Max Lucado Daily: Courage
“And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. And do not be afraid of their threats nor be troubled. I Peter 3:13-14”
On April 18, 2007, three Christians in Turkey were killed for their beliefs. Necati Aydin, a 35 year-old pastor was one of them.
He nearly didn’t go the office that morning. He’d been traveling and his wife, Semse, wanted him to stay home and rest. He admitted his weariness, but went on to work. There was much to be done. Semse recalls, “As my dear husband walked out the door, he smiled at me one last time. I didn’t know that was the last smile.”
Later that morning, attackers came to Necati Aydin’s office insisting he pray: “There is no God except Allah!” When Necati refused, the torture began. The last word from the office was the cry of an unswerving Christian: Messiah! Messiah!
I ponder the martyrs of Malatya and wonder, Would I make the sacrifice? Would I cry out, “Messiah! Messiah! Would I give my life?
How do we prepare? Linger long and often in the presence of Christ. Meditate on his grace. Ponder his love. Memorize his words.
Courage comes as we live with Jesus!
Matthew 10:21-42
“When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate! But don’t quit. Don’t cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you’ve run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived.
24–25 “A student doesn’t get a better desk than her teacher. A laborer doesn’t make more money than his boss. Be content—pleased, even—when you, my students, my harvest hands, get the same treatment I get. If they call me, the Master, ‘Dungface,’ what can the workers expect?
26–27 “Don’t be intimidated. Eventually everything is going to be out in the open, and everyone will know how things really are. So don’t hesitate to go public now.
28 “Don’t be bluffed into silence by the threats of bullies. There’s nothing they can do to your soul, your core being. Save your fear for God, who holds your entire life—body and soul—in his hands.
Forget About Yourself
29–31 “What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries.
32–33 “Stand up for me against world opinion and I’ll stand up for you before my Father in heaven. If you turn tail and run, do you think I’ll cover for you?
34–37 “Don’t think I’ve come to make life cozy. I’ve come to cut—make a sharp knife-cut between son and father, daughter and mother, bride and mother-in-law—cut through these cozy domestic arrangements and free you for God. Well-meaning family members can be your worst enemies. If you prefer father or mother over me, you don’t deserve me. If you prefer son or daughter over me, you don’t deserve me.
38–39 “If you don’t go all the way with me, through thick and thin, you don’t deserve me. If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.
40–42 “We are intimately linked in this harvest work. Anyone who accepts what you do, accepts me, the One who sent you. Anyone who accepts what I do accepts my Father, who sent me. Accepting a messenger of God is as good as being God’s messenger. Accepting someone’s help is as good as giving someone help. This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, March 16, 2025
by Kirsten Holmberg
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Exodus 20:8-11
Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God, your God. Don’t do any work—not you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your servant, nor your maid, nor your animals, not even the foreign guest visiting in your town. For in six days God made Heaven, Earth, and sea, and everything in them; he rested on the seventh day. Therefore God blessed the Sabbath day; he set it apart as a holy day.
Today's Insights
Mount Sinai was the site of at least two great encounters with God in the Old Testament. In today’s reading (Exodus 20), we see Moses and the children of Israel encountering God and His mighty power. They’d spend about a year there before resuming their journey from slavery in Egypt to the freedom of the promised land. The other great encounter was when Elijah fled Jezebel and ended up at Mount Horeb, which many scholars are convinced was the same place as Sinai. There, God renewed Elijah’s mission and encouraged him with His own presence and care (1 Kings 19:8-13). Interestingly, these two leaders (Moses and Elijah) would meet with Jesus on another mountain in the New Testament (Luke 9:28-36) at Christ’s transfiguration, a part of His preparation for His coming suffering. The timing of that preparation is significant because in Luke 9:51 “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem” where those sufferings awaited Him.
Intervals of Rest
In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth . . . but he rested on the seventh day. Exodus 20:11
Running coach Jeff Galloway, a former Olympian, teaches a marathon training protocol that has a counterintuitive component to it. New and experienced marathoners are often surprised to learn that he advocates a “run/walk” strategy: alternating running for a set number of minutes with short periods of walking. The premise behind his approach is that the brief interludes of walking enable the body to recuperate briefly, equipping runners to finish their races faster than if they had run all 26.2 miles straight through.
The importance of intervals of rest isn’t limited to running. Rest helps us sustain the lengthy effort life requires. It’s something God addresses throughout the Bible, starting in the book of Exodus. In the Old Testament, the rhythms of rest were modeled after God’s work at the time of creation: to labor for six days and then keep “the seventh day [as] a sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:10) because God “made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day” (v. 11).
As believers in Jesus, there’s no definitive prescription for how often we’re to rest (Romans 14:5-6; Colossians 2:16-17). Rest—whenever and however we enjoy it—is meant to be restorative. Choosing to rest is also an expression of trust in God, who’s faithful to supply our needs; we needn’t (and can’t) run forever.
Reflect & Pray
How and when do you rest? How has God supplied your needs when you’ve rested as an expression of faith?
Father, thank You for giving me opportunities to trust You through rest.
Discover how trusting Him with your time can bring peace and renewal. Read more!
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, March 16, 2025
The Judgment Seat of Christ
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. — 2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul says that, no matter who we are, we must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. We tend to think of this moment of judgment as some far-off event, but it needn’t be. Right here and now, we can learn to live in the white light of Christ’s penetrating gaze. However difficult his judgment may be to face at first, it will eventually bring us delight, revealing all the wonderful work God has done inside us.
Keep yourself steadily before Christ’s judgment, and remember his command: “Do not judge” (Matthew 7:1). A wrong temper of mind about another soul will end in the spirit of the devil, no matter how saintly you are. One worldly judgment about another person, and the end of it will be hell inside you.
Whenever you are tempted to judge, drag the impulse at once to the light and say, “My God, I am guilty.” If you don’t, hardness will set in. It isn’t only God who punishes us for sin. Sin establishes itself in the sinner and pays the sinner back in full: the price is that, gradually, you become so used to sinning that you no longer recognize it as sin.
No amount of struggling or praying will enable us to stop sinning. It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to come in and set it right. “Walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7). Many of us think that walking in the light means walking according to the standard we’ve set for other people. That is not God’s standard. Walk in the light of the holiest you know—the Lord Jesus Christ—and let his judgment have its way with you.
Deuteronomy 28-29; Mark 14:54-72
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging; therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried.
He Shall Glorify Me, 494 R
