Max Lucado Daily: THE CURE FOR JEALOUSY - February 6, 2024
Suppose you spotted a flame in your house. How would you react? Would you shrug your shoulders and walk away, saying, “ Eh, a little fire never hurt any house.” Of course not. You’d put it out. Why? Because you know, left untended, fire consumes all that’s consumable. For the sake of your house, you don’t play with fire.
For the sake of your heart, the same is true. The name of the fire? Solomon tagged it in Song of Solomon 8:6 (RSV): “Jealousy is cruel as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire.”
Do you know what the cause of jealousy is? Distrust. Do you know what the cure for jealousy is? Trust. Is the flame of jealousy beginning to consume your heart? Are you jealous of someone’s success or possessions? Then ask God for deeper trust. He will help put out the fire.
Hosea 3
In Time They’ll Come Back
1 3 Then God ordered me, “Start all over: Love your wife again,
your wife who’s in bed with her latest boyfriend, your cheating wife.
Love her the way I, God, love the Israelite people,
even as they flirt and party with every god that takes their fancy.”
2–3 I did it. I paid good money to get her back.
It cost me the price of a slave.
Then I told her, “From now on you’re living with me.
No more whoring, no more sleeping around.
You’re living with me and I’m living with you.”
4–5 The people of Israel are going to live a long time
stripped of security and protection,
without religion and comfort,
godless and prayerless.
But in time they’ll come back, these Israelites,
come back looking for their God and their David-King.
They’ll come back chastened to reverence
before God and his good gifts, ready for the End of the story of his love.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 06, 2024
Today's Scripture
Genesis 22:1–3, 6–12
After all this, God tested Abraham. God said, “Abraham!”
“Yes?” answered Abraham. “I’m listening.”
2 He said, “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I’ll point out to you.”
3–5 Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants and his son Isaac. He had split wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place God had directed him.
Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac his son to carry. He carried the flint and the knife. The two of them went off together.
7 Isaac said to Abraham his father, “Father?”
“Yes, my son.”
“We have flint and wood, but where’s the sheep for the burnt offering?”
8 Abraham said, “Son, God will see to it that there’s a sheep for the burnt offering.” And they kept on walking together.
9–10 They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood. Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.
11 Just then an angel of God called to him out of Heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes, I’m listening.”
12 “Don’t lay a hand on that boy! Don’t touch him! Now I know how fearlessly you fear God; you didn’t hesitate to place your son, your dear son, on the altar for me.”
Insight
The “gospel echoes” in Genesis 22 are noteworthy. Abraham took his beloved and only son to sacrifice him on a mountain (v. 2). While Isaac was spared (vv. 8, 13-14), God’s own Son was the Lamb slain for the sins of the world (John 1:29; 3:16). Paul wrote in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” God the Father gave; Jesus the Son gave; believers in Jesus follow their example of surrender. By: Arthur Jackson
Surrendering to God
So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. Genesis 22:14
Born on a farm, Judson Van DeVenter learned to paint, studied art, and became an art teacher. God, however, had a different plan for him. Friends valued his work in church and urged him to go into evangelism. Judson felt God calling him too, but it was hard for him to give up his love for teaching art. He wrestled with God, but “at last,” he wrote, “the pivotal hour of my life came, and I surrendered all.”
We can’t imagine Abraham’s heartbreak when God called him to surrender his son Isaac. In the wake of God’s command to “sacrifice him there as a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:2), we ask ourselves what precious thing God is calling us to sacrifice. We know that He ultimately spared Isaac (v. 12), and yet the point is made: Abraham was willing to surrender what was most precious to him. He trusted God to provide in the midst of a most difficult calling.
We say we love God, but are we willing to sacrifice what’s dearest to us? Judson Van DeVenter followed God’s call into evangelism and later penned the beloved hymn “I Surrender All.” In time, God called Judson back into teaching. One of his students was a young man named Billy Graham.
God’s plan for our lives has purposes we can’t imagine. He longs for us to be willing to surrender what is dearest. It seems that’s the least we can do. After all, He sacrificed for us His only begotten Son. By: Kenneth Petersen
Reflect & Pray
What’s God’s calling for you? What might you need to sacrifice for Him?
Dear God, I struggle to fully surrender parts of my life to You. Please help me to trust You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 06, 2024
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (2)
I am already being poured out as a drink offering… —2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don’t deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
“Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents— burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose— the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don’t eliminate it, God does. You “bind the sacrifice…to the horns of the altar” and see to it that you don’t wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
“When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” We all have faith in good principles, in good management, in good common sense, but who amongst us has faith in Jesus Christ? Physical courage is grand, moral courage is grander, but the man who trusts Jesus Christ in the face of the terrific problems of life is worth a whole crowd of heroes. The Highest Good, 544 R
Bible in a Year: Exodus 39-40; Matthew 23:23-39
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 06, 2024
Ending Up Where You Never Wanted to Go - #9672
You might just remember turning your television on and there would be Gilligan's Island. Maybe, you can even hear the theme song playing in your brain. It was a big hit when it first came out.
Now, here's Gilligan, who's the terminally stupid first mate of the S.S. Minnow. There's the millionaire, his wife (you're probably thinking of the song now if you can go back that far), the professor, the movie star... OK, you know, the characters are pretty well-known. The plot was very simply summed up in the theme song. These people went out on the S.S. Minnow for a three-hour tour. The storm blew them into some unknown island where they were stranded until the series finally ended years later. Some three-hour tour, huh?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Ending Up Where You Never Wanted to Go."
By the way, what is the Gilligan Syndrome? Well, it's going farther than you wanted to; staying longer than you planned to. It might be happening to you right now. Jesus told us about a young man it happened to many years ago; our word for today from the Word of God in Luke 15, beginning in verse 13. It's after this man has asked his dad for the family inheritance that's coming to him. While his dad's still alive.
"Not long after that," the Bible says, "the younger son got together all he had, went off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father."
He was just going for a fling on the wild side, just a three-hour tour. He almost never made it back. What was supposed to bring him pleasure and happiness did for just a little while. Ultimately it left him stranded on this spiritual island all by himself. "He squandered his wealth," Jesus said. In other words, he wasted what he'd been given. Have you done that?
He spent everything he had, it says. He was alone except for the pigs. The Bible says, "The way of a transgressor is hard." It always is - sooner or later.
Except it's sin that carries us to a place that's hard to get back from. Here's the ugly truth about sin: it will always take you farther than you wanted to go, it will keep you longer than you planned to stay, and it will cost you more than you ever thought you'd pay. And, maybe you've seen that already. And the bill has come. If it hasn't, it will.
Maybe, you're listening and you say, "That's all happened to me." Or maybe you're just starting down a sin road that looks exciting, and profitable, and desirable, and you think it will be just a three-hour tour. Sin never is. Listen to God's statement in James 1:15, "After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." It will take you where you never meant to go.
If you feel like you're just too far away to ever get back, you can get back the same way the Prodigal Son did, but only that way. It says he "got up and went to his father." It's time for you to run to God instead of running from Him any longer. You say, "He'll never take me." Look, that's why Jesus told this story, to let you know that God is waiting for you to come into His waiting arms. It says "His father saw him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." God proved He wants you home with Him by sending His Son to die for your very rebellion against Him. For all that you've wasted with your sin, He says come home to Me. He's saying it to your heart right now as you listen to this.
Do you want to get home? Would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I believe some of the sin you died for was mine. I am yours as of today." I'd love to share more information with you at our website ANewStory.com.
God will come running to you because of what Jesus did on the cross for you. Haven't you been gone from God long enough? It's time to come home.