Max Lucado Daily: Connected But Not Altered
When you give your life to Christ, He moves in, unpacks his bags and is ready to change you into His likeness. So why do I still have the hang-ups of Max?
Part of the answer is in the story of a wealthy but frugal lady living in a small house at the turn of the century. Friends were surprised when she had electricity put in her home. Weeks afterward, a meter reader appeared. “Your meter shows scarcely any usage,” he said. “Are you using your power?” “Certainly,” she answered. “Each evening I turn on my lights long enough to light my candles; then I turn them off.”
She’s tapped into the power but doesn’t use it. Her house is connected but not altered. Don’t we make the same mistake? God is willing to change us into the likeness of the Savior. Shall we accept His offer?
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:18-19a).
From Just Like Jesus
Genesis 16
Sarai, Abram’s wife, hadn’t yet produced a child. She had an Egyptian maid named Hagar. Sarai said to Abram, “God has not seen fit to let me have a child. Sleep with my maid. Maybe I can get a family from her.” Abram agreed to do what Sarai said.
3–4 So Sarai, Abram’s wife, took her Egyptian maid Hagar and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. Abram had been living ten years in Canaan when this took place. He slept with Hagar and she got pregnant. When Hagar learned she was pregnant, she looked down on her mistress.
5 Sarai told Abram, “It’s all your fault that I’m suffering this abuse. I put my maid in bed with you and the minute she knows she’s pregnant, she treats me like I’m nothing. May God decide which of us is right.”
6 “You decide,” said Abram. “Your maid is your business.”
Sarai was abusive to Hagar and Hagar ran away.
7–8 An angel of God found her beside a spring in the desert; it was the spring on the road to Shur. He said, “Hagar, maid of Sarai, what are you doing here?”
She said, “I’m running away from Sarai my mistress.”
9–12 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.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 08, 2025
By Arthur Jackson
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Philippians 2:1-11
He Took on the Status of a Slave
1–4 2 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
5–8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
9–11 Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.
Today's Insights
Paul’s call to imitate Jesus’ example of self-giving love (Philippians 2:5-8) begins with a call to unity: “Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind” (v. 2). This kind of deep unity isn’t accomplished by a lack of differences but a willingness to surrender “selfish ambition” and “vain conceit” (v. 3) in order to see and serve others with a heart like His. When believers in Christ live out what He modeled—the humility and willingness to surrender for the well-being of others—unity is possible.
Caring in Christ
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5
Ms. Charlene, my friend Dwayne’s mother, is ninety-four years old, under five feet tall, and weighs less than a hundred pounds. Yet this doesn’t stop her from doing what she can to care for her son, whose physical health prevents him from caring for himself. Visits to their two-story home often find her on the second floor, where she resides. Slowly, she descends sixteen stairs to the first floor to greet her guests, just as she does to assist in caring for the son whom she loves.
Ms. Charlene’s selfless determination convicts, challenges, and inspires me as she prioritizes her son’s well-being over her own. She models what Paul encourages in Philippians 2: “In humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (vv. 3-4).
Caring for those with health challenges or other needs can be costly. The demands of life can be all-consuming, and even those closest to us can be shortchanged if we’re not intentional about taking our eyes off ourselves. But humbly caring is what believers in Jesus are called to do (see vv. 1-4). When we give of ourselves, we follow the example of Jesus and help others in the process. The apostle reminds us: “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (v. 5).
Reflect & Pray
Who inspires you to be more caring and selfless? What obstacles might you have to navigate to meet others’ needs?
Dear Jesus, please help me to be more intentional in giving myself for the good of others.
Facing division within the church? Learn more about having A United Mindset.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 08, 2025
One with Him
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. — 1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray to be sanctified, are we praying for the standard Paul sets here—the “through and through”? We take the term sanctification much too superficially. Sanctification means an intense narrowing of our earthly interests and an immense broadening of our interests in God. It means an intense concentration on God’s point of view—every power of body, soul, and spirit bound and kept for him. Are we prepared to let God do his work in us? And when his work is done, are we prepared to set ourselves apart, as Jesus set himself apart?
God wants us to be sanctified entirely. The reason some of us haven’t entered into the experience of entire sanctification is that we haven’t understood the meaning of it from God’s viewpoint: “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:19). Sanctification means being made one with Jesus, so that the mindset which ruled him will also rule us. Are we prepared for what that will cost? It will cost everything that is not of God in us.
To be caught up in the swing of Paul’s prayer, the “through and through,” means asking God to make us as holy as he can make sinners saved by grace. Jesus prayed that we might be one with him as he is one with the Father (v. 21). The sanctified soul has one defining characteristic: a strong family resemblance to Jesus, a freedom from everything that doesn’t resemble him. Are we prepared to embrace this freedom by setting ourselves apart? Will we agree to let Jesus make us one with him, as he is one with the Father?
Leviticus 4-5; Matthew 24:29-51
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, 395 L
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