Max Lucado Daily: THE MASTER BUILDER - May 6, 2024
When Joseph faced his brothers twenty years after they had betrayed him, he made an incredible proclamation. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result” (Genesis 50:20 NASB). The Hebrew word translated here as bring about is a construction term. God is the Master Builder. He redeemed the story of Joseph. But we wonder if he will redeem our story as well?
Yes! Deliverance won’t be painless. It may not be quick. But God will use your mess for good. You are a version of Joseph in your generation. You carry something of God within you, something noble, something holy, something the world needs. That is what God is building in you. But it will take time. That’s just how these construction projects develop.
Hebrews 6
So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!
4–8 Once people have seen the light, gotten a taste of heaven and been part of the work of the Holy Spirit, once they’ve personally experienced the sheer goodness of God’s Word and the powers breaking in on us—if then they turn their backs on it, washing their hands of the whole thing, well, they can’t start over as if nothing happened. That’s impossible. Why, they’ve re-crucified Jesus! They’ve repudiated him in public! Parched ground that soaks up the rain and then produces an abundance of carrots and corn for its gardener gets God’s “Well done!” But if it produces weeds and thistles, it’s more likely to get cussed out. Fields like that are burned, not harvested.
9–12 I’m sure that won’t happen to you, friends. I have better things in mind for you—salvation things! God doesn’t miss anything. He knows perfectly well all the love you’ve shown him by helping needy Christians, and that you keep at it. And now I want each of you to extend that same intensity toward a full-bodied hope, and keep at it till the finish. Don’t drag your feet. Be like those who stay the course with committed faith and then get everything promised to them.
God Gave His Word
13–18 When God made his promise to Abraham, he backed it to the hilt, putting his own reputation on the line. He said, “I promise that I’ll bless you with everything I have—bless and bless and bless!” Abraham stuck it out and got everything that had been promised to him. When people make promises, they guarantee them by appeal to some authority above them so that if there is any question that they’ll make good on the promise, the authority will back them up. When God wanted to guarantee his promises, he gave his word, a rock-solid guarantee—God can’t break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable.
18–20 We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us, in the order of Melchizedek.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 06, 2024
Today's Scripture
John 14:15-21
The Spirit of Truth
15–17 “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!
18–20 “I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.
21 “The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.”
Insight
John 13-17, known as the Upper Room Discourse, is theologically rich, contributing to our understanding of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. An example of this is seen in John 14:16-17 where Jesus, the Son, says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.” Of note in this discourse is the teaching about the Holy Spirit (pneumatology). In verse 16, He’s referred to as “another advocate” (parakletos). Other versions translate this word as “comforter.” What’s in view is someone who’s called to aid, assist, or help another. During Christ’s ministry on earth, He was the helper from heaven. In His absence, one just like Him, the Spirit, would function in that capacity. Because of this, Jesus could tell His followers, “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (vv. 1, 27). By: Arthur Jackson
Loving Obedience
Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. John 14:21 nlt
During our wedding ceremony, our minister said to me, “Do you promise to love, honor, and obey your husband, until death do you part?” Glancing at my fiancé, I whispered, “Obey?” We’d built our relationship on love and respect—not blind obedience, as the vows seemed to suggest. My husband’s father captured on film that wide-eyed moment when I processed the word obey and said, “I do.”
Over the years, God has shown me that my resistance to the word obey had nothing to do with the incredibly complex relationship between a husband and wife. I’d understood obey to mean “subjugated” or “forced submission,” which Scripture doesn’t support. Rather, the word obey in the Bible expresses the many ways we can love God. As my husband and I celebrate thirty years of marriage, through the power of the Holy Spirit we’re still learning to love Jesus and each other.
When Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments” (John 14:15 nlt), He showed us that obedience to the Scriptures would be the result of an ongoing loving and intimate relationship with Him (vv. 16-21).
Jesus’ love is selfless, unconditional, and never forceful or abusive. As we follow and honor Him in all our relationships, the Holy Spirit can help us see obedience to Him as a wise and loving act of trust and worship. By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How does seeing obedience to God as an act of love and trust change your view of His desire for obedience? How has God proven that you can trust Him?
Dear Jesus, please help me love You and others through obedience to the Scriptures.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 06, 2024
Freedom through Christ
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1
Spiritually-minded people will never demand that you believe a certain thing or hold a certain opinion; they’ll demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus. We aren’t asked to believe the Bible; we are asked to believe the One the Bible reveals. In John 5, Jesus highlights the difference: “You study the Scriptures diligently … yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (vv. 39–40). Jesus is calling us to liberty of conscience, not liberty of opinion. If we are free with the freedom of Christ, others will be brought into this same freedom: the freedom of realizing the dominance of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life by the standards of Jesus. Bow to his yoke and to no other, and be careful that you never fasten a yoke on someone else that isn’t placed there by Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to cure us of the idea that if people don’t see things the way we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one freedom: the freedom of Jesus at work in our conscience, enabling us to do what is right.
Don’t get impatient with others. Remember how God has dealt with you, with patience and gentleness. This doesn’t mean you should water down God’s truth. Let his truth have its way, and never apologize for it. Simply recall what Jesus said: “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). He never said, “Make converts to your opinions.”
1 Kings 21-22; Luke 23:26-56
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ.
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 06, 2024
Deadly Dark Spots in Your Soul - #9736
My wife and I had a very long honeymoon; I mean for lots of years. Our honeymoon was in its early years when we got some very scary news. The doctor said that my wife might have a very serious disease. She had a routine physical for her job, and the chest x-rays revealed some suspicious dark spots on her lung. We got that report on a Friday, and we had to wait until Monday to get the final results. It might have been one of the longest weekends of our lives!
When the doctor met with my wife on Monday, he wanted to talk about chickens and farms and growing up in the Midwest. He asked her if any of these things had been a part of her childhood. Well, actually they had, and that explained the spots; a childhood disease they call histoplasmosis. It tends to occur in kids who grow up on Midwestern farms where they breathe the bacteria left by chickens. And what they were looking at on her lungs was the scars left over from that illness.
I knew how serious those dark spots could be. When my father was a young man, he had similar x-rays and they revealed what really was tuberculosis. And from my Dad, that meant two long years in a hospital to save his life and beat that disease. An x-ray can reveal some very bad news, but facing those dark spots can start the healing and it could even save your life.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Deadly Dark Spots in Your Soul."
God does x-rays. Actually, heart x-rays; pictures of what's going on inside the deepest parts of you. One of those x-rays is in our word for today from the Word of God beginning in Mark 7:20. He says, "What comes out of a man is what makes him unclean. So from within, out of men's hearts, come (now there's a list here, and we're all in here somewhere) evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly."
Those are dark spots in the human heart where none of our family or friends or coworkers can see, but God sees. If God illuminated your x-ray or mine to show us what He's found, we might very well see some dark spots on our souls. Of course, the darkness inside doesn't stay inside. It keeps spilling out on the people we love doesn't it? And according to the Bible, those dark spots inside us are the symptoms of a disease that will ultimately kill us. It's called sin; spiritual cancer. That's ignoring God. It's you running your life instead of God running your life. It's hijacking your life from your Creator.
The Bible says, "Sin, when it is finished gives birth to death." It's the death of an eternal separation from our God. The x-rays from God would say "hopeless" except for one incredible hope-giving word - Savior. There's only one name that goes with that title - Jesus.
Here's the amazing cure for our deadly eternal soul disease. It's in 1 John 1:7 of the Bible, "The blood of Jesus, God's Son, purifies us from all sin." That's the possibility of having those dark spots on your soul removed, of having your sin washed away. It's all wrapped up in Jesus shedding His blood on the cross to remove this awful curse. The cure is expensive. Not for you, but for Jesus. It cost Him everything and that cure becomes yours the moment you put all your trust in Jesus to be your personal Rescuer from your personal sin.
You tired of the dark spots and what they're doing to you and doing to others? If you believe your Creator's diagnosis and if you want to escape the death penalty for that diagnosis, then it's time to open your heart to Jesus to become not just the Savior of the world, but the Savior of you.
There's wonderful information I'd love to give you at our website so you can be sure you have begun your relationship with the only One who can save you from your sin. That website is ANewStory.com.
There's no reason to carry the death sentence of that disease of sin one more day, because Jesus is waiting right now to trade that for eternal life.