LOVING PERFECTLY
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Posted:Mar 6, 2017 4:56 am
Last Updated:Mar 6, 2017 4:56 am 9122 Views
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Read: 1 Corinthians 13:4–8
Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 1–2; Mark 10:1–31
[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13.7–8
Her voice shook as she shared the problems she was having with her . Worried about her ’s questionable friends, this concerned mum confiscated her ’s mobile phone and chaperoned her everywhere. Their relationship seemed only to go from bad to worse.
When I spoke with the , I discovered that she loves her mum dearly but is suffocating under a smothering love. She longs to break free.
Thank You for being our model in showing us how to live and love.
As imperfect beings, we all struggle in our relationships. Whether we are a parent or , single or married, we grapple with expressing love the right way, saying and doing the right thing at the right time. We grow in love throughout our lifetime.
In 1 Corinthians 13 the apostle Paul outlines what perfect love looks like. His standard sounds wonderful, but putting that love into practice can be absolutely daunting. Thankfully, we have Jesus as our example. As He interacted with people with varying needs and issues, He showed us what perfect love looks like in action. As we walk with Him, keeping ourselves in His love and steeping our mind in His Word, we’ll reflect more and more of His likeness. We’ll still make mistakes, but God is able to redeem them and cause good to come out of every situation, for His love “always protects” and it “never fails” (vv. 7–8.
Lord, our intentions are good but we fail each other in so many ways. Thank You for being our model in showing us how to live and love.
To show His love, Jesus died for us; to show our love, we live for Him.
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TWO PORTRAITS
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Posted:Mar 3, 2017 5:45 am
Last Updated:Mar 3, 2017 5:45 am 9180 Views
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Read: John 16:19–24
Bible in a Year: Numbers 28–30; Mark 8:22–38
Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. John 16:22
Clutching two framed photographs, the proud grandmother showed them to friends in the church foyer. The first picture was of her back in her homeland of Burundi. The second was of her grandson, born recently to that . But the wasn’t holding her newborn. She had died giving birth to him.
A friend approached and looked at the pictures. Reflexively, she reached up and held that dear grandmother’s face in her hands. All she could say through her own tears was, “I know. I know.”
When we put our cares into His hands, He puts His peace into our hearts.
And she did know. Two months earlier she had buried a .
There’s something special about the comfort of others who have experienced our pain. They know. Just before Jesus’s arrest, He warned His disciples, “You will weep and mourn while the world rejoices.” But in the next breath He comforted them: “You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy” (John 16:20). In mere hours, the disciples would be devastated by Jesus’s arrest and crucifixion. But their crushing grief soon turned to a joy they could not have imagined when they saw Him alive again.
Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah, “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering” (Isa. 53:4). We have a Savior who doesn’t merely know about our pain; He lived it. He knows. He cares. One day our grief will be turned into joy.
Lord, thank You for going to the cross for us. We certainly know trouble in this world, but You overcame the world and took our sin and pain for us. We look forward to the day when our sorrows will be turned into joy and we see You face to face.
When we put our cares into His hands, He puts His peace into our hearts.
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ONE OF US
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Posted:Mar 2, 2017 1:57 am
Last Updated:Mar 2, 2017 1:57 am 8502 Views
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Read: Hebrews 2:9–18
Bible in a Year: Numbers 26–27; Mark 8.1–21
Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 2:18
At the memorial service for Charles Schulz (1922–2000), creator of the beloved Peanuts comic strip, friend and fellow cartoonist Cathy Guisewite spoke of his humanity and compassion. “He gave everyone in the world characters who knew exactly how all of us felt, who made us feel we were never alone. And then he gave the cartoonist himself, and he made us feel that we were never alone. . . . He encouraged us. He commiserated with us. He made us feel he was exactly like us.”
When we feel that no one understands or can help us, we are reminded that Jesus gave us Himself, and He knows exactly who we are and what we are facing today.
Jesus knows exactly who we are and what we are facing today.
Hebrews 2:9–18 presents the remarkable truth that Jesus fully shared our humanity during His life on earth (v. 14). He “taste[d] death for everyone” (v. 9), broke the power of Satan (v. 14), and freed “those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (v. 15). Jesus was made like us, “fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God”
(v. 17
. Thank You, Lord, for sharing our humanity so that we might know Your help today and live in Your presence forever.
What fears and concerns do you have? What should you do with those fears?
(1 Peter 5:6–7. What does the Lord promise to do for you? (Heb. 13:5).
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No one understands like Jesus.
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ALL OF ME
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Posted:Mar 1, 2017 4:50 am
Last Updated:Apr 27, 2024 3:59 pm 8334 Views
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Read: Matthew 27:45–54
Bible in a Year: Numbers 23–25; Mark 7:14–37
Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1
Young Isaac Watts found the music in his church sadly lacking, and his father challenged him to create something better. Isaac did. His hymn “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” has been called the greatest in the English language and has been translated into many other languages.
Watts’s worshipful third verse ushers us into the presence of Christ at the crucifixion.
“Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.” —Isaac Watts
See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
The crucifixion Watts describes so elegantly stands as history’s most awful moment. We do well to pause and stand with those around the cross. The of God strains for breath, held by crude spikes driven through His flesh. After tortured hours, a supernatural darkness descends. Finally, mercifully, the Lord of the universe dismisses His anguished spirit. An earthquake rattles the landscape. Back in the city the thick temple curtain rips in half. Graves open, and dead bodies resurrect, walking about the city (Matt. 27:51–53). These events compel the centurion who crucified Jesus to say, “Surely he was the of God!” (v. 54).
“The Cross reorders all values and cancels all vanities,” says the Poetry Foundation in commenting on Watts’s poem. The song could only conclude: “Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.”
It is our privilege to give everything we have
to the One who gave us everything on the cross.
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A CHUCKLE IN THE DARKNESS
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Posted:Feb 28, 2017 3:02 am
Last Updated:Mar 1, 2017 4:50 am 8400 Views
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Read: John 11:17–27
Bible in a Year: Numbers 20–22; Mark 7:1–13
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only , that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
In a Washington Post article titled “Tech Titans’ Latest Project: Defy Death,” Ariana Cha wrote about the efforts of Peter Thiele and other tech moguls to extend human life indefinitely. They’re prepared to spend billions on the project.
They are a little late. Death has already been defeated! Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:25–26). Jesus assures us that those who put their trust in Him will never, ever, under any circumstances whatever, die.
Jesus, help me to live a life that is pleasing to You.
To be clear, our bodies will die—and there is nothing anyone can do to change that. But the thinking, reasoning, remembering, loving, adventuring part of us that we call “me, myself, and I” will never, ever die.
And here’s the best part: It’s a gift! All you have to do is receive the salvation Jesus offers. C. S. Lewis, musing on this notion, describes it as something like “a chuckle in the darkness”—the sense that something that simple is the answer.
Some say, “It’s too simple.” Well, I say, if God loved you even before you were born and wants you to live with Him forever, why would He make it hard?
Dear Jesus, I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I want to accept You as my Lord and Savior and follow You. Please forgive my sins and help me, from this moment on, to live a life that is pleasing to You.
Christ has replaced the dark door of death with the shining gate of life.
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RING OF INVISIBILITY
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Posted:Feb 27, 2017 3:33 am
Last Updated:Mar 1, 2017 4:51 am 10472 Views
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Read: John 3:16–21
Bible in a Year: Numbers 17–19; Mark 6:30–56
Everyone who does evil hates the light. John 3:20
The Greek philosopher Plato (c. 427–c. 348 bc) found an imaginative way of shining light on the dark side of the human heart. He told the story of a shepherd who innocently discovered a golden ring that had been hidden deep in the earth. One day a great earthquake opened up an ancient mountainside tomb and revealed the ring to the shepherd. By accident he also discovered that the ring had the magical ability to enable the wearer to become invisible at will. Thinking about invisibility, Plato raised this question: If people didn’t have to worry about being caught and punished, would they resist doing wrong?
In John’s gospel we find Jesus taking this idea in a different direction. There, Jesus, known as the Good Shepherd, speaks of hearts that stay in the cover of darkness to hide what they are doing (John 3:19–20). He isn’t calling attention to our desire for cover-up to condemn us, but to offer us salvation through Him (v. 17). As the Shepherd of our hearts, He brings the worst of our human nature to light to show us how much God loves us (v. 16).
God in His mercy calls us out of our darkness and invites us to follow Him in the light.
God in His mercy calls us out of our darkness and invites us to follow Him in the light.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for the light of Your presence in my life. May I walk obediently in the light of Your truth in all that I do this day.
Sin’s darkness retreats when Christ’s light is revealed.
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THE LAND OF " WHAT IS "
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Posted:Feb 24, 2017 5:38 am
Last Updated:Mar 1, 2017 4:51 am 12376 Views
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Read: Psalm 46:1–7
Bible in a Year: Numbers 9–11; Mark 5:1–20
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
1 Thessalonians 4:13
Even all these years after losing our seventeen-year-old Melissa in a car accident in 2002, I sometimes find myself entering the world of “What If.” It’s easy, in grief, to reimagine the events of that tragic June evening and think of factors that—if rearranged—would have had Mell arriving safely home.
In reality, though, the land of “What If” is not a good place to be for any of us. It is a place of regret, second-guessing, and hopelessness. While the grief is real and the sadness endures, life is better and God is honored if we dwell in the world of “What Is.”
When we do face hard times, our greatest help comes from trusting God.
In that world, we can find hope, encouragement, and comfort. We have the sure hope (1 Thess. 4:13)—the assurance—that because Melissa loved Jesus she is in a place that is “better by far” (Phil. 1:23). We have the helpful presence of the God of all comfort (2 Cor. 1:3). We have God’s “ever-present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). And we often have the encouragement of fellow believers.
We all wish to avoid the tragedies of life. But when we do face hard times, our greatest help comes from trusting God, our sure hope in the land of What Is.
Father God, You know my broken heart. You know the pain of loss because You suffered through the death of Your . In the midst of ongoing sorrow, help me to dwell in the comfort of Your hope, encouragement, and comfort.
Our greatest hope comes from trusting God.
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PRESS ON
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Posted:Feb 23, 2017 4:22 am
Last Updated:Mar 1, 2017 4:52 am 12052 Views
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Read: Philippians 3:12–21
Bible in a Year: Numbers 7–8; Mark 4:21–41
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14
One of my favorite television programs is The Amazing Race. In this reality show, ten couples are sent to a foreign country where they must race, via trains, buses, cabs, bikes, and feet, from one point to another to get their instructions for the next challenge. The goal is for one couple to get to a designated finishing point before everyone else, and the prize is a million dollars.
The apostle Paul compared the Christian life to a race and admitted that he had not yet arrived at the finish line. “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize”
(Phil. 3:13–14). Paul did not look back and allow his past failures to weigh him down with guilt, nor did he let his present successes make him complacent. He pressed on toward the goal of becoming more and more like Jesus.
Let us keep pressing on toward the ultimate goal of becoming more like Jesus.
We are running this race too. Despite our past failures or successes, let us keep pressing on toward the ultimate goal of becoming more like Jesus. We are not racing for an earthly prize, but for the ultimate reward of enjoying Him forever.
Read Philippians 4:11–13. How are we able to press on toward our future hope? Read Hebrews 12:1–2. What are some practical things we must do to continue to press on and persevere?
Never call it quits in pursuing Jesus.
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PERFECT GRACE
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Posted:Feb 22, 2017 4:36 am
Last Updated:Mar 1, 2017 4:52 am 12620 Views
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Read: Matthew 5:43–48, John 8:9–11
Bible in a Year: Numbers 4–6; Mark 4:1–20
“Neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. John 8.11
Jesus’s teaching about absolute ideals and absolute grace seem contradictory.
Jesus never lowered God’s perfect ideal. In His response to the rich young ruler, He said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” Matt. 5:48. He told an expert in the law who inquired as to the greatest commandment, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (22:37). No one has completely fulfilled those commands.
Father, may we live as people who enjoy Your forgiveness and a restored relationship with You.
Yet the same Jesus tenderly offered absolute grace. He forgave an adulteress, a thief on the cross, a disciple who had denied ever knowing Him, and a man named Saul, who had made his mark persecuting Christians. Grace is absolute and all-encompassing, extending even to those who nailed Jesus to the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” were among the last words He spoke on earth (Luke 23:34).
For years I felt so unworthy when considering Jesus’s absolute ideals that I missed any notion of His grace. Once I understood this dual message, however, I went back and found that the message of grace gusts through Jesus’s life and teachings.
Grace is for the desperate, the needy, the broken, those who cannot make it on their own. Grace is for all of us.
Father, Your all-encompassing grace washes over us and astonishes us. May we live today as people who enjoy Your complete forgiveness and a restored relationship with You.
Jesus fulfilled the perfect requirements of the law so that we may enjoy the perfect peace of His grace.
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THE VIRAL GOSPEL
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Posted:Feb 21, 2017 4:52 am
Last Updated:Mar 1, 2017 4:52 am 13203 Views
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Read: 1 Thessalonians 1:1–10
Bible in a Year: Numbers 1–3; Mark 3
The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. 1 Thessalonians 1.8
The Viral Texts project at Northeastern University in Boston is studying how printed content in the 1800s spread through newspapers—the social media network of that day. If an article was reprinted 50 times or more, they considered that “viral” for the Industrial Age. Writing in Smithsonian magazine, Britt Peterson noted that a nineteenth-century news article describing which followers of Jesus were executed for their faith appeared in at least 110 different publications.
When the apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Thessalonica, he commended them for their bold and joyful witness to Jesus. “The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere” 1 Thess. 1:8. The message of the gospel went viral through these people whose lives had been transformed by Jesus Christ. In spite of difficulties and persecution, they could not remain silent.
Lord Jesus, help us to live boldly and tell others about You today.
We convey the story of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ through kind hearts, helping hands, and honest words from all of us who know the Lord. The gospel transforms us and the lives of those we meet.
May the message ring out from us for all to hear today!
Lord Jesus, help us to live boldly and tell others about You today.
There’s no better news than the gospel—spread the word!
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