Job 19, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
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Job 19

Job Answers Bildad
I Call for Help and No One Bothers
1-6 Job answered:

“How long are you going to keep battering away at me,
    pounding me with these harangues?
Time after time after time you jump all over me.
    Do you have no conscience, abusing me like this?
Even if I have, somehow or other, gotten off the track,
    what business is that of yours?
Why do you insist on putting me down,
    using my troubles as a stick to beat me?
Tell it to God—he’s the one behind all this,
    he’s the one who dragged me into this mess.
7-12 “Look at me—I shout ‘Murder!’ and I’m ignored;
    I call for help and no one bothers to stop.
God threw a barricade across my path—I’m stymied;
    he turned out all the lights—I’m stuck in the dark.
He destroyed my reputation,
    robbed me of all self-respect.
He tore me apart piece by piece—I’m ruined!
    Then he yanked out hope by the roots.
He’s angry with me—oh, how he’s angry!
    He treats me like his worst enemy.
He has launched a major campaign against me,
    using every weapon he can think of,
    coming at me from all sides at once.
I Know That God Lives
13-20 “God alienated my family from me;
    everyone who knows me avoids me.
My relatives and friends have all left;
    houseguests forget I ever existed.
The servant girls treat me like a bum off the street,
    look at me like they’ve never seen me before.
I call my attendant and he ignores me,
    ignores me even though I plead with him.
My wife can’t stand to be around me anymore.
    I’m repulsive to my family.
Even street urchins despise me;
    when I come out, they taunt and jeer.
Everyone I’ve ever been close to abhors me;
    my dearest loved ones reject me.
I’m nothing but a bag of bones;
    my life hangs by a thread.
21-22 “Oh, friends, dear friends, take pity on me.
    God has come down hard on me!
Do you have to be hard on me, too?
    Don’t you ever tire of abusing me?
23-27 “If only my words were written in a book—
    better yet, chiseled in stone!
Still, I know that God lives—the One who gives me back my life—
    and eventually he’ll take his stand on earth.
And I’ll see him—even though I get skinned alive!—
    see God myself, with my very own eyes.
    Oh, how I long for that day!
28-29 “If you’re thinking, ‘How can we get through to him,
    get him to see that his trouble is all his own fault?’
Forget it. Start worrying about yourselves.
    Worry about your own sins and God’s coming judgment,
    for judgment is most certainly on the way.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, November 12, 2017
Read: 2 Chronicles 2:1–10
Preparations for Building the Temple

[a]Solomon gave orders to build a temple for the Name of the Lord and a royal palace for himself. 2 He conscripted 70,000 men as carriers and 80,000 as stonecutters in the hills and 3,600 as foremen over them.

3 Solomon sent this message to Hiram[b] king of Tyre:

“Send me cedar logs as you did for my father David when you sent him cedar to build a palace to live in. 4 Now I am about to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God and to dedicate it to him for burning fragrant incense before him, for setting out the consecrated bread regularly, and for making burnt offerings every morning and evening and on the Sabbaths, at the New Moons and at the appointed festivals of the Lord our God. This is a lasting ordinance for Israel.

5 “The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods. 6 But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before him?

7 “Send me, therefore, a man skilled to work in gold and silver, bronze and iron, and in purple, crimson and blue yarn, and experienced in the art of engraving, to work in Judah and Jerusalem with my skilled workers, whom my father David provided.

8 “Send me also cedar, juniper and algum[c] logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants are skilled in cutting timber there. My servants will work with yours 9 to provide me with plenty of lumber, because the temple I build must be large and magnificent. 10 I will give your servants, the woodsmen who cut the timber, twenty thousand cors[d] of ground wheat, twenty thousand cors[e] of barley, twenty thousand baths[f] of wine and twenty thousand baths of olive oil.”

Footnotes:

2 Chronicles 2:1 In Hebrew texts 2:1 is numbered 1:18, and 2:2-18 is numbered 2:1-17.
2 Chronicles 2:3 Hebrew Huram, a variant of Hiram; also in verses 11 and 12
2 Chronicles 2:8 Probably a variant of almug
2 Chronicles 2:10 That is, probably about 3,600 tons or about 3,200 metric tons of wheat
2 Chronicles 2:10 That is, probably about 3,000 tons or about 2,700 metric tons of barley
2 Chronicles 2:10 That is, about 120,000 gallons or about 440,000 liters

What’s the Best Gift?
By Kirsten Holmberg

The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods. 2 Chronicles 2:5

My husband recently celebrated a milestone birthday, the kind that ends in a zero. I thought hard about the best way to honor him on this important occasion. I discussed my many ideas with our children to help me home in on the best one. I wanted our celebration to reflect the significance of a new decade and how precious he is to our family. I wanted our gift to be in keeping with the importance of this milestone in his life.

King Solomon wanted to give to God a much greater gift than a “big birthday” would merit. He wished for the temple he built to be worthy of God’s presence in it. To secure raw materials, he messaged the king of Tyre. In his letter, he remarked that the temple would be great “because our God is greater than all other gods” (2 Chron. 2:5). He acknowledged that God’s vastness and goodness far exceeded what could ever be built with human hands, yet set about the task anyway out of love and worship.

The most treasured gift we can give to God is our love.
Our God is indeed greater than all other gods. He has done wondrous things in our lives, prompting our hearts to bring Him a loving and precious offering, regardless of its external value. Solomon knew his gift wouldn’t match God’s worth, yet joyfully set his offering before Him; we can too.

Lord, You are indeed a great God, matchless in worth. May my offerings be pleasing in Your sight.

The most treasured gift we can give to God is our love.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, November 12, 2017
The Changed Life

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. —2 Corinthians 5:17

What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is— has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above— you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Much of the misery in our Christian life comes not because the devil tackles us, but because we have never understood the simple laws of our make-up. We have to treat the body as the servant of Jesus Christ: when the body says “Sit,” and He says “Go,” go! When the body says “Eat,” and He says “Fast,” fast! When the body says “Yawn,” and He says “Pray,” pray! Biblical Ethics, 107 R