Joshua 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: RELIGIOUS, YET LOST
A person can be religious and yet lost. Attending church won’t make you God’s child. You must accept his offer. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).

It makes no sense to seek your God-given strength until you trust in his. “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for” (Ephesians 1:11). Take a few moments and talk to God. Whether you are making a decision or reaffirming an earlier one, talk to your Maker about your eternal life. You might find this prayer helpful: Immanuel, you are with me. You became a person and took on flesh. You became my Savior and took on my sin. I accept your gift. I receive you as my Lord, Savior, and friend. Because of you, I’ll never be alone again!

Read more Cure for the Common Life

Joshua 3 The Message (MSG)
The Jordan
3 1-4 Joshua was up early and on his way from Shittim with all the People of Israel with him. He arrived at the Jordan and camped before crossing over. After three days, leaders went through the camp and gave out orders to the people: “When you see the Covenant-Chest of God, your God, carried by the Levitical priests, start moving. Follow it. Make sure you keep a proper distance between you and it, about half a mile—be sure now to keep your distance!—and you’ll see clearly the route to take. You’ve never been on this road before.”

5 Then Joshua addressed the people: “Sanctify yourselves. Tomorrow God will work miracle-wonders among you.”

6 Joshua instructed the priests, “Take up the Chest of the Covenant and step out before the people.” So they took it up and processed before the people.

7-8 God said to Joshua, “This very day I will begin to make you great in the eyes of all Israel. They’ll see for themselves that I’m with you in the same way that I was with Moses. You will command the priests who are carrying the Chest of the Covenant: ‘When you come to the edge of the Jordan’s waters, stand there on the river bank.’”

9-13 Then Joshua addressed the People of Israel: “Attention! Listen to what God, your God, has to say. This is how you’ll know that God is alive among you—he will completely dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites. Look at what’s before you: the Chest of the Covenant. Think of it—the Master of the entire earth is crossing the Jordan as you watch. Now take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe. When the soles of the feet of the priests carrying the Chest of God, Master of all the earth, touch the Jordan’s water, the flow of water will be stopped—the water coming from upstream will pile up in a heap.”

14-16 And that’s what happened. The people left their tents to cross the Jordan, led by the priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant. When the priests got to the Jordan and their feet touched the water at the edge (the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest), the flow of water stopped. It piled up in a heap—a long way off—at Adam, which is near Zarethan. The river went dry all the way down to the Arabah Sea (the Salt Sea). And the people crossed, facing Jericho.

17 And there they stood; those priests carrying the Chest of the Covenant stood firmly planted on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel crossed on dry ground. Finally the whole nation was across the Jordan, and not one wet foot.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Read: Matthew 13:44–46
“God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.

45-46 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.

INSIGHT
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” You’ve probably heard that line used to pressure you to do something or buy any number of things that failed to live up to the hype. But in the case of the kingdom of God, the claims Jesus makes about it in Matthew 13 are actually true.

In this chapter, Jesus repeatedly emphasizes how seeing and living in the new reality of His kingdom isn’t natural. In fact, God’s kingdom is so countercultural that Jesus describes it as “yeast” (v. 33), which in Scripture is typically seen as a symbol of corruption and evil (Hosea 7:4; Matthew 16:6, 11; 1 Corinthians 5:6–13). Jesus’s shocking use of this word would be similar to saying that the kingdom is like a virus or like saying, “It ruins everything.”

And that’s exactly Jesus’s point. Truly experiencing His kingdom will not be comfortable or easy for any of us. It’ll ruin everything!—all our plans, all our assumptions, all our comfort. But it’s more than worth it. It’s the treasure that’s infinitely precious, the source of endless joy (Matthew 13:44–46). - Monica Brands

Ring in a Dumpster
By Julie Schwab

Seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. Matthew 7:7

In college, I woke up one morning to find Carol, my roommate, in a panic. Her signet ring was missing. We searched everywhere. The next morning we found ourselves picking through a dumpster.

I ripped open a trash bag. “You’re so dedicated to finding this!”

“I’m not losing a two-hundred-dollar ring!” she exclaimed.

Carol’s determination reminds me of the parable Jesus told about the kingdom of heaven, which “is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” (Matthew 13:44). Certain things are worth going great lengths to find.

Throughout the Bible, God promises that those who seek Him will find Him. In Deuteronomy, He explained to the Israelites that they would find Him when they turned from their sin and sought Him with all their hearts (4:28–29). In the book of 2 Chronicles, King Asa gained encouragement from a similar promise (15:2). And in Jeremiah, God gave the same promise to the exiles, saying He would bring them back from captivity (29:13–14).

If we seek God, through His Word, worship, and in our daily lives, we will find Him. Over time, we’ll know Him on a deeper level. That will be even better than the sweet moment when Carol pulled her ring out of that trash bag!

Lord, help me to seek You with all my heart.

To find God, we must be willing to seek Him.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Held by the Grip of God
I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. —Philippians 3:12

Never choose to be a worker for God, but once God has placed His call on you, woe be to you if you “turn aside to the right hand or to the left” (Deuteronomy 5:32). We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has “laid hold of” us. And once He has done so, we never have this thought, “Well, I’m really not suited for this.” What you are to preach is also determined by God, not by your own natural leanings or desires. Keep your soul steadfastly related to God, and remember that you are called not simply to convey your testimony but also to preach the gospel. Every Christian must testify to the truth of God, but when it comes to the call to preach, there must be the agonizing grip of God’s hand on you— your life is in the grip of God for that very purpose. How many of us are held like that?

Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are— you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do…I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it.  Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1459 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Defying the Vultures - #8209

My friend Rich had just come through a major battle with cancer with heavy radiation therapy, and that's what helped him win. The only problem was the radiation left him feeling pretty weak and depleted. So, he would work a short week at his business and then he'd retreat to this little cabin that he and his wife had way back in the woods. One day Rich was down by the stream and feeling pretty tired. So, he lay down right there by the water and fell asleep. When he woke up, he was startled by what he saw. There were vultures circling him! Yeah! Now, you wouldn't believe how quickly Rich got up! I can just imagine him shouting to the vultures, "Hey, you birds, I may look dead to you, but I am still alive!"

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Defying the Vultures."

You may be in a situation where you're pretty battered right now – physically, emotionally, spiritually, maybe it's romantically or financially. You're tired, you're depleted, and maybe it looks like you're without hope, sort of like you're dead. Maybe you've even got some vultures circling, telling you it's over. Excuse me, it's time to defy the vultures!

When Abraham was told by God as an old man that he would be the father of many nations, beginning with the son God would send, oh man, that looked impossible. Both he and his wife were way beyond child-conceiving, or child-bearing years. And there were many years actually where nothing happened between the promise and the birth of that son. But even though it appeared from all human logic and circumstance that the possibility of a son was dead, Abraham just kept on defying those vultures of unbelief.

It's in our word for today from the Word of God in Romans 4:18 - "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him." So, without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, and that Sarah's womb was also dead. "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what He had promised."

Things looked like they were dead, but Abraham refused to believe what things looked like! He chose again and again to exercise stubborn faith in the promises of God. I call this defiant faith – the kind that defies the vultures of unbelief, and pessimism, and giving up and quitting. In Jesus Christ, there is no such thing as "hopeless" or "impossible" or "too late."

So right now God may be calling you to stand up and defy those vultures – to fight back against the despair, the tendency to withdraw, or to give up, or to run away – to accept the verdict of your circumstances. Don't succumb to the difficult environment or situation you're in. Capture your environment, make a difference there; focus on what you can do, not what you can't do. And be fully alive until Jesus decides it's over.

Like the victory of the Apostle Paul who said, "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

You may look dead and hope may look dead, but it's time you stood to your feet and you said loud and clear, "I may look dead to you, but because of the God I have, I am very much alive!"