2 Chronicles 5 bible reading and devotionals.

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Max Lucado Daily:No Room

Some of the saddest words on earth are:  “We don’t have room for you.”

Jesus knew the sound of those words.  He was still in Mary’s womb when the innkeeper said, “We don’t have room for you.” (Luke 2:7)

And when he was hung on the cross, wasn’t the message one of utter rejection?  “We don’t have room for you in our world.”

Even today Jesus is given the same treatment.  He goes from heart to heart, asking if he might enter. Every so often, he’s welcomed.  Someone throws open the door of his or her heart and invites him to stay.  And to that person Jesus gives this great promise: “In my Father’s house are many rooms.” (John 14:2)

What a delightful promise he makes us! We make room for him in our hearts….And he makes room for us in his house!

From Grace for the Moment

5 When all the work Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was finished, he brought in the things his father David had dedicated—the silver and gold and all the furnishings—and he placed them in the treasuries of God’s temple.

The Ark Brought to the Temple

2 Then Solomon summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the chiefs of the Israelite families, to bring up the ark of the Lord’s covenant from Zion, the City of David. 3 And all the Israelites came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month.

4 When all the elders of Israel had arrived, the Levites took up the ark, 5 and they brought up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the sacred furnishings in it. The Levitical priests carried them up; 6 and King Solomon and the entire assembly of Israel that had gathered about him were before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and cattle that they could not be recorded or counted.

7 The priests then brought the ark of the Lord’s covenant to its place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, the Most Holy Place, and put it beneath the wings of the cherubim. 8 The cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark and covered the ark and its carrying poles. 9 These poles were so long that their ends, extending from the ark, could be seen from in front of the inner sanctuary, but not from outside the Holy Place; and they are still there today. 10 There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.

11 The priests then withdrew from the Holy Place. All the priests who were there had consecrated themselves, regardless of their divisions. 12 All the Levites who were musicians—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun and their sons and relatives—stood on the east side of the altar, dressed in fine linen and playing cymbals, harps and lyres. They were accompanied by 120 priests sounding trumpets. 13 The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the Lord. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the Lord and sang:

“He is good;
    his love endures forever.”
Then the temple of the Lord was filled with the cloud, 14 and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the temple of God.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Proverbs 16:19-24

English Standard Version (ESV)
19 It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor
    than to divide the spoil with the proud.
20 Whoever gives thought to the word[a] will discover good,
    and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.
21 The wise of heart is called discerning,
    and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness.
22 Good sense is a fountain of life to him who has it,
    but the instruction of fools is folly.
23 The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious
    and adds persuasiveness to his lips.
24 Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
    sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

Sweet Words

December 21, 2012 — by Anne Cetas

Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering. —Colossians 3:12

Scott had always admired the relationship between Ken and Phyllis, his wife’s parents. So he asked them one day what made their marriage work. Ken replied, “You need to keep it sweet!”

A friend of mine concludes many of her notes to me and my husband and other friends with these words: “Remember to be good to each other.”

That’s great advice from both of them about being kind. The daily stresses of life can easily cause us to get irritable with our spouses or with others. We pick at the little annoyances or criticize minor habits. We blurt out harmful, unkind words without thinking.

The book of Proverbs gives us counsel about the words we use with others. It says, “Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles” (21:23). And there are these warnings: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (18:21); and “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing” (12:18 niv). Ken’s advice about “keeping it sweet” reminds me of Proverbs 16:24, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.”

Lord, fill our hearts with words that will be a blessing to others today.

Instead of hurling angry words
That wound and stir up strife,
Use words of kindness, filled with love,
That heal and nourish life. —Sper
Kind hearts are the gardens; kind thoughts are the roots; kind words are the flowers; kind deeds are the fruits.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
December 21.

Experience or God’s Revealed Truth?

We have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God —1 Corinthians 2:12

My experience is not what makes redemption real— redemption is reality. Redemption has no real meaning for me until it is worked out through my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of God takes me beyond myself and my experiences, and identifies me with Jesus Christ. If I am left only with my personal experiences, I am left with something not produced by redemption. But experiences produced by redemption prove themselves by leading me beyond myself, to the point of no longer paying any attention to experiences as the basis of reality. Instead, I see that only the reality itself produced the experiences. My experiences are not worth anything unless they keep me at the Source of truth— Jesus Christ.

If you try to hold back the Holy Spirit within you, with the desire of producing more inner spiritual experiences, you will find that He will break the hold and take you again to the historic Christ. Never support an experience which does not have God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions or insights you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you place your experiences above Him? Is any experience dearer to you than your Lord? You must allow Him to be Lord over you, and pay no attention to any experience over which He is not Lord. Then there will come a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience, and you can truthfully say, “I do not care what I experience— I am sure of Him!”

Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God’s revealed truth is the only faith there is.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Surprises in the Family Tree - #6770

Friday, December 21, 2012

There are lots of people digging into their family tree these days. In fact, we've done some of our own. A lot of digging around to find out where your roots are. You know, where my grandfather came from and my great grandfather, and which king or famous person I'm descended from. Of course I would be descended from someone famous, right?

Some people do find out that they are related to royalty, and then other people find out some embarrassment in their family tree - the old horse thief, you know, that they'd rather not talk about. For 2,000 years God has been developing and protecting a line for His Son to come through, and there are in that family tree some eyebrow raisers.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Surprises in the Family Tree."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God, comes right out of the Christmas Story, is found in Matthew 1. Now, you may or may not be aware of the fact that the Christmas Story begins actually with a genealogy; a list of Jesus' family tree. God's been preparing this line for the Messiah; it's this most special lineup of people - the most special family tree in the history of planet earth. He goes down a long list of names that starts here with Abraham, works its way on down, and I'll just read a couple of them to you.

"Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth," etc. You probably don't want to hear a whole lot more of that. But all of a sudden you stop and your eye goes back and you say, "Rahab? What's she doing in Jesus' family tree?" Now, in most of this genealogy only the father is mentioned. It's only in rare cases where God wants to make a special point of it that He includes the mother. Why Rahab?

Now, if you remember your Old Testament a little bit, some years before, the Israelites were preparing to conquer the land of Canaan. God sent in a couple of spies and they went to the city of Jericho and they found one home where they were taken in to hide, and it turned out it was the home of Rahab - the prostitute. She turned out to be the prostitute who gave herself to the Jewish God for the rest of her life.

But these aren't the kind of people you talk about in your family tree; these are the ones you cover up. This isn't the king! And yet God makes it a point to include her. You see, there's a hidden message here in the Christmas Story. A message that Jesus is for people who know they need forgiving and who know that God's grace has no limits. God doesn't use the word deserve when it comes to salvation. None of us deserves to be in His family tree. It's not just Rahab that's a surprise; what is Ron Hutchcraft doing in God's family? What are you doing in His family?

We're sinners who must always find grace to be "Amazing grace - how sweet the sound." The hymn says, "I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how He could love me...a sinner condemned, unclean." I hope today you still find God's grace amazing, and that you haven't been around so long that you think you belong in God's family because you deserve it. There is no one listening today who will not be forgiven by Him. Rahab was. And there is no person who doesn't still need His amazing grace today.

But maybe you've never experienced that grace for yourself. Oh, you've heard that song a lot of times - Amazing Grace. It says, "I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." But today, this Christmas season, how appropriate. The God who will forgive all those who come to Him, holds out His hand to you and says, "Grab My hand, my child." His Son died to pay the penalty that you deserve. And God can be a forgiver because of the death of His Son on a cross. And, because His Son walked out of His grave under His own power, what began in a manger ended on a cross, and culminated with a resurrection and becomes personal for you when you let this Jesus be the forgiver of your sins.

That's the day you're welcomed into His family. Would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I want the Savior you came to be, to be my Savior. You came into the world at Christmas. Come into my life this Christmas season."

And, go to our website and find out there how you can be sure you belong to Him - YoursForLife.net. Because the story of Rahab tells us this Christmas that there is no one who He will not welcome into the family of God.