Max Lucado Daily: JESUS IS VICTORIOUS - November 22, 2024
The first man, Adam, was challenged to remain sinless in a sinless world. Christ, on the other hand, was challenged to remain sinless in a sin-ridden world. The Son of Heaven was tempted but never failed, struck but never struck down. He succeeded where Adam failed.
Here it is in a nutshell in Romans 5:18 (MSG): “Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it.”
Listen, you and I are no match for Satan. Jesus knows this. So he put on our flesh. He was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin. He was victorious for us. Trust his work. Trust his Word. Hang in there.
Nextdoor Savior: Near Enough to Touch, Strong Enough to Trust
Revelation 9
The fifth Angel trumpeted. I saw a Star plummet from Heaven to earth. The Star was handed a key to the Well of the Abyss. He unlocked the Well of the Abyss—smoke poured out of the Well, billows and billows of smoke, sun and air in blackout from smoke pouring out of the Well.
3–6 Then out of the smoke crawled locusts with the venom of scorpions. They were given their orders: “Don’t hurt the grass, don’t hurt anything green, don’t hurt a single tree—only men and women, and then only those who lack the seal of God on their foreheads.” They were ordered to torture but not kill, torture them for five months, the pain like a scorpion sting. When this happens, people are going to prefer death to torture, look for ways to kill themselves. But they won’t find a way—death will have gone into hiding.
7–11 The locusts looked like horses ready for war. They had gold crowns, human faces, women’s hair, the teeth of lions, and iron breastplates. The sound of their wings was the sound of horse-drawn chariots charging into battle. Their tails were equipped with stings, like scorpion tails. With those tails they were ordered to torture the human race for five months. They had a king over them, the Angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, in Greek, Apollyon—“Destroyer.”
12 The first doom is past. Two dooms yet to come.
13–14 The sixth Angel trumpeted. I heard a voice speaking to the sixth Angel from the horns of the Golden Altar before God: “Let the Four Angels loose, the Angels confined at the great River Euphrates.”
15–19 The Four Angels were untied and let loose, Four Angels all prepared for the exact year, month, day, and even hour when they were to kill a third of the human race. The number of the army of horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard the count and saw both horses and riders in my vision: fiery breastplates on the riders, lion heads on the horses breathing out fire and smoke and brimstone. With these three weapons—fire and smoke and brimstone—they killed a third of the human race. The horses killed with their mouths and tails; their serpentlike tails also had heads that wreaked havoc.
20–21 The remaining men and women who weren’t killed by these weapons went on their merry way—didn’t change their way of life, didn’t quit worshiping demons, didn’t quit centering their lives around lumps of gold and silver and brass, hunks of stone and wood that couldn’t see or hear or move. There wasn’t a sign of a change of heart. They plunged right on in their murderous, occult, promiscuous, and thieving ways.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 22, 2024
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Psalm 119:101-106
I watch my step, avoiding the ditches and ruts of evil
so I can spend all my time keeping your Word.
I never make detours from the route you laid out;
you gave me such good directions.
Your words are so choice, so tasty;
I prefer them to the best home cooking.
With your instruction, I understand life;
that’s why I hate false propaganda.
105–112 By your words I can see where I’m going;
they throw a beam of light on my dark path.
I’ve committed myself and I’ll never turn back
from living by your righteous order.
Today's Insights
Psalm 119 is the longest psalm. All 176 verses celebrate the words of God and affirm their authority, supremacy, priority, and sufficiency in the lives of those who trust in Him. God is referenced in every verse of this song. Oppressed and persecuted by powerful enemies who scorned and ridiculed the psalmist’s obedience to God’s “statutes” and “decrees” (vv. 22-23, 157), he finds great strength and comfort by meditating on them and obeying them. Not wavering, he vows to remain fully committed to following God’s “righteous laws . . . [and] decrees to the very end” (vv. 106, 112). The psalmist affirms that God’s “word” is his security and safety in a dark and dangerous world; a lamp that leads him to walk in His ways and a light that provides perspective, hope, and guidance on how to respond to the harsh realities of life (vv. 105, 130).
Making Wise Choices by Patricia Raybon
Your word is a lamp for my feet. Psalm 119:105
Sell my late mother’s house? That decision burdened my heart after my beloved, widowed mother passed away. Sentiment drove my feelings. Still, my sister and I spent two years cleaning and repairing her empty home, resigned to sell it. This was in 2008, and a global recession left us with no buyers. We kept dropping the price but got no offers. Then, while reading my Bible one morning, this passage grabbed my eye: “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox” (Proverbs 14:4 esv).
The proverb spoke of farming, but I was intrigued by its message. An unoccupied stall stays neat, but only with the “mess” of inhabitants would it yield a harvest of crops. Or, for us, a crop of value and family legacy. Calling my sister, I asked, “What if we keep Mama’s house? We could rent it.”
The choice surprised us. We had no plans to turn Mom’s home into an investment. But the Bible, as a spiritual guide, also offers practical wisdom. As David prayed, “Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow” (Psalm 25:4 nlt).
With our choice, my sister and I have been blessed to rent Mama’s home to many lovely families. We also learned this life-changing truth: Scripture helps guide our decisions. “Your word is a lamp for my feet,” wrote the psalmist, “a light on my path” (Psalm 119:105). May we walk in God’s light.
Reflect & Pray
What tough choices are you facing? How can the Scriptures provide answers?
As I make decisions, dear God, please guide me with the light of Scripture.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 22, 2024
Shallow and Profound
Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. — 1 Corinthians 10:31
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of life aren’t ordained by God. Shallow things belong to God as much as profound things. If you refuse to be shallow, it isn’t because you’re more devoted to God than others; it’s because you want to impress them with how deep you are, a sure sign that you’re a spiritual snob. If this is the case, watch out: snobbery and contempt will make you go around like a walking rebuke, chastising others because you think they’re more shallow than you. Beware of posing as a profound person; God became a baby.
Being shallow isn’t a sign of being wicked. Nor is shallowness a sign that there are no depths; the ocean has a shore. The simple, shallow delights of life—eating and drinking, walking and talking—are all ordained by God. Our Lord lived in the shallows. He lived in them as the Son of God, and he said, “The student is not above the teacher” (Luke 6:40).
Our safeguard is in the shallow things. We have to live the surface, commonplace life in a commonsense way. Deeper concerns do come, but they come separately; God gives them to us apart from the shallow concerns. Never show the depths to anyone but God. We are so abominably serious, so desperately interested in our own characters, that we refuse to behave like Christians in the simple concerns of life.
Take no one seriously except for God—especially not yourself. You’ll find that the first person you need to leave severely alone, for being the greatest fraud you’ve ever encountered, is you.
Ezekiel 18-19; James 4
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
Disciples Indeed
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 22, 2024
Unimaginable Love - #9880
One August night every member of our family got a new name. It was the night our daughter gave birth to her first child - a little boy. And that tiny eight-pound bundle made our daughter "Mommy," and our son-in-law "Daddy," and our boys were suddenly uncles, and my wife became "Grandma." And I became "Husband of Grandma." It was quite a night - and my wife and I were privileged to be able to be with our little grandson right in the birthing room only minutes after he was born. Those are moments I'll never forget. Seeing our daughter, the baby we once held, holding her first baby. And his Daddy, not knowing what other children would come, held that little guy in his arms and said five precious words: "My one and only son."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Unimaginable Love."
I'll tell you this, our son-in-law would not have given up his only son at that moment for any cause, any person on earth. Thinking about that makes our word for today from the Word of God all the more amazing. Maybe it's the most famous, and many would say most important, statement in the Bible. It's found in John 3:16. Maybe you've heard these words a thousand times. Maybe you've never heard of them before. But would you listen as if your life depends on them, because ultimately it does.
"God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son." Now why would God make this sacrifice that any of us human fathers would consider unimaginable? It says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." As I watched our son-in-law holding and loving our new grandson - his "one and only son" at that point - the love that God has for us seemed greater than ever before.
If you took the message of the entire Bible and summed it up in three little words, here's what they probably would be: God loves you. Maybe you think God is mad at you. Maybe you think God condemns you or He's far from you. But the giving of His one and only Son settles once and for all how God feels about you. God so loves you so much that He would sacrifice His Son for you. He doesn't want to lose you.
The Bible tells us that we're all away from God and we were made for Him, we were made by Him, but all of us have basically run our own lives. And the life with "I" in the middle is sin. That's s-I-n. And that kind of rebellion against our Creator carries the eternal death penalty. God's Book says "we all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." All those "my way" choices have put a wall between us and God; a wall that no religion, no spirituality, no morality can remove.
But listen to the rest of that "gone astray" verse. "And the Lord has laid on Him (that's Jesus) the wrongdoing of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). See, God in His great love for you and for me took our sin and its death penalty and placed it all on His Son when He died on the cross.
And now God is standing ready to give you not the death penalty you deserve, but the eternal life in heaven you could never deserve. If you will put all your trust in His Son to be your Rescuer from your sin, that life is yours. This very moment, God stands waiting to see what you will do with His Son.
This could be your day to have your death penalty canceled, to have the wall between you and God removed forever, and to experience the most awesome love a human being can ever experience. Please reach out to Him now. He's tugging on your heart now. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours from this day on."
Our website is there to support you, encourage you, and give you the information you need to get started with Jesus. Would you go there? ANewStory.com.
God has only one Son and He gave Him to die for you. That's how much God loves you. And He will never forget what you do with His Son.