doesn't say eternal life is in His religion or His rules or in living right. No, the only One who can get us to heaven is His Son. Why? Because He's the only One who died to pay for all the sin that we have; sin that makes it impossible for us to enter a holy God's heaven. The Bible then continues: "He who has the Son" - that's the Son of God, Jesus - "He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life."
There it is. Either you're totally forgiven or you're still carrying your sin and its penalty. Either you're headed for heaven or you're headed for hell. And Jesus indicated there will be surprises in both places - people that humans would never expect who are going to be in heaven because they pinned all their hopes for spiritual rescue on Jesus. And people in hell who had tons of Christianity but somehow missed Jesus. They never grabbed Him as if He were their only hope.
The truth is that your last call could come any time. Speaking to God in Psalm 139:16, King David says, "All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."
You're not going to die until your work is done. And you can't stay one day longer than when your work is done. And God decides when that is. For a 17-year-old girl who attended a youth event I spoke at, the call actually came in a head-on collision on the way home. And because she had put her trust in Jesus that very night, when she got the call, she was called home, because "He who has the Son has life."
You can't postpone God's call. And you can't be ready for it any other way than to be sure you belong to Jesus Christ, the only One who can remove the sin that will otherwise keep you out of heaven.
You say, "But I'm a good person." Not good enough; not for a perfect God. That's why Jesus came. Why He died. Why He rose again. That's why He's knocking on the door of your heart, maybe this very day. He wants you in heaven with Him forever. He doesn't want to lose you! But you have to choose that - by consciously and totally giving yourself to Him.
Have you ever really done that? If you're not sure you did, you probably didn't. Let this be the day you finally say, "Jesus, I'm Yours. I accept your death on the cross as being for my sin. I turn from running my own life. You are my only hope." If you want to be sure you've begun a relationship with Jesus, and you want to get this settled today, go to our website? It will help, I know it will. It's ANewStory.com.
You're another day closer to the day the call will come. It just doesn't make sense to risk one more day without Jesus does it? He's calling you right now to give you to Him, so that one day, when the last call comes, He can call you home.