Numbers 25, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: SCULPTED FROM NOTHING INTO SOMETHING - June 8, 2018

You are more than statistical chance, a marriage of heredity and society. Thanks to God, you have been “sculpted from nothing into something.” (Psalm 139:15). He made you you-nique. Secular thinking, as a whole, doesn’t buy this. Society simply says, “You can be anything you want to be.” But can you?

God never prefabs or mass-produces people. “I make all things new,” he declares! Revelation 21:5). So, you can do something no one else can do in a fashion no one else can do it.  “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that” (Galatians 6:4). When you do the most what you do the best, you put a smile on God’s face. What could be better than that?

Read more Cure for the Common Life

Numbers 25
The Orgy at Shittim

1-3 While Israel was camped at Shittim (Acacia Grove), the men began to have sex with the Moabite women. It started when the women invited the men to their sex-and-religion worship. They ate together and then worshiped their gods. Israel ended up joining in the worship of the Baal of Peor. God was furious, his anger blazing out against Israel.

4 God said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of Israel and kill them by hanging, leaving them publicly exposed in order to turn God’s anger away from Israel.”

5 Moses issued orders to the judges of Israel: “Each of you must execute the men under your jurisdiction who joined in the worship of Baal Peor.”

6-9 Just then, while everyone was weeping in penitence at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, an Israelite man, flaunting his behavior in front of Moses and the whole assembly, paraded a Midianite woman into his family tent. Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw what he was doing, grabbed his spear, and followed them into the tent. With one thrust he drove the spear through the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman, right through their private parts. That stopped the plague from continuing among the People of Israel. But 24,000 had already died.

10-13 God spoke to Moses: “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has stopped my anger against the People of Israel. Because he was as zealous for my honor as I myself am, I didn’t kill all the People of Israel in my zeal. So tell him that I am making a Covenant-of-Peace with him. He and his descendants are joined in a covenant of eternal priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the People of Israel.”

14-15 The name of the man of Israel who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the head of the Simeonite family. And the name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

16-18 God spoke to Moses: “From here on make the Midianites your enemies. Fight them tooth and nail. They turned out to be your enemies when they seduced you in the business of Peor and that woman Cozbi, daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed at the time of the plague in the matter of Peor.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Friday, June 08, 2018
Read: Galatians 5:22–26

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

INSIGHT
Policemen, firemen, doctors, and nurses put on clothes that distinctively identify them. What about the Christian? What distinguishes us as followers of Jesus? Paul tells us to “clothe [ourselves] with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). Earlier in Romans Paul says, God “predestined [us] to be conformed to the image of his Son” (8:29). It was God’s intention when He saved us that we would become like His Son. Our spiritual transformation is a process, however (2 Corinthians 3:18). The Holy Spirit works in us to increasingly make us more like Christ (1 John 3:2). To be like Jesus is “to be like God—truly righteous and holy” (Ephesians 4:24 nlt). Our transformation will only be fully completed at the second coming of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:49–53).

As you reflect on your spiritual transformation since coming to Jesus, in what areas have you seen growth? Can others say, “I can see Christ in you”? - K. T. Sim

Faces
By David H. Roper

We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory. 2 Corinthians 3:18

When our granddaughter Sarah was very young, she explained to me what happens when you die: “Only your face goes to heaven, not your body. You get a new body, but keep the same face.”

Sarah’s concept of our eternal state was a child’s understanding, of course, but she did grasp an essential truth. In a sense, our faces are a visible reflection of the invisible soul.

My mother used to say that an angry look might someday freeze on my face. She was wiser than she knew. A worried brow, an angry set to our mouths, a sly look in our eyes may reveal a miserable soul. On the other hand, kind eyes, a gentle look, a warm and welcoming smile—despite wrinkles, blemishes, and other disfigurements—become the marks of inner transformation.

We can’t do much about the faces we were born with, but we can do something about the kind of person we’re growing into. We can pray for humility, patience, kindness, tolerance, gratefulness, forgiveness, peace, and love (Galatians 5:22–26).

By God’s grace, and in His time, may you and I grow toward an inner resemblance to our Lord, a likeness reflected in a kind, old face. Thus, as English poet John Donne (1572–1631) said, age becomes “loveliest at the latest day.”  

Lord Jesus, I want to be more like You each day. Help me to cooperate with the work You want to do in my heart.

There’s nothing like the beauty of a loving heart.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 08, 2018
What’s Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. —John 13:17

By Oswald Chambers
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. —John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.

When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.

The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.  Not Knowing Whither, 903 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 08, 2018

When It's Hard to Put Your Life Together - #8195

"Daddy, will you play with me?" I can still hear those echoes from when our kids were little. And I can still remember how preoccupied I was a lot of times when they asked that. So I can relate to the man who was reading his Sunday newspaper - you know, one of the big ones that comes in volumes. His little guy kept tapping on the newspaper and asking his Daddy to play with him. Dad kept giving him little things to do to keep him occupied. Finally, he tried another way to be able to finish his paper. He actually tore out a page that had a map of the world on it and he ripped it into pieces. He said, "Scotty, why don't you put this puzzle together. As soon as you've got it finished, I promise I'll come and play." Two minutes later, Scotty was tapping on Dad's newspaper again. "I'm finished," he said. And there it was, the whole map of the world together on the floor. Dad said, "Son, how did you ever put that together so fast?" His little guy replied: "It was easy, Daddy. There was a picture of a man on the other side. If you put the man together right, the world goes together just fine!"

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When It's Hard to Put Your Life Together."

And that might be a title for this particular season of your life: "Putting My Life Together." Right now, maybe there's just a lot of pieces: financially, spiritually, maritally, parentally. Maybe there are problems at work or in your relationships. Or some inner struggles with who you are, why you're here and where you're going. It's a time of confusion, frustration, maybe even some despair.

You've been pretty focused on your battles; you've been pretty focused on your problems. But you might be missing what the baseline issue really is. What the little boy said to his dad might be a key to getting things together, "If you put the man together right, the world goes together just fine." You know, that's what Jesus has been doing for people for 2,000 years. He puts the man or woman together. And if you will allow Him to put you together, it could be that your home, your relationships, your work, your future...well, maybe they would go together just fine.

There's a helpful picture of many of us in a story that Jesus told, recorded in Luke 15, beginning with verse 13. It's our word for today from the Word of God. It's the story of the Prodigal Son; a guy who couldn't figure out why things were such a mess. He had asked his dad for his inheritance early and the Bible says, "he set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living ... He spent everything." There's a picture of us. We've taken the life that God gave us and we've gone off and squandered it, living the way we want instead of the way He made us to live. We don't wake up until we've spent everything. This guy ended up feeding pigs and sharing their meals just to stay alive.

Then it says, "When he came to his senses" or one translation says, "when he came to himself, he said ... 'I will go back to my father and say to him: 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.'" Well, he did, and his father welcomed him like royalty. That young man probably thought of every possible reason for his predicament except the real one - himself. That's where your answer will begin. Let's get past what your spouse or your kids or your parents or other people have done. Could it be that you're the puzzle that needs to be put together? The real issue is a you that's lost, and we can't put ourselves together. Our only hope is to go to the Father in heaven who can.

The Father sent His one and only Son, Jesus, to make it possible for us to go home. It took His dying on the cross, though, to remove that awful death penalty for our sin and then His coming back from His grave. And because He has the power to fix the central issue that messes up our lives (it's called sin), He is your hope of finally putting the pieces together. But you have to admit, "Lord, I'm the problem, and You're the answer." He's been waiting for you to finally reach out to Him so He can do for your life what only He can do. You say, "Jesus, I'm not in charge anymore. I'm all yours."

Our website is there to really lay out for you the steps to beginning this relationship. I hope you'll go there today - ANewStory.com.

Jesus in your life will make all the difference. You have to put the man or the woman together before you can put your world together right, and Jesus has done that for so many people for so long. He's done it for me, and He's waiting to do it for you.