Max Lucado Daily: Not Eloquent Prayers-Honest Ones
For two years, I've asked God to remove the pain in my writing hand. After writing thirty-plus books in longhand, the repeated motion has restricted my movement. I stretch my fingers. I avoid the golf course. But most of all, I pray.
Better said, I argue. Shouldn't God heal my hand? So far he hasn't healed me. Or has he? These days I pray more as I write. Not eloquent prayers, but honest ones. "Lord, I need help. . .Father; my hand is stiff." The discomfort humbles me. I'm not Max, the author. I'm Max, the guy whose hand is wearing out. I want God to heal my hand. Thus far he has used my hand to heal my heart!
Here's my challenge to you! Join me at BeforeAmen.com-then every day for 4 weeks, pray 4 minutes. It'll change your life!
From Before Amen
Revelation 5
The Lion Is a Lamb
1–2 5 I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One Seated on the Throne. It was written on both sides, fastened with seven seals. I also saw a powerful Angel, calling out in a voice like thunder, “Is there anyone who can open the scroll, who can break its seals?”
3 There was no one—no one in Heaven, no one on earth, no one from the underworld—able to break open the scroll and read it.
4–5 I wept and wept and wept that no one was found able to open the scroll, able to read it. One of the Elders said, “Don’t weep. Look—the Lion from Tribe Judah, the Root of David’s Tree, has conquered. He can open the scroll, can rip through the seven seals.”
6–10 So I looked, and there, surrounded by Throne, Animals, and Elders, was a Lamb, slaughtered but standing tall. Seven horns he had, and seven eyes, the Seven Spirits of God sent into all the earth. He came to the One Seated on the Throne and took the scroll from his right hand. The moment he took the scroll, the Four Animals and Twenty-four Elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb. Each had a harp and each had a bowl, a gold bowl filled with incense, the prayers of God’s holy people. And they sang a new song:
Worthy! Take the scroll, open its seals.
Slain! Paying in blood, you bought men and women,
Bought them back from all over the earth,
Bought them back for God.
Then you made them a Kingdom, Priests for our God,
Priest-kings to rule over the earth.
11–14 I looked again. I heard a company of Angels around the Throne, the Animals, and the Elders—ten thousand times ten thousand their number, thousand after thousand after thousand in full song:
The slain Lamb is worthy!
Take the power, the wealth, the wisdom, the strength!
Take the honor, the glory, the blessing!
Then I heard every creature in Heaven and earth, in underworld and sea, join in, all voices in all places, singing:
To the One on the Throne! To the Lamb!
The blessing, the honor, the glory, the strength,
For age after age after age.
The Four Animals called out, “Oh, Yes!” The Elders fell to their knees and worshiped.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Today's Scripture
Genesis 16:9-16
The angel of God said, “Go back to your mistress. Put up with her abuse.” He continued, “I’m going to give you a big family, children past counting.
From this pregnancy, you’ll get a son: Name him Ishmael;
for God heard you, God answered you.
He’ll be a bucking bronco of a man,
a real fighter, fighting and being fought,
Always stirring up trouble,
always at odds with his family.”
13 She answered God by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, “You’re the God who sees me!
“Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!”
14 That’s how that desert spring got named “God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring.” That spring is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.
15–16 Hagar gave Abram a son. Abram named him Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave him his son, Ishmael.
Insight
God sees and remembers us, which is an encouragement displayed repeatedly in the Scriptures. When tormented and desperate for a child of her own, Hannah prayed that God would remember her (1 Samuel 1:11), and He did (vv. 19-20). He gave her a son, Samuel, the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. Samuel would anoint Israel’s first two kings. As blind Samson stood between the pillars of a pagan temple, he too prayed for God to remember him and restore his strength (Judges 16:28). God restored that strength and Samson’s final victory proved to be his greatest. From a cross, a dying thief prayed, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Christ assured him that He’d remember him (v. 43). One of God’s most encouraging attributes is that He’s the God who remembers us. By: Bill Crowder
God Sees You
“You are the God who sees me,” for [Hagar] said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” Genesis 16:13
“Get down!” my friend said firmly to her son after he climbed onto the church pew and waved his hands. “I want the pastor to see me,” he innocently replied. “If I don’t stand up, he won’t see me.”
While standing on the pews is probably not encouraged in most churches, my friend’s son had a good point. Standing and waving his hands was certainly one way to be seen and to capture the pastor’s attention.
When we’re trying to get God’s attention, we don’t have to worry about being seen by Him. God sees each of us all the time. He’s the same one who revealed Himself to Hagar when she was probably at the lowest, loneliest, and most frustrating time in her life. She’d been used as a pawn and given to Abram by his wife, Sarai, to produce a son (Genesis 16:3). And when she did get pregnant, Abram allowed his wife to mistreat Hagar: “Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her” (v. 6).
The runaway slave found herself alone, pregnant, and miserable. Yet in the midst of her desperation in the wilderness, God compassionately sent an angel to speak to her. The angel told her that God had “heard of [her] misery” (v. 11). She responded by saying, “You are the God who sees me” (v. 13).
What a realization—especially in the midst of the wilderness. God saw Hagar and had compassion. And no matter how tough things are, He sees you. By: Katara Patton
Reflect & Pray
What wilderness situations are you facing? How does knowing that God sees you help you to keep going?
Dear God, thank You for seeing me. I know You’re with me even during my toughest times.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Co-Worker in God’s Service
We sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ. — 1 Thessalonians 3:2
After I am sanctified and become a “co-worker in God’s service,” I will probably find it difficult to state what my aim in life is. This is because the Lord has taken me up into a purpose which he alone knows. All my goings are organized by him, which means I can never understand them. What I do know is that he is using me for his purposes throughout the world, just as he used his Son for the purpose of our salvation.
If I seek great things for myself—“God has called me for this and that”—and cling to purposes of my own, I put a barrier between myself and God and make it impossible for him to use me. As long as I have an interest in my own character or in any set ambition, I won’t be able to fully identify myself with God’s interests. I can only get through to total identification by losing forever any idea of myself and by letting God take me out into his purpose for the world.
I have to learn that the aim of life is God’s, not mine. God is using me from his great personal standpoint. All he asks of me is that I have implicit faith in him and in his goodness, such faith that I never say, “Lord, this gives me such heartache.” To talk in that way makes me an impediment to him. When I stop telling God what I want, he can take me up for what he wants without hindrance. He can crumple me or exalt me. He can do anything he chooses.
Self-pity is of the devil. If I go down that road, I cannot be used by God for his purpose, because I live in my own private sphere, a little “world within the world.” God will never be able to get me to come out into his world, because I’m too afraid of what I’ll encounter. I have to set aside my selfishness and fear and become entirely identified with him.
Jeremiah 48-49; Hebrews 7
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.
Our Brilliant Heritage
