Deuteronomy 27, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily:  YOUR PRAYERS MATTER TO GOD

Do you know that God delights in hearing your prayers!  We can’t even get the plumber to call us back, so why would God listen to our prayers?  Your prayers matter to God because you matter to God.  You aren’t just anybody, you are his child.

When God saved you, he enlisted you.  He gave not only forgiveness for your past but also authority in the present and a role in the future.  This life is on-the-job training for eternity. “If we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Timothy 2:12).

When you, as God’s child, seek to honor the family business, God hears your requests.  Will God do what you ask?  Perhaps. Or perhaps he will do more than you imagined. Stand firmly on this promise:  “When a believing person prays, great things happen” (James 5:16). And because God’s promises are unbreakable, our hope is unshakable!

Read more Unshakable Hope

Deuteronomy 27

Moses commanded the leaders of Israel and charged the people: Keep every commandment that I command you today. On the day you cross the Jordan into the land that God, your God, is giving you, erect large stones and coat them with plaster. As soon as you cross over the river, write on the stones all the words of this Revelation so that you’ll enter the land that God, your God, is giving you, that land flowing with milk and honey that God, the God-of-Your-Fathers, promised you.

4-7 So when you’ve crossed the Jordan, erect these stones on Mount Ebal. Then coat them with plaster. Build an Altar of stones for God, your God, there on the mountain. Don’t use an iron tool on the stones; build the Altar to God, your God, with uncut stones and offer your Whole-Burnt-Offerings on it to God, your God. When you sacrifice your Peace-Offerings you will also eat them there, rejoicing in the Presence of God, your God.

8 Write all the words of this Revelation on the stones. Incise them sharply.

9-10 Moses and the Levitical priests addressed all Israel: Quiet. Listen obediently, Israel. This very day you have become the people of God, your God. Listen to the Voice of God, your God. Keep his commandments and regulations that I’m commanding you today.

11-13 That day Moses commanded: After you’ve crossed the Jordan, these tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people: Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these will stand on Mount Ebal for the curse: Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

14-26 The Levites, acting as spokesmen and speaking loudly, will address Israel:

God’s curse on anyone who carves or casts a god-image—an abomination to God made by a craftsman—and sets it up in secret.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who demeans a parent.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who moves his neighbor’s boundary marker.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who misdirects a blind man on the road.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who interferes with justice due the foreigner, orphan, or widow.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who has sex with his father’s wife; he has violated the woman who belongs to his father.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who has sex with an animal.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who has sex with his sister, the daughter of his father or mother.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who has sex with his mother-in-law.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who kills his neighbor in secret.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on anyone who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.
God’s curse on whoever does not give substance to the words of this Revelation by living them.
    All respond: Yes. Absolutely.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Read: Psalm 34:1–14

Taste and See That the Lord Is Good
[a] Of David, when he changed his behavior before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.
34 I will bless the Lord at all times;
    his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
    let the humble hear and be glad.
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
    and let us exalt his name together!

4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me
    and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant,
    and their faces shall never be ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
    and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them.

8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
9 Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
    for those who fear him have no lack!
10 The young lions suffer want and hunger;
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

11 Come, O children, listen to me;
    I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
12 What man is there who desires life
    and loves many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil
    and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Turn away from evil and do good;
    seek peace and pursue it.

Footnotes:
Psalm 34:1 This psalm is an acrostic poem, each verse beginning with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet

INSIGHT
In Psalm 34:14, David calls us to “turn from evil and do good.” What is good? Micah 6:8 says God has shown us what is good: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Yet in another psalm, David says, “There is no one who does good” (14:1–3)! So how is good possible? David provides a clue in still another psalm, “Trust in the Lord and do good” (37:3). Doing good is tied to trust in God. In the New Testament we see over and over again that doing good is dependent on a relationship with God through Jesus. Jesus equips us to do good and then produces good in us through the Spirit (Hebrews 13:20–21; Galatians 5:16–25).

What good is God calling you to do in His strength? - Alyson Kieda

An Enduring Happiness
By David H. Roper

Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days . . . . Turn from evil and do good. Psalm 34:12,14

Often we hear that happiness comes from doing things our own way. That, however, is not true. That philosophy leads only to emptiness, anxiety, and heartache.

Poet W. H. Auden observed people as they attempted to find an escape in pleasures. He wrote of such people: “Lost in a haunted wood, / Children afraid of the night / Who have never been happy or good.”

The psalmist David sings of the remedy for our fears and unhappiness. “I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4). Happiness is doing things God’s way, a fact that can be verified every day. “Those who look to him are radiant,” writes David (v. 5). Just try it and you’ll see. That’s what he means when he says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (v. 8).

We say, “Seeing is believing.” That’s how we know things in this world. Show me proof and I’ll believe it. God puts it the other way around. Believing is seeing. “Taste and then you will see.”

Take the Lord at His word. Do the very next thing He is asking you to do and you will see. He will give you grace to do the right thing and more: He will give you Himself—the only source of goodness—and with it, enduring happiness.

Lord, sometimes we must simply pray: “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Help us trust You by doing what You have given us to do today.

Happiness is doing the right thing.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Prayer—Battle in “The Secret Place”
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. —Matthew 6:6

Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “…pray to your Father who is in the secret place….” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.

We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Surprisingly Welcome - #8249

"Y'all come see us!" You hear that pretty often in the South. It's called southern hospitality; sort of an open invitation to stop by, as they say, and "visit." That's why I was surprised at the welcome mat they had at a cabin we recently stayed in. I was speaking at a conference in the south, and my wife and I were wonderfully given a picturesque log cabin to stay in. But then there was the welcome mat. Well, it was sort of a welcome mat-maybe more of an unwelcome mat. You walk up to the door, you look down at the mat, and you're greeted with these wonderful words, "Oh no! Not you again!"

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Surprisingly Welcome."

Somewhere, sometime, you're going to let yourself think about one of life's most important questions, "What's going to happen when my heart beats for the last time, when I keep my personal appointment with God at the end of my life?" How will God treat you? Will He welcome you into His heaven or will He tell you your name was never written in what the Bible calls God's "book of life?"

That won't be decided after you die. It will be decided based on what you do with Jesus while you're still here. And I've gone to enough funerals of people of all ages, and so have you probably, and it's clear that none of us knows how close or how far off our appointment with God is. The point is to be ready whenever and however it comes. Your question might be, "Well, will Jesus welcome me if I come to Him?" You're looking at some of the things you've done, some of the dark secrets that maybe He alone knows about your life, and you're afraid you'll be greeted by words like these: "No. Not you."

Well, you don't have to guess how Jesus feels about you or how He will respond if you come to Him. He tells us in our word for today from the Word of God in John 6:37. Here are the words of Jesus, "Whoever comes to me, I will never drive away." In the original language this was written in, the sense is, "I will never, never, under any circumstance drive away." It's about as emphatic as it can get.

The picture Jesus gives us of this is in His story of the Prodigal Son-the young man who asks his father for his inheritance while his dad is still alive. He squanders it in wild living in another country. So, he ends up in shame, feeding pigs, hoping to eat some of their cornhusks. When he finally comes to his senses, he decides to risk going back to his father in this totally wasted condition. He'll consider himself lucky if his Dad will let him work as one of his hired servants. After what he's done with his life, he expects anything but a welcome. Maybe like you with God. But the Bible says, "while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."

That boy represents you and me. The Father is God. And that's how He's waiting to welcome you if you'll come to Him. That's why Jesus told that story. That means recognizing that the blood Jesus shed on the cross was to pay for your sins, giving yourself to Jesus as the only hope of having your sins erased and then being able to have an eternity in heaven. His welcome awaits you until your life is over. If you haven't come to Him by then, it's too late. He won't be able to welcome you into His heaven because you never trusted Jesus to forgive your sins.

The question isn't so much about whether Jesus will welcome you if you come to Him. It's whether you welcome Him when He comes to you, knocking on the door of your heart, which He may very well be doing right now. If you welcome Him into your life as your only hope, you can be sure He will welcome you into His heaven.

You ready to get this done, get this settled? Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours.” Go to our website, ANewStory.com. There you'll find the information that will help you be sure you belong to him.

Remember, Jesus promised "whoever comes to Me, I will never drive away." That "whoever" includes you, so start heading His direction. He'll come running to meet you. After all, He gave His life for you.