Daily Devotional by Max Lucado
“the One who came still comes and the One who spoke still speaks”
February 8
Jesus had to be made like his brothers...so he could be their merciful and faithful high priest.
Hebrews 2:17 (NCV)
Jesus displays the bad apples of his family tree in the first chapter of the New Testament....
Rahab was a Jericho harlot....David had a personality as irregular as a Picasso painting--one day writing psalms, another day seducing his captain's wife. But did Jesus erase his name from the list? Not at all....
If your family tree has bruised fruit, then Jesus wants you to know, "I've been there."
1 Kings 6
Solomon Builds the Temple
1 In the four hundred and eightieth [a] year after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, the second month, he began to build the temple of the LORD.
2 The temple that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high. [b] 3 The portico at the front of the main hall of the temple extended the width of the temple, that is twenty cubits, [c] and projected ten cubits [d] from the front of the temple. 4 He made narrow clerestory windows in the temple. 5 Against the walls of the main hall and inner sanctuary he built a structure around the building, in which there were side rooms. 6 The lowest floor was five cubits [e] wide, the middle floor six cubits [f] and the third floor seven. [g] He made offset ledges around the outside of the temple so that nothing would be inserted into the temple walls.
7 In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built.
8 The entrance to the lowest [h] floor was on the south side of the temple; a stairway led up to the middle level and from there to the third. 9 So he built the temple and completed it, roofing it with beams and cedar planks. 10 And he built the side rooms all along the temple. The height of each was five cubits, and they were attached to the temple by beams of cedar.
11 The word of the LORD came to Solomon: 12 "As for this temple you are building, if you follow my decrees, carry out my regulations and keep all my commands and obey them, I will fulfill through you the promise I gave to David your father. 13 And I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon my people Israel."
14 So Solomon built the temple and completed it. 15 He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of pine. 16 He partitioned off twenty cubits [i] at the rear of the temple with cedar boards from floor to ceiling to form within the temple an inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. 17 The main hall in front of this room was forty cubits [j] long. 18 The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers. Everything was cedar; no stone was to be seen.
19 He prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there. 20 The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty wide and twenty high. [k] He overlaid the inside with pure gold, and he also overlaid the altar of cedar. 21 Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold. 22 So he overlaid the whole interior with gold. He also overlaid with gold the altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary.
23 In the inner sanctuary he made a pair of cherubim of olive wood, each ten cubits [l] high. 24 One wing of the first cherub was five cubits long, and the other wing five cubits—ten cubits from wing tip to wing tip. 25 The second cherub also measured ten cubits, for the two cherubim were identical in size and shape. 26 The height of each cherub was ten cubits. 27 He placed the cherubim inside the innermost room of the temple, with their wings spread out. The wing of one cherub touched one wall, while the wing of the other touched the other wall, and their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. 28 He overlaid the cherubim with gold.
29 On the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers. 30 He also covered the floors of both the inner and outer rooms of the temple with gold.
31 For the entrance of the inner sanctuary he made doors of olive wood with five-sided jambs. 32 And on the two olive wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with beaten gold. 33 In the same way he made four-sided jambs of olive wood for the entrance to the main hall. 34 He also made two pine doors, each having two leaves that turned in sockets. 35 He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.
36 And he built the inner courtyard of three courses of dressed stone and one course of trimmed cedar beams.
37 The foundation of the temple of the LORD was laid in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv. 38 In the eleventh year in the month of Bul, the eighth month, the temple was finished in all its details according to its specifications. He had spent seven years building it.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Psalm 8
For the director of music. According to gittith [a].
A psalm of David.
1 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.
2 From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise [b]
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [c]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
February 8, 2009
Breathless
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READ: Psalm 8
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Your glory be above all the earth. —Psalm 57:5
When was the last time something took your breath away because of its majesty?
I’m not talking about an electronic gadget or some special effects in a movie. I’m talking about a nighttime sky show such as an eclipse of the moon. Or walking outside on a starry night to see Orion or Pleiades—constellations mentioned thousands of years ago in Scripture (Amos 5:8) that are still glowing today for our enjoyment. I’m speaking of a bursting dawn that radiates with glorious colors to signal another sunrise. Or the sound and light show that accompanies God’s way of watering the earth with food-producing rain (Job 36:27-33).
Have you stood by a fence and marveled at the power of a horse as it gallops gallantly through the field, mane flowing and hoofs pounding? (39:19-25). Or watched a soaring, swooping eagle drop from the sky because his God-designed vision has sighted supper from his mountain-peak nest? (39:27-30).
At creation, God gave man breath. Then he took man’s breath away with the beauty, grandeur, and eloquence of a universe of marvels created by His own hand. Look around. Examine what God has done. Then, breathless, proclaim His majesty. — Dave Branon
The wonder of creation speaks
To everyone in different ways;
But those who know and love the Lord
Can for His handiwork give praise. —Sper
All creation is an outstretched finger pointing toward God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
February 8, 2009
The Cost of Sanctification
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READ:
May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely . . . —1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray, asking God to sanctify us, are we prepared to measure up to what that really means? We take the word sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared to pay the cost of sanctification? The cost will be a deep restriction of all our earthly concerns, and an extensive cultivation of all our godly concerns. Sanctification means to be intensely focused on God’s point of view. It means to secure and to keep all the strength of our body, soul, and spirit for God’s purpose alone. Are we really prepared for God to perform in us everything for which He separated us? And after He has done His work, are we then prepared to separate ourselves to God just as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself . . ." ( John 17:19 ). The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God’s perspective. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the nature that controlled Him will control us. Are we really prepared for what that will cost? It will cost absolutely everything in us which is not of God.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the full meaning of Paul’s prayer in this verse? Are we prepared to say, "Lord, make me, a sinner saved by grace, as holy as You can"? Jesus prayed that we might be one with Him, just as He is one with the Father (see John 17:21-23 ). The resounding evidence of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is the unmistakable family likeness to Jesus Christ, and the freedom from everything which is not like Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit’s work in us?
