Max Lucado Daily: IN THE MIDDLE OF IT ALL - November 25, 2024
God gets into things! Red seas, big fish, lions’ dens, and furnaces. Bankrupt businesses and jail cells. Look, and you’ll find what everyone from Moses to Martha discovered: God in the middle of our storms.
A young woman missed her station on the subway. By the time she realized her mistake, she didn’t know what to do. She prayed for some sign of God’s presence. This was no hour or place to be passing through a rough neighborhood alone. At that moment the doors opened and a disheveled man plopped down next to her. “God, are you near?” she prayed. And the man pulled out a harmonica and played “Be Thou My Vision”—her mother’s favorite hymn. The song was enough to convince her Christ was here, in the midst of it all.
And you? Look closer. He’s there. Right in the middle of it all.
Nextdoor Savior: Near Enough to Touch, Strong Enough to Trust
Revelation 10
I saw another powerful Angel coming down out of Heaven wrapped in a cloud. There was a rainbow over his head, his face was sun-radiant, his legs pillars of fire. He had a small book open in his hand. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left foot on land, then called out thunderously, a lion roar. When he called out, the Seven Thunders called back. When the Seven Thunders spoke, I started to write it all down, but a voice out of Heaven stopped me, saying, “Seal with silence the Seven Thunders; don’t write a word.”
5–7 Then the Angel I saw astride sea and land lifted his right hand to Heaven and swore by the One Living Forever and Ever, who created Heaven and everything in it, earth and everything in it, sea and everything in it, that time was up—that when the seventh Angel blew his trumpet, which he was about to do, the Mystery of God, all the plans he had revealed to his servants, the prophets, would be completed.
8–11 The voice out of Heaven spoke to me again: “Go, take the book held open in the hand of the Angel astride sea and earth.” I went up to the Angel and said, “Give me the little book.” He said, “Take it, then eat it. It will taste sweet like honey, but turn sour in your stomach.” I took the little book from the Angel’s hand and it was sweet honey in my mouth, but when I swallowed, my stomach curdled. Then I was told, “You must go back and prophesy again over many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 25, 2024
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Psalm 100
A Thanksgiving Psalm
1–2 100 On your feet now—applaud God!
Bring a gift of laughter,
sing yourselves into his presence.
3 Know this: God is God, and God, God.
He made us; we didn’t make him.
We’re his people, his well-tended sheep.
4 Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
Thank him. Worship him.
5 For God is sheer beauty,
all-generous in love,
loyal always and ever.
Today's Insights
Psalm 100 is the last of eight consecutive psalms (93-100) that emphasize God as King. Each psalm highlights a particular aspect of this King’s reign. Psalm 93 shows God ruling over the seas (vv. 3-4)—a characteristic especially meaningful to a people who’d passed safely through the Red Sea as their enemies drowned behind them (see Exodus 14). Psalm 94 shows God as the righteous judge who opposes the wicked. Psalms 95-97 praise the incomparability of the one true God, “the great King above all gods” (95:3), extolling His “righteousness and justice” as “the foundation of his throne” (97:2). This emphasis on God “above all gods” (v. 9) is vital for Israel as they were surrounded by nations that worshiped false gods. Psalm 100 recognizes this true King as Israel’s creator and shepherd (v. 3) and calls everyone to “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise” (v. 4).
Being Thankful Despite Trials by Nancy Gavilanes
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to [God] and praise his name. Psalm 100:4
I’ve been following and praying for a fellow writer who’s been posting online about her cancer journey. She alternates between sharing updates about her physical pain and challenges and sharing prayer requests with Scripture and praises to God. It’s beautiful to see her courageous smile whether she’s in the hospital awaiting treatments or at home wearing a bandana because her hair is falling out. With each challenge, she never fails to encourage others to trust God during trials.
When we’re going through difficulties, it may be challenging to find reasons to be grateful and to praise God. However, Psalm 100 gives us reasons to rejoice and give God praise despite our circumstances. The psalmist says: “Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture” (v. 3). He adds, “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations” (v. 5).
Whatever our trial, we can take comfort knowing that God is near to our broken hearts (34:18). The more time we spend with God in prayer and reading the Bible, the more we’ll be able to “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise” and “give thanks to him and praise his name” (100:4). We can “shout for joy to the Lord” (v. 1) even and perhaps especially when we’re in a difficult season because our God is faithful.
Reflect & Pray
What are you grateful for? What can you praise God for right now?
Dear God, please help me to praise You even in my trials.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 25, 2024
The Secret of Spiritual Coherence
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. — Galatians 6:14
When people are first born again, they become incoherent. They display a certain amount of unregulated emotion; their actions seem not to make sense. Yet this incoherence is only on the surface. The external life of the apostle Paul appeared haphazard, but underlying everything he did was a strong, steady coherence. Paul was rooted and grounded in God, and because of this he was able to let his external life change without it causing him distress.
Most of us aren’t spiritually coherent for the simple reason that we care more about external coherence than internal coherence. Paul lived in the basement; his consistency was down in the fundamentals, where the order of God’s purpose reigns. Most of us live in the upper stories, among the coherent critics, where external consistency is all that matters. The two spaces do not begin to touch each other. The great basis of Paul’s coherence was the agony of God in the redemption of the world—the cross of Jesus Christ.
Restate to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible. Get back to the bedrock of the cross of Christ. Viewed as a single event in history, the cross is an infinitesimal thing; from the point of view of the Bible, it’s more important than all the empires of the world. If, when we preach, we drift away from brooding on the tragedy of God upon the cross, our preaching will produce nothing. It won’t convey the energy of God, and though it may be interesting, it will have no power. But if we preach the cross, the energy of God will be set loose. “God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. . . . We preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:21, 23).
Ezekiel 24-26; 1 Peter 2
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.
So Send I You, 1330 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 25, 2024
The Battle for Your Body - #9881
They tell me that a dog is man's best friend. I hope so, because if you have one of those best friends you get to go for a walk with him very, very often, right? I mean, it's nice to have a walk with your best friend. Of course, you often see folks in our neighborhood walking their dog, and occasionally you see a humorous variation on the old theme of a man walking his dog.
There's this very big dog and this not so big person, and you see the owner desperately trying to control and keep up with his dog. It's a great picture. You chuckle to yourself and you think, "Oh, look at that dog walking the man!" It's kind of backwards. I mean, it's funny to see a person being led by something that they're supposed to be leading, right? Or is it?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Battle for Your Body."
Our word for today from the Word of God is from 1 Corinthians 9, and I'm going to be reading verses 24-27. It's about controlling or being controlled; the issue Paul's writing about. He says, "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training; they do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize."
Now, Paul is, of course, giving us an Olympic picture here, and what he's really saying is that a champion cannot let his body walk him like that man had the big dog taking him for a walk. You've got to control your body. I watched my son at football practice, and the coaches, man, they put them through the ringer. Why? They wanted the players to learn that when your body feels like quitting, you've got to keep going. You don't stop at the first sign of fatigue or pain, "Oh, I hurt. I'm going to quit." You've got to train your body so you control it and it doesn't control you.
That means that if you're a champion, you keep going even if you don't feel like it. It means you don't necessarily eat whatever you want. You don't quit when you feel like quitting; you don't indulge yourself. Now, if you and I are going to be spiritual champions, we've got to stop letting our body call the shots, and too often we do. We have an appetite to eat, so we do. We have a lustful desire; we let it wreak havoc in our soul. We don't exercise to protect that temple of God; the place where God lives - this body, because we don't have time and we don't feel like it. We're letting our body make the decisions.
In his book The Christian Response, Michel Quoist says, "If your body makes all the decisions and gives all the orders, and if you obey the physical, you can effectively destroy every other dimension of your personality." Wow! Over 200 years ago, Susanna Wesley, John Wesley's mother said, "Whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind - that is sin to you."
We're going to have to learn championship techniques here, to deny our appetites and desires, and to exercise daily practices of saying no to your body. Look, has your body been walking you? It's time to get control again. There's an important spiritual reason for passing up that food I don't need, the drink I should never use, the sexual flirtations I should avoid. My body, uncontrolled, will wage war against my soul!
"Lord, once again, become the lord of my body." Say to Him, "Lord, I've been on the wrong end of this leash long enough."