Isaiah 20 Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

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

Max Lucado Daily: What Steals the Zeal?

What steals our childhood zeal?  For a child the possibilities are limitless. Then weariness finds us.  Sesame Street gets traffic-jammed.  Star Trek’s endless horizon gets hidden behind smog and skyscrapers. What is the source of such weariness?  The names of these burdens?

Jesus gazes into our weariness and makes this paradoxical promise:  “Take My yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29).

Jesus was the only man to walk God’s earth who claimed to have an answer for man’s burdens.  “Come to Me”  he invited them. The people came. They came out of the cul-de-sacs and office complexes of their day. They brought him the burdens of their existence, and he gave them not religion, not doctrine, not systems…He gave them rest.  My prayer is that you, too, will find rest!

from Six Hours One Friday

Isaiah 20

A Prophecy Against Egypt and Cush

20 In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it— 2 at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, “Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.” And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.

3 Then the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush,[a] 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared—to Egypt’s shame. 5 Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be dismayed and put to shame. 6 In that day the people who live on this coast will say, ‘See what has happened to those we relied on, those we fled to for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Titus 3:1-8

Be Ready for Every Good Work

3 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, 2 to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people. 3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. 8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

They’re Watching

March 4, 2013 — by Dave Branon

Speak evil of no one, . . . be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. —Titus 3:2

It’s been several decades since a high school event devastated me. Playing sports was hugely important to me. I zeroed in on basketball and spent hundreds of hours practicing my game. So when I didn’t make the varsity team in my last year after being on the team since junior high, I was crushed.

Disappointed and confused, I carried on. I became a stats guy for the team, going to games and keeping track of my friends’ rebounds and shots as they got within one game of the state championship without me. To be honest, I never thought of how they were viewing my response. I just muddled through. That’s why I was surprised recently to hear that several of my classmates told my brother that they saw in my response a lesson in Christianity—a picture of Christ. My point is not to tell you to do as I did, because I’m not sure what I did. My point is this: Whether we know it or not, people are watching us.

In Titus 3:1-8, Paul explains the life God enables us to live—a life of respect, obedience, and kindness that results from being reborn through Jesus and renewed by the Holy Spirit who has been poured out on us.

As we live a Spirit-guided life, God will show the reality of His presence to others through us.

Dear Father, You know how inadequate I am.
Please equip me through the Spirit to show love
and respect in my life so that others will see
through me and see You.
A Christian is a living sermon whether or not he preaches a word.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
March 4, 2013

Is This True of Me?

None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself . . . —Acts 20:24

It is easier to serve or work for God without a vision and without a call, because then you are not bothered by what He requires. Common sense, covered with a layer of Christian emotion, becomes your guide. You may be more prosperous and successful from the world’s perspective, and will have more leisure time, if you never acknowledge the call of God. But once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God asks of you will always be there to prod you on to do His will. You will no longer be able to work for Him on the basis of common sense.

What do I count in my life as “dear to myself”? If I have not been seized by Jesus Christ and have not surrendered myself to Him, I will consider the time I decide to give God and my own ideas of service as dear. I will also consider my own life as “dear to myself.” But Paul said he considered his life dear so that he might fulfill the ministry he had received, and he refused to use his energy on anything else. This verse shows an almost noble annoyance by Paul at being asked to consider himself. He was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him. Our reasonable work is based on the following argument which we say to ourselves, “Remember how useful you are here, and think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.” That attitude chooses our own judgment, instead of Jesus Christ, to be our guide as to where we should go and where we could be used the most. Never consider whether or not you are of use— but always consider that “you are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). You are His.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

The Power of Pre-Choice - #6821

Monday, March 4, 2013

I think I've been on a diet since I was about six months old, or at least it seems that way. I guess my "thorn in my flesh" is my metabolism. Is that possible? It refuses to convert calories; it loves to store calories instead. Now, over the years, I've made friends with my metabolism, and that's probably why I left 210 pounds years ago and have been able to stay, you know, a lot lower than that by 40 or 50 pounds over the years. I've learned how much intake I can stand in relation to how much I'll be exerting that day. The problem is that the day is filled with caloric choices, whether it's a nibble on those snacks that somebody brought to the office, or getting a sandwich from the deli like everybody else is, or eating that tempting dinner that my wife has prepared.

I've learned a fundamental principle of how to control your weight. You have to decide in advance what you're going to do. You choose your lunch fare before your appetite or your opportunity chooses for you. I have to decide in the morning what I'm going to do about lunch. And you decide early in the day that perhaps you're not going to eat dinner or you're going to figure out a very low-calorie dinner. In fact, pre-choosing? That's actually the way to control of any part of your life.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Power of Pre-Choice."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Daniel chapter 1:8. Daniel is actually a captive in another country; he is in Babylon. The Jews have been carried away to captivity there. He's been identified as kind of a leadership prospect, and he and some of his friends are kind of in the leadership academy there, and he's being asked to eat food that is forbidden to him by his Jewish faith. He says he won't do it.

The Bible puts it this way, "Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself in this way." He goes ahead and eats a diet that is consistent with his convictions and he ends up stronger than any of those who ate the prescribed diet.

Notice here his resolution came before - ahead of time - that he was not going to eat it. Then he took action to support that choice. He had already resolved what he would not eat. See, most of us don't do that; we make situational choices. Right in the middle of it we'll say, "I'll see how I feel. I'll see how it's going. I'll see which way the wind's blowing. I'll see how it goes. I'll see what the circumstances are." Well, that's a good way to get blown away spiritually.

Remember this, the key to no-regrets choices is deciding in advance. I guess Sampson had never really made up his mind how far he would go. And with Delilah he lost his leadership and he lost his life. But Daniel, in contrast, knew where his line was and became one of God's great leaders. He had decided in advance.

Now, if you're facing a situation where you'll be tempted to give away what you'll later wish you hadn't, decide in advance how you're going to handle it. That's nowhere more crucial than in keeping sex special. You set your line sometime when you're alone with your Lord, and then you don't violate that boundary. You don't let your glands decide. Your glands make lousy choices.

Maybe you're in a situation where you're going to be tempted to tell something less than the truth. Well, you've got to decide now to tell the truth and what truth you'll tell. It might be a situation where you're going to be offered a chance to sin possibly. Would you decide now how you're going to answer? We live in a world where 99% of the pressure is to not do it God's way. If you wait and see how it's going to go, I know how it's going to go - so do you. You'll make a wrong choice.

No, you see, like a dieter, you have to know now what you're going to do then. The key to no-regrets choices is deciding in advance.