Acts 21:1-17, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: GOD IS WITH YOU

You can’t control the weather, you aren’t in charge of the economy, you can’t un-wreck the car. But you can map out a strategy.  Remember, God is in this crisis.  Ask God to give you two or three steps you can take today.  Seek counsel from someone who’s faced a similar challenge.  Ask friends to pray.  Reach out to a support group.  Most importantly, make a plan.

You’d prefer a miracle for your crisis?  You’d rather see the bread multiplied or the stormy sea turned glassy calm in a finger snap?  God may do this.  Then again, He may say, “I’m with you.  I can use this for good.  Now let’s make a plan.”  God’s sovereignty doesn’t negate our responsibility, it just empowers it.  So don’t let the crisis paralyze you.  Trust God to do what you can’t.  Obey God, and do what you can.

Acts 21:1-17
On to Jerusalem

After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Kos. The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Patara. 2 We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board and set sail. 3 After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo. 4 We sought out the disciples there and stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem. 5 When it was time to leave, we left and continued on our way. All of them, including wives and children, accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray. 6 After saying goodbye to each other, we went aboard the ship, and they returned home.

7 We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day. 8 Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven. 9 He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.

10 After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11 Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Holy Spirit says, ‘In this way the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’”

12 When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. 13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” 14 When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, “The Lord’s will be done.”

15 After this, we started on our way up to Jerusalem. 16 Some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us and brought us to the home of Mnason, where we were to stay. He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples.

Paul’s Arrival at Jerusalem
17 When we arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters received us warmly.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Monday, July 13, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

Psalm 8:3–4; Revelation 21:22–25

Psalm 8:3–4 (NIV)

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?[a]

Footnotes:
Psalm 8:4 Or what is a human being that you are mindful of him, / a son of man that you care for him?

 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.

Insight
Psalm 8:3–4 express King David’s amazement that the Creator of the cosmos would pay any mind to the human race. Much of the rest of the psalm, however, reviews what is remarkable about human beings. We’ve been created “a little lower than the angels,” powerful servants of God (v. 5; 104:4; Hebrews 1:7). We’ve been “crowned” by our Maker “with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5). And He’s charged us from the beginning of human history with caring for this wonderful planet (Genesis 1:28). The psalmist notes that God made us “rulers over the works of [His] hands,” including every living creature on earth (Psalm 8:6–8). Ultimately, though, the glory isn’t ours at all. David rightfully begins and ends his psalm with this declaration of praise: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Look Up!
There will be no night there. Revelation 21:25

When filmmaker Wylie Overstreet showed strangers a live picture of the moon as seen through his powerful telescope, they were stunned at the up-close view, reacting with whispers and awe. To see such a glorious sight, Overstreet explained, “fills us with a sense of wonder that there’s something much bigger than ourselves.”

The psalmist David also marveled at God’s heavenly light. “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3–4).

David’s humbling question puts our awe in perspective when we learn that, after God creates His new heaven and earth, we’ll no longer need the moon or the sun. Instead, said John the apostle, God’s shimmering glory will provide all necessary light. “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. . . . There will be no night there” (Revelation 21:23–25).

What an amazing thought! Yet we can experience His heavenly light now—simply by seeking Christ, the Light of the world. In Overstreet’s view, “We should look up more often.” As we do, may we see God. By:  Patricia Raybon

Reflect & Pray
What does God’s heavenly light teach you about Him? When you praise the glory of God, what do you experience?

Our wondrous God, I’m awed by Your holy glory, and I praise You for Your marvelous Light.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, July 13, 2020
The Price of the Vision
In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord… —Isaiah 6:1

Our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally— when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?

My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, “I saw the Lord,” there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God’s surgical procedure— His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.

Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, “In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You.”

Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The Bible is a relation of facts, the truth of which must be tested. Life may go on all right for a while, when suddenly a bereavement comes, or some crisis; unrequited love or a new love, a disaster, a business collapse, or a shocking sin, and we turn up our Bibles again and God’s word comes straight home, and we say, “Why, I never saw that there before.” Shade of His Hand, 1223 L

Bible in a Year: Psalms 7-9; Acts 18

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, July 13, 2020
Playing With All Your Heart - #8741

Our boys were blessed with some great football coaches when they were in high school. They worked their players hard. Let me tell you, they conditioned them well, and they produced champions. One lesson the coaches taught our team certainly went against their natural instincts. I mean, no one is real anxious to get injured. A player's natural tendency is to hold back a little when they're making a hit on another player, or when they're blocking, or when they're tackling so they won't get hurt. You know, you want to be careful so you're not injured. Well, the coaches tell you that's a mistake; that's the best way to get hurt is to play tentatively, play half-heartedly. Here's how they put it, "Either give it all you've got or don't play." Okay.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Playing With All Your Heart."

Our word for today from the Word of God is a verse that actually could be a life principle. It's a motto that you could repeat to yourself often at work, playing sports, studying, doing dirty work, listening to someone, trying to finish a difficult job. Here's the principle from God's Word. It's in Ecclesiastes 9:10, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."

The coach would like that. Whatever position you're playing in life, don't play tentatively. Throw yourself into it with everything you've got. In the words of Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart." Whatever you do! If you asked our kids something that they heard over and over again growing up from their parents, they might very well tell you those four words that we tried to make a life motto, "with all your heart." Jim Elliott, the martyred missionary and actually one of my personal heroes, said it this way, "Wherever you are, be all there!"

If you have to do something anyway, why not do it with everything you've got? If you have to be somewhere, why not be all there? I saw a little slice of wisdom on a kitchen wall plaque. It said, "Lord, help me do with a smile the things I have to do anyway." That's good.

God's call to all of us who belong to Him is to be a 100-percenter in anything and everything we do. So when someone is talking with you, you listen with all your heart, as if they are the only person on earth and the only thing you have to do. When you work, you focus...you do it with all your heart. When it's time to pray, you pray with all your heart. You play with all your heart. You study with all your heart. You help out with all your heart.

That's the attitude of someone who knows that ultimately he or she is living a God-planned life. Now you might say, "Well, I don't like the situation I'm in." That shouldn't be what determines your attitude. You make every situation the best it can be when you tackle it like the Bible says, "with all your might," "with all your heart."

Remember, God said whatever you do, do it with all your heart. And not just the things you feel like doing. There's something actually very intoxicating, something magnetic about a person who enters into everything they do passionately and wholeheartedly. If you've ever known one of those kind of people, those "with all your heart" people, you know that kind of passion is a magnet that draws people.

Everything your hand finds to do, would you do it with intensity? In football, in everyday life, playing tentatively invites injury and it surely invites defeat. So like the coach says, "Either give it all you've got, or don't play!"