Max Lucado Daily: LOVE THE OVERLOOKED
May I urge you to love the overlooked? When you talk to the lonely student or befriend the weary mom, you love Jesus. He dresses in the garb of the overlooked and ignored. “Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me,” Jesus said (Matthew 25:40).
You can do that. Don’t so focus on what you love to do that you neglect what needs to be done. Everyday do something you don’t want to do. Pick up someone else’s trash. Call the long-winded relative. Don’t be too big to do something small. 1 Corinthians 15:58 says, “Throw yourself into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.” A good action brings God’s attention. He notices the actions of his servants. He sent his Son to be one!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 10
God responded. He said, “Shape two slabs of stone similar to the first ones. Climb the mountain and meet me. Also make yourself a wooden chest. I will engrave the stone slabs with the words that were on the first ones, the ones you smashed. Then you will put them in the Chest.”
3-5 So I made a chest out of acacia wood, shaped two slabs of stone, just like the first ones, and climbed the mountain with the two slabs in my arms. He engraved the stone slabs the same as he had the first ones, the Ten Words that he addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. Then God gave them to me. I turned around and came down the mountain. I put the stone slabs in the Chest that I made and they’ve been there ever since, just as God commanded me.
6-7 The People of Israel went from the wells of the Jaakanites to Moserah. Aaron died there and was buried. His son Eleazar succeeded him as priest. From there they went to Gudgodah, and then to Jotbathah, a land of streams of water.
8-9 That’s when God set apart the tribe of Levi to carry God’s Covenant Chest, to be on duty in the Presence of God, to serve him, and to bless in his name, as they continue to do today. And that’s why Levites don’t have a piece of inherited land as their kinsmen do. God is their inheritance, as God, your God, promised them.
10 I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights, just as I did the first time. And God listened to me, just as he did the first time: God decided not to destroy you.
11 God told me, “Now get going. Lead your people as they resume the journey to take possession of the land that I promised their ancestors that I’d give to them.”
12-13 So now Israel, what do you think God expects from you? Just this: Live in his presence in holy reverence, follow the road he sets out for you, love him, serve God, your God, with everything you have in you, obey the commandments and regulations of God that I’m commanding you today—live a good life.
14-18 Look around you: Everything you see is God’s—the heavens above and beyond, the Earth, and everything on it. But it was your ancestors who God fell in love with; he picked their children—that’s you!—out of all the other peoples. That’s where we are right now. So cut away the thick calluses from your heart and stop being so willfully hardheaded. God, your God, is the God of all gods, he’s the Master of all masters, a God immense and powerful and awesome. He doesn’t play favorites, takes no bribes, makes sure orphans and widows are treated fairly, takes loving care of foreigners by seeing that they get food and clothing.
19-21 You must treat foreigners with the same loving care—
remember, you were once foreigners in Egypt.
Reverently respect God, your God, serve him, hold tight to him,
back up your promises with the authority of his name.
He’s your praise! He’s your God!
He did all these tremendous, these staggering things
that you saw with your own eyes.
22 When your ancestors entered Egypt, they numbered a mere seventy souls. And now look at you—you look more like the stars in the night skies in number. And your God did it.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Read: Luke 15:1–7
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
3 So he told them this parable: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
INSIGHT
The parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1–7) is the first in a series of parables about lost things. It’s followed by the parable of the lost coin (vv. 8–10) and the parable of the lost son, better known as the prodigal son (vv. 11–32).
Although each of the parables is about something lost, there’s also something in each that isn’t lost—the sheep safe in the pen, the remaining coins, and the elder son at home. Yet the shepherd, the woman, and the father are not content with what they have; their concern is for that which is lost.
Is someone in your life lost and waiting to be found by the Savior? Whom can you trust to God’s loving and searching ways? - J.R. Hudberg
Sinners Like Us
By David H. Roper
This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Luke 15:2
I have a friend—her name is Edith—who told me about the day she decided to follow Jesus.
Edith cared nothing for religion. But one Sunday morning she walked into a church near her apartment looking for something to satisfy her discontented soul. The text that day was Luke 15:1–2, which the pastor read from the King James Version: “Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”
That’s what it said, but this is what Edith heard: “This man receives sinners and Edith with them.” She sat straight up in her pew! Eventually she realized her mistake, but the thought that Jesus welcomed sinners—and that included Edith—stayed with her. That afternoon she decided to “draw near” to Jesus and listen to Him. She began to read the Gospels, and soon she decided to put her faith in Him and follow Him.
The religious folks of Jesus’s day were scandalized by the fact that He ate and drank with sinful, awful people. Their rules prohibited them from associating with such folk. Jesus paid no attention to their made-up rules. He welcomed the down-and-out and gathered them to Him, no matter how far gone they were.
It’s still true, you know: Jesus receives sinners and (your name).
Heavenly Father, we can’t thank You enough for the radical love of Your Son, who drew all of us outcasts and moral failures to Him, and made the way for us to come to You in joy and boldness.
God pursues us in our restlessness, receives us in our sinfulness, holds us in our brokenness. Scotty Smith
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Becoming Entirely His
Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. —James 1:4
Many of us appear to be all right in general, but there are still some areas in which we are careless and lazy; it is not a matter of sin, but the remnants of our carnal life that tend to make us careless. Carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit. We should have no carelessness about us either in the way we worship God, or even in the way we eat and drink.
Not only must our relationship to God be right, but the outward expression of that relationship must also be right. Ultimately, God will allow nothing to escape; every detail of our lives is under His scrutiny. God will bring us back in countless ways to the same point over and over again. And He never tires of bringing us back to that one point until we learn the lesson, because His purpose is to produce the finished product. It may be a problem arising from our impulsive nature, but again and again, with the most persistent patience, God has brought us back to that one particular point. Or the problem may be our idle and wandering thinking, or our independent nature and self-interest. Through this process, God is trying to impress upon us the one thing that is not entirely right in our lives.
We have been having a wonderful time in our studies over the revealed truth of God’s redemption, and our hearts are perfect toward Him. And His wonderful work in us makes us know that overall we are right with Him. “Let patience have its perfect work….” The Holy Spirit speaking through James said, “Now let your patience become a finished product.” Beware of becoming careless over the small details of life and saying, “Oh, that will have to do for now.” Whatever it may be, God will point it out with persistence until we become entirely His.
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
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Hurried, Worried, and Blurry - #8232
The Lord's been good to our ministry and given us vehicles when we needed them through His people. It's been a wonderful thing. And I remember years ago, He provided our ministry with a used car. It was the easiest car to drive we've ever had up to that time. The windows were interesting. Looking out the windshield, everything looks clear. Looking out the side windows; that was another story. They were tinted for privacy. But over the years and the miles and all the heat, the tinting had started to create ripples in the glass. So everything you looked at through those windows just didn't look quite right. It's was blurred, it was distorted, it was dark.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Hurried, Worried, and Blurry."
The view isn't right, you know, when you're looking through a window that's dark or blurred. And sadly, a lot of us are looking at life through a window like that too much of the time. You know, it doesn't have to be that way. In the way He created us, God has provided something that can keep your view clear most of the time and help you actually avoid the mistakes we make because we're looking at things through a dirty window or a distorted window. One reason a lot of us are way more stressed than we need to be is that we neglect this vision-clearing gift from God.
It's clear that God built the need for it right into our creation when you go back 3,000 years to what He said in Leviticus 23:13, our word for today from the Word of God. "There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest ... you are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord."
Okay, so God designed us to work six days a week - not seven - and to focus on worship and rest one day out of seven. Like a car, we can't be all accelerator and no brakes or we're going to be out of control; we're going to crash. The Sabbath principle is the brakes that our creator has built into our lives to keep that from happening. And we can't continue to defy our created order and end up in good shape.
Unfortunately, our society, our careers, our churches, even our own drivenness often push us to keep driving all the time - all accelerator, no brakes. God even included the Sabbath requirement in His Ten Commandments. He's serious about it. This isn't about legalism. It's about respecting our creator and living as we were created to live. It's about personal sanity!
You might be experiencing right now what neglecting your Sabbaths does to the window through which you look at life. Prolonged stretches without timeouts start to distort your judgment; they cause you to make mistakes, to be more vulnerable to temptation and choices you'll regret. When you don't stop regularly to rest, your creativity starts to dry up, your sensitivity starts to turn to hardness, you're meaner, you're more short-tempered, you're more negative, more cutting. People look worse than they are, problems look bigger than they are, and God seems farther than He is.
You make some of your biggest mistakes when you're fatigued, and one major reason you're fatigued may be that you've simply blown by one Sabbath rest after another. Your Sabbaths are pretty consistently delayed, or abbreviated, or canceled. And you, and probably people around you, are suffering unnecessarily for it.
In Exodus 31:13, God says, "You must observe my Sabbaths ... so you may know that I am the Lord." When you tithe your money, you are acknowledging that, as Lord of your finances, God can do more in your life with your obedient 90% than your disobedient 100% that you want to keep. When you take the Sabbath timeouts God has commanded, you're acknowledging His Lordship over your time; that He will enable you to do more in six days than you can do in seven days when you're dishonoring His Sabbath rest.
Your outlook may be getting increasingly blurred, dark, and distorted. You've probably not been stopping for the window cleaning that God does only when you have stopped to rest. You need to get your Sabbaths, so God doesn't one day have to violently throw on your brakes. Then your Sabbaths will come and get you.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Monday, July 30, 2018
Deuteronomy 9, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: JESUS WAS A HUMBLE SERVANT
Jesus’ self-assigned purpose statement reads: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
As you celebrate your unique design, be careful. Don’t be so focused on what you love to do that you neglect what needs to be done. You know a 3:00 am diaper change fits in very few sweet spots, but the world needs servants. People like Jesus, who “did not come to be served, but to serve.” He selected prayer over sleep and unpredictable apostles over obedient angels. Jesus picked the people. When they feared the storm, he stilled it. When they had no wine for the wedding or food for the multitude, he made both. Let’s follow his example and put on the apron of humility, to serve one another (1 Peter 5:5).
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 9
Attention, Israel! This very day you are crossing the Jordan to enter the land and dispossess nations that are much bigger and stronger than you are. You’re going to find huge cities with sky-high fortress-walls and gigantic people, descendants of the Anakites—you’ve heard all about them; you’ve heard the saying, “No one can stand up to an Anakite.”
3 Today know this: God, your God, is crossing the river ahead of you—he’s a consuming fire. He will destroy the nations, he will put them under your power. You will dispossess them and very quickly wipe them out, just as God promised you would.
4-5 But when God pushes them out ahead of you, don’t start thinking to yourselves, “It’s because of all the good I’ve done that God has brought me in here to dispossess these nations.” Actually it’s because of all the evil these nations have done. No, it’s nothing good that you’ve done, no record for decency that you’ve built up, that got you here; it’s because of the vile wickedness of these nations that God, your God, is dispossessing them before you so that he can keep his promised word to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6-10 Know this and don’t ever forget it: It’s not because of any good that you’ve done that God is giving you this good land to own. Anything but! You’re stubborn as mules. Keep in mind and don’t ever forget how angry you made God, your God, in the wilderness. You’ve kicked and screamed against God from the day you left Egypt until you got to this place, rebels all the way. You made God angry at Horeb, made him so angry that he wanted to destroy you. When I climbed the mountain to receive the slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant that God made with you, I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights: I ate no food; I drank no water. Then God gave me the two slabs of stone, engraved with the finger of God. They contained word for word everything that God spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
11-12 It was at the end of the forty days and nights that God gave me the two slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant. God said to me, “Get going, and quickly. Get down there, because your people whom you led out of Egypt have ruined everything. In almost no time at all they have left the road that I laid out for them and gone off and made for themselves a cast god.”
13-14 God said, “I look at this people and all I see are hardheaded, hardhearted rebels. Get out of my way now so I can destroy them. I’m going to wipe them off the face of the map. Then I’ll start over with you to make a nation far better and bigger than they could ever be.”
15-17 I turned around and started down the mountain—by now the mountain was blazing with fire—carrying the two tablets of the covenant in my two arms. That’s when I saw it: There you were, sinning against God, your God—you had made yourselves a cast god in the shape of a calf! So soon you had left the road that God had commanded you to walk on. I held the two stone slabs high and threw them down, smashing them to bits as you watched.
18-20 Then I prostrated myself before God, just as I had at the beginning of the forty days and nights. I ate no food; I drank no water. I did this because of you, all your sins, sinning against God, doing what is evil in God’s eyes and making him angry. I was terrified of God’s furious anger, his blazing anger. I was sure he would destroy you. But once again God listened to me. And Aaron! How furious he was with Aaron—ready to destroy him. But I prayed also for Aaron at that same time.
21 But that sin-thing that you made, that calf-god, I took and burned in the fire, pounded and ground it until it was crushed into a fine powder, then threw it into the stream that comes down the mountain.
22 And then there was Camp Taberah (Blaze), Massah (Testing-Place), and Camp Kibroth Hattaavah (Graves-of-the-Craving)—more occasions when you made God furious with you.
23-24 The most recent was when God sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, ordering you: “Go. Possess the land that I’m giving you.” And what did you do? You rebelled. Rebelled against the clear orders of God, your God. Refused to trust him. Wouldn’t obey him. You’ve been rebels against God from the first day I knew you.
25-26 When I was on my face, prostrate before God those forty days and nights after God said he would destroy you, I prayed to God for you, “My Master, God, don’t destroy your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt.
27-28 “Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don’t make too much of the stubbornness of this people, their evil and their sin, lest the Egyptians from whom you rescued them say, ‘God couldn’t do it; he got tired and wasn’t able to take them to the land he promised them. He ended up hating them and dumped them in the wilderness to die.’
29 “They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, July 30, 2018
Read: Nehemiah 6:1–9, 15
Conspiracy Against Nehemiah
Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it (although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. 3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” 4 And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner. 5 In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. 6 In it was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Geshem[a] also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports you wish to become their king. 7 And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah.’ And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together.” 8 Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.” 9 For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.” But now, O God,[b] strengthen my hands.
Footnotes:
Nehemiah 6:6 Hebrew Gashmu
Nehemiah 6:9 Hebrew lacks O God
INSIGHT
What kinds of challenges have you faced? How has God helped you to overcome them?
For further study on the book of Nehemiah, see christianuniversity.org/OT220.
Overcoming Challenges
By Kirsten Holmberg
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. Nehemiah 6:15
We gathered monthly to hold one another accountable to our individual goals. My friend Mary wanted to reupholster the seats of her dining room chairs before the year’s end. At our November meeting she wittily reported her progress from October: “It took ten months and two hours to recover my chairs.” After months of not being able to obtain the materials required, or find the quiet hours away from her demanding job and her toddler’s needs, the project took merely two hours of committed work to finish.
The Lord called Nehemiah to a far greater project: to bring restoration to Jerusalem after its walls had lain in ruin for 150 years (Nehemiah 2:3–5, 12). As he led the people in the labor, they experienced mockery, attacks, distraction, and temptation to sin (4:3, 8; 6:10–12). Yet God equipped them to stand firm—resolute in their efforts—completing a daunting task in just fifty-two days.
Overcoming such challenges requires much more than a personal desire or goal; Nehemiah was driven by an understanding that God appointed him to the task. His sense of purpose invigorated the people to follow his leadership despite incredible opposition. When God charges us with a task—whether to repair a relationship or share what He’s done in our lives—He gives us whatever skills and strength are necessary to continue in our effort to do what He’s asked, no matter what challenges come our way.
Lord, please equip me with Your strength to persevere and finish the tasks You’ve given me. May my labors bring You glory.
God equips us to overcome obstacles and complete the tasks He’s given us to do.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, July 30, 2018
The Teaching of Disillusionment
Jesus did not commit Himself to them…, for He knew what was in man. —John 2:24-25
Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens— if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, July 30, 2018
A Real Master's Degree - #8231
We tend to measure life by its milestones. Take our first born child, our daughter. There have been a lot of milestones in her life. I remember looking at the films of her learning to walk. Now, that's a big milestone from a long time ago. Her first piano recital; we have pictures of that of course. Her first band concert; that was a big one. Let's see, there was her junior high graduation, then her high school graduation, her college graduation, her wedding; man, there have been a lot of things. I remember that when she graduated from college there was a sense of completion I think for all of us. She had a double major in college. She graduated with honors. She got a degree from a great school, and I wrote something on her graduation card for all the work and all the money that that degree had cost. I told her there is another degree that she needs. One that is far more important.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Real Master's Degree."
Our word for today from the Word of God from 2 Timothy 2:15 - "Study to show yourself a workman approved under God who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth." Now when our daughter's class received their degree, it was kind of exciting. Some of them held it up when they walked across that stage - "Man, I crossed that finish line." Some of them waved at people. Some of them waved their degree, and basically the school was saying, "Alright, you've done all you need to do to have this school's approval."
Now Paul was suggesting a higher degree to aim for - a real Master's Degree. It has nothing to do with going on for more college. Jim Elliot was a graduate of the same college that our daughter attended. Jim was a young man who went to the Auca Indians, the Waorani Indians, stone-age savages in the jungles of Ecuador and some people thought he wasted his life when he was martyred trying to reach them. But he actually invested his life in reaching those precious natives.
See, today many of them know the Lord. The killers are actually pastors of the Auca church. His example caused many of us to go into full-time Christian work. Jim Elliot would say he only wanted one degree in his life. Though he was a college grad, he said, "I want my A.U.G. award - Approved Unto God." Does God approve - that's what Jim said he wanted. Now the tragedy is when you sacrifice your A.U.G. - your Master's Degree - in order to get some position or recognition that men offer.
Maybe you have given your Approved unto God to get some academic achievement; -maybe you have made some compromises. Maybe you lost your Master's Degree in order to get a business position or a promotion; you paid a price that's too high. Or maybe to achieve something in ministry or the reaching of some important goal or dream, but it's cost you God's approval. Maybe you want to be acknowledged by a group of friends or colleagues or by a guy or girl, and in the process you lost your A.U.G. degree - your Master's Degree. You lost God's approval.
You've got to ask yourself, did you do it in a way that would give you Jesus' approval too? Or did it cost you His approval? Have you told the truth on your way to that goal? Have you consistently had your time with him or have you sacrificed that? Have you been caring for people, or have you been running over people to get there? Have you taken time to minister to people in need or are you just too busy for that? Have you stayed pure?
Our daughter saw the president of the college waiting as she crossed that platform that day, but I told her, "Honey, I think Jesus was waiting for you with your A.U.G. degree. He had a degree to give you that day, too." Boy, I sure hope He has one for me. The Master's Degree is the one that really matters, when you hear Him say some of the most wonderful words in the universe, "Well done."
Jesus’ self-assigned purpose statement reads: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
As you celebrate your unique design, be careful. Don’t be so focused on what you love to do that you neglect what needs to be done. You know a 3:00 am diaper change fits in very few sweet spots, but the world needs servants. People like Jesus, who “did not come to be served, but to serve.” He selected prayer over sleep and unpredictable apostles over obedient angels. Jesus picked the people. When they feared the storm, he stilled it. When they had no wine for the wedding or food for the multitude, he made both. Let’s follow his example and put on the apron of humility, to serve one another (1 Peter 5:5).
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 9
Attention, Israel! This very day you are crossing the Jordan to enter the land and dispossess nations that are much bigger and stronger than you are. You’re going to find huge cities with sky-high fortress-walls and gigantic people, descendants of the Anakites—you’ve heard all about them; you’ve heard the saying, “No one can stand up to an Anakite.”
3 Today know this: God, your God, is crossing the river ahead of you—he’s a consuming fire. He will destroy the nations, he will put them under your power. You will dispossess them and very quickly wipe them out, just as God promised you would.
4-5 But when God pushes them out ahead of you, don’t start thinking to yourselves, “It’s because of all the good I’ve done that God has brought me in here to dispossess these nations.” Actually it’s because of all the evil these nations have done. No, it’s nothing good that you’ve done, no record for decency that you’ve built up, that got you here; it’s because of the vile wickedness of these nations that God, your God, is dispossessing them before you so that he can keep his promised word to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6-10 Know this and don’t ever forget it: It’s not because of any good that you’ve done that God is giving you this good land to own. Anything but! You’re stubborn as mules. Keep in mind and don’t ever forget how angry you made God, your God, in the wilderness. You’ve kicked and screamed against God from the day you left Egypt until you got to this place, rebels all the way. You made God angry at Horeb, made him so angry that he wanted to destroy you. When I climbed the mountain to receive the slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant that God made with you, I stayed there on the mountain forty days and nights: I ate no food; I drank no water. Then God gave me the two slabs of stone, engraved with the finger of God. They contained word for word everything that God spoke to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
11-12 It was at the end of the forty days and nights that God gave me the two slabs of stone, the tablets of the covenant. God said to me, “Get going, and quickly. Get down there, because your people whom you led out of Egypt have ruined everything. In almost no time at all they have left the road that I laid out for them and gone off and made for themselves a cast god.”
13-14 God said, “I look at this people and all I see are hardheaded, hardhearted rebels. Get out of my way now so I can destroy them. I’m going to wipe them off the face of the map. Then I’ll start over with you to make a nation far better and bigger than they could ever be.”
15-17 I turned around and started down the mountain—by now the mountain was blazing with fire—carrying the two tablets of the covenant in my two arms. That’s when I saw it: There you were, sinning against God, your God—you had made yourselves a cast god in the shape of a calf! So soon you had left the road that God had commanded you to walk on. I held the two stone slabs high and threw them down, smashing them to bits as you watched.
18-20 Then I prostrated myself before God, just as I had at the beginning of the forty days and nights. I ate no food; I drank no water. I did this because of you, all your sins, sinning against God, doing what is evil in God’s eyes and making him angry. I was terrified of God’s furious anger, his blazing anger. I was sure he would destroy you. But once again God listened to me. And Aaron! How furious he was with Aaron—ready to destroy him. But I prayed also for Aaron at that same time.
21 But that sin-thing that you made, that calf-god, I took and burned in the fire, pounded and ground it until it was crushed into a fine powder, then threw it into the stream that comes down the mountain.
22 And then there was Camp Taberah (Blaze), Massah (Testing-Place), and Camp Kibroth Hattaavah (Graves-of-the-Craving)—more occasions when you made God furious with you.
23-24 The most recent was when God sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, ordering you: “Go. Possess the land that I’m giving you.” And what did you do? You rebelled. Rebelled against the clear orders of God, your God. Refused to trust him. Wouldn’t obey him. You’ve been rebels against God from the first day I knew you.
25-26 When I was on my face, prostrate before God those forty days and nights after God said he would destroy you, I prayed to God for you, “My Master, God, don’t destroy your people, your inheritance whom, in your immense generosity, you redeemed, using your enormous strength to get them out of Egypt.
27-28 “Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don’t make too much of the stubbornness of this people, their evil and their sin, lest the Egyptians from whom you rescued them say, ‘God couldn’t do it; he got tired and wasn’t able to take them to the land he promised them. He ended up hating them and dumped them in the wilderness to die.’
29 “They are your people still, your inheritance whom you powerfully and sovereignly rescued.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, July 30, 2018
Read: Nehemiah 6:1–9, 15
Conspiracy Against Nehemiah
Now when Sanballat and Tobiah and Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies heard that I had built the wall and that there was no breach left in it (although up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together at Hakkephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. 3 And I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” 4 And they sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner. 5 In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. 6 In it was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Geshem[a] also says it, that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall. And according to these reports you wish to become their king. 7 And you have also set up prophets to proclaim concerning you in Jerusalem, ‘There is a king in Judah.’ And now the king will hear of these reports. So now come and let us take counsel together.” 8 Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.” 9 For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.” But now, O God,[b] strengthen my hands.
Footnotes:
Nehemiah 6:6 Hebrew Gashmu
Nehemiah 6:9 Hebrew lacks O God
INSIGHT
What kinds of challenges have you faced? How has God helped you to overcome them?
For further study on the book of Nehemiah, see christianuniversity.org/OT220.
Overcoming Challenges
By Kirsten Holmberg
So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. Nehemiah 6:15
We gathered monthly to hold one another accountable to our individual goals. My friend Mary wanted to reupholster the seats of her dining room chairs before the year’s end. At our November meeting she wittily reported her progress from October: “It took ten months and two hours to recover my chairs.” After months of not being able to obtain the materials required, or find the quiet hours away from her demanding job and her toddler’s needs, the project took merely two hours of committed work to finish.
The Lord called Nehemiah to a far greater project: to bring restoration to Jerusalem after its walls had lain in ruin for 150 years (Nehemiah 2:3–5, 12). As he led the people in the labor, they experienced mockery, attacks, distraction, and temptation to sin (4:3, 8; 6:10–12). Yet God equipped them to stand firm—resolute in their efforts—completing a daunting task in just fifty-two days.
Overcoming such challenges requires much more than a personal desire or goal; Nehemiah was driven by an understanding that God appointed him to the task. His sense of purpose invigorated the people to follow his leadership despite incredible opposition. When God charges us with a task—whether to repair a relationship or share what He’s done in our lives—He gives us whatever skills and strength are necessary to continue in our effort to do what He’s asked, no matter what challenges come our way.
Lord, please equip me with Your strength to persevere and finish the tasks You’ve given me. May my labors bring You glory.
God equips us to overcome obstacles and complete the tasks He’s given us to do.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, July 30, 2018
The Teaching of Disillusionment
Jesus did not commit Himself to them…, for He knew what was in man. —John 2:24-25
Disillusionment means having no more misconceptions, false impressions, and false judgments in life; it means being free from these deceptions. However, though no longer deceived, our experience of disillusionment may actually leave us cynical and overly critical in our judgment of others. But the disillusionment that comes from God brings us to the point where we see people as they really are, yet without any cynicism or any stinging and bitter criticism. Many of the things in life that inflict the greatest injury, grief, or pain, stem from the fact that we suffer from illusions. We are not true to one another as facts, seeing each other as we really are; we are only true to our misconceived ideas of one another. According to our thinking, everything is either delightful and good, or it is evil, malicious, and cowardly.
Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens— if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being something which he or she cannot possibly give. There is only one Being who can completely satisfy to the absolute depth of the hurting human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord is so obviously uncompromising with regard to every human relationship because He knows that every relationship that is not based on faithfulness to Himself will end in disaster. Our Lord trusted no one, and never placed His faith in people, yet He was never suspicious or bitter. Our Lord’s confidence in God, and in what God’s grace could do for anyone, was so perfect that He never despaired, never giving up hope for any person. If our trust is placed in human beings, we will end up despairing of everyone.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, July 30, 2018
A Real Master's Degree - #8231
We tend to measure life by its milestones. Take our first born child, our daughter. There have been a lot of milestones in her life. I remember looking at the films of her learning to walk. Now, that's a big milestone from a long time ago. Her first piano recital; we have pictures of that of course. Her first band concert; that was a big one. Let's see, there was her junior high graduation, then her high school graduation, her college graduation, her wedding; man, there have been a lot of things. I remember that when she graduated from college there was a sense of completion I think for all of us. She had a double major in college. She graduated with honors. She got a degree from a great school, and I wrote something on her graduation card for all the work and all the money that that degree had cost. I told her there is another degree that she needs. One that is far more important.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Real Master's Degree."
Our word for today from the Word of God from 2 Timothy 2:15 - "Study to show yourself a workman approved under God who does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth." Now when our daughter's class received their degree, it was kind of exciting. Some of them held it up when they walked across that stage - "Man, I crossed that finish line." Some of them waved at people. Some of them waved their degree, and basically the school was saying, "Alright, you've done all you need to do to have this school's approval."
Now Paul was suggesting a higher degree to aim for - a real Master's Degree. It has nothing to do with going on for more college. Jim Elliot was a graduate of the same college that our daughter attended. Jim was a young man who went to the Auca Indians, the Waorani Indians, stone-age savages in the jungles of Ecuador and some people thought he wasted his life when he was martyred trying to reach them. But he actually invested his life in reaching those precious natives.
See, today many of them know the Lord. The killers are actually pastors of the Auca church. His example caused many of us to go into full-time Christian work. Jim Elliot would say he only wanted one degree in his life. Though he was a college grad, he said, "I want my A.U.G. award - Approved Unto God." Does God approve - that's what Jim said he wanted. Now the tragedy is when you sacrifice your A.U.G. - your Master's Degree - in order to get some position or recognition that men offer.
Maybe you have given your Approved unto God to get some academic achievement; -maybe you have made some compromises. Maybe you lost your Master's Degree in order to get a business position or a promotion; you paid a price that's too high. Or maybe to achieve something in ministry or the reaching of some important goal or dream, but it's cost you God's approval. Maybe you want to be acknowledged by a group of friends or colleagues or by a guy or girl, and in the process you lost your A.U.G. degree - your Master's Degree. You lost God's approval.
You've got to ask yourself, did you do it in a way that would give you Jesus' approval too? Or did it cost you His approval? Have you told the truth on your way to that goal? Have you consistently had your time with him or have you sacrificed that? Have you been caring for people, or have you been running over people to get there? Have you taken time to minister to people in need or are you just too busy for that? Have you stayed pure?
Our daughter saw the president of the college waiting as she crossed that platform that day, but I told her, "Honey, I think Jesus was waiting for you with your A.U.G. degree. He had a degree to give you that day, too." Boy, I sure hope He has one for me. The Master's Degree is the one that really matters, when you hear Him say some of the most wonderful words in the universe, "Well done."
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Deuteronomy 8, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Too Close to Where You Got In
I like the story of the little boy who fell out of bed. When his mom asked him what happened, he answered, "I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in."
Easy to do the same with our faith. It's tempting just to stay where we got in and never move. How does your prayer life today compare with then? How about your giving? And Bible study? Can you tell you've grown?
2 Peter 3:18 says, "but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
If a child ceased to develop, the parent would be concerned, right? Doctors would be called and tests would be run. If you're the same Christian you were a few months ago, be careful. You might be wise to get a check up. Not on your body, but on your heart. Not a physical…but a spiritual.
From When God Whispers Your Name
Deuteronomy 8
Keep and live out the entire commandment that I’m commanding you today so that you’ll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don’t live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God’s mouth. Your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.
6-9 So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.
10 After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
11-16 Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness,
those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.
19-20 If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of God, your God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Read: Luke 24:13–32
On the Road to Emmaus
13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
28 So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Footnotes:
Luke 24:13 Greek sixty stadia; a stadion was about 607 feet or 185 meters
Hope in Grief
By Amy Boucher Pye
Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. Luke 24:31
When I was nineteen, one of my close friends was killed in a car accident. In the following weeks and months, I walked each day in a tunnel of grief. The pain of losing someone so young and wonderful clouded my vision, and at times I even felt unaware of what was going on around me. I felt so blinded by pain and grief that I simply could not see God.
In Luke 24, two disciples, confused and brokenhearted after Jesus’s death, didn’t realize they were walking with their resurrected Teacher Himself, even as He explained from Scripture why the promised Savior had to die and rise again. Only when He took bread and broke it was it revealed that this was Jesus (vv. 30–31). Although the followers of Jesus had faced death in all its horror when Jesus died, through His resurrection from the dead God showed them how to hope again.
Like those disciples, we might feel weighed down with confusion or grief. But we can find hope and comfort in the reality that Jesus is alive and at work in the world—and in us. Although we still face heartache and pain, we can welcome Christ to walk with us in our tunnel of grief. As the Light of the world (John 8:12), He can bring rays of hope to brighten our fog.
Lord God, thank You for being the light in the darkness. Bring hope when I’m sad and confused, and help me to see Your glory.
Though we grieve, we have hope in Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Do You See Jesus in Your Clouds?
Behold, He is coming with clouds… —Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. “The clouds are the dust of His feet” (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child— a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?
There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.
“…they were fearful as they entered the cloud” (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is “no one anymore, but only Jesus …” (Mark 9:8; also see Mark 2:7).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
Disciples Indeed
I like the story of the little boy who fell out of bed. When his mom asked him what happened, he answered, "I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in."
Easy to do the same with our faith. It's tempting just to stay where we got in and never move. How does your prayer life today compare with then? How about your giving? And Bible study? Can you tell you've grown?
2 Peter 3:18 says, "but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
If a child ceased to develop, the parent would be concerned, right? Doctors would be called and tests would be run. If you're the same Christian you were a few months ago, be careful. You might be wise to get a check up. Not on your body, but on your heart. Not a physical…but a spiritual.
From When God Whispers Your Name
Deuteronomy 8
Keep and live out the entire commandment that I’m commanding you today so that you’ll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don’t live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God’s mouth. Your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.
6-9 So it’s paramount that you keep the commandments of God, your God, walk down the roads he shows you and reverently respect him. God is about to bring you into a good land, a land with brooks and rivers, springs and lakes, streams out of the hills and through the valleys. It’s a land of wheat and barley, of vines and figs and pomegranates, of olives, oil, and honey. It’s land where you’ll never go hungry—always food on the table and a roof over your head. It’s a land where you’ll get iron out of rocks and mine copper from the hills.
10 After a meal, satisfied, bless God, your God, for the good land he has given you.
11-16 Make sure you don’t forget God, your God, by not keeping his commandments, his rules and regulations that I command you today. Make sure that when you eat and are satisfied, build pleasant houses and settle in, see your herds and flocks flourish and more and more money come in, watch your standard of living going up and up—make sure you don’t become so full of yourself and your things that you forget God, your God,
the God who delivered you from Egyptian slavery;
the God who led you through that huge and fearsome wilderness,
those desolate, arid badlands crawling with fiery snakes and scorpions;
the God who gave you water gushing from hard rock;
the God who gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never heard of, in order to give you a taste of the hard life, to test you so that you would be prepared to live well in the days ahead of you.
17-18 If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today.
19-20 If you forget, forget God, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations God is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of God, your God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Read: Luke 24:13–32
On the Road to Emmaus
13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
28 So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
Footnotes:
Luke 24:13 Greek sixty stadia; a stadion was about 607 feet or 185 meters
Hope in Grief
By Amy Boucher Pye
Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. Luke 24:31
When I was nineteen, one of my close friends was killed in a car accident. In the following weeks and months, I walked each day in a tunnel of grief. The pain of losing someone so young and wonderful clouded my vision, and at times I even felt unaware of what was going on around me. I felt so blinded by pain and grief that I simply could not see God.
In Luke 24, two disciples, confused and brokenhearted after Jesus’s death, didn’t realize they were walking with their resurrected Teacher Himself, even as He explained from Scripture why the promised Savior had to die and rise again. Only when He took bread and broke it was it revealed that this was Jesus (vv. 30–31). Although the followers of Jesus had faced death in all its horror when Jesus died, through His resurrection from the dead God showed them how to hope again.
Like those disciples, we might feel weighed down with confusion or grief. But we can find hope and comfort in the reality that Jesus is alive and at work in the world—and in us. Although we still face heartache and pain, we can welcome Christ to walk with us in our tunnel of grief. As the Light of the world (John 8:12), He can bring rays of hope to brighten our fog.
Lord God, thank You for being the light in the darkness. Bring hope when I’m sad and confused, and help me to see Your glory.
Though we grieve, we have hope in Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Do You See Jesus in Your Clouds?
Behold, He is coming with clouds… —Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. “The clouds are the dust of His feet” (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness.
It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something. His purpose in using the cloud is to simplify our beliefs until our relationship with Him is exactly like that of a child— a relationship simply between God and our own souls, and where other people are but shadows. Until other people become shadows to us, clouds and darkness will be ours every once in a while. Is our relationship with God becoming more simple than it has ever been?
There is a connection between the strange providential circumstances allowed by God and what we know of Him, and we have to learn to interpret the mysteries of life in the light of our knowledge of God. Until we can come face to face with the deepest, darkest fact of life without damaging our view of God’s character, we do not yet know Him.
“…they were fearful as they entered the cloud” (Luke 9:34). Is there anyone except Jesus in your cloud? If so, it will only get darker until you get to the place where there is “no one anymore, but only Jesus …” (Mark 9:8; also see Mark 2:7).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
Disciples Indeed
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Luke 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Our Problem is Sin
Our problem is sin. Not finances. Not budgets. Not overcrowded prisons. Our problem is sin. We are in rebellion against our Creator. We’re cut off from the source of life. A new president or policy won’t fix that. It can only be solved by God. That is why the Bible uses drastic terms like conversion, repentance, and lost and found. Society may renovate, but only God re-creates.
Ask yourself three questions:
1. Is there any unconfessed sin in my life? Confession is telling God you did the thing He saw you do.
2. Are there any unresolved conflicts in my world? Go and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.
3. Are there any un-surrendered worries in my life? Worry is a noose on the neck and a distraction of the mind.
Sometimes the problem’s out there. More often, it’s in here..in us!
From When God Whispers Your Name
Luke 3
A Baptism of Life-Change
In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius—it was while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; Herod, ruler of Galilee; his brother Philip, ruler of Iturea and Trachonitis; Lysanias, ruler of Abilene; during the Chief-Priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—John, Zachariah’s son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet:
Thunder in the desert!
“Prepare God’s arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!
Every ditch will be filled in,
Every bump smoothed out,
The detours straightened out,
All the ruts paved over.
Everyone will be there to see
The parade of God’s salvation.”
7-9 When crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do, John exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your life that must change, not your skin. And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father.’ Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there—children of Abraham are a dime a dozen. God can make children from stones if he wants. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”
10 The crowd asked him, “Then what are we supposed to do?”
11 “If you have two coats, give one away,” he said. “Do the same with your food.”
12 Tax men also came to be baptized and said, “Teacher, what should we do?”
13 He told them, “No more extortion—collect only what is required by law.”
14 Soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He told them, “No shakedowns, no blackmail—and be content with your rations.”
15 The interest of the people by now was building. They were all beginning to wonder, “Could this John be the Messiah?”
16-17 But John intervened: “I’m baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
18-20 There was a lot more of this—words that gave strength to the people, words that put heart in them. The Message! But Herod, the ruler, stung by John’s rebuke in the matter of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, capped his long string of evil deeds with this outrage: He put John in jail.
21-22 After all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized. As he was praying, the sky opened up and the Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, came down on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
Son of Adam, Son of God
23-38 When Jesus entered public life he was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph, who was—
son of Heli,
son of Matthat,
son of Levi,
son of Melki,
son of Jannai,
son of Joseph,
son of Mattathias,
son of Amos,
son of Nahum,
son of Esli,
son of Naggai,
son of Maath,
son of Mattathias,
son of Semein,
son of Josech,
son of Joda,
son of Joanan,
son of Rhesa,
son of Zerubbabel,
son of Shealtiel,
son of Neri,
son of Melchi,
son of Addi,
son of Cosam,
son of Elmadam,
son of Er,
son of Joshua,
son of Eliezer,
son of Jorim,
son of Matthat,
son of Levi,
son of Simeon,
son of Judah,
son of Joseph,
son of Jonam,
son of Eliakim,
son of Melea,
son of Menna,
son of Mattatha,
son of Nathan,
son of David,
son of Jesse,
son of Obed,
son of Boaz,
son of Salmon,
son of Nahshon,
son of Amminadab,
son of Admin,
son of Arni,
son of Hezron,
son of Perez,
son of Judah,
son of Jacob,
son of Isaac,
son of Abraham,
son of Terah,
son of Nahor,
son of Serug,
son of Reu,
son of Peleg,
son of Eber,
son of Shelah,
son of Kenan,
son of Arphaxad,
son of Shem,
son of Noah,
son of Lamech,
son of Methuselah,
son of Enoch,
son of Jared,
son of Mahalaleel,
son of Kenan,
son of Enos,
son of Seth,
son of Adam,
son of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Read: Matthew 7:7–11
Ask, and It Will Be Given
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
INSIGHT
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) focuses on the attitudes and actions that are to characterize “citizens” who live under God’s rule. Yet an even more intimate relationship comes into play in the sermon. A common thread that runs through the chapters is a “family focus” or, more specifically, a “Father focus.” In Matthew 5:9 Jesus declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (emphasis added). And when followers of Christ display heaven’s light by the way they live, the “Father in heaven” gets the credit (v. 16). Showing love for one’s enemies also demonstrates kinship with our heavenly Father (vv. 43–48).
Those who engage in holy habits (6:4, 6, 18), including prayer, do so with the knowledge that the primary audience is their Father in heaven. The King who rules over all is “our Father” and cares enough to hear our prayers for all our needs. Thus, we can confidently address Him, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (v. 9).
When you pray this week, reflect on the fact that you are praying to the One Scripture calls our heavenly Father. - Arthur Jackson
Bees and Snakes
By Adam Holz
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11
Some problems have Daddy’s name written all over them. For instance, my kids recently discovered bees had moved into a crack in our concrete front porch. So, armed with bug spray, I went out to do battle.
I got stung. Five times.
I don’t like being stung by insects. But better me than my kids or wife. Taking care of my family’s well-being is at the top of my job description after all. My children recognized a need, and they asked me to address it. They trusted me to protect them from something they feared.
In Matthew 7, Jesus teaches that we too should bring our needs to God (v. 7), trusting Him with our requests. To illustrate, Jesus gives a case study in character: “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (vv. 9–10). For loving parents, the answer is obvious. But Jesus answers anyway, challenging us not to lose faith in our Father’s generous goodness: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (v. 11).
I can’t imagine loving my kids more. But Jesus assures us that even the best earthly father’s love is eclipsed by God’s love for us.
Father, thank You for loving us so much more than even the best father here ever could. Help us to do as Jesus said with everything that’s on our hearts; to ask, seek, and knock in our relationship with You.
We can rely on our Father for everything we need.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, July 28, 2018
God’s Purpose or Mine?
He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side… —Mark 6:45
We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish— His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see “Him walking on the sea” with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see “Him walking on the sea” (Mark 6:49). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.
God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
God’s purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L
Our problem is sin. Not finances. Not budgets. Not overcrowded prisons. Our problem is sin. We are in rebellion against our Creator. We’re cut off from the source of life. A new president or policy won’t fix that. It can only be solved by God. That is why the Bible uses drastic terms like conversion, repentance, and lost and found. Society may renovate, but only God re-creates.
Ask yourself three questions:
1. Is there any unconfessed sin in my life? Confession is telling God you did the thing He saw you do.
2. Are there any unresolved conflicts in my world? Go and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.
3. Are there any un-surrendered worries in my life? Worry is a noose on the neck and a distraction of the mind.
Sometimes the problem’s out there. More often, it’s in here..in us!
From When God Whispers Your Name
Luke 3
A Baptism of Life-Change
In the fifteenth year of the rule of Caesar Tiberius—it was while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea; Herod, ruler of Galilee; his brother Philip, ruler of Iturea and Trachonitis; Lysanias, ruler of Abilene; during the Chief-Priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas—John, Zachariah’s son, out in the desert at the time, received a message from God. He went all through the country around the Jordan River preaching a baptism of life-change leading to forgiveness of sins, as described in the words of Isaiah the prophet:
Thunder in the desert!
“Prepare God’s arrival!
Make the road smooth and straight!
Every ditch will be filled in,
Every bump smoothed out,
The detours straightened out,
All the ruts paved over.
Everyone will be there to see
The parade of God’s salvation.”
7-9 When crowds of people came out for baptism because it was the popular thing to do, John exploded: “Brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snakeskins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your life that must change, not your skin. And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father.’ Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there—children of Abraham are a dime a dozen. God can make children from stones if he wants. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”
10 The crowd asked him, “Then what are we supposed to do?”
11 “If you have two coats, give one away,” he said. “Do the same with your food.”
12 Tax men also came to be baptized and said, “Teacher, what should we do?”
13 He told them, “No more extortion—collect only what is required by law.”
14 Soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He told them, “No shakedowns, no blackmail—and be content with your rations.”
15 The interest of the people by now was building. They were all beginning to wonder, “Could this John be the Messiah?”
16-17 But John intervened: “I’m baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”
18-20 There was a lot more of this—words that gave strength to the people, words that put heart in them. The Message! But Herod, the ruler, stung by John’s rebuke in the matter of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, capped his long string of evil deeds with this outrage: He put John in jail.
21-22 After all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized. As he was praying, the sky opened up and the Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, came down on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”
Son of Adam, Son of God
23-38 When Jesus entered public life he was about thirty years old, the son (in public perception) of Joseph, who was—
son of Heli,
son of Matthat,
son of Levi,
son of Melki,
son of Jannai,
son of Joseph,
son of Mattathias,
son of Amos,
son of Nahum,
son of Esli,
son of Naggai,
son of Maath,
son of Mattathias,
son of Semein,
son of Josech,
son of Joda,
son of Joanan,
son of Rhesa,
son of Zerubbabel,
son of Shealtiel,
son of Neri,
son of Melchi,
son of Addi,
son of Cosam,
son of Elmadam,
son of Er,
son of Joshua,
son of Eliezer,
son of Jorim,
son of Matthat,
son of Levi,
son of Simeon,
son of Judah,
son of Joseph,
son of Jonam,
son of Eliakim,
son of Melea,
son of Menna,
son of Mattatha,
son of Nathan,
son of David,
son of Jesse,
son of Obed,
son of Boaz,
son of Salmon,
son of Nahshon,
son of Amminadab,
son of Admin,
son of Arni,
son of Hezron,
son of Perez,
son of Judah,
son of Jacob,
son of Isaac,
son of Abraham,
son of Terah,
son of Nahor,
son of Serug,
son of Reu,
son of Peleg,
son of Eber,
son of Shelah,
son of Kenan,
son of Arphaxad,
son of Shem,
son of Noah,
son of Lamech,
son of Methuselah,
son of Enoch,
son of Jared,
son of Mahalaleel,
son of Kenan,
son of Enos,
son of Seth,
son of Adam,
son of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Read: Matthew 7:7–11
Ask, and It Will Be Given
7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
INSIGHT
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) focuses on the attitudes and actions that are to characterize “citizens” who live under God’s rule. Yet an even more intimate relationship comes into play in the sermon. A common thread that runs through the chapters is a “family focus” or, more specifically, a “Father focus.” In Matthew 5:9 Jesus declared, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (emphasis added). And when followers of Christ display heaven’s light by the way they live, the “Father in heaven” gets the credit (v. 16). Showing love for one’s enemies also demonstrates kinship with our heavenly Father (vv. 43–48).
Those who engage in holy habits (6:4, 6, 18), including prayer, do so with the knowledge that the primary audience is their Father in heaven. The King who rules over all is “our Father” and cares enough to hear our prayers for all our needs. Thus, we can confidently address Him, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (v. 9).
When you pray this week, reflect on the fact that you are praying to the One Scripture calls our heavenly Father. - Arthur Jackson
Bees and Snakes
By Adam Holz
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11
Some problems have Daddy’s name written all over them. For instance, my kids recently discovered bees had moved into a crack in our concrete front porch. So, armed with bug spray, I went out to do battle.
I got stung. Five times.
I don’t like being stung by insects. But better me than my kids or wife. Taking care of my family’s well-being is at the top of my job description after all. My children recognized a need, and they asked me to address it. They trusted me to protect them from something they feared.
In Matthew 7, Jesus teaches that we too should bring our needs to God (v. 7), trusting Him with our requests. To illustrate, Jesus gives a case study in character: “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (vv. 9–10). For loving parents, the answer is obvious. But Jesus answers anyway, challenging us not to lose faith in our Father’s generous goodness: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (v. 11).
I can’t imagine loving my kids more. But Jesus assures us that even the best earthly father’s love is eclipsed by God’s love for us.
Father, thank You for loving us so much more than even the best father here ever could. Help us to do as Jesus said with everything that’s on our hearts; to ask, seek, and knock in our relationship with You.
We can rely on our Father for everything we need.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, July 28, 2018
God’s Purpose or Mine?
He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side… —Mark 6:45
We tend to think that if Jesus Christ compels us to do something and we are obedient to Him, He will lead us to great success. We should never have the thought that our dreams of success are God’s purpose for us. In fact, His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have the idea that God is leading us toward a particular end or a desired goal, but He is not. The question of whether or not we arrive at a particular goal is of little importance, and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself.
What is my vision of God’s purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish— His purpose is the process itself. What He desires for me is that I see “Him walking on the sea” with no shore, no success, nor goal in sight, but simply having the absolute certainty that everything is all right because I see “Him walking on the sea” (Mark 6:49). It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God.
God’s training is for now, not later. His purpose is for this very minute, not for sometime in the future. We have nothing to do with what will follow our obedience, and we are wrong to concern ourselves with it. What people call preparation, God sees as the goal itself.
God’s purpose is to enable me to see that He can walk on the storms of my life right now. If we have a further goal in mind, we are not paying enough attention to the present time. However, if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation. What God looks at is what we are in the dark—the imaginations of our minds; the thoughts of our heart; the habits of our bodies; these are the things that mark us in God’s sight. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 669 L
Friday, July 27, 2018
Deuteronomy 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: PREPARE THE SOIL AND SOW THE SEED
Who has a greater chance of helping our children live in their sweet spots than we do? But will we? God’s Word urges us to do so. Listen closely to this reminder, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
Don’t interpret this verse to mean, If I fill them with Scripture and Bible lessons, they may rebel but eventually they’ll return. The proverb makes no such promise. Godly parents can prepare the soil and sow the seed, but God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). Show them the path? Yes. Force them to take it? No. To train up means to awaken thirst—to develop thirst. One translation (ASB) margins this verse with the phrase according to his way. So, the greatest gift you can give your children is not your riches, but revealing to them their own.
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 7
When God, your God, brings you into the country that you are about to enter and take over, he will clear out the superpowers that were there before you: the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Those seven nations are all bigger and stronger than you are. God, your God, will turn them over to you and you will conquer them. You must completely destroy them, offering them up as a holy destruction to God.
Don’t make a treaty with them.
Don’t let them off in any way.
3-4 Don’t marry them: Don’t give your daughters to their sons and don’t take their daughters for your sons—before you know it they’d involve you in worshiping their gods, and God would explode in anger, putting a quick end to you.
5 Here’s what you are to do:
Tear apart their altars stone by stone,
smash their phallic pillars,
chop down their sex-and-religion Asherah groves,
set fire to their carved god-images.
6 Do this because you are a people set apart as holy to God, your God. God, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure.
7-10 God wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. God stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn’t slow to pay them off—those who hate him, he pays right on time.
11 So keep the command and the rules and regulations that I command you today. Do them.
12-13 And this is what will happen: When you, on your part, will obey these directives, keeping and following them, God, on his part, will keep the covenant of loyal love that he made with your ancestors:
He will love you,
he will bless you,
he will increase you.
13-15 He will bless the babies from your womb and the harvest of grain, new wine, and oil from your fields; he’ll bless the calves from your herds and lambs from your flocks in the country he promised your ancestors that he’d give you. You’ll be blessed beyond all other peoples: no sterility or barrenness in you or your animals. God will get rid of all sickness. And all the evil afflictions you experienced in Egypt he’ll put not on you but on those who hate you.
16 You’ll make mincemeat of all the peoples that God, your God, hands over to you. Don’t feel sorry for them. And don’t worship their gods—they’ll trap you for sure.
17-19 You’re going to think to yourselves, “Oh! We’re outnumbered ten to one by these nations! We’ll never even make a dent in them!” But I’m telling you, Don’t be afraid. Remember, yes, remember in detail what God, your God, did to Pharaoh and all Egypt. Remember the great contests to which you were eyewitnesses: the miracle-signs, the wonders, God’s mighty hand as he stretched out his arm and took you out of there. God, your God, is going to do the same thing to these people you’re now so afraid of.
20 And to top it off, the Hornet. God will unleash the Hornet on them until every survivor-in-hiding is dead.
21-24 So don’t be intimidated by them. God, your God, is among you—God majestic, God awesome. God, your God, will get rid of these nations, bit by bit. You won’t be permitted to wipe them out all at once lest the wild animals take over and overwhelm you. But God, your God, will move them out of your way—he’ll throw them into a huge panic until there’s nothing left of them. He’ll turn their kings over to you and you’ll remove all trace of them under Heaven. Not one person will be able to stand up to you; you’ll put an end to them all.
25-26 Make sure you set fire to their carved gods. Don’t get greedy for the veneer of silver and gold on them and take it for yourselves—you’ll get trapped by it for sure. God hates it; it’s an abomination to God, your God. And don’t dare bring one of these abominations home or you’ll end up just like it, burned up as a holy destruction. No: It is forbidden! Hate it. Abominate it. Destroy it and preserve God’s holiness.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, July 27, 2018
Read: 2 Corinthians 9:6–15
The Cheerful Giver
6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully[a] will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency[b] in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. 13 By their approval of this service, they[c] will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, 14 while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. 15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!
Footnotes:
2 Corinthians 9:6 Greek with blessings; twice in this verse
2 Corinthians 9:8 Or all contentment
2 Corinthians 9:13 Or you
INSIGHT
Paul reminds us that God provides for us so we can bless others (2 Corinthians 9:6–8). He quotes Psalm 112:9 to encourage generosity: “[The righteous] share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever” (nlt).
In what ways can you practice cheerful, generous giving this week? - K. T. Sim
Lavish Expressions of Love
By Xochitl Dixon
You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. 2 Corinthians 9:11
On our wedding anniversary, my husband, Alan, gives me a large bouquet of fresh flowers. When he lost his job during a corporate restructure, I didn’t expect this extravagant display of devotion to continue. But on our nineteenth anniversary, the color-splashed blossoms greeted me from their spot on our dining room table. Because he valued continuing this annual tradition, Alan saved some money each month to ensure he’d have enough for this personal show of affection.
My husband’s careful planning exhibited exuberant generosity, similar to what Paul encouraged when he addressed the Corinthian believers. The apostle complimented the church for their intentional and enthusiastic offerings (2 Corinthians 9:2, 5), reminding them that God delights in generous and cheerful givers (vv. 6–7). After all, no one gives more than our loving Provider, who’s always ready to supply all we need (vv. 8–10).
We can be generous in all kinds of giving, caring for one another because the Lord meets all of our material, emotional, and spiritual needs (v. 11). As we give, we can express our gratitude for all God has given us. We can even motivate others to praise the Lord and give from all God has given them (vv. 12–13). Openhanded giving, a lavish expression of love and gratitude, can demonstrate our confidence in God’s provision for all His people.
Lord, please help us trust Your abundant love and generosity, so we can give to others as You so faithfully give to us.
Generous giving displays courageous confidence in God’s loving and faithful provision.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, July 27, 2018
The Way to Knowledge
If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine… —John 7:17
The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.
No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). He is saying, in essence, “Don’t say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right.” The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.
When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don’t try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, “First…go….” Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, July 27, 2018
Overlooked Treasure - #8230
Our son and daughter-in-law own a little piece of rhodochrosite since a recent western vacation. (I think I'm saying that right.) And with the stone came the story. Their host told them about the men who were in search of gold who didn't care much about this rock they found on their way to the gold. Initially, they just tossed it aside. But they noticed that embedded in the granite was an attractive rose-colored stone. As they refined it, the rare and rich, almost ruby-like color of that stone revealed its beauty. There was a time when it was just used for making driveways or even just discarded. But today a relatively few ounces are worth thousands of dollars.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Overlooked Treasure."
That's what rhodochrosite was. Nobody realized what it was really worth, so they just threw it aside. You know, there are lots of people like that. No one realizes how much they're really worth. Even they don't realize it. So they're overlooked, undervalued, cast aside. Sometimes, we even throw ourselves away because we don't realizing the treasure we are.
That might be hard for you to believe if you've had friends who ultimately treated you like you weren't worth much, if you've had an employer who didn't value you, if you've been overlooked and marginalized much of your life, if someone you love has turned on you or treated you badly, if someone you trusted betrayed that trust. In a self-centered and often cruel world, it's easy to begin to believe that you aren't really worth all that much. You've been unnoticed and unappreciated so many times.
But not by the One who really matters. You can see Him in action in our word for today from the Word of God in Luke chapter 8, beginning with verse 46. It's part of the story of a woman in desperate need of healing from a 12-year hemorrhaging condition. She was out of doctors to see; she was out of money to pay them. So she desperately pushed through a throng that was crowding around Jesus and, in an act of simple faith, she touched the hem of His robe to be healed. Suddenly, Jesus stopped and asked, "Who touched Me?" Well, His disciples pointed out the obvious: in a crowd that big, hundreds of people had touched Him.
The Bible continues: "But Jesus said, 'Someone touched Me; I know that power has gone out from Me.' Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at His feet. He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.'" I love those words, "She could not go unnoticed." Neither can you. Not to Jesus. He knows all about you. You may have felt lost in the crowd your whole life. But to Jesus, you are His unique, one-of-a-kind creation; someone He thinks was worth dying for. In the words of Revelation 1:5, "He loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood."
The sins of our life are the ultimate cause of our feelings of worthlessness. We've defied God. We've defied the way He wants us to live, so we're away from the One who gave us our worth in the first place. It literally took Jesus paying your spiritual death penalty to make it possible for you to find the God that you've needed all these years. He made you. He paid for you with His life. Whatever others may have thought you're worth, you are priceless to Him.
You don't need to live one more day away from this love that you were made for. Jesus has come to where you are today, right now, to stir up your heart, to draw you to Him; to give you this chance to have every sin forgiven and the wall between you and your God who loves you removed, and your heart finally filled with the love it was made for.
Jesus becomes your Savior when you tell Him, "Lord, I abandon the rule of my own life that's kept me from You and earned me a death penalty. I'm putting all my trust in you, Jesus-your death on the cross to pay for my sins."
Boy, don't you want this? Don't you want this love for you to experience for yourself? If you have questions and you want to know more about how to have this relationship, to be sure you have, go to ANewStory.com.
When God sees you, He sees a treasure He made with His own hands and that He paid for with the blood of His own Son.
Who has a greater chance of helping our children live in their sweet spots than we do? But will we? God’s Word urges us to do so. Listen closely to this reminder, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).
Don’t interpret this verse to mean, If I fill them with Scripture and Bible lessons, they may rebel but eventually they’ll return. The proverb makes no such promise. Godly parents can prepare the soil and sow the seed, but God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). Show them the path? Yes. Force them to take it? No. To train up means to awaken thirst—to develop thirst. One translation (ASB) margins this verse with the phrase according to his way. So, the greatest gift you can give your children is not your riches, but revealing to them their own.
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 7
When God, your God, brings you into the country that you are about to enter and take over, he will clear out the superpowers that were there before you: the Hittite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Those seven nations are all bigger and stronger than you are. God, your God, will turn them over to you and you will conquer them. You must completely destroy them, offering them up as a holy destruction to God.
Don’t make a treaty with them.
Don’t let them off in any way.
3-4 Don’t marry them: Don’t give your daughters to their sons and don’t take their daughters for your sons—before you know it they’d involve you in worshiping their gods, and God would explode in anger, putting a quick end to you.
5 Here’s what you are to do:
Tear apart their altars stone by stone,
smash their phallic pillars,
chop down their sex-and-religion Asherah groves,
set fire to their carved god-images.
6 Do this because you are a people set apart as holy to God, your God. God, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure.
7-10 God wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important—the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. God stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn’t slow to pay them off—those who hate him, he pays right on time.
11 So keep the command and the rules and regulations that I command you today. Do them.
12-13 And this is what will happen: When you, on your part, will obey these directives, keeping and following them, God, on his part, will keep the covenant of loyal love that he made with your ancestors:
He will love you,
he will bless you,
he will increase you.
13-15 He will bless the babies from your womb and the harvest of grain, new wine, and oil from your fields; he’ll bless the calves from your herds and lambs from your flocks in the country he promised your ancestors that he’d give you. You’ll be blessed beyond all other peoples: no sterility or barrenness in you or your animals. God will get rid of all sickness. And all the evil afflictions you experienced in Egypt he’ll put not on you but on those who hate you.
16 You’ll make mincemeat of all the peoples that God, your God, hands over to you. Don’t feel sorry for them. And don’t worship their gods—they’ll trap you for sure.
17-19 You’re going to think to yourselves, “Oh! We’re outnumbered ten to one by these nations! We’ll never even make a dent in them!” But I’m telling you, Don’t be afraid. Remember, yes, remember in detail what God, your God, did to Pharaoh and all Egypt. Remember the great contests to which you were eyewitnesses: the miracle-signs, the wonders, God’s mighty hand as he stretched out his arm and took you out of there. God, your God, is going to do the same thing to these people you’re now so afraid of.
20 And to top it off, the Hornet. God will unleash the Hornet on them until every survivor-in-hiding is dead.
21-24 So don’t be intimidated by them. God, your God, is among you—God majestic, God awesome. God, your God, will get rid of these nations, bit by bit. You won’t be permitted to wipe them out all at once lest the wild animals take over and overwhelm you. But God, your God, will move them out of your way—he’ll throw them into a huge panic until there’s nothing left of them. He’ll turn their kings over to you and you’ll remove all trace of them under Heaven. Not one person will be able to stand up to you; you’ll put an end to them all.
25-26 Make sure you set fire to their carved gods. Don’t get greedy for the veneer of silver and gold on them and take it for yourselves—you’ll get trapped by it for sure. God hates it; it’s an abomination to God, your God. And don’t dare bring one of these abominations home or you’ll end up just like it, burned up as a holy destruction. No: It is forbidden! Hate it. Abominate it. Destroy it and preserve God’s holiness.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, July 27, 2018
Read: 2 Corinthians 9:6–15
The Cheerful Giver
6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully[a] will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency[b] in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. 9 As it is written,
“He has distributed freely, he has given to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever.”
10 He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. 12 For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God. 13 By their approval of this service, they[c] will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ, and the generosity of your contribution for them and for all others, 14 while they long for you and pray for you, because of the surpassing grace of God upon you. 15 Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!
Footnotes:
2 Corinthians 9:6 Greek with blessings; twice in this verse
2 Corinthians 9:8 Or all contentment
2 Corinthians 9:13 Or you
INSIGHT
Paul reminds us that God provides for us so we can bless others (2 Corinthians 9:6–8). He quotes Psalm 112:9 to encourage generosity: “[The righteous] share freely and give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will be remembered forever” (nlt).
In what ways can you practice cheerful, generous giving this week? - K. T. Sim
Lavish Expressions of Love
By Xochitl Dixon
You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion. 2 Corinthians 9:11
On our wedding anniversary, my husband, Alan, gives me a large bouquet of fresh flowers. When he lost his job during a corporate restructure, I didn’t expect this extravagant display of devotion to continue. But on our nineteenth anniversary, the color-splashed blossoms greeted me from their spot on our dining room table. Because he valued continuing this annual tradition, Alan saved some money each month to ensure he’d have enough for this personal show of affection.
My husband’s careful planning exhibited exuberant generosity, similar to what Paul encouraged when he addressed the Corinthian believers. The apostle complimented the church for their intentional and enthusiastic offerings (2 Corinthians 9:2, 5), reminding them that God delights in generous and cheerful givers (vv. 6–7). After all, no one gives more than our loving Provider, who’s always ready to supply all we need (vv. 8–10).
We can be generous in all kinds of giving, caring for one another because the Lord meets all of our material, emotional, and spiritual needs (v. 11). As we give, we can express our gratitude for all God has given us. We can even motivate others to praise the Lord and give from all God has given them (vv. 12–13). Openhanded giving, a lavish expression of love and gratitude, can demonstrate our confidence in God’s provision for all His people.
Lord, please help us trust Your abundant love and generosity, so we can give to others as You so faithfully give to us.
Generous giving displays courageous confidence in God’s loving and faithful provision.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, July 27, 2018
The Way to Knowledge
If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine… —John 7:17
The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.
No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). He is saying, in essence, “Don’t say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right.” The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.
When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don’t try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, “First…go….” Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, July 27, 2018
Overlooked Treasure - #8230
Our son and daughter-in-law own a little piece of rhodochrosite since a recent western vacation. (I think I'm saying that right.) And with the stone came the story. Their host told them about the men who were in search of gold who didn't care much about this rock they found on their way to the gold. Initially, they just tossed it aside. But they noticed that embedded in the granite was an attractive rose-colored stone. As they refined it, the rare and rich, almost ruby-like color of that stone revealed its beauty. There was a time when it was just used for making driveways or even just discarded. But today a relatively few ounces are worth thousands of dollars.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Overlooked Treasure."
That's what rhodochrosite was. Nobody realized what it was really worth, so they just threw it aside. You know, there are lots of people like that. No one realizes how much they're really worth. Even they don't realize it. So they're overlooked, undervalued, cast aside. Sometimes, we even throw ourselves away because we don't realizing the treasure we are.
That might be hard for you to believe if you've had friends who ultimately treated you like you weren't worth much, if you've had an employer who didn't value you, if you've been overlooked and marginalized much of your life, if someone you love has turned on you or treated you badly, if someone you trusted betrayed that trust. In a self-centered and often cruel world, it's easy to begin to believe that you aren't really worth all that much. You've been unnoticed and unappreciated so many times.
But not by the One who really matters. You can see Him in action in our word for today from the Word of God in Luke chapter 8, beginning with verse 46. It's part of the story of a woman in desperate need of healing from a 12-year hemorrhaging condition. She was out of doctors to see; she was out of money to pay them. So she desperately pushed through a throng that was crowding around Jesus and, in an act of simple faith, she touched the hem of His robe to be healed. Suddenly, Jesus stopped and asked, "Who touched Me?" Well, His disciples pointed out the obvious: in a crowd that big, hundreds of people had touched Him.
The Bible continues: "But Jesus said, 'Someone touched Me; I know that power has gone out from Me.' Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at His feet. He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.'" I love those words, "She could not go unnoticed." Neither can you. Not to Jesus. He knows all about you. You may have felt lost in the crowd your whole life. But to Jesus, you are His unique, one-of-a-kind creation; someone He thinks was worth dying for. In the words of Revelation 1:5, "He loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood."
The sins of our life are the ultimate cause of our feelings of worthlessness. We've defied God. We've defied the way He wants us to live, so we're away from the One who gave us our worth in the first place. It literally took Jesus paying your spiritual death penalty to make it possible for you to find the God that you've needed all these years. He made you. He paid for you with His life. Whatever others may have thought you're worth, you are priceless to Him.
You don't need to live one more day away from this love that you were made for. Jesus has come to where you are today, right now, to stir up your heart, to draw you to Him; to give you this chance to have every sin forgiven and the wall between you and your God who loves you removed, and your heart finally filled with the love it was made for.
Jesus becomes your Savior when you tell Him, "Lord, I abandon the rule of my own life that's kept me from You and earned me a death penalty. I'm putting all my trust in you, Jesus-your death on the cross to pay for my sins."
Boy, don't you want this? Don't you want this love for you to experience for yourself? If you have questions and you want to know more about how to have this relationship, to be sure you have, go to ANewStory.com.
When God sees you, He sees a treasure He made with His own hands and that He paid for with the blood of His own Son.
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Deuteronomy 6, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: RESIST THE URGE TO LABEL YOUR CHILDREN
At the age of two, master pianist Van Cliburn played a song on the piano while listening to teaching in the adjacent room. His mother noticed his skill and began giving him daily piano lessons. The little kid from Kilgore, Texas, won the First International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. Why? In part because a parent noticed an aptitude and helped a child develop it.
What gives your child satisfaction and pleasure? Of course, what thrills one person bothers another. The apostle Peter liked to keep the boat steady while the apostle Paul was prone to rock it. So, resist the urge to label before you study. Attend carefully to the unique childhood of your child. What story do you read in your children? Uncommon are the parents who attempt to learn—and are blessed by their children.
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 6
This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.
3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
4 Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
10-12 When God, your God, ushers you into the land he promised through your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you, you’re going to walk into large, bustling cities you didn’t build, well-furnished houses you didn’t buy, come upon wells you didn’t dig, vineyards and olive orchards you didn’t plant. When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content, make sure you don’t forget how you got there—God brought you out of slavery in Egypt.
13-19 Deeply respect God, your God. Serve and worship him exclusively. Back up your promises with his name only. Don’t fool around with other gods, the gods of your neighbors, because God, your God, who is alive among you is a jealous God. Don’t provoke him, igniting his hot anger that would burn you right off the face of the Earth. Don’t push God, your God, to the wall as you did that day at Massah, the Testing-Place. Carefully keep the commands of God, your God, all the requirements and regulations he gave you. Do what is right; do what is good in God’s sight so you’ll live a good life and be able to march in and take this pleasant land that God so solemnly promised through your ancestors, throwing out your enemies left and right—exactly as God said.
20-24 The next time your child asks you, “What do these requirements and regulations and rules that God, our God, has commanded mean?” tell your child, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God powerfully intervened and got us out of that country. We stood there and watched as God delivered miracle-signs, great wonders, and evil-visitations on Egypt, on Pharaoh and his household. He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here and give us the land he so solemnly promised to our ancestors. That’s why God commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before God, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come.
25 “It will be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this entire commandment in the Presence of God, our God, just as he commanded us to do.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Read: Isaiah 58:6–12
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed[a] go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
11 And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in.
Footnotes:
Isaiah 58:6 Or bruised
INSIGHT
Am I my brother’s keeper? We might wonder something similar when we hear Isaiah urging his people to reach out to a world of hurting people. But another story is working in the background. God’s people were trying to avoid responsibility for the wrongs they were doing to their own flesh and blood (Isaiah 58:7).
Can you think of anything you are doing, or not doing, to those around you that is making their life difficult? Can you think of ways to unselfishly serve them? - Mart DeHaan
Unselfish Service
By Randy Kilgore
If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness. Isaiah 58:10
A small collection of people stood together, dwarfed by the size of the huge tree lying on the lawn. An elderly woman leaned on her cane and described watching the previous night’s windstorm as it blew down “our majestic old elm tree. Worst of all,” she continued, voice cracking with emotion, “it destroyed our lovely stone wall too. My husband built that wall when we were first married. He loved that wall. I loved that wall! Now it’s gone; just like him.”
Next morning, as she peeked out at the tree company workers cleaning up the downed tree; a big smile spread across her face. In between the branches she could just make out two adults and the boy who mowed her lawn carefully measuring and rebuilding her beloved stone wall!
The prophet Isaiah describes the kind of service God favors: acts that lift the hearts of those around us, like the wall repairers did for the elderly woman. This passage teaches that God values unselfish service to others over empty spiritual rituals. In fact, God exercises a two-way blessing on the selfless service of His children. First, God uses our willing acts of service to aid the oppressed and needy (Isaiah 58:7–10). Then God honors those engaged in such service by building or rebuilding our reputations as powerful positive forces in His kingdom (vv. 11–12). What service will you offer this day?
Thank You, Father, for the acts of others You use to lift us up, and for calling us to do the same.
Selfless service to others brings honor to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Way to Purity
Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart….For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man… —Matthew 15:18-20
Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, “But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart.” We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own “innocent ignorance”? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own “innocence,” I am living in a fool’s paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.
The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.
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
Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Auditor's Review - #8229
He's only in our office for a few days each year, but we think about him a lot. He's our auditor-the man who comes to check up on us financially after each fiscal year. It's important that a ministry have an annual audit we think. We're committed to always taking the high road and we try to be stewards of God's money that has been sent through His people. Everything needs to be handled by the highest possible standards. Now, the auditor will publish his statement after his review, and if he finds any weaknesses, he publishes those. I'm really thankful that we continue to get a good clean audit, but that's because we're thinking about the auditor all year long. I mean, here we are trying to decide the best way to record or document something. We always ask, "Well, what does the auditor want?" See, that helps you make right choices. You keep in mind that accounting that you're going to have to give.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Auditor's Review."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Hebrews 4:13. It says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." Okay, there's an audit coming. We must give account, and it's different from a human auditor's review. The human auditor comes in and randomly selects transactions to see how they were handled. Jesus' audit is not selective. It says everything is uncovered and laid bare with Him.
Your human auditors might never find that questionable or wrong thing in your life. Your mate may never know, your kids may never know, your parents may never find out. You may be able to impress all the auditors at church, at work, your friends, but their audit is not the one that matters anyway. They're not your God. They don't determine your eternal rewards. They don't determine heaven's consequences or discipline.
It's God's audit you need to be planning for and living for. He knows what you're doing financially, sexually, verbally. He hears every conversation, including the abusive talk, the critical talk, the dirty talk, the lies, the backstabbing. Are you going to be called into account for what He's seen, what He's heard you do. And God knows why you do what you do. First Corinthians 4:5 says, "He will expose the motives in men's hearts."
See, the all-knowing auditor will confront you with the pride, and the bitterness, the jealousy, the selfish ambition. Even good things will be canceled out because they were done for the wrong reasons. He knows what you're doing. He knows why you're doing it.
Thankfully, the auditor's review is wonderful news for some people. For He's going to richly reward those who have lived with love and integrity and purity. Maybe nobody else will notice. Maybe your human auditors don't even appreciate it much. Maybe no one even knows the good things you've done, but the auditor who gives eternal rewards; He's noticing it all. We can't see our organization's human auditor most of the time, but we still make a thousand little daily decisions in light of his upcoming review. Should you and I do any less for the auditor whose audit matters forever?
You can count on it. The books of your life will be opened and you will have to give account. The auditor will play no favorites. He will not miss a single transaction. It only makes sense to always live aware of His presence, always aware of his standards, always measuring by His measuring, and always seeking to please the Savior whose audit affects your eternity.
At the age of two, master pianist Van Cliburn played a song on the piano while listening to teaching in the adjacent room. His mother noticed his skill and began giving him daily piano lessons. The little kid from Kilgore, Texas, won the First International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. Why? In part because a parent noticed an aptitude and helped a child develop it.
What gives your child satisfaction and pleasure? Of course, what thrills one person bothers another. The apostle Peter liked to keep the boat steady while the apostle Paul was prone to rock it. So, resist the urge to label before you study. Attend carefully to the unique childhood of your child. What story do you read in your children? Uncommon are the parents who attempt to learn—and are blessed by their children.
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 6
This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.
3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
4 Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
10-12 When God, your God, ushers you into the land he promised through your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you, you’re going to walk into large, bustling cities you didn’t build, well-furnished houses you didn’t buy, come upon wells you didn’t dig, vineyards and olive orchards you didn’t plant. When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content, make sure you don’t forget how you got there—God brought you out of slavery in Egypt.
13-19 Deeply respect God, your God. Serve and worship him exclusively. Back up your promises with his name only. Don’t fool around with other gods, the gods of your neighbors, because God, your God, who is alive among you is a jealous God. Don’t provoke him, igniting his hot anger that would burn you right off the face of the Earth. Don’t push God, your God, to the wall as you did that day at Massah, the Testing-Place. Carefully keep the commands of God, your God, all the requirements and regulations he gave you. Do what is right; do what is good in God’s sight so you’ll live a good life and be able to march in and take this pleasant land that God so solemnly promised through your ancestors, throwing out your enemies left and right—exactly as God said.
20-24 The next time your child asks you, “What do these requirements and regulations and rules that God, our God, has commanded mean?” tell your child, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God powerfully intervened and got us out of that country. We stood there and watched as God delivered miracle-signs, great wonders, and evil-visitations on Egypt, on Pharaoh and his household. He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here and give us the land he so solemnly promised to our ancestors. That’s why God commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before God, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come.
25 “It will be a set-right and put-together life for us if we make sure that we do this entire commandment in the Presence of God, our God, just as he commanded us to do.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, July 26, 2018
Read: Isaiah 58:6–12
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed[a] go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
11 And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
12 And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in.
Footnotes:
Isaiah 58:6 Or bruised
INSIGHT
Am I my brother’s keeper? We might wonder something similar when we hear Isaiah urging his people to reach out to a world of hurting people. But another story is working in the background. God’s people were trying to avoid responsibility for the wrongs they were doing to their own flesh and blood (Isaiah 58:7).
Can you think of anything you are doing, or not doing, to those around you that is making their life difficult? Can you think of ways to unselfishly serve them? - Mart DeHaan
Unselfish Service
By Randy Kilgore
If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness. Isaiah 58:10
A small collection of people stood together, dwarfed by the size of the huge tree lying on the lawn. An elderly woman leaned on her cane and described watching the previous night’s windstorm as it blew down “our majestic old elm tree. Worst of all,” she continued, voice cracking with emotion, “it destroyed our lovely stone wall too. My husband built that wall when we were first married. He loved that wall. I loved that wall! Now it’s gone; just like him.”
Next morning, as she peeked out at the tree company workers cleaning up the downed tree; a big smile spread across her face. In between the branches she could just make out two adults and the boy who mowed her lawn carefully measuring and rebuilding her beloved stone wall!
The prophet Isaiah describes the kind of service God favors: acts that lift the hearts of those around us, like the wall repairers did for the elderly woman. This passage teaches that God values unselfish service to others over empty spiritual rituals. In fact, God exercises a two-way blessing on the selfless service of His children. First, God uses our willing acts of service to aid the oppressed and needy (Isaiah 58:7–10). Then God honors those engaged in such service by building or rebuilding our reputations as powerful positive forces in His kingdom (vv. 11–12). What service will you offer this day?
Thank You, Father, for the acts of others You use to lift us up, and for calling us to do the same.
Selfless service to others brings honor to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Way to Purity
Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart….For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man… —Matthew 15:18-20
Initially we trust in our ignorance, calling it innocence, and next we trust our innocence, calling it purity. Then when we hear these strong statements from our Lord, we shrink back, saying, “But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart.” We resent what He reveals. Either Jesus Christ is the supreme authority on the human heart, or He is not worth paying any attention to. Am I prepared to trust the penetration of His Word into my heart, or would I prefer to trust my own “innocent ignorance”? If I will take an honest look at myself, becoming fully aware of my so-called innocence and putting it to the test, I am very likely to have a rude awakening that what Jesus Christ said is true, and I will be appalled at the possibilities of the evil and the wrong within me. But as long as I remain under the false security of my own “innocence,” I am living in a fool’s paradise. If I have never been an openly rude and abusive person, the only reason is my own cowardice coupled with the sense of protection I receive from living a civilized life. But when I am open and completely exposed before God, I find that Jesus Christ is right in His diagnosis of me.
The only thing that truly provides protection is the redemption of Jesus Christ. If I will simply hand myself over to Him, I will never have to experience the terrible possibilities that lie within my heart. Purity is something far too deep for me to arrive at naturally. But when the Holy Spirit comes into me, He brings into the center of my personal life the very Spirit that was exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ, namely, the Holy Spirit, which is absolute unblemished purity.
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
Thursday, July 26, 2018
The Auditor's Review - #8229
He's only in our office for a few days each year, but we think about him a lot. He's our auditor-the man who comes to check up on us financially after each fiscal year. It's important that a ministry have an annual audit we think. We're committed to always taking the high road and we try to be stewards of God's money that has been sent through His people. Everything needs to be handled by the highest possible standards. Now, the auditor will publish his statement after his review, and if he finds any weaknesses, he publishes those. I'm really thankful that we continue to get a good clean audit, but that's because we're thinking about the auditor all year long. I mean, here we are trying to decide the best way to record or document something. We always ask, "Well, what does the auditor want?" See, that helps you make right choices. You keep in mind that accounting that you're going to have to give.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Auditor's Review."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Hebrews 4:13. It says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." Okay, there's an audit coming. We must give account, and it's different from a human auditor's review. The human auditor comes in and randomly selects transactions to see how they were handled. Jesus' audit is not selective. It says everything is uncovered and laid bare with Him.
Your human auditors might never find that questionable or wrong thing in your life. Your mate may never know, your kids may never know, your parents may never find out. You may be able to impress all the auditors at church, at work, your friends, but their audit is not the one that matters anyway. They're not your God. They don't determine your eternal rewards. They don't determine heaven's consequences or discipline.
It's God's audit you need to be planning for and living for. He knows what you're doing financially, sexually, verbally. He hears every conversation, including the abusive talk, the critical talk, the dirty talk, the lies, the backstabbing. Are you going to be called into account for what He's seen, what He's heard you do. And God knows why you do what you do. First Corinthians 4:5 says, "He will expose the motives in men's hearts."
See, the all-knowing auditor will confront you with the pride, and the bitterness, the jealousy, the selfish ambition. Even good things will be canceled out because they were done for the wrong reasons. He knows what you're doing. He knows why you're doing it.
Thankfully, the auditor's review is wonderful news for some people. For He's going to richly reward those who have lived with love and integrity and purity. Maybe nobody else will notice. Maybe your human auditors don't even appreciate it much. Maybe no one even knows the good things you've done, but the auditor who gives eternal rewards; He's noticing it all. We can't see our organization's human auditor most of the time, but we still make a thousand little daily decisions in light of his upcoming review. Should you and I do any less for the auditor whose audit matters forever?
You can count on it. The books of your life will be opened and you will have to give account. The auditor will play no favorites. He will not miss a single transaction. It only makes sense to always live aware of His presence, always aware of his standards, always measuring by His measuring, and always seeking to please the Savior whose audit affects your eternity.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Deuteronomy 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: NOT A BLANK SLATE BUT A WRITTEN BOOK
Each year God gives millions of parents a gift—a brand-new baby. God pre-wired your infant. He scripted your toddler’s strengths. He set your teen on a trajectory. God gave you an eighteen-year research project. What sets this child apart? You see, childhood tendencies forecast adult abilities. Read them. Discern them. Affirm them. Cheerlead them!
Even Jesus displayed an earthly bent. Where did Joseph and Mary locate their lost twelve-year-old? In the temple listening to the teachers and asking them questions. Did this early interest play out later in life? By all means. Even his enemies referred to him as Rabbi (Matthew 26:49).
Don’t see your child as a blank slate awaiting your pen, but as a written book awaiting your study!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 5
Moses Teaches Israel on the Plains of Moab
Moses called all Israel together. He said to them,
Attention, Israel. Listen obediently to the rules and regulations I am delivering to your listening ears today. Learn them. Live them.
2-5 God, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb. God didn’t just make this covenant with our parents; he made it also with us, with all of us who are alive right now. God spoke to you personally out of the fire on the mountain. At the time I stood between God and you, to tell you what God said. You were afraid, remember, of the fire and wouldn’t climb the mountain. He said:
6 I am God, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of a house of slaves.
7 No other gods, only me.
8-10 No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God. I hold parents responsible for any sins they pass on to their children to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation. But I’m lovingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.
11 No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of his name.
12-15 No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. Work six days, doing everything you have to do, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day—no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. Don’t ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That’s why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest.
16 Respect your father and mother—God, your God, commands it! You’ll have a long life; the land that God is giving you will treat you well.
17 No murder.
18 No adultery.
19 No stealing.
20 No lies about your neighbor.
21 No coveting your neighbor’s wife. And no lusting for his house, field, servant, maid, ox, or donkey either—nothing that belongs to your neighbor!
22 These are the words that God spoke to the whole congregation at the mountain. He spoke in a tremendous voice from the fire and cloud and dark mist. And that was it. No more words. Then he wrote them on two slabs of stone and gave them to me.
23-24 As it turned out, when you heard the Voice out of that dark cloud and saw the mountain on fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your leaders, and said,
24-26 “Our God has revealed to us his glory and greatness. We’ve heard him speak from the fire today! We’ve seen that God can speak to humans and they can still live. But why risk it further? This huge fire will devour us if we stay around any longer. If we hear God’s voice anymore, we’ll die for sure. Has anyone ever known of anyone who has heard the Voice of God the way we have and lived to tell the story?
27 “From now on, you go and listen to what God, our God, says and then tell us what God tells you. We’ll listen and we’ll do it.”
28-29 God heard what you said to me and told me, “I’ve heard what the people said to you. They’re right—good and true words. What I wouldn’t give if they’d always feel this way, continuing to revere me and always keep all my commands; they’d have a good life forever, they and their children!
30-31 “Go ahead and tell them to go home to their tents. But you, you stay here with me so I can tell you every commandment and all the rules and regulations that you must teach them so they’ll know how to live in the land that I’m giving them as their own.”
32-33 So be very careful to act exactly as God commands you. Don’t veer off to the right or the left. Walk straight down the road God commands so that you’ll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you’re about to possess.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Read: Ephesians 3:8–19
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in[a] God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
Prayer for Spiritual Strength
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family[b] in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Footnotes:
Ephesians 3:9 Or by
Ephesians 3:15 Or from whom all fatherhood; the Greek word patria in verse 15 is closely related to the word for Father in verse 14
INSIGHT
Before his dramatic conversion to Christ, Paul relied on his observance of the law for right standing with God (Philippians 3:4–6). But we see in today’s passage that Paul’s focus has shifted from human effort to acknowledging the work of the Lord. Paul prays for the believers in Ephesus that God would strengthen them (v. 16) so that Christ may dwell in them (v. 17). Then they will be rooted in love (v. 17) and filled with the fullness of God (v. 19). These are things God does for the believer, not something we do.
Have you been tempted to rely on your own strength to please God? - J.R. Hudberg
Perfect Imperfection
By Monica Brands
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. Ephesians 3:16
A college professor of mine, picking up on my perfectionism-induced procrastination, gave me some wise advice. “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,” he said, explaining that striving for perfect performance can prevent the risks necessary for growth. Accepting that my work would always be imperfect would give me the freedom to keep growing.
The apostle Paul explained an even more profound reason to let go of our own efforts to perfect ourselves: it can blind us to our need for Christ.
Paul had learned this the hard way. After years striving to perfectly obey God’s law, encountering Jesus changed everything (Galatians 1:11–16). Paul realized that if his own efforts were enough to be whole and right with God, “then there was no need for Christ to die” (2:21 nlt). Only by letting go of—dying to—self-reliance, could he experience Jesus living in him (v. 20). Only in his imperfection could he experience God’s perfect power.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t resist sin (v. 17); but it does mean we should stop relying on our own strength to grow spiritually (v. 20).
In this lifetime, we will always be works in progress. But as our hearts humbly accept our constant need for the only perfect One, Jesus makes His home there (Ephesians 3:17). Rooted in Him, we are free to grow ever deeper in the love “too great” to ever “understand fully” (v. 19 nlt).
Lord, so often we exchange the joy and freedom of life with You for the burden of relying on ourselves. Help us to humbly rely on You instead.
We are free to grow in Jesus’s love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Am I Blessed Like This?
Blessed are… —Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the “dynamite” of the Holy Spirit. And they “explode” when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, “What a startling statement that is!” Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child’s play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord’s statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations— it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Turning Lights Green - #8228
I was speeding along the Interstate; legally speeding of course, and this van passed me. He pulled into the right lane and then he seemed to be maintaining a pretty consistent speed. For many miles, I ended up traveling behind him. I noticed there was something unusual about this van-it had a plastic bubble that was mounted just above the roof. I had some ideas of why it might be there, especially in light of the words printed on the side of the van. It gave the name of a large express mail delivery service, followed by these words, "Critical Care Van." Later, actually a law enforcement friend of mine confirmed my theory of what that vehicle was actually carrying-parts. Body parts needed for transplants that can save lives. And the bubble on top? My friend said that's a strobe light that actually turns traffic lights green as the van approaches them! Wonder how I could get one of those for me?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Turning Lights Green."
The driver of that Critical Care Van is, of course, on an important mission and he needs green lights all the way. So do we, if we're carrying out a mission that's been given to us by our Lord. See, He's got assignments for all of us who belong to Him. He's got assignments for you. Maybe you're living out His assignment right now, or maybe you're holding back on saying "yes" to an assignment He's trying to give you. In either case, there's something decisive that you need to know. When you're on a mission for Jesus, He's the One who turns the lights green as you go. He actually promised.
First Thessalonians 5:24, our word for today from the Word of God, is one of the places where He made that promise. It simply says, "The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it." That's it! When Jesus prompts you to do something for Him, He isn't about to leave you stranded somewhere in the middle of His mission and in the middle of His will. You can't see how it's going to get done, how it's ever going to come together. He says, "I got you into this, I'll see that it gets done!"
Where's the money going to come from? His problem. If it's God's will, it's God's bill. Where are the people you need going to come from? He's already getting them ready for you and you ready for them. How are you going to get over the huge obstacles that are in the way? The God who parts Red Seas is going to make the way for you. How can you possibly do this thing when you are so flawed, so inadequate, so ordinary? Since when is this about what you can do? With God's assignment always comes God's enabling!
Look, Jesus might be summoning you right now to undertake some work for Him. It may be here; it may be thousands of miles from here. Maybe He's summoning you to touch some lives for Him, maybe a few in your immediate world, or maybe more people than you could ever imagine. But many times, all we see are the red lights ahead. So we resist our Master's call and we miss His amazing will. Your Lord has promised to turn those red lights green; not before you move out for Him, but as you're moving out for Him.
Just like that Critical Care Van, you're carrying something that lives depend on-the Good News of Jesus Christ. There are people that He is depending on you to tell, on you to rescue from an eternity without God and without hope. Don't let those red lights keep you sitting in the parking lot.
Now start driving toward that mission God has given you, and leave those green lights to Him!
Each year God gives millions of parents a gift—a brand-new baby. God pre-wired your infant. He scripted your toddler’s strengths. He set your teen on a trajectory. God gave you an eighteen-year research project. What sets this child apart? You see, childhood tendencies forecast adult abilities. Read them. Discern them. Affirm them. Cheerlead them!
Even Jesus displayed an earthly bent. Where did Joseph and Mary locate their lost twelve-year-old? In the temple listening to the teachers and asking them questions. Did this early interest play out later in life? By all means. Even his enemies referred to him as Rabbi (Matthew 26:49).
Don’t see your child as a blank slate awaiting your pen, but as a written book awaiting your study!
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 5
Moses Teaches Israel on the Plains of Moab
Moses called all Israel together. He said to them,
Attention, Israel. Listen obediently to the rules and regulations I am delivering to your listening ears today. Learn them. Live them.
2-5 God, our God, made a covenant with us at Horeb. God didn’t just make this covenant with our parents; he made it also with us, with all of us who are alive right now. God spoke to you personally out of the fire on the mountain. At the time I stood between God and you, to tell you what God said. You were afraid, remember, of the fire and wouldn’t climb the mountain. He said:
6 I am God, your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of a house of slaves.
7 No other gods, only me.
8-10 No carved gods of any size, shape, or form of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don’t bow down to them and don’t serve them because I am God, your God, and I’m a most jealous God. I hold parents responsible for any sins they pass on to their children to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation. But I’m lovingly loyal to the thousands who love me and keep my commandments.
11 No using the name of God, your God, in curses or silly banter; God won’t put up with the irreverent use of his name.
12-15 No working on the Sabbath; keep it holy just as God, your God, commanded you. Work six days, doing everything you have to do, but the seventh day is a Sabbath, a Rest Day—no work: not you, your son, your daughter, your servant, your maid, your ox, your donkey (or any of your animals), and not even the foreigner visiting your town. That way your servants and maids will get the same rest as you. Don’t ever forget that you were slaves in Egypt and God, your God, got you out of there in a powerful show of strength. That’s why God, your God, commands you to observe the day of Sabbath rest.
16 Respect your father and mother—God, your God, commands it! You’ll have a long life; the land that God is giving you will treat you well.
17 No murder.
18 No adultery.
19 No stealing.
20 No lies about your neighbor.
21 No coveting your neighbor’s wife. And no lusting for his house, field, servant, maid, ox, or donkey either—nothing that belongs to your neighbor!
22 These are the words that God spoke to the whole congregation at the mountain. He spoke in a tremendous voice from the fire and cloud and dark mist. And that was it. No more words. Then he wrote them on two slabs of stone and gave them to me.
23-24 As it turned out, when you heard the Voice out of that dark cloud and saw the mountain on fire, you approached me, all the heads of your tribes and your leaders, and said,
24-26 “Our God has revealed to us his glory and greatness. We’ve heard him speak from the fire today! We’ve seen that God can speak to humans and they can still live. But why risk it further? This huge fire will devour us if we stay around any longer. If we hear God’s voice anymore, we’ll die for sure. Has anyone ever known of anyone who has heard the Voice of God the way we have and lived to tell the story?
27 “From now on, you go and listen to what God, our God, says and then tell us what God tells you. We’ll listen and we’ll do it.”
28-29 God heard what you said to me and told me, “I’ve heard what the people said to you. They’re right—good and true words. What I wouldn’t give if they’d always feel this way, continuing to revere me and always keep all my commands; they’d have a good life forever, they and their children!
30-31 “Go ahead and tell them to go home to their tents. But you, you stay here with me so I can tell you every commandment and all the rules and regulations that you must teach them so they’ll know how to live in the land that I’m giving them as their own.”
32-33 So be very careful to act exactly as God commands you. Don’t veer off to the right or the left. Walk straight down the road God commands so that you’ll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you’re about to possess.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Read: Ephesians 3:8–19
To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in[a] God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
Prayer for Spiritual Strength
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family[b] in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Footnotes:
Ephesians 3:9 Or by
Ephesians 3:15 Or from whom all fatherhood; the Greek word patria in verse 15 is closely related to the word for Father in verse 14
INSIGHT
Before his dramatic conversion to Christ, Paul relied on his observance of the law for right standing with God (Philippians 3:4–6). But we see in today’s passage that Paul’s focus has shifted from human effort to acknowledging the work of the Lord. Paul prays for the believers in Ephesus that God would strengthen them (v. 16) so that Christ may dwell in them (v. 17). Then they will be rooted in love (v. 17) and filled with the fullness of God (v. 19). These are things God does for the believer, not something we do.
Have you been tempted to rely on your own strength to please God? - J.R. Hudberg
Perfect Imperfection
By Monica Brands
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. Ephesians 3:16
A college professor of mine, picking up on my perfectionism-induced procrastination, gave me some wise advice. “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good,” he said, explaining that striving for perfect performance can prevent the risks necessary for growth. Accepting that my work would always be imperfect would give me the freedom to keep growing.
The apostle Paul explained an even more profound reason to let go of our own efforts to perfect ourselves: it can blind us to our need for Christ.
Paul had learned this the hard way. After years striving to perfectly obey God’s law, encountering Jesus changed everything (Galatians 1:11–16). Paul realized that if his own efforts were enough to be whole and right with God, “then there was no need for Christ to die” (2:21 nlt). Only by letting go of—dying to—self-reliance, could he experience Jesus living in him (v. 20). Only in his imperfection could he experience God’s perfect power.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t resist sin (v. 17); but it does mean we should stop relying on our own strength to grow spiritually (v. 20).
In this lifetime, we will always be works in progress. But as our hearts humbly accept our constant need for the only perfect One, Jesus makes His home there (Ephesians 3:17). Rooted in Him, we are free to grow ever deeper in the love “too great” to ever “understand fully” (v. 19 nlt).
Lord, so often we exchange the joy and freedom of life with You for the burden of relying on ourselves. Help us to humbly rely on You instead.
We are free to grow in Jesus’s love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Am I Blessed Like This?
Blessed are… —Matthew 5:3-11
When we first read the statements of Jesus, they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unnoticed into our subconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes initially seem to be merely soothing and beautiful precepts for overly spiritual and seemingly useless people, but of very little practical use in the rigid, fast-paced workdays of the world in which we live. We soon find, however, that the Beatitudes contain the “dynamite” of the Holy Spirit. And they “explode” when the circumstances of our lives cause them to do so. When the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance one of the Beatitudes, we say, “What a startling statement that is!” Then we must decide whether or not we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words. That is the way the Spirit of God works. We do not need to be born again to apply the Sermon on the Mount literally. The literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount is as easy as child’s play. But the interpretation by the Spirit of God as He applies our Lord’s statements to our circumstances is the strict and difficult work of a saint.
The teachings of Jesus are all out of proportion when compared to our natural way of looking at things, and they come to us initially with astonishing discomfort. We gradually have to conform our walk and conversation to the precepts of Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit applies them to our circumstances. The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations— it is a picture of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His unhindered way with us.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The root of faith is the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest snares is the idea that God is sure to lead us to success. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Turning Lights Green - #8228
I was speeding along the Interstate; legally speeding of course, and this van passed me. He pulled into the right lane and then he seemed to be maintaining a pretty consistent speed. For many miles, I ended up traveling behind him. I noticed there was something unusual about this van-it had a plastic bubble that was mounted just above the roof. I had some ideas of why it might be there, especially in light of the words printed on the side of the van. It gave the name of a large express mail delivery service, followed by these words, "Critical Care Van." Later, actually a law enforcement friend of mine confirmed my theory of what that vehicle was actually carrying-parts. Body parts needed for transplants that can save lives. And the bubble on top? My friend said that's a strobe light that actually turns traffic lights green as the van approaches them! Wonder how I could get one of those for me?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Turning Lights Green."
The driver of that Critical Care Van is, of course, on an important mission and he needs green lights all the way. So do we, if we're carrying out a mission that's been given to us by our Lord. See, He's got assignments for all of us who belong to Him. He's got assignments for you. Maybe you're living out His assignment right now, or maybe you're holding back on saying "yes" to an assignment He's trying to give you. In either case, there's something decisive that you need to know. When you're on a mission for Jesus, He's the One who turns the lights green as you go. He actually promised.
First Thessalonians 5:24, our word for today from the Word of God, is one of the places where He made that promise. It simply says, "The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it." That's it! When Jesus prompts you to do something for Him, He isn't about to leave you stranded somewhere in the middle of His mission and in the middle of His will. You can't see how it's going to get done, how it's ever going to come together. He says, "I got you into this, I'll see that it gets done!"
Where's the money going to come from? His problem. If it's God's will, it's God's bill. Where are the people you need going to come from? He's already getting them ready for you and you ready for them. How are you going to get over the huge obstacles that are in the way? The God who parts Red Seas is going to make the way for you. How can you possibly do this thing when you are so flawed, so inadequate, so ordinary? Since when is this about what you can do? With God's assignment always comes God's enabling!
Look, Jesus might be summoning you right now to undertake some work for Him. It may be here; it may be thousands of miles from here. Maybe He's summoning you to touch some lives for Him, maybe a few in your immediate world, or maybe more people than you could ever imagine. But many times, all we see are the red lights ahead. So we resist our Master's call and we miss His amazing will. Your Lord has promised to turn those red lights green; not before you move out for Him, but as you're moving out for Him.
Just like that Critical Care Van, you're carrying something that lives depend on-the Good News of Jesus Christ. There are people that He is depending on you to tell, on you to rescue from an eternity without God and without hope. Don't let those red lights keep you sitting in the parking lot.
Now start driving toward that mission God has given you, and leave those green lights to Him!
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Deuteronomy 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: DON’T DESPISE SMALL BEGINNINGS
God does uncommon things through common deeds! A friend of mine related the story of Hurricane Katrina survivors. As water rose around one man’s house, he swam out of a window with two children on his back, ending up on the rooftop of a tall building. Others joined him before being rescued. After an hour on the building, the man realized it was a church. Patting the rooftop he said to the others, “We are on holy ground.” Another roof dweller proclaimed, “My grandfather and grandmother helped build this church.”
Do you think those grandparents ever imagined God would use their work to save their granddaughter? What difference will your work make? God’s answer is this: “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin” (Zechariah 4:10).
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 4
Now listen, Israel, listen carefully to the rules and regulations that I am teaching you to follow so that you may live and enter and take possession of the land that God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, is giving to you. Don’t add a word to what I command you, and don’t remove a word from it. Keep the commands of God, your God, that I am commanding you.
3-4 You saw with your own eyes what God did at Baal Peor, how God destroyed from among you every man who joined in the Baal Peor orgies. But you, the ones who held tight to God, your God, are alive and well, every one of you, today.
5-6 Pay attention: I’m teaching you the rules and regulations that God commanded me, so that you may live by them in the land you are entering to take up ownership. Keep them. Practice them. You’ll become wise and understanding. When people hear and see what’s going on, they’ll say, “What a great nation! So wise, so understanding! We’ve never seen anything like it.”
7-8 Yes. What other great nation has gods that are intimate with them the way God, our God, is with us, always ready to listen to us? And what other great nation has rules and regulations as good and fair as this Revelation that I’m setting before you today?
9 Just make sure you stay alert. Keep close watch over yourselves. Don’t forget anything of what you’ve seen. Don’t let your heart wander off. Stay vigilant as long as you live. Teach what you’ve seen and heard to your children and grandchildren.
10 That day when you stood before God, your God, at Horeb, God said to me, “Assemble the people in my presence to listen to my words so that they will learn to fear me in holy fear for as long as they live on the land, and then they will teach these same words to their children.”
11-13 You gathered. You stood in the shadow of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with fire, blazing high into the very heart of Heaven. You stood in deep darkness and thick clouds. God spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but you saw nothing—no form, only a voice. He announced his covenant, the Ten Words, by which he commanded you to live. Then he wrote them down on two slabs of stone.
14 And God commanded me at that time to teach you the rules and regulations that you are to live by in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.
15-20 You saw no form on the day God spoke to you at Horeb from out of the fire. Remember that. Carefully guard yourselves so that you don’t turn corrupt and make a form, carving a figure that looks male or female, or looks like a prowling animal or a flying bird or a slithering snake or a fish in a stream. And also carefully guard yourselves so that you don’t look up into the skies and see the sun and moon and stars, all the constellations of the skies, and be seduced into worshiping and serving them. God set them out for everybody’s benefit, everywhere. But you—God took you right out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to become the people of his inheritance—and that’s what you are this very day.
21-22 But God was angry with me because of you and the things you said. He swore that I’d never cross the Jordan, never get to enter the good land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance. This means that I am going to die here. I’m not crossing the Jordan. But you will cross; you’ll possess the good land.
23-24 So stay alert. Don’t for a minute forget the covenant which God, your God, made with you. And don’t take up with any carved images, no forms of any kind—God, your God, issued clear commands on that. God, your God, is not to be trifled with—he’s a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25-28 When the time comes that you have children and grandchildren, put on years, and start taking things for granted, if you then become corrupt and make any carved images, no matter what their form, by doing what is sheer evil in God’s eyes and provoking his anger—I can tell you right now, with Heaven and Earth as witnesses, that it will be all over for you. You’ll be kicked off the land that you’re about to cross over the Jordan to possess. Believe me, you’ll have a very short stay there. You’ll be ruined, completely ruined. God will scatter you far and wide; a few of you will survive here and there in the nations where God will drive you. There you can worship your homemade gods to your hearts’ content, your wonderful gods of wood and stone that can’t see or hear or eat or smell.
29-31 But even there, if you seek God, your God, you’ll be able to find him if you’re serious, looking for him with your whole heart and soul. When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to God, your God, and listen obediently to what he says. God, your God, is above all a compassionate God. In the end he will not abandon you, he won’t bring you to ruin, he won’t forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.
32-33 Ask questions. Find out what has been going on all these years before you were born. From the day God created man and woman on this Earth, and from the horizon in the east to the horizon in the west—as far back as you can imagine and as far away as you can imagine—has as great a thing as this ever happened? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Has a people ever heard, as you did, a god speaking out of the middle of the fire and lived to tell the story?
34 Or has a god ever tried to select for himself a nation from within a nation using trials, miracles, and war, putting his strong hand in, reaching his long arm out, a spectacle awesome and staggering, the way God, your God, did it for you in Egypt while you stood right there and watched?
35-38 You were shown all this so that you would know that God is, well, God. He’s the only God there is. He’s it. He made it possible for you to hear his voice out of Heaven to discipline you. Down on Earth, he showed you the big fire and again you heard his words, this time out of the fire. He loved your ancestors and chose to work with their children. He personally and powerfully brought you out of Egypt in order to displace bigger and stronger and older nations with you, bringing you out and turning their land over to you as an inheritance. And now it’s happening. This very day.
39-40 Know this well, then. Take it to heart right now: God is in Heaven above; God is on Earth below. He’s the only God there is. Obediently live by his rules and commands which I’m giving you today so that you’ll live well and your children after you—oh, you’ll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you.
41-42 Then Moses set aside three towns in the country on the east side of the Jordan to which someone who had unintentionally killed a person could flee and find refuge. If the murder was unintentional and there was no history of bad blood, the murderer could flee to one of these cities and save his life:
43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44-49 This is the Revelation that Moses presented to the People of Israel. These are the testimonies, the rules and regulations Moses spoke to the People of Israel after their exodus from Egypt and arrival on the east side of the Jordan in the valley near Beth Peor. It was the country of Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon. Moses and the People of Israel fought and beat him after they left Egypt and took his land. They also took the land of Og king of Bashan. The two Amorite kings held the country on the east of the Jordan from Aroer on the bank of the Brook Arnon as far north as Mount Siyon, that is, Mount Hermon, all the Arabah plain east of the Jordan, and as far south as the Sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea) beneath the slopes of Mount Pisgah.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Read: Mark 8:22–26
Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida
22 And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus[a] laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
Footnotes:
Mark 8:25 Greek he
INSIGHT
Although God is able to heal all diseases and injuries, it’s not always His will to do so. God empowered the apostle Paul to heal many (Acts 14:8–10; 19:12), yet he wrote to Timothy about Trophimus whom he left “sick in Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20). Likewise, Paul advised Timothy to take medicinal wine for his stomach problem and frequent ailments (1 Timothy 5:23). In this case, medicine was recommended instead of divine healing. Second Corinthians makes reference to Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (12:7), which many scholars believe was some type of physical ailment. Interestingly God didn’t remove it even after Paul’s repeated prayers for deliverance. The Lord’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).
God has His own purposes for granting full healing, partial healing, or withholding healing altogether. In what situation do you need to trust in the sufficient grace of God? - Dennis Fisher
Jesus Knows Why
By Alyson Kieda
When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. Matthew 7:28
I have friends who’ve received partial healing but still struggle with painful aspects of their diseases. Other friends have been healed of an addiction but still struggle with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing. And I wonder, Why doesn’t God heal them completely—once and for all?
In Mark 8:22–26, we read the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. Jesus first took the man away from the village. Then He spit on the man’s eyes and “put his hands on him.” The man said he now saw people who looked “like trees walking around.” Then Jesus touched the man’s eyes again, and this time he saw “everything clearly.”
In His ministry, Jesus’s words and actions often amazed and baffled the crowd and His followers (Matthew 7:28; Luke 8:10; 11:14) and even drove many of them away (John 6:60–66). No doubt this two-part miracle also caused confusion. Why not immediately heal this man?
We don’t know why. But Jesus knew what the man—and the disciples who viewed his healing—needed in that moment. And He knows what we need today to draw us closer in our relationship with Him. Though we won’t always understand, we can trust that God is working in our lives and the lives of our loved ones. And He will give us the strength, courage, and clarity we need to persevere in following Him.
Dear Lord, thank You for knowing us so well and for providing what we need most. Give us eyes to see You and a heart to understand Your Word.
Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus. Robert Cull
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
His Nature and Our Motives
…unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, “If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind.” Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.
No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations— He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature— He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
The Incomparable You - #8227
If you were the baby of the family, you might be able to relate to the occasional complaint that was filed by our youngest who's now all grown up. He kiddingly talks about how many pictures were taken of his older sister, then his older brother, and how we seemed to run out of film by the time he came along. You know, the last-in-line complex. But when reflecting on another sibling comparison he came to a happier conclusion. He said, "You built this big dollhouse as a gift for my sister. Then you built this big, fully loaded barn for my brother. Then you built a general store for me-about half the size of the dollhouse and the barn." At first, he thought, "Here we go again. Yep, they run out of gas by the time they get to me." But then, all of a sudden he noticed that his store had something neither of his siblings' had-a sign on the store with his name, identifying him as the proprietor. Our son said, "You know, I felt really good when I realized that what you gave me had my name on it!" All right, let's hear one for the baby!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Incomparable You."
Our son was evaluating his share in life in the same way many of us do-he compared his life with someone else's. And when we do that, we usually feel like we lose. We always seem to compare ourselves to someone who has more of something than we do. Did you ever notice that? They're better looking, better treated, richer, smarter, more talented. So we end up believing lies about how much we're worth and how much of a difference we can make.
Until we wake up and realize that God did something totally unique when He made you. There's a life, there's a plan, there's a future that has your name on it and only your name. You are an original. You can't be compared with anyone else! You're a category all by yourself. You are who God says you are; not what anyone else says you are.
God makes that so clear in our word for today from the Word of God. David's prayer here spells out the highly individual and deeply personal thing God did when He designed you. In Psalm 139, beginning with verse 1, it says: "O Lord, You have searched me and You know me ... You are familiar with all my ways ... You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful ... All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."
Isn't that awesome? You're uniquely designed. There's a daily life plan that has your name on it! If you don't think you're one of a kind, put your hand up and look at your fingerprints! One reason we go through life never knowing our value and missing the destiny we're made for, is because we're away from the very God who gives us our worth.
All the wrong things you've ever done have cost you a relationship with the One who made you and who loves you the most. It took the greatest act of love in human history to give you a chance to belong to Him-the awful death of Jesus Christ on the cross, because He was paying for every sin of your life. He didn't just die for the world. He died for you so you could be forgiven. So you could finally have the God-relationship from which all our worth comes.
In fact, not only is your name on the unique plan God has for you, but He wants to reserve a place in heaven with your name on it. The Bible says the only ones who will get into heaven are those whose names are written in what He calls God's book of life (Revelation 20:15) and He wants to write your name there today, if you'll give yourself to Jesus, the One who gave His life for you, who left His place in heaven so you could go there.
Why don't you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours. If you thought I was worth dying for, how can I do anything but give me to you." Look, our website, ANewStory.com, is all about beginning this relationship. Let me encourage you to go there today.
He made you. He loves you. He died for you, and He's come looking for you today. Don't miss Him.
God does uncommon things through common deeds! A friend of mine related the story of Hurricane Katrina survivors. As water rose around one man’s house, he swam out of a window with two children on his back, ending up on the rooftop of a tall building. Others joined him before being rescued. After an hour on the building, the man realized it was a church. Patting the rooftop he said to the others, “We are on holy ground.” Another roof dweller proclaimed, “My grandfather and grandmother helped build this church.”
Do you think those grandparents ever imagined God would use their work to save their granddaughter? What difference will your work make? God’s answer is this: “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin” (Zechariah 4:10).
Read more Cure for the Common Life
Deuteronomy 4
Now listen, Israel, listen carefully to the rules and regulations that I am teaching you to follow so that you may live and enter and take possession of the land that God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, is giving to you. Don’t add a word to what I command you, and don’t remove a word from it. Keep the commands of God, your God, that I am commanding you.
3-4 You saw with your own eyes what God did at Baal Peor, how God destroyed from among you every man who joined in the Baal Peor orgies. But you, the ones who held tight to God, your God, are alive and well, every one of you, today.
5-6 Pay attention: I’m teaching you the rules and regulations that God commanded me, so that you may live by them in the land you are entering to take up ownership. Keep them. Practice them. You’ll become wise and understanding. When people hear and see what’s going on, they’ll say, “What a great nation! So wise, so understanding! We’ve never seen anything like it.”
7-8 Yes. What other great nation has gods that are intimate with them the way God, our God, is with us, always ready to listen to us? And what other great nation has rules and regulations as good and fair as this Revelation that I’m setting before you today?
9 Just make sure you stay alert. Keep close watch over yourselves. Don’t forget anything of what you’ve seen. Don’t let your heart wander off. Stay vigilant as long as you live. Teach what you’ve seen and heard to your children and grandchildren.
10 That day when you stood before God, your God, at Horeb, God said to me, “Assemble the people in my presence to listen to my words so that they will learn to fear me in holy fear for as long as they live on the land, and then they will teach these same words to their children.”
11-13 You gathered. You stood in the shadow of the mountain. The mountain was ablaze with fire, blazing high into the very heart of Heaven. You stood in deep darkness and thick clouds. God spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but you saw nothing—no form, only a voice. He announced his covenant, the Ten Words, by which he commanded you to live. Then he wrote them down on two slabs of stone.
14 And God commanded me at that time to teach you the rules and regulations that you are to live by in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.
15-20 You saw no form on the day God spoke to you at Horeb from out of the fire. Remember that. Carefully guard yourselves so that you don’t turn corrupt and make a form, carving a figure that looks male or female, or looks like a prowling animal or a flying bird or a slithering snake or a fish in a stream. And also carefully guard yourselves so that you don’t look up into the skies and see the sun and moon and stars, all the constellations of the skies, and be seduced into worshiping and serving them. God set them out for everybody’s benefit, everywhere. But you—God took you right out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to become the people of his inheritance—and that’s what you are this very day.
21-22 But God was angry with me because of you and the things you said. He swore that I’d never cross the Jordan, never get to enter the good land that God, your God, is giving you as an inheritance. This means that I am going to die here. I’m not crossing the Jordan. But you will cross; you’ll possess the good land.
23-24 So stay alert. Don’t for a minute forget the covenant which God, your God, made with you. And don’t take up with any carved images, no forms of any kind—God, your God, issued clear commands on that. God, your God, is not to be trifled with—he’s a consuming fire, a jealous God.
25-28 When the time comes that you have children and grandchildren, put on years, and start taking things for granted, if you then become corrupt and make any carved images, no matter what their form, by doing what is sheer evil in God’s eyes and provoking his anger—I can tell you right now, with Heaven and Earth as witnesses, that it will be all over for you. You’ll be kicked off the land that you’re about to cross over the Jordan to possess. Believe me, you’ll have a very short stay there. You’ll be ruined, completely ruined. God will scatter you far and wide; a few of you will survive here and there in the nations where God will drive you. There you can worship your homemade gods to your hearts’ content, your wonderful gods of wood and stone that can’t see or hear or eat or smell.
29-31 But even there, if you seek God, your God, you’ll be able to find him if you’re serious, looking for him with your whole heart and soul. When troubles come and all these awful things happen to you, in future days you will come back to God, your God, and listen obediently to what he says. God, your God, is above all a compassionate God. In the end he will not abandon you, he won’t bring you to ruin, he won’t forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.
32-33 Ask questions. Find out what has been going on all these years before you were born. From the day God created man and woman on this Earth, and from the horizon in the east to the horizon in the west—as far back as you can imagine and as far away as you can imagine—has as great a thing as this ever happened? Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Has a people ever heard, as you did, a god speaking out of the middle of the fire and lived to tell the story?
34 Or has a god ever tried to select for himself a nation from within a nation using trials, miracles, and war, putting his strong hand in, reaching his long arm out, a spectacle awesome and staggering, the way God, your God, did it for you in Egypt while you stood right there and watched?
35-38 You were shown all this so that you would know that God is, well, God. He’s the only God there is. He’s it. He made it possible for you to hear his voice out of Heaven to discipline you. Down on Earth, he showed you the big fire and again you heard his words, this time out of the fire. He loved your ancestors and chose to work with their children. He personally and powerfully brought you out of Egypt in order to displace bigger and stronger and older nations with you, bringing you out and turning their land over to you as an inheritance. And now it’s happening. This very day.
39-40 Know this well, then. Take it to heart right now: God is in Heaven above; God is on Earth below. He’s the only God there is. Obediently live by his rules and commands which I’m giving you today so that you’ll live well and your children after you—oh, you’ll live a long time in the land that God, your God, is giving you.
41-42 Then Moses set aside three towns in the country on the east side of the Jordan to which someone who had unintentionally killed a person could flee and find refuge. If the murder was unintentional and there was no history of bad blood, the murderer could flee to one of these cities and save his life:
43 Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.
44-49 This is the Revelation that Moses presented to the People of Israel. These are the testimonies, the rules and regulations Moses spoke to the People of Israel after their exodus from Egypt and arrival on the east side of the Jordan in the valley near Beth Peor. It was the country of Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon. Moses and the People of Israel fought and beat him after they left Egypt and took his land. They also took the land of Og king of Bashan. The two Amorite kings held the country on the east of the Jordan from Aroer on the bank of the Brook Arnon as far north as Mount Siyon, that is, Mount Hermon, all the Arabah plain east of the Jordan, and as far south as the Sea of the Arabah (the Dead Sea) beneath the slopes of Mount Pisgah.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Read: Mark 8:22–26
Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida
22 And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus[a] laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
Footnotes:
Mark 8:25 Greek he
INSIGHT
Although God is able to heal all diseases and injuries, it’s not always His will to do so. God empowered the apostle Paul to heal many (Acts 14:8–10; 19:12), yet he wrote to Timothy about Trophimus whom he left “sick in Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20). Likewise, Paul advised Timothy to take medicinal wine for his stomach problem and frequent ailments (1 Timothy 5:23). In this case, medicine was recommended instead of divine healing. Second Corinthians makes reference to Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (12:7), which many scholars believe was some type of physical ailment. Interestingly God didn’t remove it even after Paul’s repeated prayers for deliverance. The Lord’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).
God has His own purposes for granting full healing, partial healing, or withholding healing altogether. In what situation do you need to trust in the sufficient grace of God? - Dennis Fisher
Jesus Knows Why
By Alyson Kieda
When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching. Matthew 7:28
I have friends who’ve received partial healing but still struggle with painful aspects of their diseases. Other friends have been healed of an addiction but still struggle with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing. And I wonder, Why doesn’t God heal them completely—once and for all?
In Mark 8:22–26, we read the story of Jesus healing a man born blind. Jesus first took the man away from the village. Then He spit on the man’s eyes and “put his hands on him.” The man said he now saw people who looked “like trees walking around.” Then Jesus touched the man’s eyes again, and this time he saw “everything clearly.”
In His ministry, Jesus’s words and actions often amazed and baffled the crowd and His followers (Matthew 7:28; Luke 8:10; 11:14) and even drove many of them away (John 6:60–66). No doubt this two-part miracle also caused confusion. Why not immediately heal this man?
We don’t know why. But Jesus knew what the man—and the disciples who viewed his healing—needed in that moment. And He knows what we need today to draw us closer in our relationship with Him. Though we won’t always understand, we can trust that God is working in our lives and the lives of our loved ones. And He will give us the strength, courage, and clarity we need to persevere in following Him.
Dear Lord, thank You for knowing us so well and for providing what we need most. Give us eyes to see You and a heart to understand Your Word.
Open our eyes, Lord, we want to see Jesus. Robert Cull
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
His Nature and Our Motives
…unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 5:20
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that exceeds right-doing is right-being. Jesus Christ came to place within anyone who would let Him a new heredity that would have a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is saying, “If you are My disciple, you must be right not only in your actions, but also in your motives, your aspirations, and in the deep recesses of the thoughts of your mind.” Your motives must be so pure that God Almighty can see nothing to rebuke. Who can stand in the eternal light of God and have nothing for Him to rebuke? Only the Son of God, and Jesus Christ claims that through His redemption He can place within anyone His own nature and make that person as pure and as simple as a child. The purity that God demands is impossible unless I can be remade within, and that is exactly what Jesus has undertaken to do through His redemption.
No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations— He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature— He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
The Incomparable You - #8227
If you were the baby of the family, you might be able to relate to the occasional complaint that was filed by our youngest who's now all grown up. He kiddingly talks about how many pictures were taken of his older sister, then his older brother, and how we seemed to run out of film by the time he came along. You know, the last-in-line complex. But when reflecting on another sibling comparison he came to a happier conclusion. He said, "You built this big dollhouse as a gift for my sister. Then you built this big, fully loaded barn for my brother. Then you built a general store for me-about half the size of the dollhouse and the barn." At first, he thought, "Here we go again. Yep, they run out of gas by the time they get to me." But then, all of a sudden he noticed that his store had something neither of his siblings' had-a sign on the store with his name, identifying him as the proprietor. Our son said, "You know, I felt really good when I realized that what you gave me had my name on it!" All right, let's hear one for the baby!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Incomparable You."
Our son was evaluating his share in life in the same way many of us do-he compared his life with someone else's. And when we do that, we usually feel like we lose. We always seem to compare ourselves to someone who has more of something than we do. Did you ever notice that? They're better looking, better treated, richer, smarter, more talented. So we end up believing lies about how much we're worth and how much of a difference we can make.
Until we wake up and realize that God did something totally unique when He made you. There's a life, there's a plan, there's a future that has your name on it and only your name. You are an original. You can't be compared with anyone else! You're a category all by yourself. You are who God says you are; not what anyone else says you are.
God makes that so clear in our word for today from the Word of God. David's prayer here spells out the highly individual and deeply personal thing God did when He designed you. In Psalm 139, beginning with verse 1, it says: "O Lord, You have searched me and You know me ... You are familiar with all my ways ... You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful ... All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."
Isn't that awesome? You're uniquely designed. There's a daily life plan that has your name on it! If you don't think you're one of a kind, put your hand up and look at your fingerprints! One reason we go through life never knowing our value and missing the destiny we're made for, is because we're away from the very God who gives us our worth.
All the wrong things you've ever done have cost you a relationship with the One who made you and who loves you the most. It took the greatest act of love in human history to give you a chance to belong to Him-the awful death of Jesus Christ on the cross, because He was paying for every sin of your life. He didn't just die for the world. He died for you so you could be forgiven. So you could finally have the God-relationship from which all our worth comes.
In fact, not only is your name on the unique plan God has for you, but He wants to reserve a place in heaven with your name on it. The Bible says the only ones who will get into heaven are those whose names are written in what He calls God's book of life (Revelation 20:15) and He wants to write your name there today, if you'll give yourself to Jesus, the One who gave His life for you, who left His place in heaven so you could go there.
Why don't you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm yours. If you thought I was worth dying for, how can I do anything but give me to you." Look, our website, ANewStory.com, is all about beginning this relationship. Let me encourage you to go there today.
He made you. He loves you. He died for you, and He's come looking for you today. Don't miss Him.
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