Matthew 22:23-46 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 Max Lucado Daily: Lift Up Your Gaze - September 10, 2021

Do you feel as if your best years have passed you by? Do you regret wasting seasons of life on foolish pursuits? So do I. But we can stop our laments. We have an eternity to make up for lost time.

Colossians 3:1 is a great reminder to “seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.” Seek heaven the way a sailor seeks the coast or a pilot seeks the landing strip. Colossians 3:2 says, “Think only about it.” Other translations say, “Keep your mind” on it. “Pursue the things over which Christ presides.”

In other words, obsess yourself with heaven. Open your eyes, Christ invites. Lift up your gaze. Don’t limit your story to the days between your birth and death. You were made for more than this life.

Matthew 22:23-46

Marriage and Resurrection

23-28 That same day, Sadducees approached him. This is the party that denies any possibility of resurrection. They asked, “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies childless, his brother is obligated to marry his widow and father a child with her. Here’s a case where there were seven brothers. The first brother married and died, leaving no child, and his wife passed to his brother. The second brother also left her childless, then the third—and on and on, all seven. Eventually the wife died. Now here’s our question: At the resurrection, whose wife is she? She was a wife to each of them.”

29-33 Jesus answered, “You’re off base on two counts: You don’t know what God said, and you don’t know how God works. At the resurrection we’re beyond marriage. As with the angels, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God. And regarding your speculation on whether the dead are raised or not, don’t you read your Bibles? The grammar is clear: God says, ‘I am—not was—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’ The living God defines himself not as the God of dead men, but of the living.” Hearing this exchange the crowd was much impressed.
The Most Important Command

34-36 When the Pharisees heard how he had bested the Sadducees, they gathered their forces for an assault. One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up: “Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?”

37-40 Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.”
David’s Son and Master

41-42 As the Pharisees were regrouping, Jesus caught them off balance with his own test question: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said, “David’s son.”

43-45 Jesus replied, “Well, if the Christ is David’s son, how do you explain that David, under inspiration, named Christ his ‘Master’?

God said to my Master,
    “Sit here at my right hand
    until I make your enemies your footstool.”

“Now if David calls him ‘Master,’ how can he at the same time be his son?”

46 That stumped them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking questions for good.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Friday, September 10, 2021
Today's Scripture
Philippians 2:1–11
(NIV)

Imitating Christ’s Humility

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,t if any tenderness and compassion,u 2 then make my joy completev by being like-minded,w having the same love, being onex in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.y Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,z 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.a

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:b

6 Who, being in very naturea God,c

did not consider equality with Godd something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothinge

by taking the very natureb of a servant,f

being made in human likeness.g

8 And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to deathh—

even death on a cross!i

9 Therefore God exalted himj to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,k

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,l

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,m

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,n

to the glory of God the Father.

Insight

When Paul asked readers in Philippi to consider the humility of Jesus (Philippians 2:5–8), he used a word that describes the attitude of those willing to be counted among servants. More importantly, he wanted them to remember that those who live in the spirit of Jesus do so in the awareness that He first humbled Himself for us. It wasn’t a new thought. Long before, the prophet Isaiah had described a mysterious “Servant” as being despised, rejected, and familiar with pain and suffering. Before alluding to this person’s true honor and glory, the prophet went on to anticipate that He’d be held in such low esteem that people would find it hard to even look at Him (Isaiah 53:3). So too now, those who lower themselves for the good of others in the spirit of Jesus express the humility of our Savior who is “in very nature God” (Philippians 2:6). By: Mart DeHaan

Like a Symphony

Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.
Philippians 2:2

I surprised my wife with concert tickets to listen to a performer she’d always wanted to see. The gifted singer was accompanied by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and the setting was the matchless venue at Red Rocks—an open-air amphitheater built between two 300-foot rock formations at more than 6,000 feet above sea level. The orchestra played a number of well-loved classical songs and folk tunes. Their final number was a fresh treatment of the classic hymn “Amazing Grace.” The beautiful, harmonized arrangement took our breath away!

There’s something beautiful about harmony—individual instruments playing together in a way that creates a bigger and more layered sonic landscape. The apostle Paul pointed to the beauty of harmony when he told the Philippians to be “like-minded,” have “the same love,” and be “one in spirit and . . . mind” (Philippians 2:2). He wasn’t asking them to become identical but to embrace the humble attitude and self-giving love of Jesus. The gospel, as Paul well knew and taught, doesn’t erase our distinctions, but it can eliminate our divisions.

It’s also interesting that many scholars believe Paul’s words here (vv. 6–11) are a prelude to an early hymn. Here’s the point: When we allow the Holy Spirit to work through our distinct lives and contexts, making us more like Jesus, together we become a symphony that reverberates with a humble Christlike love. By:  Glenn Packiam

Reflect & Pray

Who could use some encouragement from you today? How could you put the interests of others above your own, just as Jesus did for us?  

Dear Jesus, thank You for saving me. May Your Spirit transform me into Your image. In my attitude and actions, help me to take on Your humility and sacrificial love. May it result in a greater unity with other believers in my life.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 10, 2021
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

To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony

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

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 10, 2021
The Love That Can't Stand to Lose You - #9045

Rick Rescorla was a decorated Vietnam War hero. But his greatest acts of heroism happened years later, on the job at the World Trade Center. As head of security for Morgan Stanley, one of the largest employers in the Twin Towers, he began to take special measures after the Trade Center bombing that happened back in 1993. Suggesting that there might be another attack, possibly coming from the air, he became known as the man who predicted September 11. He began regular drills for Stanley's 2,700 employees in emergency evacuation procedures. Morgan Stanley had offices from the 44th to the 74th floors of Tower Two. When Tower One was hit on that awful September 11, there seemed to be no reason to get out of Tower Two, except for Rick Rescorla's training.

Sixteen minutes after Tower One was hit, a plane crashed into Tower Two. The explosion knocked Rick to the floor. Even there, he grabbed a bullhorn. He yelled for people to stay calm and to head for the stairwells. Then he began to go from floor to floor, looking for people he could save. With both towers now burning out of control, Rick stayed in the building, talking the last of his colleagues down the stairwells. One of the last ones out was a Morgan Stanley executive who said, "Rick, you have to get out of here, too, man." His answer: "I will, John, as soon as we get everyone out." Rick Rescorla died that day at Ground Zero, but only after he had saved the lives of nearly 2,700 people.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Love That Can't Stand to Lose You."

It was Jesus Christ who said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). The sacrifice of one man to save many on September 11, has given those people the opportunity to live possibly many more years on earth - 30, 40, 50 more years. The sacrifice of one man on a cross on Skull Hill has given every man and woman on this planet the opportunity to live forever; including you and me. And that man was no less than God's one and only Son. In the words of Scripture, "they crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8).

Jesus summed up the unspeakable sacrifice He was about to make in these words from John 10:11, our word for today from the Word of God: "I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." Jesus didn't come just to teach us a wonderful way to live or provide us a great example or start a religion. He came to give His life. And you are one of the reasons God's only Son allowed Himself to be nailed to a criminal's cross. I'm one of those reasons. He loves you so much He doesn't want to lose you.

And why this sacrifice? There was no other way to rescue you and me from the death penalty for the sins of our life. A death penalty can only be paid one way - somebody's got to die. I know who deserves to die for my sins. I do. But in the greatest act of love in human history, Jesus did the dying for every God-defying thing I've ever done and that you've done.

And now He keeps going back to rescue one more from the awful judgment that's coming. Today, even now, He's come to offer you an opportunity to be saved. But it's a rescue you've got to choose by grabbing the Rescuer like He's your only hope. He is. And while you may appreciate Jesus and agree with Jesus, that's not enough to have your sins forgiven. You've got to pin all your hopes on Jesus, like one of those people that was stranded on their roof after Hurricane Katrina a few years ago; wrapping themselves around that rescuer who came from above.

The price Jesus paid for your rescue couldn't have been higher. That's what makes what you do with Jesus so serious in terms of whether eternity means heaven or hell. Your decision about Jesus is your decision about where you're going to be forever.

My prayer is you won't wait another day before you tell Him, "I'm Yours." We've set up our website to help you experience God's love for yourself. Would you visit us there today? It's ANewStory.com.

After the price God paid to rescue you, is it any wonder there's one thing upon which He will base your eternity, "What did you do with My Son?"