As Heaven Grows our struggles lesson

Everyone struggled on crucifixion Friday: The disciples struggled to keep faith. Pilate struggled to save face. Faithful women struggled to help Jesus. Pharisees struggled to discredit Jesus. Soldiers struggled to hurt Jesus.

But no one struggled more than Jesus. People called him a liar, beat him with sticks, and plastered his face with spit. They yanked chunks of flesh from his back with a hook-tipped whip, crucified him naked in front of family and friends.

What few friends there were….when falsely accused, no one defended him. When he stumbled beneath the weight of the cross, no one came to help him. When hung up to die, no one rescued him.

How did Jesus endure such an ordeal?

Here is how Jesus turned a day of suffering into Good Friday. “…for the joy set before him, [Jesus] endured the cross.” (Heb. 12:2 NKJV).

Jesus faced his Friday by looking into eternity. By making Heaven bigger, his pain became smaller. Follow him through Friday and listen in on his thoughts.

Daybreak: He tells his accusers, “The Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the Mighty God” (Lk. 22:69 NIV). Matthew’s Gospel adds these words: “In the future you will see the Son of Man…coming on the clouds of Heaven” (Mt. 26:64 NIV).

When interrogated by Pilate later in the day, Jesus’ mind still lingers in Heaven. “My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn. 18:36 NIV). Jesus kept lifting his eyes upward. “You would have no power if it were not given to you from above” (Jn. 19:11 NIV).

Jesus faced His Friday by facing eternity.

Let’s do likewise. As Heaven grows, our struggles lessen.

© Max Lucado, 2013

He chose The Nails

What’s Left?

Skeptics say, “Jesus–back from the dead? I don’t think so.” or ”The resurrection is a lie!”

There have always been skeptics. People who call Jesus’ resurrection a legend, even a hoax. But the early followers of Jesus literally proclaimed that he was raised from the dead! So, is the tomb empty?

There are those who say the disciples took Jesus’ body. Maybe they staged the whole thing! But there’s a problem. Many of those disciples died for their belief–for their proclamation that Jesus was risen. Would they be willing to die for a lie?

What’s left? The empty tomb is left. You don’t have to toss out common sense to believe the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, it’s just as challenging to disprove the resurrection as to prove it. He is risen!

“He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee…” (Luke 24:6).

from He Chose the Nails

He chose the Nails

Eternal Choices

God gives eternal choices, and these choices have eternal consequences.

Isn’t this the reminder of Calvary’s trio? Ever wonder why there were two crosses next to Christ? Why not six or ten? Ever wonder why Jesus was in the center? Could it be the two crosses on the hill symbolize one of God’s greatest gifts? The gift of choice. The two criminals were convicted by the same system. Condemned to death. Equally close to the same Jesus. But one changed and one did not.

You’ve made some bad choices in life, haven’t you? You look back and you say, “If only I could make up for those bad choices.” You can. When one thief on the cross prayed, Jesus loved him enough to save him. When the other mocked, Jesus loved him enough to let him. He allowed him the choice. And he does the same for you and me.

Then (the thief) said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:42-43

from He Chose the Nails

Just for YOU

What is the fruit of sin? Step into the briar patch of humanity and feel a few thistles. Shame. Fear. Disgrace. Discouragement. Anxiety. Haven’t our hearts been caught in these brambles?

The heart of Jesus, however, had not. He had never been cut by the thorns of sin. What you and I face daily—he never knew. He never worried. He was never guilty. He never knew the fruit of sin until he became sin for us. And when he did—all the emotions of sin tumbled in on him like shadows in a forest. He felt anxious, guilty, and alone. Can you not hear the emotion in his prayer?

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” This prayer is one of the most remarkable parts of his coming. But there’s something even greater! He did it for you…just for you!

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (I Peter 2:24).

from He Chose the Nails

Let's BE intentional!

Challenge: Like the boy in Luke 9, what can you give to Jesus this week? It doesn't have to be BIG...just a gift given in Faith. Maybe it's time spent with a hurting friend, quick meal to a new mom, or a note of encouragement to a struggling child. Pray and ask God to help you see how you can help those in your life this week.

Memory verse this week: Luke 9:23
"Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow ME."

Www.goodmorninggirls.org

Are you winning with toothpicks?

Nevertheless

Where does Satan have a stronghold within you? It’s what David faced when he looked at Jerusalem. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold. Granted, the city was old. The walls were difficult. The voices discouraging. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold.

Wouldn’t you love for God to write a nevertheless in your biography? Born to alcoholics, nevertheless, she led a sober life. Never went to college, nevertheless, he mastered a trade. Didn’t read the Bible until retirement age, nevertheless, he came to a deep and abiding faith. We all need a nevertheless.

Paul said, “We use God’s mighty weapons to knock down the devil’s stronghold.” (2 Corinthians 10:4).

You and I? We fight with toothpicks. God comes with battering rams and cannons!

FAILURES are stepping stones

What’s Done is Done

What do you do with your failures? Could you do it all over again, you’d do it differently. You’d be more patient. You’d control your tongue. You’d finish what you started. You’d get married first. But as many times as you tell yourself, “What’s done is done,” what you did can’t be undone.

That’s part of what the apostle Paul meant when he said, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23). He didn’t say, “The wages of sin is a bad mood.” Or “The wages of sin is a hard day.” Read it again. “The wages of sin is death.” Sin is fatal.

What do you do? Don’t we all long for a father who will love us? A father who cares for us in spite of our failures? We have that kind of a father. A father whose grace is strongest when our devotion is weakest. Your failures are not fatal, my friend!

from Six Hours One Friday

Remember HIM

How Quickly We Forget


Oh how quickly we forget. So much happens through the years. So many changes within. So many alterations without. And somewhere, back there, we leave Him. We don’t turn away from Him—we just don’t take Him with us. Assignments come. Promotions come. Budgets are made. Kids are born, and Christ—the Christ Jesus is forgotten.

Has it been a while since you stared at the heavens in speechless amazement? Has it been a while since you realized God’s divinity and your carnality? He is still there. He has not left. Do yourself a favor. Stand before Him again. Or better, allow Him to stand before you.

A man is never the same after he simultaneously sees his despair and Jesus’ grace. To see the despair without the grace is destructive. To see the grace without the despair is futility. But to see them both is conversion!

from Six Hours One Friday

I will NEVER forget....EVER. YOU?

Remember Jesus

Can you remember that first encounter with Christ? I can. It was 1965. A red-headed ten-year-old with a tornado of freckles sits in a Bible class on a Wednesday night. His teacher wearing a suit coat too tight to button is talking about Jesus and explaining the cross. I’d heard it before, but that night I heard it for sure.

No one had to tell me to be happy. No one had to tell me to tell others. I told all my friends at school. And even though I’d never read 2nd Corinthians 4:13, I knew what it meant. “I believed therefore I have spoken.”

Can you still remember? Can you remember the day you fell in love with him? Remember Jesus. Before you remember anything, remember Him. Don’t forget Him. Place your hand in Jesus’ pierced side. Look into those eyes. Look at them as they look at you. You’ll never be the same!

from Six Hours One Friday

Attitude of Gratitude

The Language of the Liar

I was living in Brazil. It had been an especially frustrating day getting my car fixed. As I drove off, two devils perched on my shoulders. They spoke the language of the Liar. One was anger; the other self-pity! I rolled down my window when I reached a traffic stop. I saw a boy, probably nine years old. Shirtless. Barefooted.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “Jose,” he answered. Two other orphans with him were naked except for ragged gym shorts.

“Have you collected much money today?” I asked. He opened a dirty hand full of coins. Enough perhaps for a soft drink. As I pulled out the equivalent of a dollar his eyes brightened and he ran to tell his friends!

God sent Jose to me that day with this message: “Max, you cry over spilled champagne. You bellyache over frills, not the basics.” Jose gave me a lot for my dollar… he gave me a lesson on gratitude.

He doesn't give up WHY should you?

God Never Gives Up

God’s people often forget their God, but God never forgets them. When Joseph was dropped into a pit by his own brothers, God didn’t give up. When Moses said, “Here am I, send Aaron,” God didn’t give up. When the delivered Israelites wanted Egyptian slavery instead of milk and honey, God did not give up. When Aaron was making a false god at the very moment Moses was with the true God, God did not give up.

And when human hands fastened the divine hands of Jesus to a cross with spikes, it wasn’t the soldiers who held the hands of Jesus steady. It was God, the God who never gives up on his people, who held them steady. He held them to the cross where, with holy blood, the divine hand wrote these words, “God would give up His only son before He’d ever give up on you!” (John 3:16)

from Six Hours One Friday

PRAY...Do It Again....REPEAT

Your Prayers Matter Because You Do




When I was a high schooler, my friends and I spent a Friday night in a part of the county where we did not belong. As far as my parents knew, I was at the local ice creamery enjoying a treat with my friends. Actually, we were twenty miles away from home, in the country, looking for fun on a country road. We didn’t have fun. Instead, we had a flat. The spare tire was flat, too. We had no other option except to call my dad. I rousted him out of bed at the midnight hour.

He drove his truck out into the back roads and found us. We fixed the tire and drove home. When we reached the house he sat me down in the living room and gave me a good talk. He took away my car keys. He took away my privileges. But then, surprisingly, he took away my fear by saying, “Max, I’m upset with you.

But I understand the temptations. I remember what it is like to be a teenager.”

Dad, a teen? Shocking thought. But he remembered.

God, a human? Stunning truth. But he remembers. “We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.” (Hebrews 4:15 MSG) There is never a time that he responds to your prayer with this thought: “I just don’t get it.”

He knows how you feel.

And, this is huge, “he knows what you need before you ask him.” (Mt. 6:8) You don’t have to write your own prescription. God doesn’t need our counsel or advice. “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.” (Isa. 65:24)

People sometimes say, “Be careful what you pray for, God will give it to you.” Hogwash. If you don’t need it, he won’t give it. He loves you too much to give you the wrong answer. Is God no more than a computer, programmed to respond to the data you enter? By no means! He is your Father who says: “I know the thoughts I think towards you…thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope…call upon me and pray to me and I will listen to you.” (Jer. 29:11)

Prayer is only as good as God is. Since he is good, so is prayer. Prayer works because he does. Prayer changes things because God changes things. Prayer makes a difference because God has determined to make a difference. Prayer matters because you matter to God.

© 2012 Max Lucado

Give and you Get

God Gave His Best

Jenna, wake up. It’s time to go to school. For four lightning-fast years she’d been ours, and ours alone. And now that was all going to change. I knew it was time. And I knew she would be fine. But I never knew it would be so hard to give her up on her first day of preschool.

Is that how you felt, God? Is what I felt that morning anything like what you felt when you gave up your son? It explains how your heart must have ached as you heard the cracking voice of Jesus say, “Father take this cup away.” (Mark 14:36).

I said good-bye and sent my little Jenna into a safe environment with a compassionate teacher ready to wipe away any tears. Yet, you Father, released Jesus into a hostile arena with a cruel soldier who turned the back of your son into raw meat.

God gave His best, the apostle Paul reasons. Why should we ever doubt His love?

from Six Hours One Friday

Look Up

Is Heaven for Me?

My friend Joy teaches children in an inner city church. Her class is a lively group of nine-year-olds. There’s one exception—a timid girl named Barbara. Her difficult home life had left her afraid and insecure. She never spoke. Never. Always present. Always listening. Always speechless. Until the day Joy talked about heaven—about seeing God. About tearless eyes and deathless lives. Barbara raised her hand. “Mrs. Joy? Is heaven for girls like me?”

I would’ve given a thousand sunsets to have seen Jesus’ face as this tiny prayer reached His throne. A prayer to do what God does best: To take a pebble and kill a Goliath. To take a peasant boy’s lunch and fed a multitude. To take three spikes and a wooden beam and make them the hope of humanity. To take the common and make it spectacular!

from Six Hours One Friday

Weary?

Because of What He Did


Few things can weary you more than the fast pace of the human race. Too many sprints for success. Too many days of doing whatever it takes eventually take their toll. You’re left gasping for air, holding your sides on the side of the track. You’re asking yourself, “When I get what I want, will it be worth the price I paid?”

It’s this weariness that makes the words of Jesus so compelling. “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28).

Come to Me. Why Him? He offers the invitation as a penniless rabbi in an oppressed nation. He has no political office. He hasn’t written a best-seller or earned a diploma. Yet they called Him Lord. They called Him Savior. Not so much because of what He said, but because of what He did. What He did—on the Cross! He did it for the weary people of this world.

from Six Hours One Friday