1 Kings 9 Bible reading and Devotionals.

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Max Lucado Daily: Which Matters Most?

As we took communion one Sunday morning, I heard a small boy asking, “What’s that, Daddy?”

The father explained the meaning of the bread.  Then he prayed.  The boy was quiet until the cup was passed.  “What’s that daddy?”  His father again explained.  Then he prayed.

I chuckled at the colossal task the father was tackling.  When I turned to give him a knowing nod, I realized it was David Robinson, NBA basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs.  On his lap was his six-year-old son.  Less that 24 hours earlier David had led the Spurs in scoring in a playoff game.  In 24 hours he’d be doing the same in Phoenix.  But sandwiched between nationally televised, high-stakes contests was David, the dad—-explaining communion to David, the son.


Which matters most?  What will make the biggest difference?  Watching his dad play basketball or hearing him whisper a prayer?

1 Kings 9

The Lord Appears to Solomon

9 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, 2 the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 The Lord said to him:

“I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.

4 “As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, 5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’

6 “But if you[a] or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you[b] and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 8 This temple will become a heap of rubble. All[c] who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 9 People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.’”

Solomon’s Other Activities

10 At the end of twenty years, during which Solomon built these two buildings—the temple of the Lord and the royal palace— 11 King Solomon gave twenty towns in Galilee to Hiram king of Tyre, because Hiram had supplied him with all the cedar and juniper and gold he wanted. 12 But when Hiram went from Tyre to see the towns that Solomon had given him, he was not pleased with them. 13 “What kind of towns are these you have given me, my brother?” he asked. And he called them the Land of Kabul,[d] a name they have to this day. 14 Now Hiram had sent to the king 120 talents[e] of gold.

15 Here is the account of the forced labor King Solomon conscripted to build the Lord’s temple, his own palace, the terraces,[f] the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. 16 (Pharaoh king of Egypt had attacked and captured Gezer. He had set it on fire. He killed its Canaanite inhabitants and then gave it as a wedding gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife. 17 And Solomon rebuilt Gezer.) He built up Lower Beth Horon, 18 Baalath, and Tadmor[g] in the desert, within his land, 19 as well as all his store cities and the towns for his chariots and for his horses[h]—whatever he desired to build in Jerusalem, in Lebanon and throughout all the territory he ruled.

20 There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites). 21 Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the Israelites could not exterminate[i] —to serve as slave labor, as it is to this day. 22 But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. 23 They were also the chief officials in charge of Solomon’s projects—550 officials supervising those who did the work.

24 After Pharaoh’s daughter had come up from the City of David to the palace Solomon had built for her, he constructed the terraces.

25 Three times a year Solomon sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings on the altar he had built for the Lord, burning incense before the Lord along with them, and so fulfilled the temple obligations.

26 King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.[j] 27 And Hiram sent his men—sailors who knew the sea—to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men. 28 They sailed to Ophir and brought back 420 talents[k] of gold, which they delivered to King Solomon.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Galatians 2:1-10

Paul Is Accepted by the Apostles

 1 Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem. This time I went with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went because God showed me what he wanted me to do. I told the people there the good news that I preach among those who aren't Jews. But I spoke in private to those who seemed to be leaders. I was afraid that I was running or had run my race for nothing.
 3 Titus was with me. He was a Greek. But even he was not forced to be circumcised.

 4 That matter came up because some who pretended to be believers had slipped in among us. They wanted to find out about the freedom we have because we belong to Christ Jesus. They wanted to make us slaves again.

 5 We didn't give in to them for a moment. We wanted the truth of the good news to remain with you.

 6 Some people in Jerusalem seemed to be important. It makes no difference to me what they were. God does not judge by what he sees on the outside. Those people added nothing to my message.

 7 In fact, it was just the opposite. They saw that I had been trusted with the task of preaching the good news just as Peter had been. My task was to preach to the non-Jews. Peter's task was to preach to the Jews. 8 God was working through Peter as an apostle to the Jews. He was also working through me as an apostle to the non-Jews.

 9 James, Peter and John are considered to be pillars in the church. They recognized the special grace that was given to me. So they shook my hand and the hand of Barnabas. They wanted to show they accepted us. They agreed that we should go to the non-Jews. They would go to the Jews. 10 They asked only one thing. They wanted us to continue to remember poor people. That was what I really wanted to do anyway.

A Sense Of Concern

May 11, 2012 — by Bill Crowder

He who oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker, but he who honors Him has mercy on the needy. —Proverbs 14:31

Statistics are tricky. While numbers give us information, sometimes they can also desensitize us to the people those numbers represent. This hit me recently as I read a statistic: Every year 15 million people die from hunger. That’s chilling, and for those of us who live in cultures of plenty, it’s hard to fathom. In 2008, nearly 9 million children died before their fifth birthday, with a third of those deaths related to hunger. These are staggering numbers, but they are much more than numbers. They are individuals loved by God.

We can show the Father’s heart of love by responding to people’s physical needs. Solomon wrote, “He who oppresses the poor reproaches his Maker, but he who honors Him has mercy on the needy” (Prov. 14:31). We can show mercy to the needy by volunteering at a soup kitchen, assisting in a job search, financially supporting the drilling of wells in places in need of fresh water, distributing food in poverty-stricken regions, teaching a trade, or providing lunches for school children.

Accepting this responsibility honors the Father and His concern for all. And those who are starving might be better able to hear the message of the cross if their stomachs aren’t growling.

If God ordained to give
One gift for all my days,
I’d want the way He loves
To permeate my ways. —Verway
The more we understand God’s love for us the more love we’ll show to others.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
May 10, 2012

. . . add to your . . . brotherly kindness love —2 Peter 1:5, 7

Love is an indefinite thing to most of us; we don’t know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the loftiest preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that this sovereign preference be for Himself (see Luke 14:26). Initially, when “the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5), it is easy to put Jesus first. But then we must practice the things mentioned in 2 Peter 1 to see them worked out in our lives.
The first thing God does is forcibly remove any insincerity, pride, and vanity from my life. And the Holy Spirit reveals to me that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now He commands me to show the same love to others by saying, “. . . love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12). He is saying, “I will bring a number of people around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just as I have exhibited it to you.” This kind of love is not a patronizing love for the unlovable— it is His love, and it will not be evidenced in us overnight. Some of us may have tried to force it, but we were soon tired and frustrated.
“The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish . . .” (2 Peter 3:9). I should look within and remember how wonderfully He has dealt with me. The knowledge that God has loved me beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the same way. I may get irritated because I have to live with an unusually difficult person. But just think how disagreeable I have been with God! Am I prepared to be identified so closely with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness will be continually poured out through Me? Neither natural love nor God’s divine love will remain and grow in me unless it is nurtured. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained through discipline.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Turning Hopeless to Hope - #6610

Friday, May 11, 2012

You might look at these 60 Native American and First Nations young people from 35 different tribes and you might not see anything miraculous until you hear their stories. The young man who buried 14 friends and loved ones and got lost in a haze of drugs and suicide thinking. The young woman raped by a trusted loved one and sexually abused by others. The young woman who felt reduced to nothing by a father who said, "You're a worthless mistake." She was crushed by her mother's suicide, and her father offered her a rope and said, "Why don't you go out and do what your mother did."

But it's a bus full of these very kinds of young people who I've seen God use to do what virtually no one has been able to do; to bring hundreds of Native young people to choose Jesus Christ. And over years I've seen them lead thousands to Christ and make missions history. When they pour out their stories, virtually everybody listens. And these are young people, who for the most part, listen to no one.

Now, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Turning Hopeless to Hope."

See, these weren't hopeless stories. We call them Hope Stories! Because of a Savior named Jesus, who has done what He promised He would do for broken people. It's in our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 61:1-3, and it may have your name on it today. He tells us, "(I will) bind up the brokenhearted, comfort all those who mourn, provide for those who grieve, bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor."

So, that "worthless" girl, who was told by a hateful father, "you need a man to take care of you." Well, I've heard her proclaim, "My Dad was right. I do need a man to take care of me, and I found one. His name is Jesus Christ, and He loved me enough to die for me." And it is her pain that gives her the credentials - or the "crud-entials," to be an unarguable proof of the power of a living Jesus.

But that's not unique to devastated but rescued Native young people. Why, it's the experience of any broken person who brings the whole stinking mess of their life; all the pieces, the sinning they've done, all the sinning done against them and lays it at the feet of Jesus.

Because the Bible says that "He was a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:3, 5). Oh, He knows grief! He knows pain! He knows the price of sin on a level that no human has ever experienced. And because of that, He has for 2,000 years invited hurting, broken sinners like me, and maybe like you, to find in Him the healing and the forgiveness and the love, and the heaven that only He can give.

And often it is our brokenness and it is our pain that makes us realize that no one on earth can fix us. And it causes us for the first time in our life, to reach out for a nail-pierced hand that belongs to Jesus, His arms open wide to receive you into His love this very day.


I would encourage you where you are now to bring all the pieces, all the sin, all the brokenness. Lay it at His feet and grab Him with both hands and say, "Jesus, I'm Yours, because nobody loves me like You do." I would love to help you know for sure that you've begun your relationship with Him, and I've tried to do that at our website, and I would encourage you to check it out today. It's YoursForLife.net. I hope you'll go there right away.

See, it's Jesus and Jesus alone who can make the worst things that ever happened to you a door to hope for a lot of other broken people. I know. I've seen it with my own eyes.