Hebrews 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 Max Lucado Daily: THE WISE BUILDER

Obedience leads to blessing.  Disobedience leads to trouble!  Remember Jesus’ parable about the two builders who each built a house?  One built on cheap, easy-to-access-sand.  The other built on costly, difficult-to-reach rock.  The second construction project demanded more time and expense, but when the spring rains turned the creek into a gulley washer…guess which builder enjoyed a blessing and which experienced trouble?

According to Jesus, the wise builder is “whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them” (Matthew 7:24).  The difference between the two was not knowledge and ignorance but obedience and disobedience.  Security comes as we put God’s precepts into practice.  We’re only as strong as our obedience.

Hebrews 2

It’s crucial that we keep a firm grip on what we’ve heard so that we don’t drift off. If the old message delivered by the angels was valid and nobody got away with anything, do you think we can risk neglecting this latest message, this magnificent salvation? First of all, it was delivered in person by the Master, then accurately passed on to us by those who heard it from him. All the while God was validating it with gifts through the Holy Spirit, all sorts of signs and miracles, as he saw fit.

The Salvation Pioneer
5-9 God didn’t put angels in charge of this business of salvation that we’re dealing with here. It says in Scripture,

What is man and woman that you bother with them;
    why take a second look their way?
You made them not quite as high as angels,
    bright with Eden’s dawn light;
Then you put them in charge
    of your entire handcrafted world.

When God put them in charge of everything, nothing was excluded. But we don’t see it yet, don’t see everything under human jurisdiction. What we do see is Jesus, made “not quite as high as angels,” and then, through the experience of death, crowned so much higher than any angel, with a glory “bright with Eden’s dawn light.” In that death, by God’s grace, he fully experienced death in every person’s place.

10-13 It makes good sense that the God who got everything started and keeps everything going now completes the work by making the Salvation Pioneer perfect through suffering as he leads all these people to glory. Since the One who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to treat them as family, saying,

I’ll tell my good friends, my brothers and sisters, all I know about you;
I’ll join them in worship and praise to you.

Again, he puts himself in the same family circle when he says,

Even I live by placing my trust in God.

And yet again,

I’m here with the children God gave me.

14-15 Since the children are made of flesh and blood, it’s logical that the Savior took on flesh and blood in order to rescue them by his death. By embracing death, taking it into himself, he destroyed the Devil’s hold on death and freed all who cower through life, scared to death of death.

16-18 It’s obvious, of course, that he didn’t go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham. That’s why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people’s sins, he would have already experienced it all himself—all the pain, all the testing—and would be able to help where help was needed.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:

2 Corinthians 3:17–18

 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Insight
When Paul writes about “unveiled faces” (2 Corinthians 3:18), we must understand his words in the context of Exodus 33 and 34. After his first ascent of Mount Sinai, Moses had earnestly asked God to see His glory. God agreed, and then instructed Moses to climb Sinai again (see Exodus 33:18–34:3). Upon his return from the mountain, Moses’ face shone with the glory of being in the presence of God. It was too much for the people, and he covered his face with a veil (34:29–35). In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul compares the glory of the old covenant (the giving of the law) as visibly demonstrated in Moses’ face, with the glory of the new covenant (the giving and ministry of the Holy Spirit). Through the work of Jesus (vv. 13–15), God’s Holy Spirit brings us freedom to consider His glory with “unveiled faces,” and we’re “transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (v. 18).


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Missionary Weapons (1)
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you. —John 1:48

Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us— it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, “If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion”? Yet you won’t rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God’s training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person’s true character.

A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private “fig-tree” life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.

Are you saying, “But I can’t be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn’t come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready”? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God’s work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.

God’s training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.
Biblical Psychology

Bible in a Year: Proverbs 8-9; 2 Corinthians 3

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Your Total Upgrade - #8784

Okay, it's no secret. I am technically challenged. When it comes to computers, I know just the basics, you know, just enough to get by. Even I know enough to appreciate some things God provided for our ministry, like new computers that worked much faster than our old ones. We were able to upgrade some of our software. And the new software had capabilities that made a lot of things possible that weren't possible before. When it comes to the computers that make such a difference in our lives, a software upgrade can take you to a whole new level.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Total Upgrade."

Long before computers and software and hardware, God's been in the business of upgrading the central processing system of people's lives. It's called your mind. He talks about it in our word for today from the Word of God in the familiar and defining words of Romans 12:1-2. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing, and perfect will."

God calls us here to surrender ourselves completely to the One who gave Himself completely for us. That commitment is going to mean marching to the beat of a different drummer from the one we've marched to all our lives. Without surrendering to Jesus, we follow "the pattern of this world." We base our choices and our values on what our culture says, what our family says, what our environment says, or what our feelings tell us. But God wants to "transform" us, to liberate us from being puppets of our culture, or our surroundings, or our background.

We're not just talking about keeping a few rules or some superficial transformation on the outside. No, God doesn't just shave caterpillars, He transforms them into butterflies - substantial transformation, not just superficial change. God literally wants to upgrade your whole outlook on life by a process He calls "the renewing of your mind."

In a way, it's like upgrading your computer or your software. Now that Christ is in your life, He wants to install some new attitudes about who you are, who you can be because you belong to Jesus. He wants to enable you to see your family through His eyes as He sees them, the problem people in your life as He sees them, and the events of your life as He sees them. This is the exciting process that takes you from the old you to being what the Bible calls "a new creation in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17). If you'll work with Him on this "computer upgrade" in your mind, you'll find yourself instinctively choosing His will each day, which puts you right in the middle of the plans for which you were created.

Pretty exciting stuff, huh? How does it happen? By immersing yourself in God's way of thinking. It's called the Bible! If you want your mind renewed, you need to be in His Word every opportunity you get. That's where you develop, if I can put it this way, "God-think"; thinking like God does about something. You need to make opportunities to be in His Word! And make your time with Him in His book the non-negotiable of your daily schedule. Each new day is a new challenge to live His way and to think His way. So each new day, you need to begin by installing His software, by bathing your mind with His thoughts - with His perspective.

Commit yourself to the aggressive study of God's words in the Bible. Examine every situation, examine every relationship, and every decision in light of what God says. Day-by-day, you will experience that awesome miracle that God describes as "the renewing of your mind."