Max Lucado Daily: PUT IT ON THE CALENDAR - February 25, 2025
A quiet time with God is very similar to a special date. Denalyn and I like to go to the same restaurants over and over again. When we’re there, we remember special moments we’ve shared before. Our hearts open up, and we talk to each other. We listen, we laugh, and sometimes we cry. I love those times! So does God. A quiet time with God is very similar to a special date.
Here are some tools to help you keep your date with him special: Select a slot in your schedule and claim it for God. Take as much time as you need. Your time with God should last long enough for you to say what you want and for God to say what he wants. Bring an open Bible—God’s Word, his love letter to you. Bring a listening heart, and listen to the lover of your soul. Make sure your date with God is on the calendar, and do everything in your power to keep it special.
Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions
Job 6
JOB REPLIES TO ELIPHAZ
God Has Dumped the Works on Me
1–7 6 Job answered:
“If my misery could be weighed,
if you could pile the whole bitter load on the scales,
It would be heavier than all the sand of the sea!
Is it any wonder that I’m screaming like a caged cat?
The arrows of God Almighty are in me,
poison arrows—and I’m poisoned all through!
God has dumped the whole works on me.
Donkeys bray and cows moo when they run out of pasture—
so don’t expect me to keep quiet in this.
Do you see what God has dished out for me?
It’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach!
Everything in me is repulsed by it—
it makes me sick.
Pressed Past the Limits
8–13 “All I want is an answer to one prayer,
a last request to be honored:
Let God step on me—squash me like a bug,
and be done with me for good.
I’d at least have the satisfaction
of not having blasphemed the Holy God,
before being pressed past the limits.
Where’s the strength to keep my hopes up?
What future do I have to keep me going?
Do you think I have nerves of steel?
Do you think I’m made of iron?
Do you think I can pull myself up by my bootstraps?
Why, I don’t even have any boots!
My So-Called Friends
14–23 “When desperate people give up on God Almighty,
their friends, at least, should stick with them.
But my brothers are fickle as a gulch in the desert—
one day they’re gushing with water
From melting ice and snow
cascading out of the mountains,
But by midsummer they’re dry,
gullies baked dry in the sun.
Travelers who spot them and go out of their way for a drink
end up in a waterless gulch and die of thirst.
Merchant caravans from Tema see them and expect water,
tourists from Sheba hope for a cool drink.
They arrive so confident—but what a disappointment!
They get there, and their faces fall!
And you, my so-called friends, are no better—there’s nothing to you!
One look at a hard scene and you shrink in fear.
It’s not as though I asked you for anything—
I didn’t ask you for one red cent—
Nor did I beg you to go out on a limb for me.
So why all this dodging and shuffling?
24–27 “Confront me with the truth and I’ll shut up,
show me where I’ve gone off the track.
Honest words never hurt anyone,
but what’s the point of all this pious bluster?
You pretend to tell me what’s wrong with my life,
but treat my words of anguish as so much hot air.
Are people mere things to you?
Are friends just items of profit and loss?
28–30 “Look me in the eyes!
Do you think I’d lie to your face?
Think it over—no double-talk!
Think carefully—my integrity is on the line!
Can you detect anything false in what I say?
Don’t you trust me to discern good from evil?”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
by Monica La Rose
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Luke 6:31-38
“Here is a simple rule of thumb for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you; then grab the initiative and do it for them! If you only love the lovable, do you expect a pat on the back? Run-of-the-mill sinners do that. If you only help those who help you, do you expect a medal? Garden-variety sinners do that. If you only give for what you hope to get out of it, do you think that’s charity? The stingiest of pawnbrokers does that.
35–36 “I tell you, love your enemies. Help and give without expecting a return. You’ll never—I promise—regret it. Live out this God-created identity the way our Father lives toward us, generously and graciously, even when we’re at our worst. Our Father is kind; you be kind.
37–38 “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. Don’t condemn those who are down; that hardness can boomerang. Be easy on people; you’ll find life a lot easier. Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back—given back with bonus and blessing. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity.”
Today's Insights
The teaching of Luke 6:31-38 is similar to that of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:38-48, which Jesus taught “up on a mountainside” (v. 1). Christ taught the sermon in Luke 6—the Sermon on the Plain—on another occasion: “on a level place” (v. 17) or “in the plain” (kjv). Here, Jesus taught about unconditional love for others, including enemies, so that we can be “children of the Most High” (v. 35). God “is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (v. 35); we’re to be merciful in the same measure that the “Father is merciful” (v. 36). In this sermon, Christ articulated a maxim popularly known as the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (v. 31), espousing the principle of “a man reaps what he sows” (Galatians 6:7). Christ spoke of reciprocal treatment, “for with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38).
Responding to Generosity
Give, and it will be given to you. Luke 6:38
When Lydia was gifted $10,000 by anonymous donors, she spent little of it on herself. Instead, she gave generous gifts to coworkers, family, flood victims, and charities. Lydia, unbeknownst to her, was part of a study following how two hundred people responded to a no-strings-attached gift of $10,000 through a bank transfer. That study found that more than two-thirds of that gifted money was given away. Sharing this story, Chris Anderson, head of the TED nonprofit media organization, reflected, “It turns out that . . . we human beings are wired to respond to generosity with generosity.”
In Scripture, we find that when people live generously, they reflect the heart of the God who made them. God is generous, merciful, and kind, not just to some but to all—even “to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35). So Jesus instructed those who desire to reflect God’s character to “love,” “do good to,” and “lend to” even enemies “without expecting to get anything back” (vv. 32-35).
When we give without expecting anything back, we’ll find that it’s never a way of life that harms us. Jesus pointed this out too, saying, “Give, and it will be given to you. . . . With the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (v. 38). When we respond to God’s generosity by living generously, we find we’re enriched in countless ways.
Reflect & Pray
How have you found joy through giving? How have the gifts of others enriched your life?
Gracious God, thank You for the joy of giving.
For further study, read The Benefits of Generosity.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
The Poverty of Service
If I love you more, will you love me less? — 2 Corinthians 12:15
Natural love expects to be returned, but Paul didn’t care if he was loved by those he served. He was willing to be ridiculed and overlooked, to be made poor and humble, just so long as he was bringing people to God. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor” (2 Corinthians 8:9). Giving his all wasn’t a burden for Paul; it was a joy: “I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well” (12:15).
The way Jesus thinks about service is not the way the world thinks about it. Jesus Christ out-socialists socialists. He says that in his kingdom the greatest will be the servant of all (Matthew 23:11). The real test for us lies not in preaching the gospel but in washing feet, in doing the things that are little esteemed by the world but count for everything with God.
Paul didn’t care what God’s interests in other people cost him. The instant God asks us to serve, we start making calculations. “God wants me to go there?” we say. “What about the salary? What about the weather? A sensible person has to consider these things.” When we think like this, we’re being selfish and cautious about how we serve God.
Paul was never cautious. He embodied Jesus’s idea of a New Testament disciple, one who not only proclaimed the gospel but became, for the sake of others, broken bread and poured-out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ.
Numbers 12-14; Mark 5:21-43
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
THE TAPESTRY AND THE THREADS - #9947
Okay, let's do a little word association here, you ready? Persian. Ah...cat? Well, you might have thought of cat. For me, when I hear the word Persian...I think rug. I've never owned one and I probably never will, but I've sure seen them. And you know it's much more than a carpet. It's a work of art! Years ago Amy Carmichael wrote about the incredible process that produces these masterpieces. Try to picture this. There are two sets of workmen sitting on a bench on one side of the carpet which is hanging from a beam up above. The designer stands on the other side, he's holding a pattern in his hand and he directs the workers by calling across to them exactly what they're to do next. It's like a chant actually. And then the workman chants back to the designer the word that he's heard, verifying that order. Then the workman cuts from whatever bobbin has been ordered and he pushes that thread through the carpet warp and he knots it. All he can see is that thread. He sees nothing of the pattern until the caret is finished. That's all in the designer's hands. But when he finally sees what all these commands and all these threads have made, wow!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Tapestry And The Threads."
Take a peek at what The Designer is up to...our word for today from the Word of God, Romans 8:28, "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him who have been called according to his purpose." Now, in His hands is the pattern - what the masterpiece will look like when it's finished and it's beautiful. But He's the only one that can see that whole pattern. He said in Jeremiah "You know the plans I have for you. They are plans for good and not for evil." And the Bible says, "As for God, His way is perfect." Oh, it's going to be beautiful, it's going to be good. He's working out the eternal tapestry for your life. But we're just like those workmen, we can't see the pattern. All we see is the next thread. Our job, Romans 8:14, says, "Those who are led by the spirit of God, are the sons of God." Our job is to be led. How? Psalm 119:133 gives us a clue, "Direct my footsteps according to your Word." The next step, the next thread...show me from your Word where my next step is.
The designer's on the other side giving directions that will bring me one step, one thread closer to the grand design. Some of those threads are dark, some don't make sense, some don't seem to fit the pattern, some look wrong to me, but I'm just a workman. My job is to trust the designer, not to try to understand every order. Those Persian workers choose nothing; they leave every choice to the designer. Their responsibility is simply to listen and obey, and so is ours.
Today is another thread in the tapestry. Your mission, fellow weaver, is to check with the Lord frequently, consult His Word faithfully, listen for His inner Spirit promptings regularly. It's not your mission to know or to understand where all this is going. But the grand, macro will of God for your earth journey is made up of thousands of micro wills, thousands of little obediences, "Go there, call this person, write this, listen to this, take this step, read this verse." Threads that ultimately create the tapestry.
Occasionally God will let you stand back from your weaving to see a piece of the grand design and when you've had a glimpse of what He's making, it's been incredible, hasn't it? But, most days, the designer asks you to just keep weaving those threads. Some you like, some you don't like, some you're thankful for, some you would never choose. But, keep listening, keep doing what the designer says. One day you will stand back with the Master Designer. You will see the masterpiece that you have woven together with His direction and your faithful obediences.
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