Max Lucado Daily: UNINTERRUPTED AWARENESS - May 31, 2024
Unceasing prayer may sound complicated, but it needn’t be that way – just change your definition of prayer. Think of prayer less as an activity for God and more as an awareness of God. Seek to live in uninterrupted awareness. Acknowledge his presence everywhere you go. As you stand in line to register your car, think, Thank you, Lord, for being here. In the grocery store as you shop, think, Your presence, my King, I welcome.
People struggle with life when they don’t have answers. The darkest valleys are blackened by the shadow of question marks. So what do you do? Think harder? Try harder? Have longer conversations with yourself? Ephesians 6:18 (MSG) says, “Pray hard and long.” Why not pray to the One with all the answers and let him take over?
Jeremiah 43
Death! Exile! Slaughter!
1–3 43 When Jeremiah finished telling all the people the whole Message that their God had sent him to give them—all these words—Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah, backed by all the self-important men, said to Jeremiah, “Liar! Our God never sent you with this message telling us not to go to Egypt and live there. Baruch son of Neriah is behind this. He has turned you against us. He’s playing into the hands of the Babylonians so we’ll either end up being killed or taken off to exile in Babylon.”
4 Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers, and the people along with them, wouldn’t listen to God’s Message that they stay in the land of Judah and live there.
5–7 Johanan son of Kareah and the army officers gathered up everyone who was left from Judah, who had come back after being scattered all over the place—the men, women, and children, the king’s daughters, all the people that Nebuzaradan captain of the bodyguard had left in the care of Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and last but not least, Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah. They entered the land of Egypt in total disobedience of God’s Message and arrived at the city of Tahpanhes.
8–9 While in Tahpanhes, God’s Word came to Jeremiah: “Pick up some large stones and cover them with mortar in the vicinity of the pavement that leads up to the building set aside for Pharaoh’s use in Tahpanhes. Make sure some of the men of Judah are watching.
10–13 “Then address them: ‘This is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: Be on the lookout! I’m sending for and bringing Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon—my servant, mind you!—and he’ll set up his throne on these very stones that I’ve had buried here and he’ll spread out his canopy over them. He’ll come and absolutely smash Egypt, sending each to his assigned fate: death, exile, slaughter. He’ll burn down the temples of Egypt’s gods. He’ll either burn up the gods or haul them off as booty. Like a shepherd who picks lice from his robes, he’ll pick Egypt clean. And then he’ll walk away without a hand being laid on him. He’ll shatter the sacred obelisks at Egypt’s House of the Sun and make a huge bonfire of the temples of Egypt’s gods.’ ”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, May 31, 2024
Today's Scripture
Jude 1:17-23
17–19 But remember, dear friends, that the apostles of our Master, Jesus Christ, told us this would happen: “In the last days there will be people who don’t take these things seriously anymore. They’ll treat them like a joke, and make a religion of their own whims and lusts.” These are the ones who split churches, thinking only of themselves. There’s nothing to them, no sign of the Spirit!
20–21 But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit, staying right at the center of God’s love, keeping your arms open and outstretched, ready for the mercy of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the unending life, the real life!
22–23 Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith. Go after those who take the wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin. The sin itself stinks to high heaven.
Insight
Jude’s original intent in writing his letter was to teach about the truth of the gospel. However, he felt compelled to shift that purpose to addressing false teachers. He says, “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people” (v. 3). He goes on to say that those teachers “pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (v. 4). He made further accusations in verses 8 and 12 but closed by encouraging the children of God to remain faithful (vv. 17-23) and assured them of God’s help: “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (v. 24). By: Bill Crowder
Mercy through Pizza
Be merciful to those who doubt. Jude 1:22
The invitation for dinner from my church leader Harold and his wife, Pam, warmed my heart, but also made me nervous. I’d joined a college Bible study group that taught ideas that contradicted some of the teachings in the Bible. Would they lecture me about that?
Over pizza, they shared about their family and asked about mine. They listened as I talked about homework, my dog Buchi, and the guy I had a crush on. Only later did they gently caution me about the group I was attending and explain what was wrong with its teachings.
Their warning took me away from the lies presented in the Bible study and close to the truths of Scripture. In his letter, Jude uses strong language about false teachers, urging believers to “contend for the faith” (Jude 1:3). He reminded them that “in the last times there will be scoffers . . . who divide you . . . and do not have the Spirit” (vv. 18-19). However, Jude also calls on believers to “be merciful to those who doubt” (v. 22) by coming alongside them, showing compassion without compromising the truth.
Harold and Pam knew I wasn’t firmly grounded in my faith, but instead of judging me, they first offered their friendship and then their wisdom. May God give us this same love and patience, using wisdom and compassion as we interact with those who have doubts. By: Karen Huang
Reflect & Pray
Who can you reach who’s struggling with their faith? How can you lovingly guide them to the truths of Scripture?
Father, I need Your wisdom and guidance to help those who are being affected by false teaching. Please give me the words to say.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 31, 2024
God First
Jesus would not entrust himself to them, . . . for he knew what was in each person.— John 2:24-25
Put trust in God first. “Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people” (John 2:24). Our Lord trusted no one except God, yet he was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about anyone. He simply trusted entirely in what God’s grace could do. If we put our trust in people before God, if we insist on people being something they never can be—absolutely right—we’ll become bitter and end up despairing of everyone. This is why we must never trust in anything but the grace of God.
Put God’s needs first. “Here I am, I have come to do your will” (Hebrews 10:9). Many of us are obedient to whatever we perceive to be a need. We say to ourselves, “The unsaved are dying without God. They need the Lord; they need me to come and preach the gospel.” Jesus was never obedient to a need; he was obedient to the will of his Father. Before we rush off into work for God, we have to make sure that we are honoring God’s will for our own lives. God wants us to be rightly related to him. Once we are, he will open the way for us to meet needs elsewhere.
Put God’s trust first. “And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5). God entrusts himself to us as an infant. He asks us to turn our personal life into a “Bethlehem,” a place where he may safely dwell, so that we may be slowly transfigured by his life inside us. God’s ultimate purpose for us is that his Son will be manifested in our mortal bodies. Are we honoring the trust he’s placed in us?
2 Chronicles 13-14; John 12:1-26
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight.
The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 31, 2024
It took me a while to get up the courage to clean our garage. It might have taken you time to do it too, if you had seen what shape it was in! I mean, there was the general accumulated "mess" that hadn't been touched for awhile. And then there was the mess left from youth ministry stored there. On top of that, different members of our family and staff had been going, and borrowing and returning, and borrowing and returning, and oh my goodness! The mess was there.
Oh, and then there was the mess from various friends who use our garage to store some of their things. All in all, we had discovered a new peak to be climbed. We called it Mount Mess! And there it was right in front of me. So, get on my work clothes, go downstairs, take a deep breath and I almost turned around and gave up. My first thought, "How about we torch it." No, we need to clean it. I thought maybe that would be the simplest answer. No, it's not good. But the question that depressed me was one that you've probably asked while facing a Mount Mess of your own, "Where do I start?"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Where Do I Start Cleaning?"
Our word for today from the Word of God, John 2, and I'm going to begin reading verses 13-16. "When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, He found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple area; both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves, He said, 'Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father's house into a market.'"
I'll tell you what's incredible about this. This is Jesus' first appearance in Jerusalem. Want to make a good impression? He's going to the big city. You'd think He'd want to make a nice, positive impact there when He arrives. But notice what His first act is. It's not a miracle, it's not a healing, and it's not a sermon. It's an indignity - an attack - against sin in God's house.
Now, you and I are living in a world that morally resembles my un-cleaned garage; it is a spiritual mess. Sex has been divorced from love and commitment. Speaking of divorce, it's the most common "answer" for marital problems. Lying is so common you pretty much expect people not to be telling the truth. There's garbage permeating our media input, and it just goes on and on. Where are we going to start cleaning?
Well, Jesus will say, "Start by cleaning up My house." That's where He started. 1 Peter 4:17 says, "Judgment must begin at the house of God." A.W. Tozer said, "The Bible will not die in the hands of Communists, or humanists, or atheists, or abortionists. It will die in the hands of its friends because they don't use it themselves."
See, we've become amazingly casual about sin. Oh, we're against it, but we flirt with it and we see how close we can get to it. We read about it, we watch it being portrayed, we laugh about it, and we allow creeping compromise to erode what was once a much higher standard in our lives just a short time ago. Jesus takes a whip to sin when it's tolerated in His house, and you're His house now.
See, the Bible says we're the temple of the Holy Spirit; He lives in you. Now, you may look righteous compared to the rest of the people around you, but your standard isn't them. It's the personal holiness of Jesus himself. Oh, sure, we should fight the decay in our lost world, but we should turn most of our guns on our own sin - our own compromise. Many people are not considering Christ because they've never seen an alternative in someone their own age who is really living for Christ, demonstrating the difference.
The history of revival throughout the church tells us that whenever God's people start hating the sin in their own lives, tens of thousands of people start finding Christ. So, where do I start cleaning with the mess inside my own heart?