Max Lucado Daily: ACCURATE THINKING - March 29, 2024
Everyone has assumptions about life. Many are useful and constructive. Some assumptions, however, are toxic. Even worse, they are contrary to the truth. A sample of unhealthy assumptions include: I’m unworthy. People abandon me. It’s all my fault. The world feels dangerous.
False assumptions create an anxiety-ridden life. God’s solution is truth. Bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 ASV). Correct faulty thinking with accurate thoughts. I matter to God. He made me, he knows me, he has a plan for my life. I’ve made mistakes, but I’m forgiven by God. I’m protected. I serve a mighty God who knows me and loves me. Suggestions for your thinking. Clean your life lens.
Jeremiah 7
The Nation That Wouldn’t Obey God
1–2 7 The Message from God to Jeremiah: “Stand in the gate of God’s Temple and preach this Message.
2–3 “Say, ‘Listen, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship God. God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God, has this to say to you:
3–7 “ ‘Clean up your act—the way you live, the things you do—so I can make my home with you in this place. Don’t for a minute believe the lies being spoken here—“This is God’s Temple, God’s Temple, God’s Temple!” Total nonsense! Only if you clean up your act (the way you live, the things you do), only if you do a total spring cleaning on the way you live and treat your neighbors, only if you quit exploiting the street people and orphans and widows, no longer taking advantage of innocent people on this very site and no longer destroying your souls by using this Temple as a front for other gods—only then will I move into your neighborhood. Only then will this country I gave your ancestors be my permanent home, my Temple.
8–11 “ ‘Get smart! Your leaders are handing you a pack of lies, and you’re swallowing them! Use your heads! Do you think you can rob and murder, have sex with the neighborhood wives, tell lies nonstop, worship the local gods, and buy every novel religious commodity on the market—and then march into this Temple, set apart for my worship, and say, “We’re safe!” thinking that the place itself gives you a license to go on with all this outrageous sacrilege? A cave full of criminals! Do you think you can turn this Temple, set apart for my worship, into something like that? Well, think again. I’ve got eyes in my head. I can see what’s going on.’ ” God’s Decree!
12 “ ‘Take a trip down to the place that was once in Shiloh, where I met my people in the early days. Take a look at those ruins, what I did to it because of the evil ways of my people Israel.
13–15 “ ‘So now, because of the way you have lived and failed to listen, even though time and again I took you aside and talked seriously with you, and because you refused to change when I called you to repent, I’m going to do to this Temple, set aside for my worship, this place you think is going to keep you safe no matter what, this place I gave as a gift to your ancestors and you, the same as I did to Shiloh. And as for you, I’m going to get rid of you, the same as I got rid of those old relatives of yours around Shiloh, your fellow Israelites in that former kingdom to the north.’
16–18 “And you, Jeremiah, don’t waste your time praying for this people. Don’t offer to make petitions or intercessions. Don’t bother me with them. I’m not listening. Can’t you see what they’re doing in all the villages of Judah and in the Jerusalem streets? Why, they’ve got the children gathering wood while the fathers build fires and the mothers make bread to be offered to ‘the Queen of Heaven’! And as if that weren’t bad enough, they go around pouring out libations to any other gods they come across, just to hurt me.
19 “But is it me they’re hurting?” God’s Decree! “Aren’t they just hurting themselves? Exposing themselves shamefully? Making themselves ridiculous?
20 “Here’s what the Master God has to say: ‘My white-hot anger is about to descend on this country and everything in it—people and animals, trees in the field and vegetables in the garden—a raging wildfire that no one can put out.’
21–23 “The Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God: ‘Go ahead! Put your burnt offerings with all your other sacrificial offerings and make a good meal for yourselves. I sure don’t want them! When I delivered your ancestors out of Egypt, I never said anything to them about wanting burnt offerings and sacrifices as such. But I did say this, commanded this: “Obey me. Do what I say and I will be your God and you will be my people. Live the way I tell you. Do what I command so that your lives will go well.”
24–26 “ ‘But do you think they listened? Not a word of it. They did just what they wanted to do, indulged any and every evil whim and got worse day by day. From the time your ancestors left the land of Egypt until now, I’ve supplied a steady stream of my servants the prophets, but do you think the people listened? Not once. Stubborn as mules and worse than their ancestors!’
27–28 “Tell them all this, but don’t expect them to listen. Call out to them, but don’t expect an answer. Tell them, ‘You are the nation that wouldn’t obey God, that refused all discipline. Truth has disappeared. There’s not a trace of it left in your mouths.
29 “ ‘So shave your heads.
Go bald to the hills and lament,
For God has rejected and left
this generation that has made him so angry.’
30–31 “The people of Judah have lived evil lives while I’ve stood by and watched.” God’s Decree. “In deliberate insult to me, they’ve set up their obscene god-images in the very Temple that was built to honor me. They’ve constructed Topheth altars for burning babies in prominent places all through the valley of Ben-hinnom, altars for burning their sons and daughters alive in the fire—a shocking perversion of all that I am and all I command.
32–34 “But soon, very soon”—God’s Decree!—“the names Topheth and Ben-hinnom will no longer be used. They’ll call the place what it is: Murder Meadow. Corpses will be stacked up in Topheth because there’s no room left to bury them! Corpses abandoned in the open air, fed on by crows and coyotes, who have the run of the place. And I’ll empty both smiles and laughter from the villages of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. No wedding songs, no holiday sounds. Dead silence.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, March 29, 2024
Today's Scripture
1 Peter 3:13–18
If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off. Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick. They’ll end up realizing that they’re the ones who need a bath. It’s better to suffer for doing good, if that’s what God wants, than to be punished for doing bad. That’s what Christ did definitively: suffered because of others’ sins, the Righteous One for the unrighteous ones. He went through it all—was put to death and then made alive—to bring us to God.
Insight
In 1 Peter 3:13-14, the apostle encourages believers in Jesus to “do good,” even if they suffer for it. Believers in Christ aren’t to fear but are to trust in God and be prepared to witness for Him. Peter reminds us that Jesus suffered unjustly and died for our sins, “the righteous for the unrighteous” (v. 18). His was a once-for-all sacrifice. Whoever believes in Him as their Savior and repents of their sins receives His forgiveness. Our salvation doesn’t guarantee we won’t suffer; today’s passage and other Scripture passages tell us something quite different. Jesus said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” (John 15:18); also, “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (v. 20). And Paul tells us, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). By: Alyson Kieda
Jesus, Our Substitute
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 1 Peter 3:18
A wealthy twenty-year-old was drag-racing with his friends when he struck and killed a pedestrian. Although the young man received a three-year prison sentence, some believe that the man who appeared in court (and who subsequently served a prison sentence) was a hired surrogate for the driver who committed the crime. This type of thing has been known to occur in some countries where people hire body doubles to avoid paying for their crimes.
This may sound scandalous and outrageous, but more than two thousand years ago, Jesus became our substitute and “suffered once for [our] sins, the righteous for the unrighteous” (1 Peter 3:18). As God’s sinless sacrifice, Christ suffered and died once and for all (Hebrews 10:10), for all who believe in Him. He took the penalty for all our sins in His own body on the cross. Unlike a person today who chooses to be a substitute for a criminal to get some cash, Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross provided “hope” for us as He freely, willingly gave His life for us (1 Peter 3:15, 18; John 10:15). He did so to bridge the chasm between us and God.
May we rejoice and find comfort and confidence in this profound truth: Only by the substitutionary death of Jesus can we—sinners in need—have a relationship with and complete spiritual access to our loving God. By: Marvin Williams
Reflect & Pray
How has Christ’s substitutionary death changed your life? What does it mean for you to have access to God and eternal life because of Jesus' death on the cross?
Dear Jesus, thank You for dying in my place so that I might have access to God.
Learn more about having a personal relationship with God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, March 29, 2024
Our Lord’s Surprise Visits
You also be ready… —Luke 12:40
A Christian worker’s greatest need is a readiness to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience has been. This battle is not against sin, difficulties, or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in our service to Jesus Christ that we are not ready to face Jesus Himself at every turn. The greatest need is not facing our beliefs or doctrines, or even facing the question of whether or not we are of any use to Him, but the need is to face Him.
Jesus rarely comes where we expect Him; He appears where we least expect Him, and always in the most illogical situations. The only way a servant can remain true to God is to be ready for the Lord’s surprise visits. This readiness will not be brought about by service, but through intense spiritual reality, expecting Jesus Christ at every turn. This sense of expectation will give our life the attitude of childlike wonder He wants it to have. If we are going to be ready for Jesus Christ, we have to stop being religious. In other words, we must stop using religion as if it were some kind of a lofty lifestyle— we must be spiritually real.
If you are avoiding the call of the religious thinking of today’s world, and instead are “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2), setting your heart on what He wants, and thinking His thoughts, you will be considered impractical and a daydreamer. But when He suddenly appears in the work of the heat of the day, you will be the only one who is ready. You should trust no one, and even ignore the finest saint on earth if he blocks your sight of Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
Bible in a Year: Judges 7-8; Luke 5:1-16
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, March 29, 2024
Good Friday - What the Jesus Movies Miss - #9710
You can always tell when Easter's on its way. All the Jesus shows start popping up on TV. And that's a good thing. I remember a few years ago there was one that was pretty good called A.D. - The Bible Continues. That's the sequel to a series called The Bible.
When that series The Bible showed the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus, it was amazing. The social media lit up with shocked viewers who were saying, "I had no idea what Jesus went through." I'm glad they got an idea. The brutalizing of Jesus was so violent that Hollywood had to make The Passion of the Christ movie R-rated. But for all the realism and all the effects that Hollywood has brought to its' portrayal of Jesus' death, there's something very important they haven't shown, because they can't.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Good Friday - What the Jesus Movies Miss."
You see, what they miss revolves around that heart-wrenching moment before Jesus breathes His last. When He cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" Because, you see, that was the decisive moment in the eternal mission of Jesus - the moment when God the Father abandoned the One the Bible calls "His one and only Son." Rending that holy relationship that had never been broken throughout all the ages of eternity until that horrific but holy moment when my sin forced God to turn His back on His Son so He wouldn't have to turn His back on me or on you.
I'm the rebel, the hijacker of the throne made for God to reign in my soul. I'm the one who pushed the God of 100 billion galaxies to the margins of a life that He gave me. If I harbored any illusions that I could ever get into God's heaven by doing some good things, that illusion dies at the foot of Jesus' bloody cross. That's where the price of human sin is spelled out in blood for all to see. That's what it takes to pay for a lifetime of rebellion against God.
That's why the Bible says, "The wages of sin is death." Death as in forever being cut off from a holy God, who cannot touch sin. He's the source of everything good. You see, that penalty can only be paid by me, the sinner, who earned those wages or unthinkably, by a sinless substitute, Jesus. Who in that unfathomable moment of unspeakable, soul agony was going to my hell - taking on himself all the eternal torment of a world of sinners.
It is a love I cannot comprehend. It is a love I can't resist. Those much-traveled Bible words well up in me every time I visit that cross. Like a million-voice choir in my soul, and those words are our word for today from the Word of God from John 3:16, "God so loved the world..." God loved me. "...so much that He gave His one and only Son that whoever (even me)... whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
Have you ever grabbed the hand of the Savior who died for you as if you were a drowning person grabbing a lifeguard? As if He's your only hope? Because He is. The only response to that sacrifice is to say, "Jesus, I'm yours. You bought me. You've got me. Here's my life. Here's my heart. Here's the throne of my life."
If you've never done that, you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." And I would love to give you all the information you need to begin that relationship and be sure you have it. If you'll just go to our website - ANewStory.com.
You can go to His heaven because He took your hell. That Good Friday was an awful Friday. Oh, but it was such a good Friday.