Judges 6, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals (Click to listen)

Max Lucado Daily: Too Incredible

“What do you think about the Christ?” Matthew 22:42

The idea that a virgin would be selected by God to bear himself . . . The notion that God would don a scalp and toes and two eyes . . . The thought that the King of the universe would sneeze and burp and get bit by mosquitoes . . . It’s too incredible. Too revolutionary. We would never create such a Savior. We aren’t that daring.

Judges 6

Gideon

1 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count them or their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.
7 When the Israelites cried out to the LORD because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians. And I delivered you from the hand of all your oppressors; I drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’ But you have not listened to me.”

11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.”

13 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? Where are all his wonders that our ancestors told us about when they said, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

14 The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

15 “Pardon me, my lord,” Gideon replied, “but how can I save Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.”

16 The LORD answered, “I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive.”

17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.”

And the LORD said, “I will wait until you return.”

19 Gideon went inside, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah[g] of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak.

20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. 21 Then the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, “Alas, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face!”

23 But the LORD said to him, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”

24 So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD Is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

25 That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old.[h] Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole[i] beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of[j] altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second[k] bull as a burnt offering.”

27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the townspeople, he did it at night rather than in the daytime.

28 In the morning when the people of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar!

29 They asked each other, “Who did this?”

When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”

30 The people of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it.”

31 But Joash replied to the hostile crowd around him, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” 32 So because Gideon broke down Baal’s altar, they gave him the name Jerub-Baal[l] that day, saying, “Let Baal contend with him.”

33 Now all the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples joined forces and crossed over the Jordan and camped in the Valley of Jezreel. 34 Then the Spirit of the LORD came on Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, summoning the Abiezrites to follow him. 35 He sent messengers throughout Manasseh, calling them to arms, and also into Asher, Zebulun and Naphtali, so that they too went up to meet them.

36 Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— 37 look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” 38 And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.

39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: 2 Chronicles 6:1-11

1 Then Solomon said, “The LORD has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud; 2 I have built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.”

3 While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned around and blessed them. 4 Then he said:

“Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who with his hands has fulfilled what he promised with his mouth to my father David. For he said, 5 ‘Since the day I brought my people out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built so that my Name might be there, nor have I chosen anyone to be ruler over my people Israel. 6 But now I have chosen Jerusalem for my Name to be there, and I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.’

7 “My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel. 8 But the LORD said to my father David, ‘You did well to have it in your heart to build a temple for my Name. 9 Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, your own flesh and blood—he is the one who will build the temple for my Name.’

10 “The LORD has kept the promise he made. I have succeeded David my father and now I sit on the throne of Israel, just as the LORD promised, and I have built the temple for the Name of the LORD, the God of Israel. 11 There I have placed the ark, in which is the covenant of the LORD that he made with the people of Israel.”

Promises You Can Bank On

August 18, 2011 — by Julie Ackerman Link

For all the promises of God in [Christ] are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. —2 Corinthians 1:20

After a global financial crisis, the US government enacted stricter laws to protect people from questionable banking practices. Banks had to change some of their policies to comply. To notify me of such changes, my bank sent me a letter. But when I got to the end I had more questions than answers. The use of phrases like “we may” and “at our discretion” certainly didn’t sound like anything I could depend on!
In contrast, the Old Testament quotes God as saying “I will” numerous times. God promises David: “I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever” (2 Sam. 7:12-13). No uncertainty in those words. Recognizing God’s faithfulness to His promises, King Solomon says in his prayer of dedication for the temple: “You have kept what You promised Your servant David my father; You have both spoken with Your mouth and fulfilled it with Your hand” (2 Chron. 6:15). Centuries later, the apostle Paul said that all of God’s promises are “yes” in Christ (2 Cor. 1:20).
In a world of uncertainty, our trust is in a faithful God who will always keep His promises.


Whatever trouble may assail,
Of this we can be sure:
God’s promises can never fail,
They always will endure. —Hess


Faith knows that God always performs what He promises.



My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 18th, 2011

Have You Ever Been Speechless with Sorrow?

When he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich —Luke 18:23

The rich young ruler went away from Jesus speechless with sorrow, having nothing to say in response to Jesus’ words. He had no doubt about what Jesus had said or what it meant, and it produced in him a sorrow with no words with which to respond. Have you ever been there? Has God’s Word ever come to you, pointing out an area of your life, requiring you to yield it to Him? Maybe He has pointed out certain personal qualities, desires, and interests, or possibly relationships of your heart and mind. If so, then you have often been speechless with sorrow. The Lord will not go after you, and He will not plead with you. But every time He meets you at the place where He has pointed, He will simply repeat His words, saying, “If you really mean what you say, these are the conditions.”
“Sell all that you have . . .” (Luke 18:22). In other words, rid yourself before God of everything that might be considered a possession until you are a mere conscious human being standing before Him, and then give God that. That is where the battle is truly fought— in the realm of your will before God. Are you more devoted to your idea of what Jesus wants than to Jesus Himself? If so, you are likely to hear one of His harsh and unyielding statements that will produce sorrow in you. What Jesus says is difficult— it is only easy when it is heard by those who have His nature in them. Beware of allowing anything to soften the hard words of Jesus Christ.
I can be so rich in my own poverty, or in the awareness of the fact that I am nobody, that I will never be a disciple of Jesus. Or I can be so rich in the awareness that I am somebody that I will never be a disciple. Am I willing to be destitute and poor even in my sense of awareness of my destitution and poverty? If not, that is why I become discouraged. Discouragement is disillusioned self-love, and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus— not love for Jesus Himself.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

A Thousand Invisible Mornings - #6419

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Every four years the Winter Olympics roll around, and every time I see them, this memory keeps flashing back in my brain. I'm not sure which looms larger to me, the Olympic memory or the lesson I learned from it.

I remember it was a February some years ago. I was speaking at a conference in Holland, and the Winter Olympics were going on in Europe that year. But they just...well, they weren't on my radar. I didn't much care; I was busy speaking there. But something happened on the afternoon I had the TV on in my room and I was getting dressed for the next meeting. Oh, the commentary was all in Dutch, which was like all Greek to me, until the announcer spoke a name that I recognized.

In high school, she was active in a Christian campus club that I directed. She heard about Jesus there, and she eventually made a personal commitment to Him. I hadn't seen her since she was in high school until that afternoon in Holland. And there she was, an Olympic ice skater, representing the U.S. Now, when I think Winter Olympics, I remember the amazing surprise of seeing what that young woman had become.

And I actually wasn't totally surprised, because I knew her when the Olympics couldn't have been more than a distant dream for her when she was a teenager, paying the price to be a champion. Every morning of the week, I remember, while her fellow students were still counting Z's, she was at the local ice rink, practicing, and practicing, and practicing. While her friends were relaxing during the summer, she was in a Colorado training program, working and working.

At one point, the teenage blonde who became an Olympian was in the rink when a tornado hit. She was seriously injured. The roof collapsed. She battled back from that injury to practice and work even harder, every morning at 5:00 A.M.

During those European Olympics, the world saw her in all her Olympic glory. We knew her long before that, and we knew how she got there--through a thousand invisible mornings where she paid the price to be a champion. No one saw her; no one knew or cared if she was at that rink, but she just kept showing up.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Thousand Invisible Mornings."

It turns out that the secret of being a spiritual champion is pretty much the same--a thousand invisible mornings with Jesus. He set the example by showing up morning after morning to spend time with His Father. Our word for today from the word of God in Mark 3:14 explains that when He called the men He would build His life's work on, it says, "He appointed twelve, (and here was their job) that they might be with Him." The first job of a disciple-be with Jesus. It must have worked. When the men who helped crucify Jesus hauled Peter and John in for questioning it says, "...they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus" ({bible}Acts 4:13{bible}).

You can tell when someone's spent a lot of time with Jesus. There's something magnetic about them. They have this authority, this confidence, this power, this caring. People become like the people they hang out with, and when you hang out with Jesus, you become more and more like Him.

Why are there so many Christians who have a head full of Jesus, but live such ordinary, even hypocritical lives? Why do so many of us have a roller coaster faith, with occasional glorious highs that punctuate long stretches of this bland mediocrity? Because we won't pay the price to be a champion.


That price is to make our daily time with Jesus non-negotiable; the anchor of our daily schedule; the "sun" around which all the other "planets" of our life must revolve. Christian meetings and events won't do it. Great Bible teaching, Christian fellowship, they won't do it. There simply is no substitute for the love-driven discipline of spending time with Jesus yourself. We meet Him in His Book. It's the love letter that enables us to be with Him until we can be really with Him in heaven.

A vibrant, powerful relationship with Jesus Christ is rooted in those thousand invisible mornings with Jesus. No one will know if you show up, except Jesus. But if you do show up consistently, people will notice the difference and be strangely drawn to the Jesus in you. He'll show up tomorrow morning, as He has every morning since you met Him. Be there.