Hosea 12 and Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

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Max Lucado Daily: The Fort Knox of Faith

The Fort Knox of faith-is Christ!  Fellowship with Christ.  Walking with Him.  Pondering Him.  Exploring Him.  The heart-stopping realization that in Him you are part of something ancient, endless, unstoppable and unfathomable.  And the fact that He who can dig the Grand Canyon with His pinkie, thinks you're worth His death on Roman timber.
Christ is the reward of Christianity. Why else would Paul make Jesus his supreme desire?  He said, "I want to know Christ." (Philippians 3:10).
Scripture says, "We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another."  (2 Corinthians 3:18)  As we behold Him, we become like Him.
Do you desire the same? The cache of Christianity is Christ. Not money in the bank or a car in the garage or a healthy body or a better self-image.
The Fort Knox of faith-is Christ!
from Next Door Savior

Hosea 12

New International Version (NIV)
12 [a]1 Ephraim feeds on the wind;
    he pursues the east wind all day
    and multiplies lies and violence.
He makes a treaty with Assyria
    and sends olive oil to Egypt.
2 The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah;
    he will punish Jacob[b] according to his ways
    and repay him according to his deeds.
3 In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel;
    as a man he struggled with God.
4 He struggled with the angel and overcame him;
    he wept and begged for his favor.
He found him at Bethel
    and talked with him there—
5 the Lord God Almighty,
    the Lord is his name!
6 But you must return to your God;
    maintain love and justice,
    and wait for your God always.
7 The merchant uses dishonest scales
    and loves to defraud.
8 Ephraim boasts,
    “I am very rich; I have become wealthy.
With all my wealth they will not find in me
    any iniquity or sin.”
9 “I have been the Lord your God
    ever since you came out of Egypt;
I will make you live in tents again,
    as in the days of your appointed festivals.
10 I spoke to the prophets,
    gave them many visions
    and told parables through them.”
11 Is Gilead wicked?
    Its people are worthless!
Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal?
    Their altars will be like piles of stones
    on a plowed field.
12 Jacob fled to the country of Aram[c];
    Israel served to get a wife,
    and to pay for her he tended sheep.
13 The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt,
    by a prophet he cared for him.
14 But Ephraim has aroused his bitter anger;
    his Lord will leave on him the guilt of his bloodshed
    and will repay him for his contempt.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Ezekiel 34:11-16

New International Version (NIV)
11 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. 14 I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

Star Shepherd

May 23, 2013 — by David H. Roper

Why do you say, . . . “My way is hidden from the Lord”? —Isaiah 40:27

In the spring, shepherds in Idaho move their flocks from the lowlands into the mountains. Thousands of sheep move up the passes into the high country to summer pasture.

My wife and I came across a flock on Shaw Mountain last week. It was bedded down in a meadow by a quiet stream—a picturesque scene that evoked memories of Psalm 23.

But where was the shepherd? The sheep appeared to be alone—until a few broke away from the flock and began to wander toward a distant gully. Then we heard a shrill whistle from above. Looking up, we saw the shepherd sitting high on a hill above the sheep, keeping watch over his flock. A mountain dog and two Border collies stood at his side. The dogs, responding to the shepherd’s signal, bounded down the hill and herded the drifting sheep back to the flock where they belonged.

In the same way, the Good Shepherd is watching over you. Even though you cannot see Him, He can see you! He knows you by name and knows all about you. You are the sheep of His pasture (Ezek. 34:31). God promises that He will “seek out” His sheep, “feed them in good pasture,” and “bind up the broken” (vv.12,14,16).

You can trust in God’s watchful care.

I trust in God, I know He cares for me
On mountain bleak or on the stormy sea;
Though billows roll, He keeps my soul,
My heavenly Father watches over me. —Martin
The Lamb who died to save us is the Shepherd who lives to care for us.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
May 23, 2013

Our Careful Unbelief

. . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on —Matthew 6:25

Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, “Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?” And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.

“. . . do not worry about your life . . . .” Don’t take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No— “the cares of this world” (MatthewMatthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, “I will not trust when I cannot see”— and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.

The greatest word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

'Me Too' Won't Make It - #6879

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Albert Einstein's great-grandson doing a commercial? Yeah, well he did a few years ago. This particular auto manufacturer was showing that a new generation of drivers was choosing their make of car; not just their fathers and grandfathers. And he would go, "This is not my father's ___." No, I'm not going to name the car. They've got to pay for that. No, we don't do any commercials here.

But they also had the sons and daughters of famous people peeling out in their - shall we call it their new car X - sometimes with their father as a passenger. This is not my father's car X. Obviously some advertiser thought that they needed to develop a new market among the sons and daughters of the older generations who had bought that car. The next generation has to make their choice of how they're going to travel.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "'Me Too' Won't Make It."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Timothy 1:5. Paul was writing to his spiritual son in the faith, Timothy. He says, "I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice, and I am persuaded now lives in you also." Okay, here's a guy with a great heritage. He has a godly grandmother who has chosen Christ. He has a godly mother who knows Christ. And now, he says, "It's reached to you, Timothy. I remember your sincere faith." Even though Timothy had a great spiritual family, a great heritage, a great environment, that wasn't enough. It took his own, personal, sincere faith in Christ to bring it into his life. He couldn't hitchhike on a godly grandmother. He couldn't hitchhike on a godly mother.

That word sincere means in Latin, "without wax." It was used on plates that you'd buy at the market, or pottery that had not been patched up with wax by the merchant to cover up the cracks. When you held it up to the sunlight, really it was what it appeared to be. It was cynacera; it was sincere. It was without wax. Well, God is saying here, "Timothy, I know about your sincere, un-fake, first-hand stand-the-test faith.

See, you need to have a personal visit to the cross. You can't get by on somebody else's. You might be able to re-write the commercial and say, "This is not my mother's Christian faith. This is not my father's Christian faith." Possibly you've been trying to get by on a "me too" faith. Maybe you wonder why your efforts to live the Christian life keep collapsing. Maybe there's no foundation. Could it be that you've never begun with Christ yourself, or made a commitment? You've been coasting on your Christian environment instead of really digging into Jesus for yourself.

See, a "me too" faith won't make it in a world that's running away from God. You've got to have a faith that's skin like part of you, not like clothes you change for every different occasion. Maybe it's time for you to step out of the false security of a nice Christian environment. You need a Christian in-vironment. You need Christ in you, not around you. You don't need to rebel against your parent's commitment just to prove your individuality, you've got to find your own commitment to Christ...personal, powerful, and stronger than your parent's.

2 Corinthians 13:5 says, "Examine yourselves. See whether or not you are in the faith." You will not be able to get into heaven on your family's faith. Can you look at your commitment and say, "This is not my parent's Christian life, or my church's. Because you're going to crash if you try to drive someone else's faith. It's time for you to say, "Jesus, you loved me. You died for me. I'm making you my Savior, my Rescuer from my sin."

If you've never done that, would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Go to our website to make sure you know how you belong to Him. Go to YoursForLife.net. See, you've got to choose how you're going to travel and go from "me too" to "my personal Savior."