Max Lucado Daily: SEEING WITH DIFFERENT EYES - March 11, 2025
See your enemies not as failures, but as God’s projects.
God occupies the only seat on the supreme court of heaven. He wears the robe and refuses to share the gavel. Paul wrote in Romans 12:19 (MSG), “Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. ‘I’ll do the judging,’ says God. ‘I’ll take care of it.’” Vigilantes displace and replace God. They say, “I’m not sure you can handle this one, Lord. You may punish too little or too slowly. I’ll take this matter into my hands, thank you.”
No one had a clearer sense of right and wrong than the perfect Son of God. Only God assesses accurate judgments. Vengeance is his job. Give grace, but if need be, keep your distance. You can forgive the abusive husband without living with him. Forgiveness is not foolishness. Forgiveness is simply choosing to see your offender with different eyes.
Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible
Job 16
JOB DEFENDS HIMSELF
If You Were in My Shoes
1–5 16 Then Job defended himself:
“I’ve had all I can take of your talk.
What a bunch of miserable comforters!
Is there no end to your windbag speeches?
What’s your problem that you go on and on like this?
If you were in my shoes,
I could talk just like you.
I could put together a terrific harangue
and really let you have it.
But I’d never do that. I’d console and comfort,
make things better, not worse!
6–14 “When I speak up, I feel no better;
if I say nothing, that doesn’t help either.
I feel worn down.
God, you have wasted me totally—me and my family!
You’ve shriveled me like a dried prune,
showing the world that you’re against me.
My gaunt face stares back at me from the mirror,
a mute witness to your treatment of me.
Your anger tears at me,
your teeth rip me to shreds,
your eyes burn holes in me—God, my enemy!
People take one look at me and gasp.
Contemptuous, they slap me around
and gang up against me.
And God just stands there and lets them do it,
lets wicked people do what they want with me.
I was contentedly minding my business when God beat me up.
He grabbed me by the neck and threw me around.
He set me up as his target,
then rounded up archers to shoot at me.
Merciless, they shot me full of arrows;
bitter bile poured from my gut to the ground.
He burst in on me, onslaught after onslaught,
charging me like a mad bull.
15–17 “I sewed myself a shroud and wore it like a shirt;
I lay facedown in the dirt.
Now my face is blotched red from weeping;
look at the dark shadows under my eyes,
Even though I’ve never hurt a soul
and my prayers are sincere!
The One Who Represents Mortals Before God
18–22 “O Earth, don’t cover up the wrong done to me!
Don’t muffle my cry!
There must be Someone in heaven who knows the truth about me,
in highest heaven, some Attorney who can clear my name—
My Champion, my Friend,
while I’m weeping my eyes out before God.
I appeal to the One who represents mortals before God
as a neighbor stands up for a neighbor.
“Only a few years are left
before I set out on the road of no return.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
by Matt Lucas
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Galatians 4:1-7
Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance, he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation. That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives.
4–7 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.
Today's Insights
Huiothesia is used only five times in the New Testament (and only by Paul). This word, translated as “adoption to sonship” in Galatians 4:5, is packed with meaning. Huiothesia is a compound Greek word from huios (“son”) and thesia (“placing”). Adoption took place when a child (almost exclusively males in the ancient world) was placed in a family that lacked a suitable heir. With adoption came privileges, rights, and responsibilities of family membership. Paul used the term adoption, but the concept of family membership is also present in John’s writing: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! . . . Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:1-2).
Heirs of God’s Salvation
As long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. Galatians 4:1
When Abigail’s parents died tragically in a car accident, she inherited a large real estate portfolio. She also learned that her parents had arranged to place the portfolio in a trust. For the time being, she could access only enough money for her college tuition. The rest would come when she was older. Abigail was frustrated, but she later realized her parents’ wisdom in planning a measured delivery of the inheritance.
In Galatians 4, Paul uses a similar example to illustrate Israel’s situation as promised heirs of God’s covenant with Abraham. God had made a covenant with Abraham to bless him, and circumcision was a sign of that promise (see Genesis 17:1-14). However, the sign wasn’t the promise. Abraham’s descendants would await a future descendant who would fulfill it. Isaac was born and pointed to the future birth of a Son who would redeem God’s people (Galatians 4:4-5).
Israel, like Abigail, had to wait until the “time set by his father” (v. 2). Only then could Israel take full possession of the inheritance. What they wanted immediately would arrive in due time with Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. All who put their faith in Christ were no longer slaves to sin, “but God’s child” (v. 7). A new covenant has been established. We have access to God! We can call him “Abba, Father” (v. 6).
Reflect & Pray
If you profess Jesus as Savior, how are you no longer a slave to sin but a child of God? What does it mean to know Him as Father?
Loving Father, thank You for sending Your Son to address the sin problem of the world.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Vision
I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. — Acts 26:19
When Jesus Christ appeared to Paul and told him to preach the gospel, there was nothing hesitant about Paul’s response: he obeyed, keeping the vision from heaven bright before him as he began fulfilling his commission (Acts 26:12–19). If we lose the vision, we alone are responsible; it means that we’ve been lax and careless in our spiritual lives. The only way to be obedient to the vision God sends is to give our utmost for his highest, and this can only be done by continually and resolutely recalling the vision, while working steadily to realize it. The test is to keep the vision in our sights not only during times of prayer and devotion but sixty seconds of every minute, sixty minutes of every hour.
“Though it linger, wait for it” (Habakkuk 2:3). We cannot rush the fulfillment of a vision; we have to live in its light until it accomplishes itself through us. Sometimes, after we receive a vision, we grow impatient. We go racing off into practical work, hoping to speed things along. Then the work becomes our focus, and we lose sight of the vision. We don’t even notice when it has been fulfilled! Working to realize the vision is necessary, but we must work steadily, without rush or force, and only when and where God chooses. Our ability to wait for the vision that lingers is a test of our loyalty to him.
After God gives a vision to his disciple, he always sends a whirlwind, flinging his disciple to the place where the seed of the vision will take root and grow. Are you ready to be sown, so that the vision can fulfill itself through you? The answer depends on whether or not you’re living in the light of what you’ve seen. Let God fling you out, and don’t go until he does. If you try to dictate where you’ll go, you’ll prove empty. But if you let God sow you, you will bring forth fruit.
Deuteronomy 14-16; Mark 12:28-44
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
I have no right to say I believe in God unless I order my life as under His all-seeing Eye.
Disciples Indeed, 385 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Putting Broken Back Together - #9957
Do you remember Humpty Dumpty? Well, you might be in the middle of a Humpty Dumpty relationship right now. You remember he fell down, went to pieces and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again. Maybe that's how you feel right now; there are pieces all around you, and there's no one to put them together. The wreckage? Well, it could be a broken relationship or maybe a breaking relationship with a parent, or a child, a husband, a wife, or a friend. If you're one of the King's men or women, there's actually something you can do to put the pieces back together again if you will.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Putting Broken Back Together."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God really has something to do with broken or breaking relationships. It says in Romans 12:17-18, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."
Now, this says that there is a segment of any relationship that really is up to you. And as much as it depends on you; you cannot control the other person's response of course. But your part should always contribute to peace. Now, it's very easy to hide your responsibility for the brokenness of that relationship, or the strain, or the distance.
You can say, "Oh, listen, what good would it do? They're never going to change." Or, "He/she doesn't understand; they don't want to understand." Or how about this, "If I did talk to them, they'd never listen." Or, "Listen, you know, I've tried so hard. What's the use?"
Listen, that relationship is worth fighting for. You're going to carry with you wherever you go the remains of that broken relationship, like all the broken pieces of Humpty Dumpty, carried around inside of you. I wonder, would you take one more initiative? Would you try to build a paper bridge to that person? To be able to say, "As much as I could do, I have done." You know what I'm going to ask you to do? Write a letter.
Now, if you haven't written a letter to them yet, well then maybe you haven't done all you could. You see, when you write, here's what happens. It will be much clearer than if you don't write and you try to just say it, because when you just say it you get distracted. And they'll answer and you'll answer back. And also, if you'll write it they'll consider it a lot more seriously; they'll read it over and over again and they're not going to have to be thinking of what they're going to say next. So, you sort of have their full attention.
And I'd like to suggest to you five paragraphs in that letter with that person that, well, there's a strained relationship. I'll give you the opening sentence of each paragraph, and then it's up to you.
Paragraph number one, "I love you..." Start with that; explain your love for them. The second paragraph, "Thank you for..." Just begin to reflect on some of the things you do appreciate about them. I know there's a lot of things that frustrate you, bother you, but you never would have had a relationship with them if there weren't some things you appreciate about them too. Would you start to list those? "Thank you for..." The third paragraph begins with these very difficult words, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my part of the brokenness; for anything I've contributed to a broken or strained relationship." The fourth paragraph says, "I wish we could... Here's how I'd like our relationship to be..." "Whatever's happened in the past, here's how I'd like it to be from now on." The last paragraph, "I promise..." "Here's my commitments to you." Okay, did you get that? "I love you," Thank you," "I'm sorry," "I wish we could," "I promise," and then you get on your knees and you lay that letter before the Lord and you pray over it.
And then you talk about it with the person after it arrives. Let them read it. Ask them if they would talk with you after it arrives. Look, what have you got to lose? And maybe it will be a new beginning. For some people I know it has been. And you will have fulfilled what the Scripture says, "As far as it depends on you, live at peace."
Give God a chance to take that relationship and mend it again, using that letter as a beginning, because that relationship is going to be a part of you wherever you go.
