2 Chronicles 22 Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

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

Max Lucado Daily: How Can I Know?

Some say, “I have doubts—lots of them.  What I want to know is, how can I know I’m truly saved?”

You can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life! Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

First, confess that Jesus is Lord.  Say it out loud or quietly in your heart—just believe that Jesus was resurrected.  He’s not in the grave.  He’s God in the flesh, with power over death! Confess.  Believe.  You will have salvation!

But remember what the verse doesn’t say!  Live perfectly. Can’t do it.  Impossible. Just confess and believe.   Romans 8:1 says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

From: Max on Life

2 Chronicles 22
New International Version (NIV)
Ahaziah King of Judah

22 The people of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, Jehoram’s youngest son, king in his place, since the raiders, who came with the Arabs into the camp, had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign.

2 Ahaziah was twenty-two[a] years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri.

3 He too followed the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother encouraged him to act wickedly. 4 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as the house of Ahab had done, for after his father’s death they became his advisers, to his undoing. 5 He also followed their counsel when he went with Joram[b] son of Ahab king of Israel to wage war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram; 6 so he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds they had inflicted on him at Ramoth[c] in his battle with Hazael king of Aram.

Then Ahaziah[d] son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab because he had been wounded.

7 Through Ahaziah’s visit to Joram, God brought about Ahaziah’s downfall. When Ahaziah arrived, he went out with Joram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the Lord had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab. 8 While Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he found the officials of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah’s relatives, who had been attending Ahaziah, and he killed them. 9 He then went in search of Ahaziah, and his men captured him while he was hiding in Samaria. He was brought to Jehu and put to death. They buried him, for they said, “He was a son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the Lord with all his heart.” So there was no one in the house of Ahaziah powerful enough to retain the kingdom.

Athaliah and Joash

10 When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to destroy the whole royal family of the house of Judah. 11 But Jehosheba,[e] the daughter of King Jehoram, took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the royal princes who were about to be murdered and put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Because Jehosheba,[f] the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of the priest Jehoiada, was Ahaziah’s sister, she hid the child from Athaliah so she could not kill him. 12 He remained hidden with them at the temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled the land.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Isaiah 55:6-13

“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake his way,
    and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
    and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
12 “For you shall go out in joy
    and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
    shall break forth into singing,
    and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
13 Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
    instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
    an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”

Upside Down

January 16, 2013 — by Joe Stowell

My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways. —Isaiah 55:8

There are a lot of things that intrigue me about Jesus. One of the aspects of His ministry that has always produced jaw-dropping, head-scratching responses is His upside-down teaching about life.

As we journey through life, we may get to the point where we think we’ve got it figured out and our thought patterns and responses for navigating through life are deeply engrained. Yet Jesus interrupts us in the midst of our routines and calls us to a new and better way. But beware! This encounter with the ways of Jesus will be challenging.

Consider these paradoxical propositions: to live you must die (Mark 8:35); to gain you must give (Matt. 19:21); “blessed are those who mourn” (5:4); to rule you must serve (Luke 22:26); and suffering has purpose (5:10-11).

It is pronouncements like these that make people think Christ is strangely out of touch. But we are the ones out of touch. He is not upside down, we are! We’re like children who think they know better than their parents what is best.

No wonder God has told us, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Isa. 55:8). So, rather than relying on our mixed-up instincts, let’s ask Him to help us reflect His ways.

Lord, You know what is best, and You desire to lead
us in paths that are right and good. Give us the
courage to trust and to follow You in the ways
of righteousness for Your name’s sake. Amen.
What may seem upside down to us is right side up to God.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
January 16, 2013

The Voice of the Nature of God

I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ’Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ —Isaiah 6:8

When we talk about the call of God, we often forget the most important thing, namely, the nature of Him who calls. There are many things calling each of us today. Some of these calls will be answered, and others will not even be heard. The call is the expression of the nature of the One who calls, and we can only recognize the call if that same nature is in us. The call of God is the expression of God’s nature, not ours. God providentially weaves the threads of His call through our lives, and only we can distinguish them. It is the threading of God’s voice directly to us over a certain concern, and it is useless to seek another person’s opinion of it. Our dealings over the call of God should be kept exclusively between ourselves and Him.

The call of God is not a reflection of my nature; my personal desires and temperament are of no consideration. As long as I dwell on my own qualities and traits and think about what I am suited for, I will never hear the call of God. But when God brings me into the right relationship with Himself, I will be in the same condition Isaiah was. Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul. The majority of us cannot hear anything but ourselves. And we cannot hear anything God says. But to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed.



A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

What the Storm Left Behind - #6788

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Well, I did it again; managed to head right into a storm. Like the family vacation that got slammed by a hurricane. Yeah. The record rainstorm that swamped the airport when we took our daughter to college. Yeah. Oh, and the Halloween "Snowmageddon" I think they called it that we met me in Connecticut when we were there, and then Hurricane Sandy in New York.

Being a part of that "week like no other" in New York and New Jersey? Well, it ended up having God-marks all over it. Oh, it shut down some ministry opportunities, but it clearly opened up others. And, honestly, I got to see in the storm some lessons I think I'll carry with me for years to come.

Like that lady in a store who loudly and kind of Jersey-style brazenly blurted, "Ya know, I'm not a religious freak, but you gotta wonder if God's trying to make us stop and think." And I turned to her and I said, "Hey, let's go with that idea, ma'am. I think you're onto something there!"

You know, my definition of a storm has grown - because the storms that affect us most deeply are not on the Weather Channel. They're those deeply personal storms that come with things like a layoff at work, or bad news at the doctor's office, that crisis with your spouse or your child, the death that changes everything. So, a storm is "a life-altering event, beyond your control." Well, I've lived a few of those: In the surgery waiting room, the funeral home, the times with no money and no groceries, the near-deadly accident. One online news source had a day-after-storm one-word headline that said it all: "Powerless."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What The Storm Left Behind."

Now, the Bible talks about "lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do His bidding" (Psalm 148:8). And it reveals that "the Lord has His way in the whirlwind and the storm" (Nahum 1:3). I'm glad for verses like that. Because they tell me that beyond the mayhem and the pain of a storm, there's some meaning; there's some purpose. As hard as it is to see at the moment, storms serve God's higher purposes. I'm left feeling powerless so I can experience His power as never before, because suddenly there's no "me" to depend on. I meet God at the end of my rope.

Storms force us to reevaluate everything; get the things that really matter from the margins of our life and back to the middle. And they expose weaknesses in a levee or building materials or emergency systems, or in a marriage, a family, priorities, a superficial faith. The storm isn't meant to destroy those things. It's to get us to fix them while there's time.

And those "beyond my control" events birth some qualities that might not blossom any other way, like compassion, a tender heart for the hurting, patience and endurance. And sometimes, the fury of the storm blows away junk I've allowed in my life - sin, attitudes, and compromises that I would never face any other way.

During Hurricane Sandy, I read an amazingly timely description of another storm on the Sea of Galilee, and it spun the lives of Jesus' disciples "out of control." Well, their control anyway. A few phrases say it all: "It was dark...a strong wind was blowing...the waters grew rough." We've all lived that; if not physically, at least emotionally or spiritually, dark, wind blowing, waters rough.

But in their dark and dangerous moment, three little words changed everything - our word today from the Word of God in John 6 beginning in verse 17, "They saw Jesus." That's exactly when you do see Jesus coming to you. Saying to us as He said to them, "It is I; don't be afraid."

It's in those powerless moments that we realize, "I'm not enough. I can't do this." And we reach for the nail-pierced hand of the Man who took all the storm of all the judgment for my sin so I could go to His heaven. Jesus is the One who can finally calm that lifelong storm in your restless soul with His storm-proof peace. Because you're safe, no matter what the wind and waves may do. Yes, the storm is bigger than you are, but your Jesus is bigger than your storm!

You want to be sure you belong to Him - to the Lord of the storm? Would you visit our website at YoursForLife.net. There's life-changing news there!