Song of Songs 4, Bible reading and Devotionals

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Max Lucado Daily: Whoever Includes You

“For God so loved the world He gave His only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16”

Whoever!  A word that is God’s wonderful word of welcome.

I love to hear my wife say, “whoever!”  Especially when I detect my favorite frangrance wafting from the kitchen:  strawberry cake!  I follow that smell like a bird dog follows a trail, until I’m standing over the just-baked pan of pure pleasure!  Yet, I’ve learned to still my fork until Denalyn gives clearance.

“Who is it for?”  I ask.  She might break my heart.  “It’s for a birthday party, Max, don’t touch it!”  Or “it’s for a friend.  Stay away!”

Or she might throw open the door of delight and say,  “Whoever!”  And since I qualify as a ‘whoever,” I say, “yes!”

I so hope you will too.  Not ‘yes’ to cake, but to God.  However.  Whenever.  Wherever.  Whoever includes you—forever!

Song of Songs 4

   He

 1 How beautiful you are, my darling!
   Oh, how beautiful!
   Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
   descending from the hills of Gilead.
2 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,
   coming up from the washing.
Each has its twin;
   not one of them is alone.
3 Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
   your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil
   are like the halves of a pomegranate.
4 Your neck is like the tower of David,
   built with courses of stone[a];
on it hang a thousand shields,
   all of them shields of warriors.
5 Your breasts are like two fawns,
   like twin fawns of a gazelle
   that browse among the lilies.
6 Until the day breaks
   and the shadows flee,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh
   and to the hill of incense.
7 You are altogether beautiful, my darling;
   there is no flaw in you.

 8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,
   come with me from Lebanon.
Descend from the crest of Amana,
   from the top of Senir, the summit of Hermon,
from the lions’ dens
   and the mountain haunts of leopards.
9 You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
   you have stolen my heart
with one glance of your eyes,
   with one jewel of your necklace.
10 How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
   How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your perfume
   more than any spice!
11 Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
   milk and honey are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments
   is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
12 You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
   you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
13 Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
   with choice fruits,
   with henna and nard,
 14 nard and saffron,
   calamus and cinnamon,
   with every kind of incense tree,
   with myrrh and aloes
   and all the finest spices.
15 You are[b] a garden fountain,
   a well of flowing water
   streaming down from Lebanon.

   She

 16 Awake, north wind,
   and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
   that its fragrance may spread everywhere.
Let my beloved come into his garden
   and taste its choice fruits.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion


Read: James 1:19-27

Listening and Doing

 19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

True Religion

April 26, 2012 — by Bill Crowder

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. —James 1:27

I recently saw an ad for a brand of clothing geared toward youth. It consists of blue jeans and all the accessories designed to go with them. There is nothing novel about that. What got my attention, however, was the name of this clothing line. It is called “True Religion.” That caused me to stop and think. Why was that name chosen? Am I missing some deeper significance? What is the connection between a brand of jeans and true religion? What do they mean by it? My musings left me with questions for which I had no answers.

I am thankful that the book of James is clear when describing true religion or true faith: “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (1:27). That is refreshing. “True religion”—genuine faith—is an expression of how we relate to our God. One evidence of our new identity in Christ is the way we care for one another—reaching to the most frail and vulnerable among us, to those most in need of help.

True religion is not a garment to be taken on and off. It is a lofty challenge about how we live before a holy God and others.

True religion is to know
The love that Christ imparts;
True religion is to show
His love to burdened hearts. —D. De Haan
You don’t advertise your religion by wearing a label—
you do it by living a life.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
April 26, 2012


The Supreme Climb

Take now your son . . . and offer him . . . as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you —Genesis 22:2

A person’s character determines how he interprets God’s will (see Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God’s command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this traditional belief behind through the pain of a tremendous ordeal. God could purify his faith in no other way. If we obey what God says according to our sincere belief, God will break us from those traditional beliefs that misrepresent Him. There are many such beliefs which must be removed-for example, that God removes a child because his mother loves him too much. That is the devil’s lie and a travesty on the true nature of God! If the devil can hinder us from taking the supreme climb and getting rid of our wrong traditional beliefs about God, he will do so. But if we will stay true to God, God will take us through an ordeal that will serve to bring us into a better knowledge of Himself.
The great lesson to be learned from Abraham’s faith in God is that he was prepared to do anything for God. He was there to obey God, no matter what contrary belief of his might be violated by his obedience. Abraham was not devoted to his own convictions or else he would have slain Isaac and said that the voice of the angel was actually the voice of the devil. That is the attitude of a fanatic. If you will remain true to God, God will lead you directly through every barrier and right into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself. But you must always be willing to come to the point of giving up your own convictions and traditional beliefs. Don’t ask God to test you. Never declare as Peter did that you are willing to do anything, even “to go . . . both to prison and to death” (Luke 22:33). Abraham did not make any such statement— he simply remained true to God, and God purified his faith.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Hurricane Heroes - #6599

Thursday, April 26, 2012

As Hurricane Irene took aim on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, I flashed back to an old white frame building there. And to the story I heard there that has followed me ever since.

Our family vacation took us to those beautiful Hatteras beaches and to the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station. That's where I heard about, and saw demonstrated by re-enactors, the heroism of the United States Life-Saving Service.

They call that stretch of shoreline the "Graveyard of the Atlantic." Hundreds of ships have gone down there, victims of that Cape's violent storms; it's treacherous shoals. But many who would have been buried in that "graveyard" made it out alive. Those people survived, because of the men of the Life-Saving Service. They call them the "surf men." They risk their lives again and again, heading into deadly storms in these little boats, to do whatever it took to save the people on a sinking ship.

The motto of the Life-Saving Service is tattooed on my soul: "You have to go out. You don't have to come back."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Hurricane Heroes."

Those guys have shown me the meaning of rescue - the life mission of my Jesus, because He came "to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10) He said. And in our word for today from the Word of God, John 20:20, Jesus says, "As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you." So, if you belong to Jesus, He is sending you into the surf and the storm to do what He did; to risk whatever you must to save a life.

The life-saving station is a great place to get strong for the rescue; to bring people back to when they've been rescued. But, you know, never in the history of the Life-Saving Service did anyone ever knock on the door and say, "I'm drowning. Could you please come and save me?" No! No, in every case, the rescuers had to leave the comfort of the life-saving station and go where the dying people were. Just like our Jesus. He left the greatest Comfort Zone in the universe to come to our "graveyard" to die.

So how can I, for whom He sacrificed so much, let my comfort and my fears decide what I will do? He has commanded me in Proverbs 24, to "rescue those who are being led away to death" (Proverbs 24:11).


And how much longer can we, as His Church, just keep waiting for the dying people to come to us? They're not. We have to take the life-saving Gospel of Jesus outside the walls of the life-saving station; to the street, to the office, to the plant, to the campus, the neighborhood, our service club, that nursing home, take it to the jail, take it to the gym. How can we be content any longer to sit inside our stained glass cocoon while just outside so many are dying in the storm?

We have to go out. We don't have to come back.