Genesis 22 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: COLLECTION OF BENT TIMBER - May 21, 2021

One of my favorite places on earth is a grove that sits on the Guadalupe River. It’s a peaceful place. And trees, oh the trees.  They weather the winters, they celebrate the summers. They’re all bent, no perfect tree. Even so, they provide the perfect place to find peace.

Humanity is like that grove of trees. Though we attempt to stand tall, none of us succeed. We all twist and turn. We are a collection of bent timber, and that’s okay. There is beauty in our bentness.

So enjoy the Society of the Bent Timber. Cut people some slack. Reduce your number of pet peeves, be patient with people who pet them. The world, for all its quirky people, is a wonderful place to live. And the sooner we can find the beauty, the happier will be. This is how happiness happens.

Genesis 22

After all this, God tested Abraham. God said, “Abraham!”

“Yes?” answered Abraham. “I’m listening.”

2 He said, “Take your dear son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I’ll point out to you.”

3-5 Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants and his son Isaac. He had split wood for the burnt offering. He set out for the place God had directed him. On the third day he looked up and saw the place in the distance. Abraham told his two young servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I are going over there to worship; then we’ll come back to you.”

6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and gave it to Isaac his son to carry. He carried the flint and the knife. The two of them went off together.

7 Isaac said to Abraham his father, “Father?”

“Yes, my son.”

“We have flint and wood, but where’s the sheep for the burnt offering?”

8 Abraham said, “Son, God will see to it that there’s a sheep for the burnt offering.” And they kept on walking together.

9-10 They arrived at the place to which God had directed him. Abraham built an altar. He laid out the wood. Then he tied up Isaac and laid him on the wood. Abraham reached out and took the knife to kill his son.

11 Just then an angel of God called to him out of Heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Yes, I’m listening.”

12 “Don’t lay a hand on that boy! Don’t touch him! Now I know how fearlessly you fear God; you didn’t hesitate to place your son, your dear son, on the altar for me.”

13 Abraham looked up. He saw a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son.

14 Abraham named that place God-Yireh (God-Sees-to-It). That’s where we get the saying, “On the mountain of God, he sees to it.”

15-18 The angel of God spoke from Heaven a second time to Abraham: “I swear—God’s sure word!—because you have gone through with this, and have not refused to give me your son, your dear, dear son, I’ll bless you—oh, how I’ll bless you! And I’ll make sure that your children flourish—like stars in the sky! like sand on the beaches! And your descendants will defeat their enemies. All nations on Earth will find themselves blessed through your descendants because you obeyed me.”

19 Then Abraham went back to his young servants. They got things together and returned to Beersheba. Abraham settled down in Beersheba.

* * *

20-23 After all this, Abraham got the news: “Your brother Nahor is a father! Milcah has given him children: Uz, his firstborn, his brother Buz, Kemuel (he was the fa

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Friday, May 21, 2021

Read: Psalm 139:7–12

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

INSIGHT
In response to a hostile world that opposed and rejected God (Psalm 139:19–22), David exalts Him and celebrates His character. He’s omniscient—God knows everything about him (vv. 1–4); He’s omnipresent—God is ever-present to protect him (vv. 5–12); He’s omnipotent—God is an all-powerful Creator who sustains him (vv. 13–18). Referring to God’s omnipresence, David asks a rhetorical question: “Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7). Nowhere! The prophet Jonah learned the hard way that there’s no place to run from God—not even in the belly of a big fish in the depths of the sea (Jonah 1–2). God issued this challenge to His people who thought they could hide from Him: “Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:24 nlt).

By Patricia Raybon
Safely Ashore

Peace, be still! Mark 4:39 nkjv

In Papua New Guinea, the Kandas tribe awaited with excitement the arrival of New Testament Bibles printed in their language. To reach the village, however, the people bringing the books had to travel on the ocean in small boats.

What gave them courage to travel across great waters? Their seafaring skills, yes. But they also knew who created the seas. He’s the One who guides each of us across our life’s churning waves and deepest waters.

As David wrote, “Where can I go from your Spirit?” (Psalm 139:7). “If I go up to the heavens, you are there; . . . if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (vv. 8–10).

These words would resonate deeply with the Kandas, who live on an island nation whose tropical coasts, dense rainforests, and rugged mountains have been called “The Last Unknown.” Yet as believers there and everywhere know, no place or problem is too remote for God. “Even the darkness will not be dark to you,” says Psalm 139:12, and “the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

On stormy waters, therefore, our God speaks, “Peace, be still!” and the waves and wind obey (Mark 4:39 nkjv). So, don’t fear life’s deep or turbulent waters today. Our God safely leads us ashore.

What tempts you not to trust God? What do you need to trust Him with today?

Dear heavenly Father, You rule life’s winds and waves, and I thank You for guiding me safely to shore.
Read Navigating the Storms of Life at DiscoverySeries.org/HP061.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 21, 2021
Having God’s “Unreasonable” Faith

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. —Matthew 6:33

When we look at these words of Jesus, we immediately find them to be the most revolutionary that human ears have ever heard. “…seek first the kingdom of God….” Even the most spiritually-minded of us argue the exact opposite, saying, “But I must live; I must make a certain amount of money; I must be clothed; I must be fed.” The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God but how we are going to take care of ourselves to live. Jesus reversed the order by telling us to get the right relationship with God first, maintaining it as the primary concern of our lives, and never to place our concern on taking care of the other things of life.

“…do not worry about your life…” (Matthew 6:25). Our Lord pointed out that from His standpoint it is absolutely unreasonable for us to be anxious, worrying about how we will live. Jesus did not say that the person who takes no thought for anything in his life is blessed— no, that person is a fool. But Jesus did teach that His disciple must make his relationship with God the dominating focus of his life, and to be cautiously carefree about everything else in comparison to that. In essence, Jesus was saying, “Don’t make food and drink the controlling factor of your life, but be focused absolutely on God.” Some people are careless about what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, having no business looking the way they do; they are careless with their earthly matters, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the greatest concern of life is to place our relationship with God first, and everything else second.

It is one of the most difficult, yet critical, disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into absolute harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.

ISDOM 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

Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 13-15; John 7:1-27

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 21, 2021

The Seeds You're Planting - #8965

With my wife growing up in the South, she looked forward to a spring that was getting underway by early or mid-March. With me growing up in the North, I got used to spring beginning a little later than that. And in some places in the North, if you miss the Fourth of July weekend, you might miss summer. But let's stick with spring right now. Some people look for, let's say, the first robin to mark the end of winter. For my wife, it was the daffodils. Those bright yellow flowers were the harbingers of spring for her - as well as a way to mark her early spring birthday. Living in the North, I had to do some really creative florist work to try to get her some birthday daffodils. Of course, it was cheaper than paying for counseling for her, right? But this particular year, she got to pick the first daffodils at Grandma and Grandad's old farmstead. Yeah, back where she grew up. Grandma's been gone for quite a while now, but the flowers that Grandma planted a long time ago? They're still blooming!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Seeds You're Planting."

You may never have worked in a garden in your life. But you're planting seeds, whether you realize it or not. In fact, some of what's happening in your life today - for better and for worse - is the harvest of some seeds you planted years ago. And, as the Bible makes crystal clear, "A man reaps what he sows" (Galatians 6:7).

One of the Bible's great planting promises is in Psalm 126:6, our word for today from the Word of God. The Lord says, "He who goes out with weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." There are things you really hope and pray will happen in the lives of people that you love, in your life's work, or in your personal world. Your job isn't the harvest - God does that part. Your job is to keep faithfully sowing the kind of seed that can bring about the results you so passionately want. And, like Grandma's daffodils, the legacy of your life will go on blooming and beautifying people's lives long after you're gone.

And you have to keep that long view to keep from becoming discouraged with the short-term results. Seed planted in the ground appears to be doing absolutely nothing for a while. Seed planted in people's lives is often the same way. The danger is we'll keep digging up the seed to see if anything's happening - and, in so doing, we will doom the very harvest we're hoping for. That "digging up the seed" is called nagging, panicking, giving up, turning hard, turning bitter.

So many have given up on the garden they've planted just before it was about to bloom. That's what God is trying to head off when He says in Galatians 6:9, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

Maybe you've lost the long view recently. You're seeing tasks you have to do instead of lives at stake. You've been settling for making a living when you're here to make a difference! Maybe you've been neglecting your spiritual garden - the sowing you need to be doing in the life of your husband or wife, your children, your coworkers, your grandchildren, your students, people God has given to you to influence.

It's time to remove the zoom lens that's focused on just what's happening today and replace it with God's wide-angle lens that shows you the big picture...the legacy of your life when you live it righteously. That's the big picture. Don't sow seeds of bitterness, cynicism, criticism, negativity. Life's too short for that.

Sow the seeds of God's unconditional love, of God's dependable promises - Jesus-seed. The harvest will come - some while you're here, some after you're gone. But think legacy, so the seed sown by your life will still be blooming and beautifying long after you're gone!