Exodus 25, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: God Will Give You Courage - October 22, 2021

The Persian king and his right-hand man, Haman, had such disregard for human life that they could pronounce a bloodbath and then enjoy cocktails. As recorded in the book of Esther, Haman dispatched couriers to each of the provinces with a command and an offer. The command? Kill all Jews. The offer? Plunder their possessions. The date dictated by the casting of the die was still eleven months away. But Proverbs 16:33 says, “People throw lots to make a decision, but the answer comes from the Lord.”

Chance did not determine the date; God did. And even though this book of Esther does not mention his name, it reveals his will. It was God who delayed the date for eleven months, giving his plan time to unfold. And it was God who prompted Mordecai and Esther to take a stand for what is right. And God will do the same with you my friend.

Exodus 25

Instructions on the Mountain: The Offerings

God spoke to Moses: “Tell the Israelites that they are to set aside offerings for me. Receive the offerings from everyone who is willing to give. These are the offerings I want you to receive from them: gold, silver, bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet material; fine linen; goats’ hair; tanned rams’ skins; dolphin skins; acacia wood; lamp oil; spices for anointing oils and for fragrant incense; onyx stones and other stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breastpiece. Let them construct a Sanctuary for me so that I can live among them. You are to construct it following the plans I’ve given you, the design for The Dwelling and the design for all its furnishings.
The Chest

10-15 “First let them make a Chest using acacia wood: make it three and three-quarters feet long and two and one-quarter feet wide and deep. Cover it with a veneer of pure gold inside and out and make a molding of gold all around it. Cast four gold rings and attach them to its four feet, two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Make poles from acacia wood and cover them with a veneer of gold and insert them into the rings on the sides of the Chest for carrying the Chest. The poles are to stay in the rings; they must not be removed.

16 “Place The Testimony that I give you in the Chest.

17 “Now make a lid of pure gold for the Chest, an Atonement-Cover, three and three-quarters feet long and two and one-quarter feet wide.

18-22 “Sculpt two winged angels out of hammered gold for either end of the Atonement-Cover, one angel at one end, one angel at the other. Make them of one piece with the Atonement-Cover. Make the angels with their wings spread, hovering over the Atonement-Cover, facing one another but looking down on it. Set the Atonement-Cover as a lid over the Chest and place in the Chest The Testimony that I will give you. I will meet you there at set times and speak with you from above the Atonement-Cover and from between the angel-figures that are on it, speaking the commands that I have for the Israelites.
The Table

23-28 “Next make a Table from acacia wood. Make it three feet long, one and one-half feet wide and two and one-quarter feet high. Cover it with a veneer of pure gold. Make a molding all around it of gold. Make the border a handbreadth wide all around it and a rim of gold for the border. Make four rings of gold and attach the rings to the four legs parallel to the tabletop. They will serve as holders for the poles used to carry the Table. Make the poles of acacia wood and cover them with a veneer of gold. They will be used to carry the Table.

29 “Make plates, bowls, jars, and jugs for pouring out offerings. Make them of pure gold.

30 “Always keep fresh Bread of the Presence on the Table before me.
The Lampstand

31-36 “Make a Lampstand of pure hammered gold. Make its stem and branches, cups, calyxes, and petals all of one piece. Give it six branches, three from one side and three from the other; put three cups shaped like almond blossoms, each with calyx and petals, on one branch, three on the next, and so on—the same for all six branches. On the main stem of the Lampstand, make four cups shaped like almonds, with calyx and petals, a calyx extending from under each pair of the six branches, the entire Lampstand fashioned from one piece of hammered pure gold.

37-38 “Make seven of these lamps for the Table. Arrange the lamps so they throw their light out in front. Make the candle snuffers and trays out of pure gold.

39-40 “Use a seventy-five-pound brick of pure gold to make the Lampstand and its accessories. Study the design you were given on the mountain and make everything accordingly.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Friday, October 22, 2021
Today's Scripture
1 Peter 4:8–11
(NIV)

Above all, love each other deeply,g because love covers over a multitude of sins.h 9 Offer hospitalityi to one another without grumbling.j 10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others,k as faithfull stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 11 If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.m If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides,n so that in all things God may be praisedo through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.

Insight

Writing to believers in Jesus who are suffering because of persecution (1 Peter 4:12–16), Peter tells them not to be fearful but to remain faithful, to “revere Christ as Lord” (3:14–15), and to live in a way that honors God before a hostile and unbelieving world (2:11–12). In today’s passage (4:8–11), he encourages believers to “love each other deeply” (v. 8), which is demonstrated when we forgive one another, offer hospitality (v. 9), and unselfishly use our spiritual gifts to serve one another (v. 10). Believers aren’t to use their gifts for their own selfish ends but be “good managers of God’s diverse gifts” (ceb); we’re to responsibly use them to edify others and glorify God (v. 11). Elsewhere, the apostle Paul lists some of these spiritual gifts and how they’re to be used (Romans 12:3–8; 1 Corinthians 12:4–31; Ephesians 4:11–16). By: K. T. Sim

Live to Serve

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:10

After ten-year-old Chelsea received an elaborate art set, she discovered that God used art to help her feel better when she was sad. When she found out that some kids didn’t have art supplies readily available, she wanted to help them. So when it was time for her birthday party, she asked her friends not to bring her gifts. Instead, she invited them to donate art supplies and help fill boxes for children in need.

Later, with her family’s help, she started Chelsea’s Charity. She began asking more people to help her fill boxes so she could help more kids. She has even taught art tips to groups who have received her boxes. After a local newscaster interviewed Chelsea, people started donating supplies from all over the country. As Chelsea’s Charity continues sending art supplies internationally, this young girl is demonstrating how God can use us when we’re willing to live to serve others.

Chelsea’s compassion and willingness to share reflects the heart of a faithful steward. The apostle Peter encourages all believers in Jesus to be faithful stewards as they “love each other deeply” by sharing the resources and talents God has given them (1 Peter 4:8–11).

Our small acts of love can inspire others to join us in giving. God can even rally supporters to serve alongside us. As we rely on Him, we can live to serve and give Him the glory He deserves. By:  Xochitl Dixon

Reflect & Pray

How can you rely on God to help you serve others today? In what way has God been nudging you to serve Him that seems too big for you to handle alone?

Faithful Father, please give me all I need to serve You by loving others with my words and actions today.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, October 22, 2021
The Witness of the Spirit

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit… —Romans 8:16

We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him— we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.

Why doesn’t God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won’t abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself— He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden….” Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13).

The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.
Disciples Indeed

Bible in a Year: Isaiah 65-66; 1 Timothy 2

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, October 22, 2021

Not In Charge After All - #9075

Our kids always loved that amusement park ride where they get to drive those little race cars around the track. I guess I should put the word "drive" in quotes. Oh yeah, kids grab that steering wheel and they do their NASCAR thing as the car speeds around that track at this eye-blurring 3 or 4 MPH speed or something. I could hardly blink! But driving, well that's kind of an overstatement. See, that car is attached to a little rail, and it's going to go where it's going to go, no matter what little Miss or Mr. NASCAR does at the wheel. We won't tell them this, but they're not really in control at all.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Not In Charge After All."

We're so much like those kids in that little race. We think we're in control of things, until something comes along that shows us big-time that we're not in charge at all.

Look at the, oh, you know, there was a tsunami tragedy in Japan several years ago. From technology to transportation to trade, I mean, Japan has demonstrated amazing resourcefulness and industry. But none of that could keep the ground from erupting violently...or a tsunami from erasing part of a nation...and even as they struggled to put the genie back in the broken nuclear bottle. Hey, and think of the pandemic we've been through. And, boy, didn't that say you're not in control?

Maybe this is part of what's making us a little queasy. I mean, we have seen lots of forces that man cannot control. I probably will see some more. See, no matter how powerful a country is or a person is, you can't insulate you from the life altering waves that are beyond your control.

And that makes, or it ought to make us, think about questions that we normally ignore when we're on our daily gerbil wheel. Questions about what really matters, about how we should live the rest of our lives, about what needs changing, about what God is trying to tell us.

We're self-reliant, often self-absorbed people until God sends or allows crises in our lives that rock our world. History's iconic suffering man, Job, said: "So that all men He has made may know His work, He stops every man from his labor" (Job 37:7).

In Deuteronomy 8:11, our word for today from the Word of God, the Lord says to His chosen people, the ancient Israelites: "When you have eaten and are satisfied...be careful that you do not forget the Lord." But we do. He goes on to say, "You may say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.' But remember the Lord your God..." (Deuteronomy 8:18). You know, actually sometimes we don't remember until in the Bible's words, "the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down" (Deuteronomy 28:52).

I know when God arrests my relentless forward momentum, gets my attention and gets the steering wheel back. It's when there's suddenly something I can't fix, or I can't control, or I can't change: a child, a marriage melting down, a financial or interpersonal tsunami, news from the doctor that rocks our world. Those are the kinds of things that get our attention. And it's in those kinds of times that I seek Him. That's when I realize how very much I need Him.

I'm convinced that God uses our out-of-control times to get our attention, to show us that any control we think we have in our life is the illusion of control. We live as He gives us breath and we die on His timetable. As the Bible says, "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

The destiny of every human is defined in six words in the Bible, "all things were created by Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16). But we marginalize Him, we drift from Him, we're away from Him until things spin way out of our control. That's when people and even nations open their hearts to the only real source of hope and healing and answers - the God who knows all too well about our suffering, our pain. He watched His Son die a brutal death on a cross so we could run to Him instead of from Him; so He could envelop us in His love, which He would love to do for you today .

If you've never given yourself to Him, would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Go to our website ANewStory.com. Times like these are wakeup calls, and we ought to pick up the phone. It might be God on the other end reminding us that He's God and we're not.