Genesis 21 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE SMALL STUFF - May 20, 2021

D.L. Moody was one of the most influential Christians of his generation. He led thousands of people to faith and established many institutions of education and training. He was famous for saying, “Right now I’m having so much trouble with D. L. Moody that I don’t have time to find fault with the other fellow.”

There is a time to speak up. But before you do, check your motives. The goal is to help, never to hurt. Look at yourself before you look down on others. Rather than put them in their place, put yourself in their place. The truth is we all drop the ball on occasion. So shouldn’t we bear with one another?

The clear majority of details in the world are simply that—small stuff. Don’t sweat the small stuff, and you won’t sweat much at all. Life is too precious and brief to be spent in a huff.  This is how happiness happens.

Genesis 21

God visited Sarah exactly as he said he would; God did to Sarah what he promised: Sarah became pregnant and gave Abraham a son in his old age, and at the very time God had set. Abraham named him Isaac. When his son was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him just as God had commanded.

5-6 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born.

Sarah said,

    God has blessed me with laughter
    and all who get the news will laugh with me!

7 She also said,

    Whoever would have suggested to Abraham
    that Sarah would one day nurse a baby!
    Yet here I am! I’ve given the old man a son!

8 The baby grew and was weaned. Abraham threw a big party on the day Isaac was weaned.

9-10 One day Sarah saw the son that Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham, poking fun at her son Isaac. She told Abraham, “Get rid of this slave woman and her son. No child of this slave is going to share inheritance with my son Isaac!”

11-13 The matter gave great pain to Abraham—after all, Ishmael was his son. But God spoke to Abraham, “Don’t feel badly about the boy and your maid. Do whatever Sarah tells you. Your descendants will come through Isaac. Regarding your maid’s son, be assured that I’ll also develop a great nation from him—he’s your son, too.”

14-16 Abraham got up early the next morning, got some food together and a canteen of water for Hagar, put them on her back and sent her away with the child. She wandered off into the desert of Beersheba. When the water was gone, she left the child under a shrub and went off, fifty yards or so. She said, “I can’t watch my son die.” As she sat, she broke into sobs.

17-18 Meanwhile, God heard the boy crying. The angel of God called from Heaven to Hagar, “What’s wrong, Hagar? Don’t be afraid. God has heard the boy and knows the fix he’s in. Up now; go get the boy. Hold him tight. I’m going to make of him a great nation.”

19 Just then God opened her eyes. She looked. She saw a well of water. She went to it and filled her canteen and gave the boy a long, cool drink.

20-21 God was on the boy’s side as he grew up. He lived out in the desert and became a skilled archer. He lived in the Paran wilderness. And his mother got him a wife from Egypt.

22-23 At about that same time, Abimelech and the captain of his troops, Phicol, spoke to Abraham: “No matter what you do, God is on your side. So swear to me that you won’t do anything underhanded to me or any of my family. For as long as you live here, swear that you’ll treat me and my land as well as I’ve treated you.”

24 Abraham said, “I swear it.”

25-26 At the same time, Abraham confronted Abimelech over the matter of a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had taken. Abimelech said, “I have no idea who did this; you never told me about it; this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

27-28 So the two of them made a covenant. Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech. Abraham set aside seven sheep from his flock.

29 Abimelech said, “What does this mean? These seven sheep you’ve set aside.”

30 Abraham said, “It means that when you accept these seven sheep, you take it as proof that I dug this well, that it’s my well.”

31-32 That’s how the place got named Beersheba (the Oath-Well), because the two of them swore a covenant oath there. After they had made the covenant at Beersheba, Abimelech and his commander, Phicol, left and went back to Philistine territory.

33-34 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and worshiped God there, praying to the Eternal God. Abraham lived in Philistine country for a long time.

* * *

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Thursday, May 20, 2021

Read: Micah 6:6–8

With what shall I come before the Lord
    and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly[a] with your God.

INSIGHT
The book of Micah can be divided into three prophetic messages. Chapter 6 is part of the third message (6:1–7:20) given to the people of Israel through the prophet Micah. This section opens with a courtroom scene (6:1) where God calls the mountains and hills to be His witnesses against Israel (v. 2). In verses 3–5, God describes His faithfulness to Israel to show that there wasn’t any reason for their rebellion against Him. The questions Micah asks in verses 6–8 show how Israel had been making the required sacrifices but with the wrong heart attitude. Verse 8 describes how God wanted them to treat other people: to seek justice (in terms of judgment and the law), love mercy (show unfailing kindness), and walk humbly (in a cautious manner), remembering that God is above and before us.

By John Blase
Walk, Don’t Run

Walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8

I’d see her welcoming the dawn each day. She was our local power walker. As I drove my kids to school, she’d be there on the road’s shoulder. Equipped with an oversized pair of headphones and knee-high, colorful socks, she walked with an alternating movement of arms and feet, always with one foot in contact with the ground. The sport is different from running or jogging. Power walking involves an intentional restraint, a reining in of the body’s natural inclination to run. Although it doesn’t look like it, there’s just as much energy, focus, and power involved as in running or jogging. But it’s under control.

Power under control—that’s the key. Biblical humility, like power walking, is often viewed as weakness. The truth is, it’s not. Humility isn’t diminishing our strengths or abilities, but rather allowing them to be reined in much like the arms and legs and feet guided by the mind of an early morning power walker.

Micah’s words “walk humbly” are a call for us to rein in our inclination to go ahead of God. He says “to act justly and to love mercy” (6:8), and that can bring with it a desire to do something and do it fast. That’s fair since the daily injustices in our world are so overwhelming. But we are to be controlled and directed by God. Our goal is to see His will and purposes accomplished in the dawning of His kingdom here on earth.

In what circumstance have you “run ahead” of God? Do you usually view humility as a strength or a weakness? Why?

To walk humbly with You, O God, is not always easy. Train me, so that my steps are in tune with You and Your will.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Taking Possession of Our Own Soul

By your patience possess your souls. —Luke 21:19

When a person is born again, there is a period of time when he does not have the same vitality in his thinking or reasoning that he previously had. We must learn to express this new life within us, which comes by forming the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5). Luke 21:19 means that we take possession of our souls through patience. But many of us prefer to stay at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us. We fail because we are ignorant of the way God has made us, and we blame things on the devil that are actually the result of our own undisciplined natures. Just think what we could be when we are awakened to the truth!

There are certain things in life that we need not pray about— moods, for instance. We will never get rid of moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some physical circumstance, not in our true inner self. It is a continual struggle not to listen to the moods which arise as a result of our physical condition, but we must never submit to them for a second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The problem that most of us are cursed with is simply that we won’t. The Christian life is one of spiritual courage and determination lived out in our flesh.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.
The Place of Help

Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 10-12; John 6:45-71

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, May 20, 2021

Hard Rescues - #8964

I have a ton of respect for lifeguards at the ocean. I mean, first of all, I wish I could swim like they do; they make what I do look like dog paddling for sure. But I have seen them in action. I remember being at the New Jersey shore and watching five lifeguards go to work on a rescue to bring in three children. And I think I have a new appreciation for these guys and girls having talked to my friend, Jim, because he used to be one on the other side of the country; he was a Pacific Ocean lifeguard. He described to me the different kinds of rescues that there are.

For example, what do you do when there's someone who is panicky, hanging onto you for dear life and almost going to take you down? Well, lifeguards are trained a certain way to handle that. My friend told me, "There's one they call 'the hard rescue'" and for good reason. But you don't have to be in the ocean to be a candidate for some strong treatment from The Life Saver.

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

Okay, our word for today from the Word of God is about a hard rescue, and it's in Genesis 19; I'm going to begin reading at verse 14. It comes out of the story of the life of Abraham's nephew, Lot. Maybe you remember that Lot had gotten stuck in Sodom, that sinful city that God was about to destroy, and not only had he moved into Sodom, but well, Sodom had moved into him. And the angels of the Lord had come and said, "Lot, you need to get out of here and get everybody you love, because Abraham has prayed to get you out of here."

Well, here's where we pick up the story: "So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who had pledged to marry his daughters. He said, 'Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city.' But his sons-in-law thought he was joking." What? Now, isn't it interesting that when you get compromised as a believer, your credibility is shot when you try to warn anybody?

"With the coming of dawn," it said, "the angels urged Lot saying, 'Hurry, take your wife and your two daughters who are here or you will be swept away when the city is punished." And he hesitated! So the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them out of the city."

Lot literally had to be pulled out of the city of Sodom, where if he had stayed he would have been destroyed. Lot was about to die, but he was hesitant to go with the Lord. Sounds a little bit like the hard rescues that my lifeguard buddy, Jim, described to me. He said, "When you have a man who thinks he can handle it; he doesn't even think he's drowning, he won't admit he's drowning, he keeps fighting and he's going down for the third time. He's going to die if you don't rescue him." And Jim said those lifeguards were trained to literally punch him and knock him out; not because they wanted to be violent, but to save his life. Knock him out to save him.

Has it ever occurred to you that, well, maybe you, like Lot, might be a hard rescue? You're on a destructive road right now, but you refuse to admit that you're going down for the third time. You say, "Hey! Hey, I can handle it." But you can't! You're not supposed to handle it. The Lord's been trying to bring you to the cross where Christ died for you, or maybe you've been there and you're a Christian who's rebelling; you're living outside of His best. It's not the church you're rebelling against, it's not your parents, it's not some other Christians who hurt you or disillusioned you.

It's Jesus Himself, and the most loving thing God can do is to bring you home like a lifeguard. He's called to you, He's brought people into your life to bring you back, He's allowed you to be frustrated in your lifestyle, He's reminded you and you've said, "God, leave me alone!" Well, if God doesn't do something drastic, you may be lost forever.

And so perhaps He has brought things into your life that have been there to get your attention, to give you a little pain now so you can be rescued from the pain of a Christless eternity. Would you let the lifeguard save you? He died to do it! Grab Him with everything you've got. Let down your guard. Let Him bring you home safely.

You want to know how to do that? You want to know more about this relationship with Him? Do what many have done. Go to our website. It's ANewStory.com.

Maybe today is going to be God's loving knock-out. Don't force Him to escalate His rescue efforts. There's no peace, there's no rest, there's no fulfillment until you collapse into His arms. Please, let Him carry you safely home. Don't be a hard rescue!