Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S GALLERY OF GRACE - October 24, 2024
Grace defines you! Society labels you like a can on an assembly line: stupid, unproductive. But as grace infiltrates, criticism disintegrates. You know you aren’t who they say you are. You are who God says you are: spiritually alive, heavenly positioned, seated with him in the heavenly realms, one with Jesus Christ!
Of course, not all labels are negative. Some people regard you as clever, successful. But it doesn’t compare with being seated with him in the heavenly realms! You see, God creates the Christian’s resume. Grace defines who you are. The parent you can’t please is just as mistaken as the doting uncle you can’t disappoint. People hold no clout. Only God does.
Listen, God wrote your story. He cast you in his drama. You hang as God’s work of art, a testimony in his gallery of grace. According to him, you are his. Period.
Cast of Characters: Lost and Found
Zechariah 7
“You’re Interested in Religion, I’m Interested in People”
1 7 On the fourth day of the ninth month, in the fourth year of the reign of King Darius, God’s Message again came to Zechariah.
2–3 The town of Bethel had sent a delegation headed by Sarezer and Regem-Melech to pray for God’s blessing and to confer with the priests of the Temple of God-of-the-Angel-Armies, and also with the prophets. They posed this question: “Should we plan for a day of mourning and abstinence next August, the seventieth anniversary of Jerusalem’s fall, as we have been doing all these years?”
4–6 God-of-the-Angel-Armies gave me this Message for them, for all the people and for the priests: “When you held days of fasting every fifth and seventh month all these seventy years, were you doing it for me? And when you held feasts, was that for me? Hardly. You’re interested in religion, I’m interested in people.
7–10 “There’s nothing new to say on the subject. Don’t you still have the message of the earlier prophets from the time when Jerusalem was still a thriving, bustling city and the outlying countryside, the Negev and Shephelah, was populated? [This is the message that God gave Zechariah.] Well, the message hasn’t changed. God-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now:
“ ‘Treat one another justly.
Love your neighbors.
Be compassionate with each other.
Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor.
Don’t plot and scheme against one another—that’s evil.’
11–13 “But did your ancestors listen? No, they set their jaws in defiance. They shut their ears. They steeled themselves against God’s revelation and the Spirit-filled sermons preached by the earlier prophets by order of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. And God became angry, really angry, because he told them everything plainly and they wouldn’t listen to a word he said.
13–14 “So [this is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies said] if they won’t listen to me, I won’t listen to them. I scattered them to the four winds. They ended up strangers wherever they were. Their ‘promised land’ became a vacant lot—weeds and tin cans and thistles. Not a sign of life. They turned a dreamland into a wasteland.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Today's Scripture
Isaiah 58:3-9
But they also complain,
‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’
3–5 “Well, here’s why:
“The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?
6–9 “This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places
9–12 “If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
Insight
In calling out ancient Israel’s sin, Isaiah is told: “Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet” (58:1). The word translated “trumpet” refers to a musical instrument made from a ram’s horn, which was used to call entire communities to hear urgent announcements. The nation had turned their religious activities into a way of serving themselves and hoping to gain personal benefit from God, even while exploiting those with less power than them (vv. 3-4). This was a failure so serious, it should be exposed with a trumpet call. To serve God faithfully, the prophet proclaimed, required them to “loose the chains of injustice” (v. 6). Failing to do so was “rebellion” (v. 1). By: Monica La Rose
Food for the Hungry
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter? Isaiah 58:7
For years, the Horn of Africa has suffered from a brutal drought that has devastated crops, killed livestock, and imperiled millions. Among the most vulnerable—like the people at Kenya’s Kakuma Refugee Camp who’ve fled from wars and oppression—it’s even more dire. A recent report described a young mother bringing her baby to camp officials. The infant suffered from severe malnutrition, leaving “her hair and skin . . . dry and brittle.” She wouldn’t smile and wouldn’t eat. Her tiny body was shutting down. Specialists immediately intervened. Thankfully, even though the needs are still great, an infrastructure has been built to provide immediate, life-or-death necessities.
These desperate places are exactly where God’s people are called to shine His light and love (Isaiah 58:8). When people are starving, sick, or threatened, God summons His people to be the first to provide food, medicine, and safety—all in Jesus’ name. Isaiah rebuked ancient Israel for thinking they were being faithful with their fasting and prayers while ignoring the actual compassionate work the crisis required: sharing “food with the hungry,” providing “the poor wanderer with shelter,” and clothing “the naked” (v. 7).
God desires for the hungry to be fed—both physically and spiritually. And He works in and through us as He meets the need. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
What kinds of hunger do you see around you? Where is God inviting you to offer help?
Dear God, please help me be part of how You bring food, love, and comfort to those who are hungry and in distress.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, October 24, 2024
The Viewpoint
Thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession. — 2 Corinthians 2:14
For God’s workers, the viewpoint we have to maintain isn’t one that comes near the highest. It is the highest—the viewpoint of God himself. God’s viewpoint, according to Paul, is that we are here for a single purpose: to be “captives in Christ’s triumphal procession.”
Be careful to maintain God’s viewpoint rigorously, every day, minute by minute. Don’t think on the finite. God’s viewpoint is infinite and inviolable; no outside power can touch it. How small are other points of view in comparison! They always place the wrong thing at the center: “I am standing alone, battling for Jesus,” we say. Or, “I have to maintain the cause of Christ and hold this fort for him.” Paul knows who comes first. He says that he is in the procession of a conqueror, and that it doesn’t matter what the difficulties are. He knows that he is always led in triumph.
Is this idea being worked out practically in your life? Paul’s secret joy was that God took him—a red-handed rebel against Jesus Christ—and turned him into a captive. Once Paul belonged to God, he had no other interest; he was here for one thing and one thing only. It is shameful for a Christian to talk about winning a victory. We ought to belong so completely to the Victor that we know it’s his victory, all the time, that only through him are we “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37). Once we’ve learned this, we become a wonderful refreshment to God, a delight to him wherever we go.
Jeremiah 3-5; 1 Timothy 4
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own.
Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, October 24, 2024
The Power of Joy - #9859
So what do you do when Murphy's Law hits all in one day? You know, Murphy's Law: "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong"? Well, we've all had plenty of those at our house. I remember one right now that hit my family. We were trying to get ready to go on vacation; we were leaving the next morning. The first thing that happened was that the freezer had gone on the blink and all of our food had spoiled. Oh, that was nice.
And then we developed a little car trouble. Well, that was two hits; we could handle that. We had a mountain of laundry that had to be done before we left on vacation. Oh, of course, the dryer then broke that day. And then I was standing in the basement just trying to figure out what to do, and suddenly I noticed it was unusually moist around my feet. Sure enough, some of the sewer system in our house had backed up into a sink, overflowed, and there I was standing in the middle of it. At which point my wife came down the stairs and took a look at this entire falling-apart situation. Mr. Murphy had won!
Now, you know what I needed while I was standing in my own personal swamp? Well, my wife said, "Welcome to Haiti." See, we had just been to Haiti where there's sewage in the street, and it's not funny there. But for some reason it just cracked me up, and that's exactly what I needed to get through it. What I needed in my own personal swamp might be the same thing you need right now.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Power of Joy."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 17:22 - "A cheerful heart is good medicine." That's what I needed in the middle of my swamp. In a tense situation, you need God's perspective pill - a merry heart, a good laugh. A sense of humor enables you to not take yourself so seriously. When you get all wrapped up tightly in a problem (or a swamp in the basement) well, you lose your sense of perspective; the ability to laugh at yourself in your situation takes you out of the mess for a moment and sort of takes you up on a hill where you can look down on it a little bit. You get perspective. You'll probably make better choices. Now, maybe you're a perfectionist; you're just driven to get everything right. You need to be able to joke about your weaknesses and your imperfections once in a while rather than just be choked on them.
Nowhere is a sense of humor needed more than in parenting. Parents often come to me with deep concerns about their kids - great fears. And we, of course, try to work on a practical strategy to work with them. But one point of the strategy is usually just two words. Often I'll just say at the end, "By the way, lighten up." See, we want so badly to be effective parents, to get this problem solved. We worry so deeply that our children are going to be seduced by this godless world, and those are serious concerns. But if we think about our performance and their problems all the time, we're going to be paralyzed. We'll over-react. We'll talk a lot and listen little. We'll fear something so much we may actually make it happen.
You know, could it be that your family could use a few laughs, some crazy, impulsive experiences, a parent who can kid himself about his own weaknesses. Laughing gets people to laugh, and relaxed kids communicate more, and relaxed parents make better decisions.
"A merry heart is good medicine." Is that the medicine for the tension in you and maybe in your family? Don't be afraid to ask the Lord, "Lord, help me lighten up a little."
