Isaiah 8 Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

(Has God spoken to you lately if not click to listen to God's teaching?)

Max Lucado Daily: A Little Over a Lifetime

Will I learn what God intends?  If I listen, I will.  A little girl returned from her first day at school. Her mom asked, "Did you learn anything?" "I guess not," the girl responded.  "I have to go back tomorrow and the next day and the next day. . ."

Such is the case with learning. And such is the case with Bible study.

Understanding comes a little at a time over a lifetime. James said:  "The man who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and makes a habit of doing so is not the man who hears and forgets.  He puts that law into practice and wins true happiness." (James 1:25).

The Bible is not a newspaper to be skimmed but rather a mine to be quarried.  Proverbs 2:4 says to "search for it like silver, and hunt for it like hidden treasure."

And we need to do it today, and the next day, and the next….
From Just Like Jesus

Isaiah 8

Isaiah and His Children as Signs

8 The Lord said to me, “Take a large scroll and write on it with an ordinary pen: Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.”[h] 2 So I called in Uriah the priest and Zechariah son of Jeberekiah as reliable witnesses for me. 3 Then I made love to the prophetess, and she conceived and gave birth to a son. And the Lord said to me, “Name him Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. 4 For before the boy knows how to say ‘My father’ or ‘My mother,’ the wealth of Damascus and the plunder of Samaria will be carried off by the king of Assyria.”

5 The Lord spoke to me again:

6 “Because this people has rejected
    the gently flowing waters of Shiloah
and rejoices over Rezin
    and the son of Remaliah,
7 therefore the Lord is about to bring against them
    the mighty floodwaters of the Euphrates—
    the king of Assyria with all his pomp.
It will overflow all its channels,
    run over all its banks
8 and sweep on into Judah, swirling over it,
    passing through it and reaching up to the neck.
Its outspread wings will cover the breadth of your land,
    Immanuel[i]!”
9 Raise the war cry,[j] you nations, and be shattered!
    Listen, all you distant lands.
Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
    Prepare for battle, and be shattered!
10 Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted;
    propose your plan, but it will not stand,
    for God is with us.[k]
11 This is what the Lord says to me with his strong hand upon me, warning me not to follow the way of this people:

12 “Do not call conspiracy
    everything this people calls a conspiracy;
do not fear what they fear,
    and do not dread it.
13 The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy,
    he is the one you are to fear,
    he is the one you are to dread.
14 He will be a holy place;
    for both Israel and Judah he will be
a stone that causes people to stumble
    and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
    a trap and a snare.
15 Many of them will stumble;
    they will fall and be broken,
    they will be snared and captured.”
16 Bind up this testimony of warning
    and seal up God’s instruction among my disciples.
17 I will wait for the Lord,
    who is hiding his face from the descendants of Jacob.
I will put my trust in him.
18 Here am I, and the children the Lord has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the Lord Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion.

The Darkness Turns to Light

19 When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? 20 Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. 21 Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. 22 Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Psalm 142

You Are My Refuge

A Maskil[a] of David, when he was in the cave. A Prayer.

142 With my voice I cry out to the Lord;
    with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord.
2 I pour out my complaint before him;
    I tell my trouble before him.
3 When my spirit faints within me,
    you know my way!
In the path where I walk
    they have hidden a trap for me.
4 Look to the right and see:
    there is none who takes notice of me;
no refuge remains to me;
    no one cares for my soul.
5 I cry to you, O Lord;
    I say, “You are my refuge,
    my portion in the land of the living.”
6 Attend to my cry,
    for I am brought very low!
Deliver me from my persecutors,
    for they are too strong for me!
7 Bring me out of prison,
    that I may give thanks to your name!
The righteous will surround me,
    for you will deal bountifully with me.

Crying Out To God

February 15, 2013 — by David H. Roper

By prayer and supplication . . . let your requests be made known to God. —Philippians 4:6

After all these years, I still don’t fully understand prayer. It’s something of a mystery to me. But one thing I know: When we’re in desperate need, prayer springs naturally from our lips and from the deepest level of our hearts.

When we’re frightened out of our wits, when we’re pushed beyond our limits, when we’re pulled out of our comfort zones, when our well-being is challenged and endangered, we reflexively and involuntarily resort to prayer. “Help, Lord!” is our natural cry.

Author Eugene Peterson wrote: “The language of prayer is forged in the crucible of trouble. When we can’t help ourselves and call for help, when we don’t like where we are and want out, when we don’t like who we are and want a change, we use primal language, and this language becomes the root language of prayer.”

Prayer begins in trouble, and it continues because we’re always in trouble at some level. It requires no special preparation, no precise vocabulary, no appropriate posture. It springs from us in the face of necessity and, in time, becomes our habitual response to every issue—good and bad—we face in this life (Phil. 4:6). What a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer!

What a Friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer. —Scriven
God’s help is only a prayer away.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
February 15, 2013

“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”

None of us lives to himself . . . —Romans 14:7

Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We “sit together in the heavenly places . . .” (Ephesians 2:6). “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it . . .” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, “Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?” “Our sufficiency is from God . . .” and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).

“You shall be witnesses to Me . . .” (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone— to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him— “. . . lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Someone Else Has Walked There First - #6810

Friday, February 15, 2013

There's something invigorating about being the first one out and around in the morning; you sort of feel like the conqueror of your environment. Like when you're the first one out exercising in those first hours of the new day. I had that feeling one morning as I went out for my fitness walk (That's fitness, not fatness).

I really like to walk when I'm away from home, too. And I was in a setting where right behind me there was this really scenic 18-hole golf course. I'm not a golfer, but I am a walker. There was a beautiful path around there, so I struck out on my early morning walk, and the mist was there, and the dew was all over the golf course. And I said, "You know what? I am the first one to conquer this golf course today. There'll be a lot of people out here later, but I have beaten all the golfers." I felt like the world was all mine, or so I thought. Then I got to one hole and I saw a carpet of dew covering the green, and footprints all across the green. Someone had walked there before me.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Someone Else Has Walked There First."

Our word for today from the Word of God is from John 10:4. Jesus beautifully, intimately describes His relationship with us here as being like that of a shepherd with His sheep: Him shepherd, me sheep. John 10:4 says this, "When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and the sheep follow Him."

I discovered this verse many years ago, just before we moved from all of the "knowns" that we had in Chicago, to all of the unknowns of northern New Jersey and New York City. We moved there to begin a youth ministry. We had no supporters, we had no place to live, we had no office, we had no staff. We knew nothing. We just claimed this verse, "...when He brings out His sheep, He will always go ahead of them." We got there and we found out that God had picked out an apartment, He picked out friends, He had picked out a church, He had picked out an office for us, He picked out supporters; people who could open doors that we needed opened, and that's what God does for all His kids.

Everywhere Jesus will lead you to walk, He promises to walk there first; He goes ahead of you. That's how a shepherd operates. Wherever he's going to take his sheep, he goes ahead of them to see if there's enough pasture for them to be fed, if there are any wolves there that he needs to take care of, and where the cliffs are that they might walk over. He makes sure that He checks it out before they get there. He prepares it for them. That's just the kind of Shepherd He is.

Think of the fear that takes out of the future; the uncertainty that takes out of the future. Like the old song says, "I know not what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future." Right now maybe you're looking ahead at the next few weeks, maybe months and you're anxious about it. Honestly, there's a whole lot of question marks; there's a lot of unknown out there.

Well, there is one known in the midst of your unknowns. Guess what? That one known covers all the unknowns. Jesus will always be your "go ahead" Shepherd. He always does that with His sheep. He has promised that He would, and He always keeps His promises.

In fact, today He knows your situation, and I think He brought us together and brought this verse to my heart for you, as a personal assurance from Him to you that He is already stepping ahead of you. There's nothing to fear on a path that Jesus has walked before you. It's the blessed security that only a follower of Jesus Christ can know.

So, wherever He takes you, yours won't be the first set of footprints you'll find there. He got there first.