Judges 13, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals (Click to listen)

Max Lucado Daily: Nearer Than You Think

“Whoever is wise will . . . think about the love of the Lord.” Psalm 107:43

Aging? A necessary process to pass on to a better world.

Death? Merely a brief passage, a tunnel . . .

The next time you find yourself alone in a dark alley facing the undeniables of life, don’t cover them with a blanket, or ignore them with a nervous grin. Don’t turn up the TV and pretend they aren’t there. Instead, stand still, whisper God’s name, and listen. He is nearer than you think.

Judges 13

The Birth of Samson

1 Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
2 A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. 3 The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. 4 Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. 5 You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

6 Then the woman went to her husband and told him, “A man of God came to me. He looked like an angel of God, very awesome. I didn’t ask him where he came from, and he didn’t tell me his name. 7 But he said to me, ‘You will become pregnant and have a son. Now then, drink no wine or other fermented drink and do not eat anything unclean, because the boy will be a Nazirite of God from the womb until the day of his death.’”

8 Then Manoah prayed to the LORD: “Pardon your servant, Lord. I beg you to let the man of God you sent to us come again to teach us how to bring up the boy who is to be born.”

9 God heard Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman while she was out in the field; but her husband Manoah was not with her. 10 The woman hurried to tell her husband, “He’s here! The man who appeared to me the other day!”

11 Manoah got up and followed his wife. When he came to the man, he said, “Are you the man who talked to my wife?”

“I am,” he said.

12 So Manoah asked him, “When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule that governs the boy’s life and work?”

13 The angel of the LORD answered, “Your wife must do all that I have told her. 14 She must not eat anything that comes from the grapevine, nor drink any wine or other fermented drink nor eat anything unclean. She must do everything I have commanded her.”

15 Manoah said to the angel of the LORD, “We would like you to stay until we prepare a young goat for you.”

16 The angel of the LORD replied, “Even though you detain me, I will not eat any of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, offer it to the LORD.” (Manoah did not realize that it was the angel of the LORD.)

17 Then Manoah inquired of the angel of the LORD, “What is your name, so that we may honor you when your word comes true?”

18 He replied, “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.[a]” 19 Then Manoah took a young goat, together with the grain offering, and sacrificed it on a rock to the LORD. And the LORD did an amazing thing while Manoah and his wife watched: 20 As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. 21 When the angel of the LORD did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that it was the angel of the LORD.

22 “We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God!”

23 But his wife answered, “If the LORD had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands, nor shown us all these things or now told us this.”

24 The woman gave birth to a boy and named him Samson. He grew and the LORD blessed him, 25 and the Spirit of the LORD began to stir him while he was in Mahaneh Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Exodus 14:1-14

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. 3 Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ 4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD.” So the Israelites did this.

5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, “What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!” 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 7 He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. 8 The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. 9 The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen[a] and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.

10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

A Matter Of Perspective

August 29, 2011 — by David C. McCasland

I will gain honor over Pharaoh and over all his army, that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord. —Exodus 14:4

Are you part of the problem or part of the solution? Whether that question is posed during a business meeting, a church council, or a family discussion, it often springs from a sense of exasperation in trying to comprehend why someone has acted in a certain way. More often than not, the answer is a matter of perspective.
If we had been among the Israelites leaving Egypt after 400 years of slavery, we would likely have seen Pharaoh as part of the problem—and he was. Yet God saw something more.
Inexplicably, the Lord told Moses to take the people back toward Egypt and camp with their backs to the Red Sea so Pharaoh would attack them (Ex. 14:1-3). The Israelites thought they were going to die, but God said that He would gain glory and honor for Himself through Pharaoh and all his army, “and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord” (vv.4,17-18).
When we simply cannot understand why God allows circumstances that threaten to overwhelm us, it’s good to remember that He has our good and His glory in mind. If we can say, “Father, please enable me to trust and honor You in this situation,” then we will be in concert with His perspective and plan.


Your words of pure, eternal truth
Shall yet unshaken stay,
When all that man has thought or planned,
Like chaff shall pass away. —Anon.


Faith helps us to accept what we cannot understand.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 29th, 2011

The Unsurpassed Intimacy of Tested Faith

Jesus said to her, ’Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?’ —John 11:40

Every time you venture out in your life of faith, you will find something in your circumstances that, from a commonsense standpoint, will flatly contradict your faith. But common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense. In fact, they are as different as the natural life and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture out with courage on the words of Jesus Christ, while the realities of your commonsense life continue to shout, “It’s all a lie”? When you are on the mountaintop, it’s easy to say, “Oh yes, I believe God can do it,” but you have to come down from the mountain to the demon-possessed valley and face the realities that scoff at your Mount-of-Transfiguration belief (see Luke 9:28-42). Every time my theology becomes clear to my own mind, I encounter something that contradicts it. As soon as I say, “I believe ’God shall supply all [my] need,’ ” the testing of my faith begins (Philippians 4:19). When my strength runs dry and my vision is blinded, will I endure this trial of my faith victoriously or will I turn back in defeat?
Faith must be tested, because it can only become your intimate possession through conflict. What is challenging your faith right now? The test will either prove your faith right, or it will kill it. Jesus said, “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me” Matthew 11:6). The ultimate thing is confidence in Jesus. “We have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end . . .” (Hebrews 3:14). Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God— trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us (see Hebrews 13:5-6).


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Two Goats and Good Friday - #6426

Monday, August 29, 2011

Okay, I wasn't expecting a goat to be my teacher. But something kind of special happened. A good friend of ours helped a new baby goat come into the world. You might say he was "kidding" around. But you shouldn't say that.

Right after this little wobbly thing arrived; his mother ran off and abandoned him. (Which unfortunately is a sad picture of what happens to some human children.) Well, anyway, that's when Sandy, the Great Pyrenees guard dog, came to the rescue. Our friend tried to remedy this heartbreaking situation by leaving the baby in a grassy area, near where the little guy had arrived. Nope! No deal. Then, Sandy went over to the newborn and the dog started licking off the little goat's birth residue.

The barnyard drama culminated as Sandy, who now was carrying that little guy's scent, gently nudged the mother over to her baby. And they ended up walking over there together, and mama goat got the point. Her mom instinct finally kicked in; she started licking her kid. Now, in the animal kingdom, when you give your kid a licking, I guess that's a nice thing.

That's the time my grandson weighed in. When he heard about this, and he heard about how the guard dog had lovingly intervened, his instinctive response was, "Well, that's just like Jesus!" I had two reactions. First, "Wow, he's right." Second, "Why didn't I think of that?"

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Two Goats and Good Friday."

Our grandson explained that he saw that the baby was us, the mother was God and the dog who came to the rescue represented Jesus. Okay, now that does need a little theological tweaking, because it wasn't God who walked away from me. It was me who walked away from God. Or as the Bible says, "All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own" (Isaiah 53:6 - NLB). In a word, that's sin. Fact is, God and I were hopelessly apart. Away from our Father's love, we just wander all alone and clueless.

Then Jesus came. And here's what the Bible says in our word for today from the Word of God. It's found in 1 Timothy 2:5. It says, "There is only one God and there is one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity--the man Christ Jesus. He gave His life to purchase freedom for everyone." One person who can bring God--a holy, perfect, sinless God--together with a guy like me, who has broken God's laws, run my life my way, and tried to act like I was my own god; only one person who could do that, and that's the person who died to bring us together. That is Jesus; one mediator who can reconcile God and humanity.

So, from a barnyard birth drama--from a dog and a couple of goats--yeah, I got a glimpse of Good Friday. Jesus is hanging on that cruel cross, and I can almost see Him with one nail-pierced hand in God's hand and the other hand reaching for me to bring us together.

You know, when He was reaching for God, He was reaching for you too. It was your sin He was paying for you too. And this very day He's nudging you, pushing you in the direction of the God you were made by and the God you were made for. There's nobody else who can get you to Him, because nobody else died to pay for the sin that separates you from Him.

And this day I believe your heart is restless for the God who made you. You have a loneliness that's a cosmic loneliness. You're lonely for God. You ready for that relationship you were made for? Well, tell Him that, "Jesus, I have sinned. I have broken Your laws. I have wandered away. I want to come to You in total faith, believing that when You died You died for me, and that You are alive because You walked out of Your grave. You are my Savior from this day on."


Our website is really there to be there for you at a time like this of beginning with Jesus. A lot of good information there that will help you get started with Him. YoursForLife.net. I hope you'll check it out.

Yeah, you're being nudged in the direction of the God who made you today, so you can experience the love that your life depends on.