Max Lucado Daily: SEEK HEALTHY COUNSEL - March 17, 2025
The next time you lack the will to go on, seek healthy counsel. You won’t want to. Slumping people love slumping people. We love those who commiserate and avoid those who correct. Yet correction and direction are what we need when we’re tired.
I discovered the importance of healthy counsel in a half-Ironman triathlon. After the 1.2-mile swim and the 56-mile bike ride, I didn’t have much energy left for the 13.1 mile run. Neither did the fellow jogging next to me. He said, “This stinks. This is the dumbest decision I’ve ever made.” I said, “Good-bye!” I knew if I listened too long, I’d start agreeing with him. I caught up with a sixty-six-year-old grandmother who said, “You’ll finish this—stay in there!”
Which of the two describes the counsel you seek? Proverbs 15:22 (MSG) says, “Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed.” Don’t give up, and get some good advice!
Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible
Job 20
ZOPHAR ATTACKS JOB—THE SECOND ROUND
Savoring Evil as a Delicacy
1–3 20 Zophar from Naamath again took his turn:
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing!
You’ve put my teeth on edge, my stomach in a knot.
How dare you insult my intelligence like this!
Well, here’s a piece of my mind!
4–11 “Don’t you even know the basics,
how things have been since the earliest days,
when Adam and Eve were first placed on earth?
The good times of the wicked are short-lived;
godless joy is only momentary.
The evil might become world famous,
strutting at the head of the celebrity parade,
But still end up in a pile of dung.
Acquaintances look at them with disgust and say, ‘What’s that?’
They fly off like a dream that can’t be remembered,
like a shadowy illusion that vanishes in the light.
Though once notorious public figures, now they’re nobodies,
unnoticed, whether they come or go.
Their children will go begging on skid row,
and they’ll have to give back their ill-gotten gain.
Right in the prime of life,
and youthful and vigorous, they’ll die.
12–19 “They savor evil as a delicacy,
roll it around on their tongues,
Prolong the flavor, a dalliance in decadence—
real gourmets of evil!
But then they get stomach cramps,
a bad case of food poisoning.
They gag on all that rich food;
God makes them vomit it up.
They gorge on evil, make a diet of that poison—
a deadly diet—and it kills them.
No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams
with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks.
They spit out their food half-chewed,
unable to relax and enjoy anything they’ve worked for.
And why? Because they exploited the poor,
took what never belonged to them.
20–29 “Such God-denying people are never content with what they have or who they are;
their greed drives them relentlessly.
They plunder everything
but they can’t hold on to any of it.
Just when they think they have it all, disaster strikes;
they’re served up a plate full of misery.
When they’ve filled their bellies with that,
God gives them a taste of his anger,
and they get to chew on that for a while.
As they run for their lives from one disaster,
they run smack into another.
They’re knocked around from pillar to post,
beaten to within an inch of their lives.
They’re trapped in a house of horrors,
and see their loot disappear down a black hole.
Their lives are a total loss—
not a penny to their name, not so much as a bean.
God will strip them of their sin-soaked clothes
and hang their dirty laundry out for all to see.
Life is a complete wipeout for them,
nothing surviving God’s wrath.
There! That’s God’s blueprint for the wicked—
what they have to look forward to.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, March 17, 2025
by John Blase
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Colossians 1:15-20
Christ Holds It All Together
15–18 We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
18–20 He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
Today's Insights
Colossians 1:15-20 has been abused by false teachers who attempt to claim that the Son of God is a created being. So, what does Paul mean when he says, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (v. 15)? Did Jesus have a beginning? The immediate context provides the answer. “In him [the Son] all things were created: things in heaven and on earth . . . ; all things have been created through him and for him” (v. 16). The next verse says, “He is before all things” (v. 17). This makes it clear that the Son (Jesus the Messiah) wasn’t the first to be born among all created things, as some false teachers say. Rather, He is preexistent with the Father and hence was present at the creation of all things. The Creator isn’t a created being.
Making Peace in Jesus
God was pleased . . . to reconcile to himself all things . . . by making peace through [Christ’s] blood, shed on the cross. Colossians 1:19-20
High-wire artist Philippe Petit became famous in 1971 when he walked a tightrope between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Three years later, he got arrested for an unauthorized walk between the Twin Towers that once distinguished New York’s skyline. But in 1987, Petit’s walk looked different. At the invitation of Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, Petit walked across the Hinnom Valley on a high wire as a part of that year’s Israel Festival. At the midway point, Petit released a pigeon (he’d hoped for a dove) to symbolize the beauty of peace. A strange and dangerous stunt, but all for the cause of peace. Petit later said, “For a moment, the entire crowd had forgotten their differences.”
Petit’s high-wire walk reminds me of another breathtaking moment—the one that occurred when Jesus’ body hung between heaven and earth. The apostle Paul tells us, “God was pleased . . . to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through [Christ’s] blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19-20). Paul writes that “once [we] were alienated from God” (v. 21), but no longer. Far from a spectacle to promote peace, Jesus the Messiah actually made peace by shedding His blood on the cross. His was a feat never to be surpassed, as there is no need. His peace is everlasting.
Reflect & Pray
What does the word peace mean to you? How would you say you’re experiencing the peace of Jesus?
Praise to You, dear Jesus, for Your everlasting gift of peace.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, March 17, 2025
The Ruling Passion
We make it our goal to please him. — 2 Corinthians 5:9
Staying focused on the goal Paul sets in 2 Corinthians 5:9 is difficult work. It means holding ourselves, year in and year out, to the highest ideal: not the ideal of winning souls or establishing churches or ushering in revivals but the ideal of pleasing Jesus Christ. Failure in spiritual work isn’t caused by a lack of spiritual experience; it’s caused by a lack of effort to maintain the highest ideal.
At least once a week, take stock before God and see if you are keeping your life up to the standard he has set. The standard must be your ruling passion, your master ambition. Paul is like a musician who cares nothing about the approval of his audience—so long as he catches the look of approval from his master.
Follow a lesser ambition to its natural conclusion, and you will see why it is so necessary to live facing the Lord. Any ambition that is separated from the highest goal, even by the tiniest degree, may end in our disqualification. “Therefore,” Paul says, “I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:26–27). Paul was constantly watching himself, constantly keeping himself in line, lest he lose sight of the ideal.
I have to learn to relate everything to the master ambition, maintaining it at all times. My worth to God in public is what I am in private. Is my master ambition to please him and be acceptable to him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?
Deuteronomy 30-31; Mark 15:1-25
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We begin our Christian life by believing what we are told to believe, then we have to go on to so assimilate our beliefs that they work out in a way that redounds to the glory of God. The danger is in multiplying the acceptation of beliefs we do not make our own.
Conformed to His Image, 381 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, March 17, 2025
Bitterness vs. Blessing - #9961
I heard not long ago about a little boy who was trying to move this huge rock. He pulled, and he pushed, and grunted and strained, trying to move it with leverage from a board, but it was all to no avail. Finally his Dad said, "Son, have you used all your resources?" "Oh, yeah, Dad. I can't make it move! I've tried everything." And his Dad replied, "No, you haven't. You haven't asked me to help you yet."
Maybe you're at a point right now. Oh, you're not a little boy, but you've got a big rock that needs to move and you desperately need your father's help. But you're going it alone doing everything you can to move it. Well actually, there's something that keeps your Father right now from lifting that load of yours.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Bitterness vs. Blessing."
Our word for today from the Word of God is found in Hebrews 12:15. It starts out talking about a very sobering possibility. "See to it," the writer says, "that no one misses the grace of God." Man, there's a lot of things in your life that you could do without, but you cannot go without the grace of God. This says, "See that you don't miss God's grace."
Now, he's writing to believers here. This doesn't mean you don't become a Christian. It means that as a believer, you need God's grace but for some reason you don't have it. And maybe you're in a situation now like that little boy where you've got a big rock to move and the pressure is really heavy. And, well, maybe there's a family problem, or there's this financial boulder to move, you've got medical responsibilities, whatever is crushing you right now. But God's grace is supposed to be sufficient, right? What happened? Why is this so hard? Well, maybe you're missing the grace of God. How do you do that?
Well, listen to the second half of the verse: "and see to it that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." Wow! Think about what this verse is saying.
Bitterness blocks the grace of God. Your Father is not going to help you lift that rock if there is bitterness in your heart. Now, you may not realize it, you may not call it that, but bitterness has taken root. You've been under all this pressure, and maybe you're angry and you're resentful toward a family member because of their part in your frustration. Maybe you've got bad feelings that have grown toward a teacher, an employer, a coworker who is making your life miserable. Maybe you're even bitter toward God because you don't understand what He's doing or why He's waiting. There's somebody in your past, and they're just running your life basically because you can't stop thinking about what they did to you and how you feel toward them.
Somewhere, maybe, there's this boiling anger inside, and like a great cloud that suddenly blocks out the sun, your bitterness is blocking the grace of God just when you need it most. Ironically, you've never needed God's strength, and His closeness, and His peace more than you do now. This rock is too heavy for you, but your prayer seems hollow and you feel so alone, even at the breaking point. Maybe it's because you've got some forgiving to do, some letting go of a hurt, trusting God to meet out justice to make things right.
Your Father is standing there ready to help as only He can, but you've got to release that bitterness that's making your burden so much heavier. Why carry that load too? Your Father wants to trade your bitterness for His amazing grace.
