2 Chronicles 3 bible reading and devotionals.

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Max Lucado Daily: Uncle Billy

Uncle Billy had come to west Texas to visit the grave of my dad, who’d died several months before.  We laughed, talked, and reminisced. When time came to leave, he followed me to my car.  He placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “Max, I want you to know, your dad was very proud of you.”  I contained the emotion until I pulled away.  Then I began to blubber like a six-year-old.

We never outgrow our need for a father’s love.  May I serve the role of an Uncle Billy in your life?  The words I give you are God’s.  Don’t filter, or downplay them.  Just receive them.  God says, I have redeemed you.  The transaction is sealed.  Settled.  I God, choose you to be part of my forever family. To live as God’s child is to know, at this very instant, that you’re loved by your Maker!

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!   I John 3:1?

From GRACE

2 Chronicles 3

Solomon Builds the Temple

3 Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah[k] the Jebusite, the place provided by David. 2 He began building on the second day of the second month in the fourth year of his reign.

3 The foundation Solomon laid for building the temple of God was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide[l] (using the cubit of the old standard). 4 The portico at the front of the temple was twenty cubits[m] long across the width of the building and twenty[n] cubits high.

He overlaid the inside with pure gold. 5 He paneled the main hall with juniper and covered it with fine gold and decorated it with palm tree and chain designs. 6 He adorned the temple with precious stones. And the gold he used was gold of Parvaim. 7 He overlaid the ceiling beams, doorframes, walls and doors of the temple with gold, and he carved cherubim on the walls.

8 He built the Most Holy Place, its length corresponding to the width of the temple—twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. He overlaid the inside with six hundred talents[o] of fine gold. 9 The gold nails weighed fifty shekels.[p] He also overlaid the upper parts with gold.

10 For the Most Holy Place he made a pair of sculptured cherubim and overlaid them with gold. 11 The total wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits. One wing of the first cherub was five cubits[q] long and touched the temple wall, while its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the other cherub. 12 Similarly one wing of the second cherub was five cubits long and touched the other temple wall, and its other wing, also five cubits long, touched the wing of the first cherub. 13 The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. They stood on their feet, facing the main hall.[r]

14 He made the curtain of blue, purple and crimson yarn and fine linen, with cherubim worked into it.

15 For the front of the temple he made two pillars, which together were thirty-five cubits[s] long, each with a capital five cubits high. 16 He made interwoven chains[t] and put them on top of the pillars. He also made a hundred pomegranates and attached them to the chains. 17 He erected the pillars in the front of the temple, one to the south and one to the north. The one to the south he named Jakin[u] and the one to the north Boaz.[v]


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Psalm 40:1-10

My Help and My Deliverer

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

40 I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2 He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
    and put their trust in the Lord.
4 Blessed is the man who makes
    the Lord his trust,
who does not turn to the proud,
    to those who go astray after a lie!
5 You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
    your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
    none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
    yet they are more than can be told.
6 In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
    but you have given me an open ear.[a]
Burnt offering and sin offering
    you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
    in the scroll of the book it is written of me:
8 I delight to do your will, O my God;
    your law is within my heart.”
9 I have told the glad news of deliverance[b]
    in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
    as you know, O Lord.
10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
    I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
    from the great congregation.

Opened Ears

December 18, 2012 — by Bill Crowder

Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. —Psalm 40:6

Recently I was having trouble with my ears and decided to try a somewhat controversial treatment. It was supposed to melt the wax in my ears and clear out any impediments that might get in the way of the ability to hear. I have to admit that it sounded like a strange experience. But I was desperate to be able to hear clearly, so I was willing to give it a try.

As important as good hearing is in life, it is even more important in our walk with God. In Psalm 40:6, David declared, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; my ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.” The word opened in this verse can be translated “cleared out,” and it speaks of what God desires for us. He wants our ears to be open and ready to hear Him as He speaks to us through His Word. Sometimes, however, our spiritual ears may be blocked by the background noise of the surrounding culture or the siren songs of temptation and sin.

May we instead turn our hearts to the Lord in full devotion, keeping our ears open to Him so that we will be sensitive to His voice. As He speaks, He will put His Word in our hearts, and we will learn from Him to delight in His will (v.8).

Open my ears, that I may hear
Voices of truth Thou sendest clear;
And while the wave-notes fall on my ear,
Everything false will disappear. —Scott
God speaks through His Word
to those who listen with their heart.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
December 18, 2012

Test of Faithfulness

We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . —Romans 8:28

It is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances. We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control, but not really believing it. We act as if the things that happen were completely controlled by people. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, or object of our faith— the Lord Jesus Christ. God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may bring the realization of our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation. We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated in our life. This is where the test of our faithfulness comes. If we will just learn to worship God even during the difficult circumstances, He will change them for the better very quickly if He so chooses.

Being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most difficult thing we try to do today. We will be faithful to our work, to serving others, or to anything else; just don’t ask us to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world. We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God, but that He will be free to do His work through us. God calls us to His service and places tremendous responsibilities on us. He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

The Pregnant Pause - #6767

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

It was a perfect winter scene: father and son sledding down a hill, on beautiful new snowfall, together on one sled. My son was laughing as we reached the bottom. We'd had a great run down the hill, and suddenly I shook up that happy little feeling. I just suddenly shouted, "Jump!" and he did. He rolled right off the sled, and I did too. And he didn't ask why, he just jumped.

When he looked back, he saw why I had told him to jump. I had seen that sled bearing down on us, right behind us, full of kids, out of control, and it plowed right into our sled. Had I left my son where he was, those sled runners might well have sliced right into him at high speed. Oh, he didn't understand my command, but he did it before he understood. Whoa! You know, that's a good idea for all of us kids.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Pregnant Pause."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 1; I'll begin at verse 18. "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream."

Now, it's a familiar story and here's what's happening. God starts something in Joseph's life, but He explains it later. Did you notice that? He starts this whole process of letting Joseph be the one who will raise God's Son on earth. But it starts with a seeming disaster! Joseph's fiancé is mysteriously pregnant. Joseph's heart must be broken. His world is caving in and God has not explained it yet. He started it, but He explained it later.

In between, God watches to see if Joseph will obey before he understands, and he does. You see, it was within Joseph's rights to divorce Mary and say, "I had nothing to do with this" and to publicly disgrace her, and in so doing he'd be protecting his own reputation. But instead, he chooses to act unselfishly, to act responsibly even though he's hurting.

See, God is up to a greater good. Now, Joseph's good would be, "I just want to get married to my Jewish girlfriend. Why does all this have to happen?" God initiates this much greater good, but He remains silent and then He later interprets it. And Joseph faces (pardon the expression) a pregnant pause in God's work.

Now, right now what you would consider good maybe is up for grabs...that relationship. You say, "Why can't I have it?" Your health, the money, the job, why don't your plans work, why aren't your prayers getting answered? Remember, God is the God of the greater good, and God often has to shake up your world like He did Joseph's in order to bring about His greater good. You'll see that someday, but can you quote Romans 8:28 in the present tense, "All things are working together for good." Will you work before you can see the good? Will you do it before you can see the good?

See, God has started His greater good, but right now it's just shaking up your world. Oh, He'll explain it. He'll fulfill it in the future. But now, in between, obey before you understand - like a boy jumping off a sled before his Dad told him why. Joseph discovered that the apparent disaster is actually clearing the way for a mighty work of God. You've just got to obey in the meantime.

So, remember, you're in the loving hands of the God of the greater good, which is often preceded by that pregnant pause.