Isaiah 21 Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

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

Max Lucado Daily: Is Heaven for Me?

My friend Joy teaches children in an inner city church. Her class is a lively group of nine-year-olds. There’s one exception—a timid girl named Barbara. Her difficult home life had left her afraid and insecure. She never spoke.  Never.  Always present.  Always listening.  Always speechless. Until the day Joy talked about heaven—about seeing God. About tearless eyes and deathless lives. Barbara raised her hand.  “Mrs. Joy? Is heaven for girls like me?”

I would’ve given a thousand sunsets to have seen Jesus’ face as this tiny prayer reached His throne. A prayer to do what God does best: To take a pebble and kill a Goliath. To take a peasant boy’s lunch and fed a multitude. To take three spikes and a wooden beam and make them the hope of humanity. To take the common and make it spectacular!

from Six Hours One Friday

Isaiah 21

A Prophecy Against Babylon

21 A prophecy against the Desert by the Sea:

Like whirlwinds sweeping through the southland,
    an invader comes from the desert,
    from a land of terror.
2 A dire vision has been shown to me:
    The traitor betrays, the looter takes loot.
Elam, attack! Media, lay siege!
    I will bring to an end all the groaning she caused.
3 At this my body is racked with pain,
    pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor;
I am staggered by what I hear,
    I am bewildered by what I see.
4 My heart falters,
    fear makes me tremble;
the twilight I longed for
    has become a horror to me.
5 They set the tables,
    they spread the rugs,
    they eat, they drink!
Get up, you officers,
    oil the shields!
6 This is what the Lord says to me:

“Go, post a lookout
    and have him report what he sees.
7 When he sees chariots
    with teams of horses,
riders on donkeys
    or riders on camels,
let him be alert,
    fully alert.”
8 And the lookout[b] shouted,

“Day after day, my lord, I stand on the watchtower;
    every night I stay at my post.
9 Look, here comes a man in a chariot
    with a team of horses.
And he gives back the answer:
    ‘Babylon has fallen, has fallen!
All the images of its gods
    lie shattered on the ground!’”
10 My people who are crushed on the threshing floor,
    I tell you what I have heard
from the Lord Almighty,
    from the God of Israel.
A Prophecy Against Edom

11 A prophecy against Dumah[c]:

Someone calls to me from Seir,
    “Watchman, what is left of the night?
    Watchman, what is left of the night?”
12 The watchman replies,
    “Morning is coming, but also the night.
If you would ask, then ask;
    and come back yet again.”
A Prophecy Against Arabia

13 A prophecy against Arabia:

You caravans of Dedanites,
    who camp in the thickets of Arabia,
14     bring water for the thirsty;
you who live in Tema,
    bring food for the fugitives.
15 They flee from the sword,
    from the drawn sword,
from the bent bow
    and from the heat of battle.
16 This is what the Lord says to me: “Within one year, as a servant bound by contract would count it, all the splendor of Kedar will come to an end. 17 The survivors of the archers, the warriors of Kedar, will be few.” The Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.


Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Zephaniah 3:14-20

Israel's Joy and Restoration

14 Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;
    shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
    O daughter of Jerusalem!
15 The Lord has taken away the judgments against you;
    he has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
    you shall never again fear evil.
16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
“Fear not, O Zion;
    let not your hands grow weak.
17 The Lord your God is in your midst,
    a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
    he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.
18 I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival,
    so that you will no longer suffer reproach.[a]
19 Behold, at that time I will deal
    with all your oppressors.
And I will save the lame
    and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
    and renown in all the earth.
20 At that time I will bring you in,
    at the time when I gather you together;
for I will make you renowned and praised
    among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
    before your eyes,” says the Lord.

Forced Leisure

March 5, 2013 — by David C. McCasland

The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. —Zephaniah 3:17

Just before Christmas one year, a friend was diagnosed with leukemia and was told she must begin chemotherapy immediately. Just a few weeks earlier, Kim had told friends how blessed and content she felt with a loving family, a comfortable home, and a new grandson. As she entered the hospital, Kim asked Jesus to make His presence known to her and to stay close.

The next 7 months of treatments followed by recovery in partial isolation became a season she calls “forced leisure.” She says she learned how to slow down, reflect quietly, and rest in God’s goodness, love, and perfect plan—regardless of whether or not she would be healed.

One of God’s promises to His people Israel became personal to Kim: “The Lord your God . . . will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17).

Kim is in remission after a journey she says changed her life for the better. Now back in her busy routine, she often pauses to recapture the lessons of “forced leisure.”

How important that we—in good times or times of challenge—draw near to God’s loving heart to hear His voice and place our lives in His hands.

A troubled heart, a wearied mind
Are burdens hard to bear;
A lack of peace, a heavy load
Are lifted by God’s care. —Fitzhugh
People are at the heart of God’s heart.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
March 5, 2013

Is He Really My Lord?

. . . so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus . . . —Acts 20:24

Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfillment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. The joy our Lord experienced came from doing what the Father sent Him to do. And He says to us, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it— to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear Him say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). We each have to find a niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive a ministry from the Lord. To do this we must have close fellowship with Jesus and must know Him as more than our personal Savior. And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 — “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

“Do you love Me?” Then, “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17). He is not offering us a choice of how we can serve Him; He is asking for absolute loyalty to His commission, a faithfulness to what we discern when we are in the closest possible fellowship with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is not the same as the call— the need is the opportunity to exercise the call. The call is to be faithful to the ministry you received when you were in true fellowship with Him. This does not imply that there is a whole series of differing ministries marked out for you. It does mean that you must be sensitive to what God has called you to do, and this may sometimes require ignoring demands for service in other areas.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Family Flu - #6822

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

At our house, we call it clean juice. I think the official name is "hand sanitizer." Whatever it's called, I've been using it big-time - for flu germs! Actually in that recent flu outbreak that took place, our hospital was overwhelmed. The next closest hospital was overwhelmed, too, by people from our town.

That especially nasty flu invasion was all over the country. In fact, in one major city, some hospitals had issued "bypass" warnings - bypass bringing any patients here unless it's life-or-death. In another area, the hospital set up triage tents in the parking lot because their ER was so overrun with flu victims.

Did I mention that flu was especially nasty? If you caught that, man, didn't it hang on! If someone in your family caught it, well, you could almost count on being next. Of course, that's the case with colds and lots of other contagious grungy too. Families are for sharing - including germs.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Family Flu."

And it's not just flu germs that are for sharing. There are family germs that actually get passed from generation to generation. Moral viruses, character infections that somehow get transmitted from parent to child.

Sadly, the things that drove us crazy about our mom or dad - that may have hurt us deeply - start popping up in us. Even though we said, "I'll never be like that!" we are. And the sad part about family germs is that the infection that scars one generation passes down and scars another one.

A teenage guy complained to me one time about how he could do nine things right and one thing wrong, and his mother would just talk about the one that she could criticize. I asked him how his grandmother treated his mom. With a dawning in his eyes, he said, "Wow! Like my mother treats me." He thought for a moment and he said, "Man, I think I'm starting to be the same way."

And so it goes. Control freaks beget control freaks. Negative reproduces negative, an angry parent - an angry child, who becomes an angry parent. Addictive behaviors, self-centeredness, a weakness for the opposite sex, self-pity, a wounding tongue - we hate it, but we do it.

That's not new. Even one of the writers of the Bible said: "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do" (Romans 7:15). Who doesn't know that feeling? So much of the darkness is those family germs; actually, family sins. They're some of the toughest sins for us to see, and even tougher to change. In fact, if we could have changed, we would have changed by now.

That conflicted Bible writer concluded there was only one hope of a cure: "Who will rescue me?" he said. He couldn't save himself from himself. He knew it would take a rescuer. And he found Him. "Thanks be to God, (he said) through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:24)

So many of us trapped in the chains of our dark side have found a powerful game-changer from the Bible. It's our word today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:18-19, "...you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers." Wow! The chain of sin and hurt can be broken by supernatural intervention. It goes on to say, "You were redeemed...with the precious blood of Christ."

The moral diseases handed down through generations can be cured. But only one way - a blood cure. But not our blood - Jesus' blood. Freely given when He died on the cross to pay for every sin of our life and to rob it of its power to poison our lives any longer or the lives of those we love. Talk about hope! When you've got Jesus, you can face that infectious darkness and say, "It stops here in my generation!" And replace a legacy of hurt with hope.

When you belong to Jesus, things no longer have to be like they've always been. He's a Life-Changer. If you're interested in how He could change yours, visit our website YoursForLife.net. There's hope there.