Matthew 13:31-58, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: MY GOD IS SOVEREIGN - July 13, 2021

Many years ago I spent a week visiting the interior of Brazil with a longtime missionary pilot. Wilbur and Orville had a sturdier aircraft. I could not get comfortable. I kept thinking the plane was going to crash in the jungle, and I’d be gobbled up by piranhas. I kept shifting around, looking down, and gripping my seat—as if that would help. Finally, the pilot had enough of my squirming. He looked over at me and shouted over the airplane noise, “We won’t face anything that I can’t handle. You might as well trust me to fly the plane.”

Is God saying the same to you? Examine the truths which sustain your belief in God. Make sure one of them is etched with the words: “My God is sovereign!” Then, be anxious for nothing.


Matthew 13:31-58

Another story. “God’s kingdom is like an acorn that a farmer plants. It is quite small as seeds go, but in the course of years it grows into a huge oak tree, and eagles build nests in it.”

33 Another story. “God’s kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread—and waits while the dough rises.”

34-35 All Jesus did that day was tell stories—a long storytelling afternoon. His storytelling fulfilled the prophecy:

I will open my mouth and tell stories;
I will bring out into the open
    things hidden since the world’s first day.

The Curtain of History
36 Jesus dismissed the congregation and went into the house. His disciples came in and said, “Explain to us that story of the thistles in the field.”

37-39 So he explained. “The farmer who sows the pure seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the pure seeds are subjects of the kingdom, the thistles are subjects of the Devil, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, the curtain of history. The harvest hands are angels.

40-43 “The picture of thistles pulled up and burned is a scene from the final act. The Son of Man will send his angels, weed out the thistles from his kingdom, pitch them in the trash, and be done with them. They are going to complain to high heaven, but nobody is going to listen. At the same time, ripe, holy lives will mature and adorn the kingdom of their Father.

“Are you listening to this? Really listening?

44 “God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field.

45-46 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for exquisite pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it.

47-50 “Or, God’s kingdom is like a fishnet cast into the sea, catching all kinds of fish. When it is full, it is hauled onto the beach. The good fish are picked out and put in a tub; those unfit to eat are thrown away. That’s how it will be when the curtain comes down on history. The angels will come and cull the bad fish and throw them in the garbage. There will be a lot of desperate complaining, but it won’t do any good.”

51 Jesus asked, “Are you starting to get a handle on all this?”

They answered, “Yes.”

52 He said, “Then you see how every student well-trained in God’s kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it.”

53-57 When Jesus finished telling these stories, he left there, returned to his hometown, and gave a lecture in the meetinghouse. He stole the show, impressing everyone. “We had no idea he was this good!” they said. “How did he get so wise, get such ability?” But in the next breath they were cutting him down: “We’ve known him since he was a kid; he’s the carpenter’s son. We know his mother, Mary. We know his brothers James and Joseph, Simon and Judas. All his sisters live here. Who does he think he is?” They got all bent out of shape.

58 But Jesus said, “A prophet is taken for granted in his hometown and his family.” He didn’t do many miracles there because of their hostile indifference.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
Read: Nehemiah 1:5–11

Then I said:

“Lord, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 6 let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s family, have committed against you. 7 We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

8 “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations, 9 but if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.’

10 “They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand. 11 Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man.”

I was cupbearer to the king.

INSIGHT
The prayer of Nehemiah about the state of affairs of the Israelites who’d returned to their homeland (Nehemiah 1:5–11) rehearses the circumstances that both led to Israel’s exile and their return to the promised land (vv. 8–11). God’s faithfulness to His promises were the key to both events—He promised exile if Israel broke faithfulness with Him and return to the land if they repented and came back to Him. The Israelites had returned to their homeland, but the city gates and walls were still in ruins. After rehearsal of these events, Nehemiah asks God to grant him favor as he presents his case to the king (v. 11).

By Tim Gustafson
Longing for God

Even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen. Nehemiah 1:9


When Conner and Sarah Smith moved five miles up the road, their cat S’mores expressed his displeasure by running away. One day Sarah saw a current photo of their old farmhouse on social media. There was S’mores in the picture!

Happily, the Smiths went to retrieve him. S’mores ran away again. Guess where he went? This time, the family that had purchased their house agreed to keep S’mores too. The Smiths couldn’t stop the inevitable; S’mores would always return “home.”

Nehemiah served in a prestigious position in the king’s court in Susa, but his heart was elsewhere. He had just heard news of the sad condition of “the city where my ancestors are buried” (Nehemiah 2:3). And so he prayed, “Remember the instruction you gave your servant Moses, . . . ‘if you return to me and obey my commands, then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name’ ” (1:8–9).

Home is where the heart is, they say. In Nehemiah’s case, longing for home was more than being tied to the land. It was communion with God that he most desired. Jerusalem was “the place I have chosen as a dwelling for my Name.”

The dissatisfaction we sense deep down is actually a longing for God. We’re yearning to be home with Him.

What’s your idea of home and why? In what ways do you sense yourself longing for God?

Father, help me understand that only You can satisfy my longings. Help me be at home with You, no matter where I am.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
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

Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging; therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried.  He Shall Glorify Me, 494 R

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


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, July 13, 2021
How to Start a Fire - #9002

One sure way to get our whole family together in one room at one time was to turn down the heat a little on a cold night and then build a fire in the fireplace. Slowly but surely, the kids' rooms upstairs would empty out as they made their way downstairs and said, "Man, it's cold up there, Dad! You've got a fire in here?" Always worked. We all loved those fires. Building a good one involved several key steps, of course. First, you roll some newspapers into logs and put them into the fireplace. Then those little sticks that burn easily; they're the kindling, of course. Then the logs stacked alternately on the kindling, leaving plenty of room, of course, for air to circulate around the wood. It looked nice, but it wasn't a fire yet. There was a missing ingredient. It took that match to make it a fire. But a match all alone did not a fire make.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Start a Fire."

Before the match lit up the fireplace, I always had to do all the things needed to get the fire ready. That's what it takes for a spiritual fire to start,as well. The kind of fire that may be what your church, your ministry, or your life desperately needs right now.

We can learn a lot about our part in bringing down fire from God in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in 1 Kings 18, beginning with verse 32. God's prophet Elijah has challenged 450 leaders of Baal worship to a spiritual duel on Mt. Carmel. Whose God could answer from heaven and consume by fire a sacrifice on the altar? That true God would be the one Israel would worship.

In spite of every spiritual contortion the Baal Gang could go through, their sacrifice sat untouched on the altar. The Bible says Elijah took the following steps: "He built an altar in the name of the Lord. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed. Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, 'The Lord - he is God! The Lord - he is God!'" Elijah got things ready for a fire that only God could send; trusting God to do what only He could do.

That is so often God's modus operandi in sending us the miracle that is our only hope. Abraham has to move from his home in order to found a new people in a new land. Noah has to build a boat before there's any need for that boat. Moses has to take the step of faith by choosing to go with a nation of slaves instead of staying with a nation of masters in order to see the miracles of the Exodus. You get things ready by steps of faith and obedience that God calls you to do. Then He sends the fire. Our approach is like this: "Do something, God, and I'll get moving." God's approach: "No. You start moving, and I'll do something."

Billy Graham has often told the story of a visit to Yosemite National Park where visitors gathered in the valley beneath Inspiration Point, and this fire blazed at the top of the mountain. The U.S. Park Service put on this amazing demonstration years ago. The voice boomed across the valley, "Let the fire fall!" And it did! A ball of fire, Billy described, cascading down the mountain in this blazing Niagara!

Often in recent days, I'm praying, "Lord, let the fire fall" on our ministry, on those I love, on spiritually important meetings or conversations. I want the fire of heaven to come down and do the life-giving, amazing things that only God can do. But He's got something He's wanting me to do, and you, to get ready for the fire.