Max Lucado Daily: The Grace-given, Give Grace
The grace-given-give grace! Is grace happening to you? Is there anyone in your life you refuse to forgive? If so, do you appreciate God's forgiveness toward you? Do you resent God's kindness to others? Do you grumble at God's uneven compensation? How long has it been since your generosity stunned someone?
Since someone objected, "No, really, this is too generous?" If it's been awhile reconsider God's extravagant grace. Psalm 103:2-3 says, "Forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity."
Let grace unscrooge your heart. Like Peter encourages us in 2 Peter 3:18, "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
When grace happens, generosity happens. Unsquashable, eye-popping, big-heartedness happens! You simply can't contain it all. Let it bubble over. Let it spill out. Let it pour forth.
From GRACE
Zechariah 3
Fourth Vision: Joshua’s New Clothes
1–2 3 Next the Messenger-Angel showed me the high priest Joshua. He was standing before God’s Angel where the Accuser showed up to accuse him. Then God said to the Accuser, “I, God, rebuke you, Accuser! I rebuke you and choose Jerusalem. Surprise! Everything is going up in flames, but I reach in and pull out Jerusalem!”
3–4 Joshua, standing before the angel, was dressed in dirty clothes. The angel spoke to his attendants, “Get him out of those filthy clothes,” and then said to Joshua, “Look, I’ve stripped you of your sin and dressed you up in clean clothes.”
5 I spoke up and said, “How about a clean new turban for his head also?” And they did it—put a clean new turban on his head. Then they finished dressing him, with God’s Angel looking on.
6–7 God’s Angel then charged Joshua, “Orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies: ‘If you live the way I tell you and remain obedient in my service, then you’ll make the decisions around here and oversee my affairs. And all my attendants standing here will be at your service.
8–9 “ ‘Careful, High Priest Joshua—both you and your friends sitting here with you, for your friends are in on this, too! Here’s what I’m doing next: I’m introducing my servant Branch. And note this: This stone that I’m placing before Joshua, a single stone with seven eyes’—Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies—‘I’ll engrave with these words: “I’ll strip this land of its filthy sin, all at once, in a single day.”
10 “ ‘At that time, everyone will get along with one another, with friendly visits across the fence, friendly visits on one another’s porches.’ ”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Today's Scripture
Colossians 3:17, 23-24
Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.
23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritancel from the Lord as a reward.m It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Insight
Colossians 3:23-24 reminds us of whom we serve: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart . . . . It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Jesus Himself is the ultimate example of living before the audience of One. Notice these statements from Jesus: “My food . . . is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work” (John 4:34). “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (6:38). “The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him” (8:29). In everything He undertook, Jesus had one overarching purpose—to please His Father. That truly is what it means to live before the audience of One. With the Spirit’s help, we can aspire to live out His example. By: Bill Crowder
An Audience of One
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord. Colossians 3:23
As the “voice of the Denver Nuggets,” team chaplain Kyle Speller is most known for his rip-roaring, public address announcing during the championship basketball club’s games. “Let’s go!” he thunders into the mic, and thousands of onsite NBA fans, as well as millions more watching or listening to the action, react to the voice that earned Speller’s nomination as the 2022 All-Star Game PA Announcer. “I know how to feel the crowd and kind of set that home court atmosphere,” he says. Still, every word of his voice artistry—featured also in TV and radio commercials—is to glorify God. His work, Speller adds, is “just doing everything for an audience of One.”
The apostle Paul stressed a similar ethic to the Colossian church, whose members let doubts about Christ’s divinity and sovereignty seep into even their practical lives. Instead, wrote Paul, in “whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).
Paul added, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters” (v. 23). For Kyle Speller, that includes his role as a chaplain, of which he says, “That’s kind of my purpose here . . . and the announcing is the icing on the cake.” Our own work for God can be just as sweet for our audience of One. By: Patricia Raybon
Reflect & Pray
What’s the key factor in your work ethic? How would working as for God change your perspective?
Thank You for my work, Jesus, and inspire me to do it all as for You.
For further study, read How Can I Find Satisfaction in My Work?
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, October 19, 2024
The Unheeded Secret
My kingdom is not of this world. — John 18:36
Today, a great enemy of Jesus Christ is the idea we have of practical work. This idea doesn’t come from the New Testament but rather from systems of the world in which endless energy and activity are insisted upon, but no private life with God. The emphasis is placed on the wrong thing. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21 kjv); it is hidden and obscure. Too often Christian workers live in the shop window. They’ve forgotten that it is the innermost of the innermost that reveals the power of the disciple’s life.
We have to rid ourselves of the spirit of the religious age we live in. As disciples, our lives are supposed to resemble our Master’s life; in his life, there was none of the stress and rush of tremendous activity that are regarded so highly today. The cornerstone of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship to him, not public usefulness to other people. Rather than wasting our time in activity, we should be soaking in the great fundamental truths of his redemption.
If we don’t get into the habit of soaking in God’s truths, we will snap when the strain comes—and it will come. None of us has any idea where God is going to put us nor any knowledge of what kinds of difficulty we will face. But if we’ve prepared ourselves beforehand by getting rooted and grounded in God, we will remain true to him whatever happens.
Isaiah 56-58; 2 Thessalonians 2
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