Proverbs 27, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Never Give Up

How do we flourish in the midst of tragedy? Remember Joseph? Genesis records his story. It says his brothers “hated him.” They put him into a pit, leaving him for dead. And then they covered up what they’d done. Joseph’s story got worse before it got better. Abandonment led to enslavement, then entrapment, and finally imprisonment. He was sold out. Mistreated. Yet he never gave up. His heart never hardened; his resolve never vanished.

He not only survived—he thrived! Speaking years later to the brothers who had betrayed him he said, “As for you…you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result” (Genesis 50:20).

In God’s hands intended evil becomes eventual good!

From You’ll Get Through This

Proverbs 27

Don’t brashly announce what you’re going to do tomorrow;
    you don’t know the first thing about tomorrow.

2 Don’t call attention to yourself;
    let others do that for you.

3 Carrying a log across your shoulders
    while you’re hefting a boulder with your arms
Is nothing compared to the burden
    of putting up with a fool.

4 We’re blasted by anger and swamped by rage,
    but who can survive jealousy?

5 A spoken reprimand is better
    than approval that’s never expressed.

6 The wounds from a lover are worth it;
    kisses from an enemy do you in.

7 When you’ve stuffed yourself, you refuse dessert;
    when you’re starved, you could eat a horse.

8 People who won’t settle down, wandering hither and yon,
    are like restless birds, flitting to and fro.

9 Just as lotions and fragrance give sensual delight,
    a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.

10 Don’t leave your friends or your parents’ friends
    and run home to your family when things get rough;
Better a nearby friend
    than a distant family.

11 Become wise, dear child, and make me happy;
    then nothing the world throws my way will upset me.

12 A prudent person sees trouble coming and ducks;
    a simpleton walks in blindly and is clobbered.

13 Hold tight to collateral on any loan to a stranger;
    be wary of accepting what a transient has pawned.

14 If you wake your friend in the early morning
    by shouting “Rise and shine!”
It will sound to him
    more like a curse than a blessing.

15-16 A nagging spouse is like
    the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet;
You can’t turn it off,
    and you can’t get away from it.

17 You use steel to sharpen steel,
    and one friend sharpens another.

18 If you care for your orchard, you’ll enjoy its fruit;
if you honor your boss, you’ll be honored.

19 Just as water mirrors your face,
so your face mirrors your heart.

20 Hell has a voracious appetite,
and lust just never quits.

21     The purity of silver and gold is tested
    by putting them in the fire;
The purity of human hearts is tested
    by giving them a little fame.

22 Pound on a fool all you like—
you can’t pound out foolishness.

23-27     Know your sheep by name;
    carefully attend to your flocks;
(Don’t take them for granted;
    possessions don’t last forever, you know.)
And then, when the crops are in
    and the harvest is stored in the barns,
You can knit sweaters from lambs’ wool,
    and sell your goats for a profit;
There will be plenty of milk and meat
    to last your family through the winter.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Saturday, June 01, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Philippians 3:7-14

The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.

10-11 I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.

12-14 I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

Insight
In Philippians 3:13, Paul says he’s committed to doing “one thing.” Ironically, he then goes on to list three things and each one of them has significance. First, he wants to “[forget] what is behind.” This may refer to the things that constituted his past “confidence in the flesh” (vv. 4–6), derived from living out Judaism in its full force. Second, Paul wants to reach to what’s ahead. While he doesn’t explain himself, this statement would make a nice parallel to Philippians 1:21, where Paul says that to live is Christ but to die is gain. Finally, he’s committed to pressing on toward the goal for the “prize” (3:14)—an analogy to the award received by the winner in the Greek athletic games. Taken together, Paul’s ultimate goal is to accomplish all that he’s been called to in Christ.

Objects in Mirror
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14

“Must. Go. Faster.” That’s what Dr. Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum, says in an iconic scene from the 1993 movie Jurassic Park as he and two other characters flee in a Jeep from a rampaging tyrannosaurus. When the driver looks in the rearview mirror, he sees the raging reptile’s jaw—right above the words: “OBJECTS IN MIRROR MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.”

The scene is a masterful combination of intensity and grim humor. But sometimes the “monsters” from our past feel like they’ll never stop pursuing us. We look in the “mirror” of our lives and see mistakes looming right there, threatening to consume us with guilt or shame.

The apostle Paul understood the past’s potentially paralyzing power. He’d spent years trying to live perfectly apart from Christ, and even persecuted Christians (Philippians 3:1–9). Regret over his past could easily have crippled him.

But Paul found such beauty and power in his relationship with Christ that he was compelled to let go of his old life (vv. 8–9). That freed him to look forward in faith instead of backward in fear or regret: “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal” (vv. 13–14).

Our redemption in Christ has freed us to live for Him. We don’t have to let those “objects in (our) mirror” dictate our direction as we continue forward.  By Adam Holz

Reflect & Pray
How do Paul’s insights on Christ's forgiveness of us speak into those issues in your life? If you’re struggling with a past choice, who might you talk to for help to “press on”

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 01, 2019
The Staggering Question
He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" —Ezekiel 37:3

Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer— “O Lord God, You know” (Ezekiel 37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, “Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done.”

It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we see the activity and mistake panic for inspiration. That is why we see so few fellow workers with God, yet so many people working for God. We would much rather work for God than believe in Him. Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? The degree of hopelessness I have for others comes from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God’s power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see? Has any spiritual work been accomplished in me at all? The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.

“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves…” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My “grave” has been opened by God and “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.

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, 395 L