Max Lucado Daily: A HELPER FOR ADAM - August 30, 2024
“It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18 NLT). God commissioned Adam to care for the creation. But alone? No companion? No partner? For the first time God used the phrase “It is not good.” Adam exercised his role as overseer and assigned a name to each creature. But the man could find “no helper just right for him” (Genesis 2:20 NLT).
Men, aren’t we glad? What if he’d chosen a warthog as a helper? But God had a special gift for Adam. God put Adam to sleep (thereby forever sanctifying the act of a good nap), extracted a rib from Adam’s side, and created the perfect partner. Eve, like the bone from which she was made, was created to remain closest to Adam’s heart. And life was good.
What Happens Next
Ezekiel 22
The Scarecrow of the Nations
1–5 22 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, are you going to judge this bloody city or not? Come now, are you going to judge her? Do it! Face her with all her outrageous obscenities. Tell her, ‘This is what God, the Master, says: You’re a city murderous at the core, just asking for punishment. You’re a city obsessed with no-god idols, making yourself filthy. In all your killing, you’ve piled up guilt. In all your idol-making, you’ve become filthy. You’ve forced a premature end to your existence. I’ll put you on exhibit as the scarecrow of the nations, the world’s worst joke. From far and near they’ll deride you as infamous in filth, notorious for chaos.
6–12 “ ‘Your leaders, the princes of Israel among you, compete in crime. You’re a community that’s insolent to parents, abusive to outsiders, oppressive against orphans and widows. You treat my holy things with contempt and desecrate my Sabbaths. You have people spreading lies and spilling blood, flocking to the hills to the sex shrines and fornicating unrestrained. Incest is common. Men force themselves on women regardless of whether they’re ready or willing. Sex is now anarchy. Anyone is fair game: neighbor, daughter-in-law, sister. Murder is for hire, usury is rampant, extortion is commonplace.
“ ‘And you’ve forgotten me. Decree of God, the Master.
13–14 “ ‘Now look! I’ve clapped my hands, calling everyone’s attention to your rapacious greed and your bloody brutalities. Can you stick with it? Will you be able to keep at this once I start dealing with you?
14–16 “ ‘I, God, have spoken. I’ll put an end to this. I’ll throw you to the four winds. I’ll scatter you all over the world. I’ll put a full stop to your filthy living. You will be defiled, spattered with your own mud in the eyes of the nations. And you’ll recognize that I am God.’ ”
17–22 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, the people of Israel are slag to me, the useless byproduct of refined copper, tin, iron, and lead left at the smelter—a worthless slag heap. So tell them, ‘God, the Master, has spoken: Because you’ve all become worthless slag, you’re on notice: I’ll assemble you in Jerusalem. As men gather silver, copper, iron, lead, and tin into a furnace and blow fire on it to melt it down, so in my wrath I’ll gather you and melt you down. I’ll blow on you with the fire of my wrath to melt you down in the furnace. As silver is melted down, you’ll be melted down. That should get through to you. Then you’ll recognize that I, God, have let my wrath loose on you.’ ”
23–25 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, tell her, ‘You’re a land that during the time I was angry with you got no rain, not so much as a spring shower. The leaders among you became desperate, like roaring, ravaging lions killing indiscriminately. They grabbed and looted, leaving widows in their wake.
26–29 “ ‘Your priests violated my law and desecrated my holy things. They can’t tell the difference between sacred and secular. They tell people there’s no difference between right and wrong. They’re contemptuous of my holy Sabbaths, profaning me by trying to pull me down to their level. Your politicians are like wolves prowling and killing and rapaciously taking whatever they want. Your preachers cover up for the politicians by pretending to have received visions and special revelations. They say, “This is what God, the Master, says …” when God hasn’t said so much as one word. Extortion is rife, robbery is epidemic, the poor and needy are abused, outsiders are kicked around at will, with no access to justice.’
30–31 “I looked for someone to stand up for me against all this, to repair the defenses of the city, to take a stand for me and stand in the gap to protect this land so I wouldn’t have to destroy it. I couldn’t find anyone. Not one. So I’ll empty out my wrath on them, burn them to a crisp with my hot anger, serve them with the consequences of all they’ve done. Decree of God, the Master.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, August 30, 2024
Today's Scripture
Exodus 4:1-5
Moses objected, “They won’t trust me. They won’t listen to a word I say. They’re going to say, ‘God? Appear to him? Hardly!’ ”
2 So God said, “What’s that in your hand?”
“A staff.”
3 “Throw it on the ground.” He threw it. It became a snake; Moses jumped back—fast!
4–5 God said to Moses, “Reach out and grab it by the tail.” He reached out and grabbed it—and he was holding his staff again. “That’s so they will trust that God appeared to you, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Insight
We would think that the staff turning into a snake would be convincing to Pharaoh and his court when Moses and Aaron appeared before them. Note that it was Aaron, not Moses, who threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh (Exodus 7:8-10). However, Pharaoh’s magicians were able to replicate this miracle (v. 11). How did they do it? Some scholars say it was through trickery and deceit. Others, however, believe it was through the power of the evil one, the devil. Intriguingly, the apostle Paul notes how “Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses” (2 Timothy 3:8). Although these names aren’t recorded in the Old Testament, they were known to Paul, a highly educated man, through other Near Eastern literature and were likely two of Pharaoh’s magicians. Regardless, Aaron’s staff in the form of a snake devoured the snakes produced by those magicians (Exodus 7:11-12), proving the vast superiority of the one true God. By: Tim Gustafson
What’s in Your Hand?
Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. Exodus 4:2
A few years after I received salvation and dedicated my life to God, I felt Him directing me to lay down my journalism career. As I put down my pen and my writing went into hiding, I couldn’t help feeling that one day God would call me to write for His glory. During my years of wandering in my personal wilderness, I was encouraged by the story of Moses and his staff in Exodus 4.
Moses, who was raised in Pharaoh’s palace and had a promising future, fled Egypt and was living in obscurity as a shepherd when God called him. Moses must’ve thought he had nothing to offer God, but he learned that He can use anyone and anything for His glory.
“What is that in your hand?” God asked. “A staff,” Moses replied. God said, “Throw it on the ground” (Exodus 4:2-3). Moses’ ordinary staff became a snake. When he grabbed the snake, God turned it back into the staff (vv. 3-4). This sign was given so the Israelites would “believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you” (v. 5). As Moses threw down his staff and took it back up again, I laid down my career as a journalist in obedience to God. Later, He guided me to pick up my pen again, and now I’m writing for Him.
We don’t need much to be used by God. We can simply serve Him with the talents He’s given us. Not sure where to start? What’s in your hand? By: Nancy Gavilanes
Reflect & Pray
How can you use your talents to serve God? How can you use your resources to bless someone today?
Father God, please help me to use my life to honor You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, August 30, 2024
Rightly Related to Him
Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. — Luke 10:20
When the disciples came back from their first mission, they were filled with joy because the spirits had submitted to them. Jesus replied that they should rejoice instead that their “names are written in heaven.” He was telling them, “Don’t rejoice in successful service; rejoice because you are rightly related to me.”
The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in how much you’ve done or in the fact that God has used you. If you are rightly related to Jesus Christ, you won’t be able to measure what God does through you. Jesus will pour rivers of living water through you all the time (John 7:38), and by his mercy he will not let you know what he’s doing.
Once you have been rightly related to God through salvation and sanctification, you can rest assured that wherever you find yourself, you have been put there by God. As long as you keep in the light as God is in the light, you will fulfill his purpose, simply by the way your life reacts to the circumstances around you.
Our tendency is to place the emphasis on service rather than relationship. Beware of people who make usefulness their standard. If usefulness is the measure of our success, then Jesus Christ was the greatest failure who ever lived. Consider how our Lord spent his time on earth: for three years all he did was to walk about saying things and healing sick people—a useless life according to every human standard of success and of enterprise.
When we are following the example of our Lord, we know that what counts is the work God does through us, not the work we do for him. The only standard our Lord takes note of in our lives is our relationship to God, which is meant to be the relationship between a Father and his children. Jesus is “bringing many sons and daughters to glory” (Hebrews 2:10).
Psalms 129-131; 1 Corinthians 11:1-16
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We should always choose our books as God chooses our friends, just a bit beyond us, so that we have to do our level best to keep up with them.
Shade of His Hand, 1216 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, August 30, 2024
TWO WORDS TO PEACE - #9820
Some people have wall-to-wall carpet. Me? I have a wall-to-wall schedule. Maybe you do too. It was like that even when I had to take my daughter to college years ago. She had just returned from a mission trip to Manila and so had I. We had one day to get her to Chicago for college. Not only did we have to get her to school that day, but on that particular Friday, I had to produce some of these radio programs.
So I had to produce radio, deliver a daughter, I mean everything was perfectly timed. No room for anything to go wrong. And then we landed at O'Hare Airport to learn that there had been nine inches of rain overnight. It closed the airport totally, flooded it closed. O'Hare became Camp O'Hare, an island for a day.
So, here were the five Hutchcrafts in a mountain of moving to college with luggage all around us. Well, my plans said I had to be at that radio studio. Uh... No, apparently I didn't! My plan said my daughter had to be at college that day. Uh... no! In fact, thousands of people, in those days before cell phones, were fighting over telephones there to change their plans. Every one of them probably had to be somewhere that day. No, they didn't! There are lots of days like that.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Two Words to Peace."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from James 4 - I'll begin at verse 13. "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this city or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, make money.'" (Or take your daughter to college, do radio programs.) "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'"
Now, I have a confession to make. Sometimes I have been bothered by people who would say, "Lord willing," sounding like a cliche in every other sentence. I said that was a confession; I do confess that. You know what? I'm actually beginning to understand the peace-giving power of those two words, "Lord willing."
James says here, "When you make your plans say, 'If the Lord wills, we will.'" See, now, I'm a planner. I want to make every time, space, and every segment of my life count. So I schedule very well, and we should do that. Psalm 90:12 says, "Lord, teach us to number our days aright so we may apply our hearts to wisdom." But in our wall-to-wall schedules, is there any room or God in there? We rule out God's right to reschedule our day, to interrupt, to slow us down, to cancel, and He often does.
I began to realize how much of my own stress I create by not saying, "Lord, here's my list, here's my goal, here's my plan, here's my schedule. Now, Lord, you have every right to change it, and I'll assume if it changes, the changes are from you." There is so much frustration when car trouble wrecks the plan, or illness, or a tragedy you have to respond to, or a flooded airport. But I can avoid so much frustration if I allow the God of heaven to be the Lord of my almighty, untouchable schedule. And I do that with two words, "Lord willing" spoken or unspoken, but consciously recognizing the sovereignty of Almighty God.
You can actually relax if you'll turn over the schedules and the lists of your life to Him. "Lord willing." It is for us stress filled planners a powerful two-word tranquilizer.