2 Corinthians 13 Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

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

Max Lucado Daily: What If?

What if, for one day, Jesus were to become you? Waking up in your bed, walking in your shoes, assuming your schedule?  With one exception—nothing about your life changes. Not your circumstances. Your schedule.  Your problems.  Only one change occurs!  His priorities govern your actions. His love directs your behavior.

What would you be like?  Would people notice a change? What about the less fortunate?  Would you treat them the same? And your friends?  Would they detect more joy?

Pause and think about your schedule. Obligations.  Engagements.  Appointments.  Would anything change? Keep working on this for a moment.  Adjust the lens of your imagination until you have a clear picture of Jesus leading your life. Then frame the image. What you see is what God wants. He wants you to “think and act like Christ Jesus.” God wants you to be just like Jesus!

“And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

From Just Like Jesus

2 Corinthians 13
New International Version (NIV)
Final Warnings

13 This will be my third visit to you. “Every matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”[a] 2 I already gave you a warning when I was with you the second time. I now repeat it while absent: On my return I will not spare those who sinned earlier or any of the others, 3 since you are demanding proof that Christ is speaking through me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful among you. 4 For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God’s power we will live with him in our dealing with you.

5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? 6 And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test. 7 Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong—not so that people will see that we have stood the test but so that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed. 8 For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. 9 We are glad whenever we are weak but you are strong; and our prayer is that you may be fully restored. 10 This is why I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down.

Final Greetings

11 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13 All God’s people here send their greetings.

14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Matthew 6:25-34

Do Not Be Anxious

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?[a] 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Just Enough

February 4, 2013 — by Julie Ackerman Link

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. —Matthew 6:33

I love writing for Our Daily Bread. I confess, however, that sometimes I whine to my friends about how difficult it is to communicate everything I would like to say in a short devotional. If only I could use more than 220 words.

This year when I came to the book of Matthew in my Bible-reading schedule, I noticed something for the first time. As I was reading about the temptation of Christ (Matt. 4:1-11), I noticed how short it was. Matthew used fewer than 250 words to write his account of one of the most pivotal events in all of Scripture. Then I thought of other short yet powerful passages: the 23rd Psalm (117 words) and the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 (66 words).

Clearly, I don’t need more words, I just need to use them well. This also applies to other areas of life—time, money, space. Scripture affirms that God meets the needs of those who seek His kingdom and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33). The psalmist David encourages us, “Those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing” (Ps. 34:10).

If today you’re thinking, “I need just a little bit more” of something, consider instead the possibility that God has given you “just enough.”

I would be quiet, Lord, and rest content,
By grace I would not pine or fret;
With You to guide and care, my joy be this:
Not one small need of mine will You forget! —Bosch
He is rich who is satisfied with what he has.


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

The Compelling Majesty of His Power

The love of Christ compels us . . . —2 Corinthians 5:14

Paul said that he was overpowered, subdued, and held as in a vise by “the love of Christ.” Very few of us really know what it means to be held in the grip of the love of God. We tend so often to be controlled simply by our own experience. The one thing that gripped and held Paul, to the exclusion of everything else, was the love of God. “The love of Christ compels us . . . .” When you hear that coming from the life of a man or woman it is unmistakable. You will know that the Spirit of God is completely unhindered in that person’s life.

When we are born again by the Spirit of God, our testimony is based solely on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But that will change and be removed forever once you “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .” (Acts 1:8). Only then will you begin to realize what Jesus meant when He went on to say, “. . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . . .” Not witnesses to what Jesus can do— that is basic and understood— but “witnesses to Me . . . .” We will accept everything that happens as if it were happening to Him, whether we receive praise or blame, persecution or reward. No one is able to take this stand for Jesus Christ who is not totally compelled by the majesty of His power. It is the only thing that matters, and yet it is strange that it’s the last thing we as Christian workers realize. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane-he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for— to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of “the love of Christ.” This total surrender to “the love of Christ” is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God’s holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Hope On a Very Dark Day - #6801

Monday, February 4, 2013

My children were picking up their children from school, and that day they were holding them very close. Because some parents of little schoolchildren in Connecticut would not be able to pick up their children from school or hold them close - ever again.

I felt what millions were feeling the day of those shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. All of us that had a child we loved and we couldn't imagine losing; well we had a deep heaviness in our spirit. It was the Christmas season and it suddenly obscured the "sunshine" of the Christmas season.

I watched a President, with tears in his eyes, simply saying, "Our hearts are broken." It wasn't so much a President talking at that point; it was a parent who sends his daughters off to school every morning.

As I tried to sort out my own racing thoughts and feelings with that unfolding news, my heart landed on the only bedrock I know - God's unchanging Word, the Bible.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Hope on a Very Dark Day."

Yeah, I found myself quoting again a verse that has sustained me and my wife through decades of parenting and then grand parenting. It didn't answer all of our questions that tragic day, but it did provide some solid ground for a parent to plant their feet on. It's our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 40:11. "God tends His flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young."

You know, it's great to put the name of your child (your "lamb") that you love in that verse, "He gathers (put their name here) in His arms and carries him/her close to His heart." You can't be with them everywhere they go. He can; carrying them close to His heart. As a parent, you need to know that today. As a child, your son or daughter needs to know it, too.

And then don't forget your part of God's promise: "He will gently lead (put your name here) who has young." He's promising to guide you in every situation, every decision, and every conversation with that child that He's entrusted to your care.

On a day when I was suddenly faced with the possibility that I might never see the love of my life again alive, another word from God just took over my mind. "I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard (I put my wife's name in there) who I have entrusted to Him until that Day" (2 Timothy 1:12). And He did guard her. He would have guarded her even if she had gone from that hospital to heaven. And I know He would have guarded me, too.

See, that's another promise to hang on to on a dark and tragic day. It's because of these Biblical anchors that a Mom or Dad can say, even when your parent's heart is unsettled, "God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). Whatever the news of the day, God knows a parent will make wrong choices out of fear and right choices out of faith.

On days when the tragic news comes, I am so grateful that Jesus is real, that Jesus is close, and that Jesus is a deeply personal Savior. He offers to do life with us, and then to bring into our lives and into the lives of our children the love that made Him die for us. And the power that brought Him out of His grave. He's promised that "I will never leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). Or the children we hold dear.

If you've never begun a personal relationship with this Savior who loved you enough to die for you, who has the power to change the kind of Mom or Dad you are, would you go to our website and find out how to begin that? Right there you'll get that information at YoursForLife.net.

The children sing a song in Sunday School, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world" and they're right.