Max Lucado Daily: HEAR JESUS - November 26, 2024
The Torah sends you to Moses. The Quran sends you to Muhammad. Buddhists invite you to meditate; spiritists, to levitate. “Step right up—try my witchcraft.” “Psst, over here. Interested in some new age channels?” Oh, the voices. And we pray, “Father, help me out! Please modulate one and relegate the others.”
If that’s your prayer, then Luke 9 is your chapter. The day God isolated the authoritative voice of history and declared, “Listen to him.” On the Mount of Transfiguration Jesus was praying with Peter and James and John. And his face became different, and his clothing became white and gleaming. “And a voice came out of a cloud, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son. Hear him!’ (Luke 9:35 NKJV). Hear Jesus amidst all the other voices. Listen to him.
Nextdoor Savior: Near Enough to Touch, Strong Enough to Trust
Ezra 5
The Building Resumed: “Help the Leaders in the Rebuilding”
1–2 5 Meanwhile the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo were preaching to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the authority of the God of Israel who ruled them. And so Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak started again, rebuilding The Temple of God in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were right there helping them.
3–4 Tattenai was governor of the land beyond the Euphrates at this time. Tattenai, Shethar-Bozenai, and their associates came to the Israelites and asked, “Who issued you a permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use?” Then we told them the names of the men responsible for this construction work.
5 But God had his eye on the leaders of the Jews, and the work wasn’t stopped until a report could reach Darius and an official reply be returned.
6–7 Tattenai, governor of the land beyond the Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and his associates—the officials of that land—sent a letter to Darius the king. This is what they wrote to him:
To Darius the king. Peace and blessing!
8 We want to report to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to The Temple of the great God that is being rebuilt with large stones. Timbers are being fitted into the walls; the work is going on with great energy and in good time.
9–10 We asked the leaders, “Who issued you the permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use?” We also asked for their names so we could pass them on to you and have a record of the men at the head of the construction work.
11–12 This is what they told us: “We are servants of the God of the heavens and the earth. We are rebuilding The Temple that was built a long time ago. A great king of Israel built it, the entire structure. But our ancestors made the God of the heavens really angry and he turned them over to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who knocked this Temple down and took the people to Babylon in exile.
13–16 “But when Cyrus became king of Babylon, in his first year he issued a building permit to rebuild this Temple of God. He also gave back the gold and silver vessels of The Temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had carted off and put in the Babylon temple. Cyrus the king removed them from the temple of Babylon and turned them over to Sheshbazzar, the man he had appointed governor. He told him, ‘Take these vessels and place them in The Temple of Jerusalem and rebuild The Temple of God on its original site.’ And Sheshbazzar did it. He laid the foundation of The Temple of God in Jerusalem. It has been under construction ever since but it is not yet finished.”
17 So now, if it please the king, look up the records in the royal archives in Babylon and see if it is indeed a fact that Cyrus the king issued an official building permit authorizing the rebuilding of The Temple of God in Jerusalem. And then send the king’s ruling on this matter to us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Mark 6:35-44
And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 pSend them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, q“You give them something to eat.” And rthey said to him, s“Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii6 worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, t“Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he ulooked up to heaven and vsaid a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
Today's Insights
In Mark’s account of a large crowd being fed with only five loaves of bread and two fish, the focus is on how this miracle instructed the disciples—both in God’s power as well as in their calling to serve (Mark 6:35, 39). The “how” of the miracle is mysterious. Mark doesn’t tell us that the crowd is even aware of a miracle occurring; the disciples simply start dispensing the food and somehow there’s enough for all.
Jesus opens the meal with a customary prayer of thanks (v. 41). He may have spoken this traditional Jewish prayer: “Praise be to you, O Lord our God, King of the world, who makes bread to come from the earth, and who provides for all that you have created.”
Partnership with God
You give them something to eat. Mark 6:37
Today's Devotional- Sheridan Voysey
When my friend and her husband struggled to conceive, doctors recommended she have a medical procedure done. But my friend was hesitant. “Shouldn’t prayer be enough to fix our problem?” she asked. “Do I really need to do the procedure?” My friend was trying to work out what role human action has in seeing God work.
The story of Jesus feeding the crowd can help us here (Mark 6:35-44). We may know how the story ends—thousands of people are miraculously fed with just a little bread and some fish (v. 42). But notice who is to feed the crowd? The disciples (v. 37). And who provides the food? They do (v. 38). Who distributes the food and cleans up afterward? The disciples (vv. 39-43). “You give them something to eat,” Jesus said (v. 37). Jesus did the miracle, but it happened as the disciples acted.
A good crop is a gift from God (Psalm 65:9-10), but a farmer must still work the land. Jesus promised Peter “a catch” of fish but the fisherman still had to cast his nets (Luke 5:4-6). God can tend the earth and do miracles without us but typically chooses to work in a divine-human partnership.
My friend went through with the procedure and later successfully conceived. While this is no formula for a miracle, it was a lesson for my friend and me. God often does His miraculous work through the methods He’s placed in our hands.
Reflect & Pray
When are you tempted to pray without acting? What’s God calling you to act on right now?
Dear God, thank You for including me in Your amazing work. Please take what’s in my hands and do wonders through it.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
The Concentration of Spiritual Energy
. . . the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me. — Galatians 6:14
If you want to know the energy of God—the energy of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ—in your physical body, you must do more than simply think on the tragedy of God on the cross; you must brood upon it. Cut yourself off from distractions, stop taking an obsessive interest in your personal spiritual development, and consider, bare-spirited, the tragedy of God. The instant you do, his energy will be in you.
“Turn to me,” says God (Isaiah 45:22). God must become the dominating object of your attention. Pay attention to the objective Source and the subjective energy will follow. We lose power when we fail to concentrate on the right thing. The right thing is the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross is the only thing we are called to preach—not salvation or sanctification or healing. In much preaching today, the focus is placed not on the cross but on its effects. Churches are criticized as feeble, and the criticism is justified because there has been no concentration of spiritual energy, no brooding on the tragedy of Calvary or on the meaning of redemption.
Concentrate on the cross in your preaching, and though the members of your audience might not seem to pay attention, they’ll never be the same again. If I talk my own talk, it’s of no more importance to you than your talk is to me. But if I talk the truth of God, you will meet it again, and so will I. When you concentrate on the great point of spiritual energy—the cross—keeping in contact with this center where all the power lies, its energy will be let loose. The proclaiming of the cross of Jesus Christ does its own work.
Ezekiel 27-29; 1 Peter 3
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance.
Baffled to Fight Better, 59 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Crashproof Peace - #9882
I was on a flight several years ago and my neighbor was one of the flight attendants. For whatever reason we ended up talking about plane crashes. There was one that came to mind in particular because it was a tragic crash off the coast of Nova Scotia back in the '90s.
Since the passengers and the crew knew about the plane's critical situation for a while, we talked about how it must have felt to be anticipating that crash for half an hour. And I couldn't help but reflect on two occasions when the plane I was in had pretty close calls: one where we had serious hydraulic problems, and another where my plane had blown a tire on takeoff. On those occasions we knew about the problem for a while, and we had some time to think about the possibilities.
On one of those flights, I was seated next to a sweet little grandmother who was very scared. Fortunately I was able to be some comfort to her. In fact, I even got her to laugh a little. After we landed with a wounded plane but safe passengers, she said, "How could you stay so calm during a time like this?" I said, "I guess it's because my peace isn't from what's going on around me. It's from inside where nothing can touch it." Or, as I told my flight attendant neighbor, "The peace passed the test."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Crashproof Peace."
I was doubly grateful in those airline emergencies because, well, my plane didn't crash and neither did my peace. Living in the kind of turbulent, unpredictable, even painful world you and I do, our hearts need a source of peace that's unshakable, no matter what. When that grandmother asked me how I could have peace when we could have been facing a crash, I said, "It's because my peace isn't anchored to what's happening around me. It's anchored to my love-relationship with Jesus Christ, which nothing can touch!"
Now that's a peace you may need right now. Our word for today from the Word of God talks about how to have that kind of stability when everything else in our life is up for grabs. It's in Hebrews 6:19. It begins by saying, "We have this hope..." Which hope? Well, the verses around it are talking about the hope we have because Jesus opened a way for us to go right to the heart of God. It says, "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure." Man, I love that!
"As an anchor for the soul." Sounds pretty good doesn't it? See, while the storm is blowing the ship of our life back and forth, an anchor is there that never moves, that keeps us from being blown away. It may be that there's been plenty of turbulence lately for you, and maybe there's heavy weather coming. Maybe you've already seen some things or even some people that you were counting on blown away. The word "peace" so describes what your heart needs right now - something unloseable.
That's what Jesus promised those who belong to Him. He said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you" (John 14:27). It was that peace that never failed me when I was anticipating a possible plane crash, when my wife was suddenly gone, when we lost a baby, when my Dad died. It was this peace of Jesus I just saw in my dear friends whose teenage son was killed in a traffic accident. They told me of the deepest pain of their lives, and the most amazing sense of well-being that they had ever experienced.
That's got to be Jesus! Only He could do that, and He wants to do it for you. He gave His life to give you the peace that you need most of all - peace with God. We have this wall between us and our Creator, made from all the sins of our life. But Jesus died to pay the death penalty for our sins so the wall could come down. So you and I could finally trade our hell for His heaven, and our restlessness and our pain for His peace.
Do you want that? Do you want to know you belong to Him? Tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." Go to our website and let me walk you through there how to be sure you belong to Him - ANewStory.com.
When you open up to the peace of Jesus Christ, you have found the anchor for your soul, and no storm, no crash can touch it.