Song of Songs 3, and Devotionals

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Max Lucado Daily: Surprise!

“No one has ever seen this, and no one has ever heard about it. No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. Isaiah 64:4”

For my birthday recently, Denalyn planned a surprise family evening at a restaurant.  I knew about the restaurant part, but not about the half dozen families joining us.

It had been a lazy day and I wasn’t all that eager to go out, so I suggested we postpone dinner.  Boy, was I surprised!  My family made it clear.  We were going out to eat.  Not only that, we were leaving on time.

My attitude was “why hurry?”  My daughters’ attitude was “hurry up!”  Why the big deal?  Only when we arrived did it all make sense.

Surprise!

They knew what I hadn’t.  They knew about the party—and they did everything necessary to make sure I didn’t miss it.

Jesus does the same for us.  He knows about the party.  Jesus is happiest when the lost are found.  For him, no moment is greater than the moment of salvation!

Song of Songs 3

 1 All night long on my bed
   I looked for the one my heart loves;
   I looked for him but did not find him.
2 I will get up now and go about the city,
   through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
   So I looked for him but did not find him.
3 The watchmen found me
   as they made their rounds in the city.
   “Have you seen the one my heart loves?”
4 Scarcely had I passed them
   when I found the one my heart loves.
I held him and would not let him go
   till I had brought him to my mother’s house,
   to the room of the one who conceived me.
5 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you
   by the gazelles and by the does of the field:
Do not arouse or awaken love
   until it so desires.

 6 Who is this coming up from the wilderness
   like a column of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and incense
   made from all the spices of the merchant?
7 Look! It is Solomon’s carriage,
   escorted by sixty warriors,
   the noblest of Israel,
8 all of them wearing the sword,
   all experienced in battle,
each with his sword at his side,
   prepared for the terrors of the night.
9 King Solomon made for himself the carriage;
   he made it of wood from Lebanon.
10 Its posts he made of silver,
   its base of gold.
Its seat was upholstered with purple,
   its interior inlaid with love.
Daughters of Jerusalem, 11 come out,
   and look, you daughters of Zion.
Look[h] on King Solomon wearing a crown,
   the crown with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his wedding,
   the day his heart rejoiced.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Proverbs 4:1-7

Get Wisdom at Any Cost

 1 Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction;
   pay attention and gain understanding.
2 I give you sound learning,
   so do not forsake my teaching.
3 For I too was a son to my father,
   still tender, and cherished by my mother.
4 Then he taught me, and he said to me,
   “Take hold of my words with all your heart;
   keep my commands, and you will live.
5 Get wisdom, get understanding;
   do not forget my words or turn away from them.
6 Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you;
   love her, and she will watch over you.
7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get[a] wisdom.
   Though it cost all you have,[b] get understanding.

Cutting A Trail

April 24, 2012 — by David C. Egner

Hear, my children, the instruction of a father, and give attention to know understanding. —Proverbs 4:1

The Native Americans of Michigan were the state’s first highway route engineers. With few exceptions, Michigan’s major highways follow the trails they cut through the wilderness hundreds of years before the white man came. A trail was 12-18 inches wide, and for safety the people followed single file. Then pack horses followed these trails, widening them. Later came wagons, and the trails became dirt roads and then highways.

In a similar way, Solomon followed the trail of his father and in turn paved the way for his sons and grandsons. He did this by encouraging his sons to heed his instructions just as he had followed the sound teaching of his father (Prov. 4:4-5). So this father, giving his sons good practical and spiritual counsel, was passing on what he had learned from the boys’ grandfather, David, who was called a “man after [God’s] own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22). The younger generation of believers often learns best about God from the family.

Our physical and spiritual children watch the path we’re taking. As God’s men and women, let’s make certain we cut a righteous, wise, and clear trail. Then if ongoing generations choose to follow, the trail can become a highway—an ongoing legacy to God’s glory.

Lord, as I walk my path of life,
Help my feet step straight and true;
That those who follow after me,
Will be tracking straight with You. —Egner
When we follow God, we blaze a trail
for those who would follow.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
April 24, 2012

The Warning Against Desiring Spiritual Success

Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you . . . —Luke 10:20

Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go “outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:13). In Luke 10:20  , Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an “if,” never with the forceful or dogmatic statement— “You must.” Discipleship carries with it an option.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

The Two-Word Tranquilizer - #6597

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Some people have wall-to-wall carpet. Me? I have a wall-to-wall schedule. Maybe you do too. It was like that even when I had to take my daughter to college years ago. She had just returned from a missions trip to Manila and so had I. We had one day to get her to Chicago for college. Not only did we have to get her to school that day, but on that particular Friday, I had to produce some of these radio programs.

So I had to produce radio, deliver a daughter, I mean everything was perfectly timed. No room for anything to go wrong. And then we landed at O'Hare Airport to learn that there had been nine inches of rain over night. It closed the airport totally, flooded it closed. O'Hare was Camp O'Hare, an island for a day.

So, here were the five Hutchcrafts in a mountain of moving to college with luggage all around us. Well, my plans said I had to be at that radio studio. Uh... No, I didn't! My plan said my daughter had to be at college that day. Uh... No! In fact, thousands of people were fighting over telephones there (before cell phones) to change their plans. Every one of them probably had to be somewhere that day. No, they didn't! There are lots of days like that.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Two-Word Tranquilizer."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from James 4 - I'll begin at verse 13. "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this city or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, make money.'" Or take your daughter to college, do radio programs. You know. "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'"

Now, I have a confession to make. For years I have been a little turned off by the people who just, you know, kind of clichéishly say, "Lord willing" every other sentence. I said that was a confession; I do confess that. You know what? I'm actually beginning to understand the peace-giving power of those two words, "Lord willing."

James says here, "When you make your plans say, "If the Lord wills, we will." See, now, I'm a planner. I want to make every time, space, and every segment of my life count. So I schedule very well, and you should. Psalm 90:12 says, "Lord, teach us to number our days aright so we may apply our hearts to wisdom." But in our wall-to-wall schedules, we rule out God's right to re-schedule our day, to interrupt, to slow us down, to cancel, and He often does.


I began to realize how much of my own stress I create by not saying, "Lord, here's my list, here's my goal, here's my plan, here's my schedule. Now, Lord, you have every right to change it, and I'll assume if it changes, the changes are from you." There is so much frustration when car trouble wrecks the plan, or illness, or a tragedy you have to respond to, or a flooded airport. But I can avoid so much frustration if I allow the God of heaven to be the Lord of my almighty, untouchable schedule. And I do that with two words, "Lord willing" spoken or unspoken, but consciously recognizing the sovereignty of Almighty God.

You can actually relax if you'll turn over the schedules and the lists of your life to Him. "Lord willing." It is for us stress filled planners a powerful two-word tranquilizer.