Max Lucado Daily: A STUNNING CREATION - August 29, 2024
“Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7 NLT). Out of the soil of the garden, God shaped Adam’s torso. He rounded the head and formed a nose. The same hand that flung stars in the heavens and scooped the floor for the ocean sculpted the first person.
Then, “He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person” (Genesis 2:7 NLT). God exhaled. And Adam inhaled. And Adam had life. But he had more than oxygen in him. He had God’s breath in him. What a sterling, stunning creation he must have been. Unsullied by greed. Uncorrupted by hate. Untainted by guilt. Unacquainted with fear.
That is how we were intended to be. And that is how we will be, when Christ comes again.
What Happens Next
2 Timothy 4
I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.
3–5 You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.
6–8 You take over. I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting—God’s applause! Depend on it, he’s an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for his coming.
9–13 Get here as fast as you can. Demas, chasing fads, went off to Thessalonica and left me here. Crescens is in Galatia province, Titus in Dalmatia. Luke is the only one here with me. Bring Mark with you; he’ll be my right-hand man since I’m sending Tychicus to Ephesus. Bring the winter coat I left in Troas with Carpus; also the books and parchment notebooks.
14–15 Watch out for Alexander the coppersmith. Fiercely opposed to our Message, he caused no end of trouble. God will give him what he’s got coming.
16–18 At my preliminary hearing no one stood by me. They all ran like scared rabbits. But it doesn’t matter—the Master stood by me and helped me spread the Message loud and clear to those who had never heard it. I was snatched from the jaws of the lion! God’s looking after me, keeping me safe in the kingdom of heaven. All praise to him, praise forever! Oh, yes!
19–20 Say hello to Priscilla and Aquila; also, the family of Onesiphorus. Erastus stayed behind in Corinth. I had to leave Trophimus sick in Miletus.
21 Try hard to get here before winter.
Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all your friends here send greetings.
22 God be with you. Grace be with you.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Today's Scripture
Amos 2:6-16
God’s Message:
“Because of the three great sins of Israel
—make that four—I’m not putting up with them any longer.
They buy and sell upstanding people.
People for them are only things—ways of making money.
They’d sell a poor man for a pair of shoes.
They’d sell their own grandmother!
They grind the penniless into the dirt,
shove the luckless into the ditch.
Everyone and his brother sleeps with the ‘sacred whore’—
a sacrilege against my Holy Name.
Stuff they’ve extorted from the poor
is piled up at the shrine of their god,
While they sit around drinking wine
they’ve conned from their victims.
9–11 “In contrast, I was always on your side.
I destroyed the Amorites who confronted you,
Amorites with the stature of great cedars,
tough as thick oaks.
I destroyed them from the top branches down.
I destroyed them from the roots up.
And yes, I’m the One who delivered you from Egypt,
led you safely through the wilderness for forty years
And then handed you the country of the Amorites
like a piece of cake on a platter.
I raised up some of your young men to be prophets,
set aside your best youth for training in holiness.
Isn’t this so, Israel?”
God’s Decree.
12–13 “But you made the youth-in-training break training,
and you told the young prophets, ‘Don’t prophesy!’
You’re too much for me.
I’m hard-pressed—to the breaking point.
I’m like a wagon piled high and overloaded,
creaking and groaning.
14–15 “When I go into action, what will you do?
There’s no place to run no matter how fast you run.
The strength of the strong won’t count.
Fighters won’t make it.
Skilled archers won’t make it.
Fast runners won’t make it.
Chariot drivers won’t make it.
Even the bravest of all your warriors
Won’t make it.
He’ll run off for dear life, stripped naked.”
God’s Decree.
Insight
Amos was a prophet from Judah sent by God to warn Israel of her sins and impending judgment (Amos 7:12). In chapters 1-2, the prophet proclaims God’s judgment on seven neighboring nations (Judah included) and upon Israel itself to show His sovereignty and impartiality. God would punish Damascus (capital of Aram), Gaza (Philistia), Tyre, Edom, Ammon, and Moab for their cruelty toward His people (1:3-2:3). Judah would be judged for her idolatry (2:4-5). Israel was condemned for her covenantal unfaithfulness: lack of social economic justice (v. 6), perversion of the law and sexual immorality (v. 7), and oppression of the poor and idolatry (v. 8). By: K. T. Sim
God of Justice
Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Amos 5:14
As a teenager, Ryan lost his mom to cancer. He found himself homeless and soon dropped out of school. He felt hopeless and often went hungry. Years later, Ryan founded a nonprofit that empowers others, especially young children, to plant, harvest, and prepare their own garden-grown food. The organization is built on the belief that nobody should go without food and that those who have something should care for those who don’t. Ryan’s concern for others resonates with the heart of God for justice and mercy.
God cares deeply about the pain and suffering we face. When He observed terrible injustice in Israel, He sent the prophet Amos to call out their hypocrisy. The people God once rescued from oppression in Egypt were now selling their neighbors into slavery over a pair of sandals (Amos 2:6). They betrayed innocent people, denied justice to the oppressed, and trampled “on the heads” of the poor (vv. 6-7), all while pretending to worship God with offerings and holy days (4:4-5).
“Seek good, not evil, that you may live,” Amos pleaded with the people. “Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is” (5:14). Like Ryan, each of us has experienced enough pain and injustice in life to be able to relate to others and to be of help. The time is ripe to “seek good” and join Him in planting every kind of justice. By: Karen Pimpo
Reflect & Pray
What injustice do you see others enduring that resonates with your own experience? How might God use you to help them?
God of justice, thank You for not turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering in our world.
For further study, read Did Jesus Care about Justice?.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Sublime Intimacy
Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God? — John 11:40
Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you will find something which, from a commonsense standpoint, flatly contradicts your faith. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. They stand in the relation of the natural to the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ when your common sense fails? Can you venture heroically on his words when the facts of your life shout, “It’s a lie”? Up on the mountaintop with God, it’s easy to say, “I believe God can do anything.” But you have to come down from the heights into the valley and meet with facts that laugh ironically at your belief.
Every time my program of belief is clear to my own mind, I will come across something that contradicts it. Let me say to myself, “I believe God will meet all my needs,” then my provisions run dry; I have no idea how they’ll be replenished. Then let me see whether I will go through the trial of faith or whether I will sink back to a lower level.
Faith must be tested. It can be turned into a personal possession only through conflict. What is your faith up against just now? Either the test will prove that your faith is right, or it will kill it. “Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me” (Matthew 11:6). The supreme thing is confidence in Jesus. Believe steadfastly in him, and all you come up against will strengthen and develop your faith. There’s continual testing in the life of faith, and the last great test is death.
May God keep us in fighting shape! Faith is indescribable trust in God, trust which never dreams he will not stand by us.
Psalms 126-128; 1 Corinthians 10:19-33
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth.
The Place of Help
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 29, 2024
SUPERMEN ARE BREAKABLE - #9819
So there have been several Supermen, well, you know, men who have played Superman over the years. From TV to all the movies. The first one was George Reeves, on the TV show many years ago. Some supermen have had tragic lives. George Reeves who played Superman from 1951 to 1958 actually committed suicide after his career had stalled. He was forever typecast as Superman. Then another actor, Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in five films, became paralyzed in 1995 from an equestrian accident where he was thrown from his horse. These actors played the part of a man who was invincible, but "behind the role" was the awful reality.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Supermen Are Breakable"!
Actually, many men have discovered that fact in their own lives. Our half of the human race has been raised to believe that we've got to be super men. The world thinks we've got it together; we feel no pain, we've got it under control. But as a man, you know there's a "real you" behind the part - a wounded warrior; maybe bleeding a lot on the inside; maybe a scared little boy underneath a mask of macho confidence; and you don't have it all under control. Superman, in reality, is breakable or broken.
Our word for today from the Word Of God introduces us to a "Superman" of another time and the dark secret that was beyond all his "Superness." 2 Kings 5:1 - "Now Naaman was commander of the army of the King of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier..." Okay, this guy was a "Superman" of his time, but he had a secret, a dark secret: he was dying of leprosy.
In verse 3, one of his servants said, "If only my master would see the prophet who's in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman goes for that cure, but it requires humility. He didn't like the cure prescribed: he had to wash in the dirty Jordan River. He says, "Couldn't I wash in one of the streams back home and be cleansed?" It says he went off in a rage!
He was proud, and he was dying from it. Finally, he chose to be well rather than be in charge. In chapter 5, verse 14, it says, "He dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy."
I wonder if God brought us together today because He knows you're a modern day Naaman. He knows the dark spot behind the mask and He wants to cure it. But you first have to accept His diagnosis and His cure. The diagnosis is that you've got terminal spiritual cancer. It's called sin! No matter how religious, no matter how respected you may be, you've broken God's laws and you've run the life that your Creator was supposed to run and your "my way" of living has left you fatally separated from God.
The cure requires humility - the admission that you cannot save yourself - and then a trip, not to a dirty river, but to a dying Savior's cross. There you say, "Jesus, it's my sin You're dying for, isn't it? I need to be forgiven. I need a Savior. I can't be my own savior, I want You as my savior. I belong to You from this day on." The result - the same as it was for Naaman: you're restored, you're clean, you're new! Haven't you run from Jesus or put Him off long enough? Let this be the day you run to Him! Discover in the man Jesus, who walked 33 years as a man. He gets us guys.
When you discover in Him all the love and all the power that has eluded you, all the peace, all the fulfillment, all the worth and the ability to change what you could never change, you discover that when you get to Jesus and say, "Jesus, I'm Yours."
This could be your day to get started with Him. Will you tell Him, "Jesus, I'm Yours." It'll change everything. Go to our website. I think it'll help. It's ANewStory.com.
Superman really is breakable or broken. Don't make that eternally fatal mistake of being so proud you die from it. Your Savior is waiting!