Max Lucado Daily: PRAY—FIRST AND MOST
Let’s pray—first! Traveling to help the hungry? Be sure to bathe your mission in prayer. Weary of a world of racism and division? So is God. And he would love to talk with you about it.
Let’s pray—most! Did God call us to preach without ceasing? Or teach without ceasing? Or have committee meetings without ceasing? Or sing without ceasing? No, but he did call us to “pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17).
Did Jesus declare…my house shall be called a house of study? Fellowship? Music? A house of activities? No, but he did say “My house will be called a house of prayer” (Mark 11:17). Jesus said, “When two of you get together on anything and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action” (Matthew 18:19).
So, Pray! Pray first and pray most!
From God is With You Every Day
1 Chronicles 19
David Defeats the Ammonites
In the course of time, Nahash king of the Ammonites died, and his son succeeded him as king. 2 David thought, “I will show kindness to Hanun son of Nahash, because his father showed kindness to me.” So David sent a delegation to express his sympathy to Hanun concerning his father.
When David’s envoys came to Hanun in the land of the Ammonites to express sympathy to him, 3 the Ammonite commanders said to Hanun, “Do you think David is honoring your father by sending envoys to you to express sympathy? Haven’t his envoys come to you only to explore and spy out the country and overthrow it?” 4 So Hanun seized David’s envoys, shaved them, cut off their garments at the buttocks, and sent them away.
5 When someone came and told David about the men, he sent messengers to meet them, for they were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho till your beards have grown, and then come back.”
6 When the Ammonites realized that they had become obnoxious to David, Hanun and the Ammonites sent a thousand talents[e] of silver to hire chariots and charioteers from Aram Naharaim,[f] Aram Maakah and Zobah. 7 They hired thirty-two thousand chariots and charioteers, as well as the king of Maakah with his troops, who came and camped near Medeba, while the Ammonites were mustered from their towns and moved out for battle.
8 On hearing this, David sent Joab out with the entire army of fighting men. 9 The Ammonites came out and drew up in battle formation at the entrance to their city, while the kings who had come were by themselves in the open country.
10 Joab saw that there were battle lines in front of him and behind him; so he selected some of the best troops in Israel and deployed them against the Arameans. 11 He put the rest of the men under the command of Abishai his brother, and they were deployed against the Ammonites. 12 Joab said, “If the Arameans are too strong for me, then you are to rescue me; but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will rescue you. 13 Be strong, and let us fight bravely for our people and the cities of our God. The Lord will do what is good in his sight.”
14 Then Joab and the troops with him advanced to fight the Arameans, and they fled before him. 15 When the Ammonites realized that the Arameans were fleeing, they too fled before his brother Abishai and went inside the city. So Joab went back to Jerusalem.
16 After the Arameans saw that they had been routed by Israel, they sent messengers and had Arameans brought from beyond the Euphrates River, with Shophak the commander of Hadadezer’s army leading them.
17 When David was told of this, he gathered all Israel and crossed the Jordan; he advanced against them and formed his battle lines opposite them. David formed his lines to meet the Arameans in battle, and they fought against him. 18 But they fled before Israel, and David killed seven thousand of their charioteers and forty thousand of their foot soldiers. He also killed Shophak the commander of their army.
19 When the vassals of Hadadezer saw that they had been routed by Israel, they made peace with David and became subject to him.
So the Arameans were not willing to help the Ammonites anymore.
Footnotes:
1 Chronicles 19:6 That is, about 38 tons or about 34 metric tons
1 Chronicles 19:6 That is, Northwest Mesopotamia
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 17, 2016
Read: Nehemiah 8:1–8
all the people assembled with a unified purpose at the square just inside the Water Gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring out the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had given for Israel to obey.
2 So on October 8[a] Ezra the priest brought the Book of the Law before the assembly, which included the men and women and all the children old enough to understand. 3 He faced the square just inside the Water Gate from early morning until noon and read aloud to everyone who could understand. All the people listened closely to the Book of the Law.
4 Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform that had been made for the occasion. To his right stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah. To his left stood Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam. 5 Ezra stood on the platform in full view of all the people. When they saw him open the book, they all rose to their feet.
6 Then Ezra praised the Lord, the great God, and all the people chanted, “Amen! Amen!” as they lifted their hands. Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.
7 The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah—then instructed the people in the Law while everyone remained in their places. 8 They read from the Book of the Law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage.
Footnotes:
8:2 Hebrew on the first day of the seventh month, of the ancient Hebrew lunar calendar. This day was October 8, 445 B.c.; also see note on 1:1.
INSIGHT:
Nehemiah was the “cupbearer to the king” (Neh. 1:11), a position of great trust and influence in ancient cultures. The cupbearer was responsible to serve wine at the king’s table and would be positioned at the king’s side as an advisor during times of deliberation. Since ancient monarchs were often assassinated by poison, the cupbearer was sometimes required to taste the wine before serving. The person who handled the king’s cup was important and needed to be trustworthy.
Marathon Reading
By Dave Branon
They read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people understood what was being read. Nehemiah 8:8
When the sun came up on the first day of the seventh month in 444 bc, Ezra started reading the law of Moses (what we know as the first five books of the Bible). Standing on a platform in front of the people in Jerusalem, he read it straight through for the next six hours.
Men, women, and children had gathered at the entrance to the city known as the Water Gate to observe the Festival of Trumpets—one of the feasts prescribed for them by God. As they listened, four reactions stand out.
Lord, thank You for this amazing book we call the Bible.
They stood up in reverence for the Book of the Law (Neh. 8:5). They praised God by lifting their hands and saying “Amen.” They bowed down in humble worship (v. 6). Then they listened carefully as the Scriptures were both read and explained to them (v. 8). What an amazing day as the book that “the Lord had commanded for Israel” (v. 1) was read aloud inside Jerusalem’s newly rebuilt walls!
Ezra’s marathon reading session can remind us that God’s words to us are still meant to be a source of praise, worship, and learning. When we open the Bible and learn more about Christ, let’s praise God, worship Him, and seek to discover what He is saying to us now.
Lord, thank You for this amazing book we call the Bible. Thank You for inspiring its creation by the writers You chose to pen its words. Thank You for preserving this book through the ages so we can learn Your people’s story and the good news of Your love.
The goal of Bible study is not just learning but living.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 17, 2016
Beware of Criticizing Others
Judge not, that you be not judged. —Matthew 7:1
Jesus’ instructions with regard to judging others is very simply put; He says, “Don’t.” The average Christian is the most piercingly critical individual known. Criticism is one of the ordinary activities of people, but in the spiritual realm nothing is accomplished by it. The effect of criticism is the dividing up of the strengths of the one being criticized. The Holy Spirit is the only one in the proper position to criticize, and He alone is able to show what is wrong without hurting and wounding. It is impossible to enter into fellowship with God when you are in a critical mood. Criticism serves to make you harsh, vindictive, and cruel, and leaves you with the soothing and flattering idea that you are somehow superior to others. Jesus says that as His disciple you should cultivate a temperament that is never critical. This will not happen quickly but must be developed over a span of time. You must constantly beware of anything that causes you to think of yourself as a superior person.
There is no escaping the penetrating search of my life by Jesus. If I see the little speck in your eye, it means that I have a plank of timber in my own (see Matthew 7:3-5). Every wrong thing that I see in you, God finds in me. Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17-24). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person’s situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To live a life alone with God does not mean that we live it apart from everyone else. The connection between godly men and women and those associated with them is continually revealed in the Bible, e.g., 1 Timothy 4:10. Not Knowing Whither, 867 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 17, 2016
Good News for Dad - #7680
I enjoy reading my newspaper. My kids enjoyed crashing through my newspaper to sit on my lap. Nowadays, it's getting harder to bother your father while he's checking out the news. You'd have to jump on his iPhone.
Anyway, I could relate when I heard about this little guy who kept interrupting his dad while he was reading his voluminous Sunday paper. For a while, Dad was able to buy a little time by saying "pretty soon, Son." But eventually, Son wasn't buying it.
So, deeply immersed in the sports section, his father had a sudden brainstorm. There just happened to be a full page ad that showed a map of the whole world. Resourceful Dad tore it into lots of little puzzle pieces. "Here, Scotty - why don't you put this puzzle together? As soon as you're finished, I promise we'll go out and play ball." Scotty eagerly hit the floor with his ragged pieces of the world.
It was just about two minutes later when he came knocking again on his father's newspaper. "I'm done, Daddy." "What? With all those pieces? How did you ever put the whole world together that fast?" The boy's answer blew his dad away. "It was easy, Daddy. There was a picture of a man on the other side!" Score one for the kid. But then came the clincher: "And when you put the man together right, the world goes together just fine!"
This Father's Day season, a lot of dads will get celebrated - maybe even pampered a little, if they're lucky. But beneath the "World's Greatest Dad" shirts and the "You rock, Dad!" cards, a lot of fathers realize an uncomfortable secret. "I'm not the man I should be." I know this man needs some "putting together right."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Good News for Dad."
Being a dad exposes a lot of baggage you might have been able to ignore before. Our children see behind closed doors the real us that few outside ever see. Our kids are our mirror. And sometimes we don't like what we see. Like those things that our parents did that we said we'd never do - and we're doing them. We see - reflected in our children - our weaknesses, our failures, our selfishness, and our baggage. One dad told me, "I look out the window at my precious eight-year-old daughter in the yard - and I think, 'I just can't be what she needs me to be.'"
Every father who's honest with himself knows the feelings that are expressed so bluntly by one of the writers of the Bible. He said, "What I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." Then he cries out in a desperate desire to change: "Who will rescue me?" That's in Romans 7:15, 24.
That's what all of us fathers need - if we'll be honest about the darkness we've got in us. We need a rescuer. That Bible writer found Him. The answer to his "who will rescue me?" is to the point - "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
That's right! Jesus came here to tame the monster of sin that first poisons us, and then progressively poisons everyone we love. I might not have thought it was so bad when I was the only one being hurt by my sin. But now it scars the people I love the most. I want to change - but if I could have changed, I would have. Like every dad, I really do need the Rescuer.
Truth is, a man needs Jesus to be the man he needs to be. That his wife needs him to be. That his children really need him to be. And when a man surrenders himself to Jesus, He unleashes the same power that raised Him from the dead to change a man from the inside out.
The Bible promises in our word for today from the Word of God in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation." Jesus can beat the sin in a man because He died on the cross to pay for every sin of our life. The selfish things and hurting things - He'll forgive every one of them! Then that son or daughter God gave you gets a gift that will change them, too. They get a new dad, with Jesus in his life.
Because when Jesus puts the man together right, the world of his family will go together just fine.
Dad, are you ready to get started with Jesus? Tell Him that right now, with Him driving, not you anymore. Go to our website, and let me show you exactly the steps to take to make sure you belong to Him. Go to ANewStory.com
When God wanted to rescue us, He came to us as a man. The 12 people who were the original "Team Jesus" were all men - real men. For 2,000 years, men have found in the God-man, Jesus Christ, the power to love, to change, and to be forgiven. But it starts with a choice. Jesus, you're driving, I'm not.