I can get lost anywhere. Seriously. Anywhere. I once got lost in my hotel. I told the receptionist my key wasn't working. I'd been on the wrong floor trying to open the wrong door. If geese had my sense of direction, they'd spend winters in Alaska. Can you relate? Of course you can. We've all scratched our heads a time or two. Do I take the job, or leave it? One of life's giant-size questions is "How can I know what God wants me to do?"
In 2 Samuel 2:1 David inquires of the Lord: "Shall I go up to any of the cities of Judah?"
"Go up."
David said, "Where shall I go up?"
He made a habit of running his options past God. We do the same and the God who guided David guides you. Are you like me? Do you get confused? Psalm 32:8 is the promise you need: God says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life." We all need that promise, don't we?
from Facing Your Giant
Jeremiah 39
New International Version (NIV)
39 1 In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. 2 And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city wall was broken through. 3 Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon. 4 When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled; they left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and headed toward the Arabah.[a]
5 But the Babylonian[b] army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced sentence on him. 6 There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the nobles of Judah. 7 Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.
8 The Babylonians[c] set fire to the royal palace and the houses of the people and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. 9 Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard carried into exile to Babylon the people who remained in the city, along with those who had gone over to him, and the rest of the people. 10 But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.
11 Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given these orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard: 12 “Take him and look after him; don’t harm him but do for him whatever he asks.” 13 So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officers of the king of Babylon 14 sent and had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard. They turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him back to his home. So he remained among his own people.
15 While Jeremiah had been confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the Lord came to him: 16 “Go and tell Ebed-Melek the Cushite, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city—words concerning disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes. 17 But I will rescue you on that day, declares the Lord; you will not be given into the hands of those you fear. 18 I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the Lord.’”
Footnotes:
Jeremiah 39:4 Or the Jordan Valley
Jeremiah 39:5 Or Chaldean
Jeremiah 39:8 Or Chaldeans
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: John 8:12-20
New International Version (NIV)
Dispute Over Jesus’ Testimony
12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
13 The Pharisees challenged him, “Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid.”
14 Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”
19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?”
“You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.
The Gift Of Light
August 23, 2013 — by Bill Crowder
I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. —John 8:12
Sir Christopher Wren designed and built more than 50 church buildings in London during the late 1600s. His design style had two prominent features—the first of which was sturdy, tall steeples. The second, however, was more profound. Wren was convinced that all of the windows in his churches must use clear glass as opposed to the stained glass so popular in churches of that era. In part, his reason for the clear glass is found in words attributed to him: “God’s greatest gift to man is light.” Allowing light to bathe people as they worshiped was, to Wren, a celebration of that gift.
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| St. Paul's Cathedral |
In the Genesis account, on the first day of creation God made light (1:3). The light God created is even more than just a means by which to see. It’s a picture of what Christ brought when He entered this darkened world. In John 8:12, our Lord said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” To the follower of Christ, light is one of the great reminders of the character of our Savior and the quality of the life He has given us through His sacrifice on the cross.
Wren was right. God’s greatest gift to man is light—Jesus Christ, the Light of the world!
Creator God, I thank You that You spoke light
into the darkness of the universe, and I thank
You that You brought light into the darkness
of my heart through Your Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to give light to a dark world.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
August 23, 2013
Prayer— Battle in “The Secret Place”
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly —Matthew 6:6
Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “. . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . .” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
When Our Bridges Collapse - #6945
Friday, August 23, 2013
Our friend, Ruthie, loves crossword puzzles, and she hates bridges. So when she's riding with us and there's a bridge, she knows what to do. She covers her face with her crossword puzzle book until it's over. I've teased Ruthie about this a lot. But then two bridges in a week collapsed in different parts of the U. S., and I was wondering if I should buy a crossword puzzle book. Oh wait-I'm driving.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Our Bridges Collapse."
This is really not funny. One minute you're on the bridge. The next minute you and your car are in the icy water below. Thankfully, no one died on those bridges in Washington State or Missouri. But when that Interstate bridge in Minneapolis caved in awhile back, it cost 13 people their lives.
I'm not excited to hear that 1 in 9 U. S. bridges is "functionally obsolete" or "structurally inadequate." Fact is, bridges that aren't properly maintained and repaired are in danger of going down, whether it's a bridge between cities or a bridge between people. And all too often I have been guilty of neglecting some very important bridges to my wife, my children, my coworkers, my friends.
Oh, there was a day when I put a lot into building that bridge. I wanted to be connected to their heart, and their hurt, and their happiness. I've never made a decision that I didn't care about that, anymore than I made a decision to let weeds grow in my garden. All you have to do to weaken a bridge is nothing. It's called neglect.
It's not that we reject people we love, we just neglect them. We get too busy for them. We fail to repair the things that break. We forget to hug them, to compliment them, to set aside time for them. In short, we take them for granted.
And in our word for today from the Word of God, Proverbs 27:23-24, God says, "Be sure that you know the condition of your flocks, give careful attention to your herds...for a crown is not secure for all generations." If you want it to be there tomorrow, take care of it today.
See, relationships, like bridges, collapse when they're not cared for. Oh, the final cave-in may come suddenly, but there's really nothing sudden about it. There's a slow, almost imperceptible deterioration. Then one day, it's gone. That's why the Bible says to "be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry" (James 1:19). When you stop having time to listen, you start feeling the strain, the tension, the distance. Then comes that jolt that jars the bridge and exposes the damage neglect has done. And everything comes apart and the bridge collapses.
Is it over? Not necessarily. See, bridges can be rebuilt stronger than ever at a price. Doing whatever it takes, changing whatever you have to change, and spending whatever it costs to rebuild that bridge. But it's worth it to recover all that you have lost on the other side.
The collapse of a relationship? It's a wakeup call to look where we haven't looked before-up. Because what I can't fix, God can: broken relationships, broken families, broken hearts. He promises, "I will give you back what you lost to the stripping locusts" (Joel 2:25 NLT). And "bestow...a crown of beauty instead of ashes" (Isaiah 61:3).
Sadly, though, when we reach up for God, we realize how far we are from Him, and there's a reason. The Bible says, "Your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2). We've done life "my way" instead of His way. We've left this yawning chasm between us and our only Hope. We really need Him, but there's no bridge.
Oh, we try to build a bridge to God. That's what every religion on the planet is. But they all fall short, because no religion can pay the death penalty that sin demands. All our bridges to God fail to reach the other side. But that's why God did what only He could do. He built a bridge from heaven to us. Jesus, God's Son, pouring out His life to save mine and yours by paying the death penalty I deserve. The Bible says, "He gave Himself for our sins to rescue us" (Galatians 1:3).
So the Bridge is open. God's waiting on the other side for you with open arms. But you have got to cross the Bridge; you've got to belong to the God who made you. Maybe you've never experienced His love; His healing for yourself. I'd love to show you how to get started with Him. Would you join me at our website ANewStory.com? Because the bridge God has built will get you home safely.