Max Lucado Daily: God’s Thoughts
Lord, you have done such great things! How deep are your thoughts! Psalm 92:5
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts—we aren’t even in the same neighborhood.
Psalm 92:5 sets the standard. “Lord, you have done such great things. How deep are your thoughts.”
When we’re thinking, Preserve the body; God’s thinking, Save the soul. We dream of a pay raise. He dreams of raising the dead. We avoid pain and seek peace. God uses pain to bring peace. “I’m going to live before I die,” we resolve. “Die, so you can live,” he instructs. We love what rusts. He loves what endures. We rejoice at our successes. He rejoices at our confessions. We show our children the Nike star with the million-dollar smile and say, “Be like him.” God points to the crucified carpenter with bloody lips and a torn side and says, “Be like Christ.”
Thinking God’s thoughts.
Zechariah 13
Washing Away Sins
1 13 “On the Big Day, a fountain will be opened for the family of David and all the leaders of Jerusalem for washing away their sins, for scrubbing their stained and soiled lives clean.
2–3 “On the Big Day”—this is God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaking—“I will wipe out the store-bought gods, erase their names from memory. People will forget they ever heard of them. And I’ll get rid of the prophets who polluted the air with their diseased words. If anyone dares persist in spreading diseased, polluting words, his very own parents will step in and say, ‘That’s it! You’re finished! Your lies about God put everyone in danger,’ and then they’ll stab him to death in the very act of prophesying lies about God—his own parents, mind you!
4–6 “On the Big Day, the lying prophets will be publicly exposed and humiliated. Then they’ll wish they’d never swindled people with their ‘visions.’ No more masquerading in prophet clothes. But they’ll deny they’ve even heard of such things: ‘Me, a prophet? Not me. I’m a farmer—grew up on the farm.’ And if someone says, ‘And so where did you get that black eye?’ they’ll say, ‘I ran into a door at a friend’s house.’
7–9 “Sword, get moving against my shepherd,
against my close associate!”
Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
“Kill the shepherd! Scatter the sheep!
The back of my hand against even the lambs!
All across the country”—God’s Decree—
“two-thirds will be devastated
and one-third survive.
I’ll deliver the surviving third to the refinery fires.
I’ll refine them as silver is refined,
test them for purity as gold is tested.
Then they’ll pray to me by name
and I’ll answer them personally.
I’ll say, ‘That’s my people.’
They’ll say, ‘God—my God!’ ”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 03, 2024
Today's Scripture
Isaiah 26:1-8
Stretch the Borders of Life
1–6 26 At that time, this song
will be sung in the country of Judah:
We have a strong city, Salvation City,
built and fortified with salvation.
Throw wide the gates
so good and true people can enter.
People with their minds set on you,
you keep completely whole,
Steady on their feet,
because they keep at it and don’t quit.
Depend on God and keep at it
because in the Lord God you have a sure thing.
Those who lived high and mighty
he knocked off their high horse.
He used the city built on the hill
as fill for the marshes.
All the exploited and outcast peoples
build their lives on the reclaimed land.
7–10 The path of right-living people is level.
The Leveler evens the road for the right-living.
We’re in no hurry, God. We’re content to linger
in the path sign-posted with your decisions.
Who you are and what you’ve done
are all we’ll ever want.
Insight
Isaiah 26 contrasts two cities. In verses 1-4, a “strong city” adorned with “salvation” (v. 1) from God, “the Rock eternal” (v. 4), comes into view. The gates of the city are to be opened so “the righteous nation may enter” (v. 2). And those who “trust in [God]” are candidates for peace (v. 3). The scene changes in verse 5. There we see a humbled city. The vulnerability and folly of pride are graphically depicted along with the consequences that await those who trust in anything other than the living God. The prophetic message of Isaiah compels us to examine ourselves to see if we’re sincerely trusting in Him alone for refuge and safety (v. 4) and placing Him uppermost in our desires and affections (v. 8). By: Arthur Jackson
Our Trustworthy Father
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Isaiah 26:3
My six-foot-three son, Xavier, lifted his giggling toddler, Xarian, into the air with ease. He wrapped his large hand around his son’s tiny feet, securing them firmly in his palm. Stretching out his long arm, he encouraged his son to balance on his own but kept his free hand at the ready to catch him if necessary. Xarian straightened his legs and stood. With his smile wide and his arms resting at his side, his eyes locked on his father’s gaze.
The prophet Isaiah declared the benefits of focusing on our heavenly Father: “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you” (Isaiah 26:3). He encouraged God’s people to be committed to seeking Him in the Scriptures and connected with Him through prayer and worship. Those faithful ones would experience a confident trust built through their established fellowship with the Father.
As God’s beloved children, we can cry out with boldness: “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal” (v. 4). Why? Because our Father in heaven is trustworthy. He and the Scriptures never change.
As we keep our eyes fixed on our heavenly Father, He will keep our feet planted firmly in His hands. We can count on Him to continue being loving, faithful, and good forever! By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How does keeping your thoughts on God give you peace? What have you done to focus your thoughts on Him throughout the day?
Heavenly Father, thank You for using Scripture to remind me of Your unchanging character and everlasting faithfulness.
For further study read, God Answers the Silly Prayers Too.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 03, 2024
A Bond Servant of Jesus
I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. —Galatians 2:20
These words mean breaking my independence with my own hand and surrendering myself to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one else can do this for me; I must do it myself. God may bring me to the point of surrender three hundred sixty-five times a year, but he can’t push me through. Surrender means breaking the shell of my individual independence from God. It means the emancipation of my personality into oneness with him—not for any agenda of my own, but for absolute loyalty to Jesus. Very few of us know anything about this kind of loyalty. “Whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel . . .” (Mark 8:35): that is what makes an iron saint.
Has the break with my independence come? The one thing I must decide is, Will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, making no conditions? I must be broken of the desire for self-realization. Once this point is reached, supernatural identification with my Lord takes place immediately, and the witness of the Spirit of God within me is unmistakable: “I have been crucified with Christ.”
The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my rights and become a bond servant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I cannot begin to be a saint. When I have done it, God is able to help himself to my life. Will I let him? Or do I have my own ideas of what I’m going to be?
Jeremiah 30-31; Philemon
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed.