Max Lucado Daily: More Dinghy than Cruise Ship?
Are you more dinghy. . .than cruise ship? Or in my case, more blue jeans than blue blood? Well congratulations, God changes the world with folks like you!
The next time you say, “I don’t think God could use me!”—stop right there! Satan’s going to try to tell you that God has an IQ requirement. That he employs only experts and high-powered personalities. When you hear Satan whispering that lie—hit him with this: God stampeded the first-century society with swaybacks, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store!
But what they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, “Follow me.”
So what do you think? More plumber than executive? More stand-in than movie star? Yeah—congratulations! God uses people like you…and me.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matthew 16:24?
From Max on Life
Esther 2
Later, when King Xerxes’ anger had cooled and he was having second thoughts about what Vashti had done and what he had ordered against her, the king’s young attendants stepped in and got the ball rolling: “Let’s begin a search for beautiful young virgins for the king. Let the king appoint officials in every province of his kingdom to bring every beautiful young virgin to the palace complex of Susa and to the harem run by Hegai, the king’s eunuch who oversees the women; he will put them through their beauty treatments. Then let the girl who best pleases the king be made queen in place of Vashti.”
The king liked this advice and took it.
5–7 Now there was a Jew who lived in the palace complex in Susa. His name was Mordecai the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish—a Ben-jaminite. His ancestors had been taken from Jerusalem with the exiles and carried off with King Jehoiachin of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon into exile. Mordecai had reared his cousin Hadassah, otherwise known as Esther, since she had no father or mother. The girl had a good figure and a beautiful face. After her parents died, Mordecai had adopted her.
8 When the king’s order had been publicly posted, many young girls were brought to the palace complex of Susa and given over to Hegai who was overseer of the women. Esther was among them.
9–10 Hegai liked Esther and took a special interest in her. Right off he started her beauty treatments, ordered special food, assigned her seven personal maids from the palace, and put her and her maids in the best rooms in the harem. Esther didn’t say anything about her family and racial background because Mordecai had told her not to.
11 Every day Mordecai strolled beside the court of the harem to find out how Esther was and get news of what she was doing.
12–14 Each girl’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes after she had completed the twelve months of prescribed beauty treatments—six months’ treatment with oil of myrrh followed by six months with perfumes and various cosmetics. When it was time for the girl to go to the king, she was given whatever she wanted to take with her when she left the harem for the king’s quarters. She would go there in the evening; in the morning she would return to a second harem overseen by Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch in charge of the concubines. She never again went back to the king unless the king took a special liking to her and asked for her by name.
15 When it was Esther’s turn to go to the king (Esther the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had adopted her as his daughter), she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king’s eunuch in charge of the harem, had recommended. Esther, just as she was, won the admiration of everyone who saw her.
16 She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal palace in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of the king’s reign.
17–18 The king fell in love with Esther far more than with any of his other women or any of the other virgins—he was totally smitten by her. He placed a royal crown on her head and made her queen in place of Vashti. Then the king gave a great banquet for all his nobles and officials—“Esther’s Banquet.” He proclaimed a holiday for all the provinces and handed out gifts with royal generosity.
19–20 On one of the occasions when the virgins were being gathered together, Mordecai was sitting at the King’s Gate. All this time, Esther had kept her family background and race a secret as Mordecai had ordered; Esther still did what Mordecai told her, just as when she was being raised by him.
21–23 On this day, with Mordecai sitting at the King’s Gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the entrance, had it in for the king and were making plans to kill King Xerxes. But Mordecai learned of the plot and told Queen Esther, who then told King Xerxes, giving credit to Mordecai. When the thing was investigated and confirmed as true, the two men were hanged on a gallows. This was all written down in a logbook kept for the king’s use.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, December 01, 2024
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Titus 2:6-8
Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.
7–8 But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching, your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around.
By-Dave Branon
Today's Insights
Titus was one of the young men that Paul mentored in ministry. Unlike Timothy (see Acts 16:1-3), we know little about Titus. We’re not told how he and Paul met or how he came to have the apostle as his mentor. Titus is mentioned ten times in 2 Corinthians (2:13; 7:6, 13, 14; 8:6, 16, 17, 23; 12:18 [twice]) and two times in Galatians (2:1, 3)—solidifying our picture of him as an important member of Paul’s team. The only other mention of Titus (aside from the letter addressed to him) is in 2 Timothy 4:9-10, where Paul writes to Timothy: “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia.”
Good Reputation for Christ
Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16
During his college days at Florida State University, Charlie Ward was a two-sport student athlete. In 1993, the young quarterback won the Heisman Trophy as the country’s best college American football player, and he also starred on the basketball team.
During a pregame talk one day, his basketball coach used some foul language as he talked to his players. He noticed that Charlie “wasn’t comfortable,” and said, “Charlie, what’s up?” Ward said, “Coach, you know, Coach Bowden [the football coach] doesn’t use that kind of language, and he gets us to play awfully hard.”
Charlie’s Christlike character allowed him to gently speak to his basketball coach about this issue. In fact, the coach told a reporter: “It’s almost as if there was an angel looking at you” when he talked to Charlie.
A good reputation with unbelievers and a faithful witness for Christ are hard to maintain. But at the same time, believers in Jesus can grow to be more like Him as He helps and guides us. In Titus 2, younger men, and by extension all believers, are called to “be self-controlled” (v. 6) and to “show integrity . . . and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned” (vv. 7-8).
When we live that way in Christ’s strength, we’ll not only honor Him but also build a good reputation. Then as God provides the wisdom we need, people will have reason to hear what we say.
Reflect & Pray
How does a good reputation help you influence others? What will help you grow in Christlike character?
Dear God, please help me to grow in character that reflects You and honors You.
For further study, read Evangelism—Reaching Out through Relationships.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, December 01, 2024
The Law and the Gospel
Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. — James 2:10
The moral law doesn’t take into account the fact that we are weak human beings. It doesn’t consider our infirmities or our sinful heredity. It simply demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never changes, either for the noblest or for the weakest. It doesn’t adjust itself to our shortcomings or make itself weak for the weak. It remains absolute for all time and eternity. If we don’t realize this, it’s because we are less than fully alive. Once we are born again and become fully alive to God’s will for us, life becomes a tragedy. The Spirit of God convicts us, and we know: “Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died” (Romans 7:9). Until we get to this place of conviction and see that we have no hope on our own, the cross of Christ is a farce to us.
“The law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin”
(v. 14). Conviction of sin always brings a fearful, binding sense of the law. It makes me feel hopeless, because I know that a guilty sinner like me cannot keep the law on my own. There is only one way I can get right with God, and that is by the death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the idea that I can ever be right with God through obedience. Who among us could ever obey God with absolute perfection!
“If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture . . .” (James 2:8). The moral law comes with an if. God never coerces us. In certain moods, we wish he would; in others, we wish he’d leave us alone. But when his will is ascendant in our lives, any question of compulsion is gone. Obeying God has to be a deliberate choice. Once we have made it, God will tax the remotest star and the last grain of sand to help us obey.
Ezekiel 40-41; 2 Peter 3
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth.
The Place of Help