Isaiah 61 Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

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Max Lucado Daily: Call Home

Years ago, our youngest daughter had a sleepover.  When it came time for bed her guest wanted, more than anything, to go home! I can’t blame her.  When I travel, the hardest part of the trip is going to sleep.  When it comes to resting, there’s no house like your own.

It’s what David asked. He longed to live in the house of God. He asked for his own room—permanently. He longed to retire there in a life-long residence. When David says in Psalm 23:  “I will live in the house of the Lord forever,” he’s saying simply that he never wants to step away from God.

Make it your aim never to leave God’s house. And when you find yourself in another house, do what my daughter’s friend did—call home! He won’t mind—in fact, He’ll be waiting.

from The Great House of God

Isaiah 61

The Year of the Lord’s Favor

61 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,[c]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3     and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    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.
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
5 Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.
7 Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.
8 “For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”
10 I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: 1 Peter 1:3-9

Praise to God for a Living Hope

3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Fantastic Offers

April 30, 2013 — by Dave Branon

[God’s] abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus. —1 Peter 1:3

I am amazed at the unbelievable offers that flood my e-mail box every day. Recently, I added up the offers of free money that came to me in a week, and my “take” totaled $26 million. But each of those offers was a fraud. Every one—from a $1 million prize to a $7 million offer—was nothing but a lie sent by unscrupulous people to squeeze money from me.

We’re all vulnerable to fantastic offers—to scams that in reality pay off with nothing but trouble. We are offered false hope that ends in dashed dreams.

There is one offer, however, that is genuine, though fantastic beyond belief. It’s the offer God makes to us—salvation through faith in Jesus’ finished work on the cross: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). It is an offer that cost Him greatly—and we get the benefits. The book of Romans tells us, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (4:25 niv).

By saying yes to salvation, we can have hope (Titus 1:2), peace (Rom. 5:1), forgiveness (Eph. 1:7), incomparable riches (2:7), and redemption (4:30). This is the real deal. Jesus’ death and resurrection guarantees it.

Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
—John Wesley. © 1951 Singspiration
Our salvation was infinitely costly to God, but it is absolutely free to us.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
April 30, 2013

Spontaneous Love

Love suffers long and is kind . . . —1 Corinthians 13:4

Love is not premeditated—it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul’s description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, “Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe.” No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don’t deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.

The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it “has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit . . .” (Romans 5:5).

If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don’t love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

An Impressive Set With Nothing Inside - #6862

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Hollywood is kind of a world of illusions. If you don't know it already, well you learn it when you tour a major studio. I did that once and I got to see where movies and TV series were filmed. You find out, for example, that when you see a man speeding along in a car he might be sitting still on the set. They put in all the scenery that makes it look like he's moving, later - behind him.

I remember reading about Gary Cooper, who was a legendary movie star of another generation. And they had a great illusion for him in this western town. One of the buildings had a door that they actually "shrunk" for Gary Cooper, because Gary Cooper wasn't very tall. Oh, you're not supposed to have a short hero, you know? And they wanted a tall leading man, so they made the door small so he would look tall.

It's a world of illusion. And it didn't stop with the western town. There was a street in a WWII vintage European village, and there was old Chicago. And the buildings! Oh, impressive until you open a door and go inside, and there's nothing there. Did you ever get that feeling about your life?

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "An Impressive Set With Nothing Inside."

Impressive exteriors! That's what 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 5 and 7 talk about, and they're our word for today from the Word of God. And Paul, in describing what people are going to be like near the end of human history, gives this description. He says they are "having a form of godliness (Okay, they look good on the outside.) but denying its power." Then in verse 7 he says, they're "always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth."

Now, notice here he describes people who have religion; they have a form of godliness. The problem is it's a set. They go to the right meetings, they say the right words, they give in the right offerings, they support the right causes, but there's no power behind it. Then he talks about people who have an education but no answers; they can't arrive at the truth.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, which is King Solomon's personal diary, he described the great set of his life. And he talked about all the monuments he had built, and the palace he had built, and the women he had loved, and the pleasures he had partaken in, and the musicians he brought in, and the wealth he had amassed. What a set! And then he describes what was going on inside over and over again in this book in three words, "chasing the wind."

The last few months I've had more people tell me they feel empty inside. A high school athlete at the top of his career with all the scholarships said, "Ron, why do I feel so empty?" A community leader, a leader in his church, looked at me and said, "Ron, why after all this religious effort do I feel so empty?" Maybe your life has a great set for people to see: success, a sense of humor, friends, religion, but you're aware that behind that set there's no power, there's no answers, there's no peace. After years of wearing the right masks and saying the right thing, well we find out there's nothing behind the set - nothing there. Why don't you deal with what's missing or who's missing?

Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes, "We have eternity in our hearts." What's missing is the person who made you; Colossians 1:16 sums up our lives in six words. Speaking of Christ it says, "We were created by Him and for Him." Could it be that you are missing the relationship you were made for? Even religious people; you can have a religious set and maybe never have Christ.

This could be the day that you experience finally the reality, the ultimate reality of God not around you but God in you. Of the peace and the love and the forgiveness and the heaven that only Jesus can give you, because only He died to make it possible. And He walked out of His grave so He could walk into your life today. If you want to know how to begin that relationship, would you join me at our website as soon as you can today? YoursForLife.net.

If you're tired of just repainting the scenery of your life and making a more impressive exterior, why don't you open the door of that set and let Jesus Christ into the emptiness behind it. He can build a house there that you can really live in.