Genesis 33 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 
Max Lucado Daily: The God of Forward Motion - August 23, 2021

Believe in the Jesus who believes in you. “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'” (Jeremiah 29:11).

What will God do for you? It is not ours to say what God will do. It simply falls to us to stand up, take up, and walk. Jesus is serious about this command. When he found the just-healed man in the temple, he told him, “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you” (John 5:14). To indulge in inertia, as the man had done, well that is to sin. Stagnant, do-nothingness is deemed as a serious offense.

God is the God of forward motion, the God of tomorrow. The God of what’s next?, and he is ready to write a new chapter in your biography.

Genesis 33

Jacob Meets Esau

Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. 2 He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear. 3 He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.

4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. 5 Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked.

Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.”

6 Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down. 7 Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.

8 Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?”

“To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said.

9 But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”

10 “No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. 11 Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it.

12 Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.”

13 But Jacob said to him, “My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die. 14 So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

15 Esau said, “Then let me leave some of my men with you.”

“But why do that?” Jacob asked. “Just let me find favor in the eyes of my lord.”

16 So that day Esau started on his way back to Seir. 17 Jacob, however, went to Sukkoth, where he built a place for himself and made shelters for his livestock. That is why the place is called Sukkoth.[a]

18 After Jacob came from Paddan Aram,[b] he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city. 19 For a hundred pieces of silver,[c] he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. 20 There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.[d]

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Monday, August 23, 2021

Today's Scripture
Acts 1:1–8
(NIV)

Jesus Taken Up Into Heaven

1 In my former book,a Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teachb 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven,c after giving instructionsd through the Holy Spirit to the apostlese he had chosen.f 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to themg over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.h 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but waiti for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.j 5 For John baptized witha water,k but in a few days you will be baptized withb the Holy Spirit.”l

6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restorem the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.n 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you;o and you will be my witnessesp in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,q and to the ends of the earth.”r

Insight

After conquering the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Assyrians adopted a policy of racial assimilation. They deported the Jews to Assyria and brought in other people groups to repopulate Samaria and marry the remaining Jews still in the land. This new group, the Samaritans, eventually devised their own religion, a hybrid of Judaism and paganism (2 Kings 17:22–41) with a temple of their own on Mount Gerizim (see John 4:20–23), creating deep-seated hostility between the two peoples (Ezra 4:1–3; Luke 9:51–55; John 4:9). In the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, when reaching the Jews was His priority, He told His disciples not to go to the gentile or Samaritan towns to preach (Matthew 10:5–6). Before He ascended into heaven, Jesus specifically commanded His disciples to “be [his] witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

By: K. T. Sim

Loving Your Enemy

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria.
Acts 1:8

I ducked into a room before she saw me. I was ashamed of hiding, but I didn’t want to deal with her right then—or ever. I longed to tell her off, to put her in her place. Though I'd been annoyed by her past behavior, it’s likely I had irritated her even more!

The Jews and Samaritans also shared a mutually irritating relationship. Being a people of mixed origin and worshiping their own gods, the Samaritans—in the eyes of the Jews—had spoiled the Jewish bloodline and faith, erecting a rival religion on Mount Gerizim (John 4:20). In fact, the Jews so despised Samaritans they would walk the long way around rather than take the direct route through their country.

Jesus revealed a better way. He brought salvation for all people, including Samaritans. So He ventured into the heart of Samaria to bring living water to a sinful woman and her town (vv. 4–42). His last words to His disciples were to follow His example. They must share His good news with everyone, beginning in Jerusalem and dispersing through Samaria until they reached “the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Samaria was more than the next geographical sequence. It was the most painful part of the mission. The disciples had to overcome lifetimes of prejudice to love people they didn’t like.

Does Jesus matter more to us than our grievances? There’s only one way to be sure. Love your “Samaritan.”

By:  Mike Wittmer

Reflect & Pray

How can you begin to show love to those who aren’t very loving? When have you been loving to a difficult person and then found them softening?

Father, may the waves of Your love crash over me, producing a torrent that streams to others through me.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, August 23, 2021

Prayer—Battle in “The Secret Place”

When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. —Matthew 6:6

Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “…pray to your Father who is in the secret place….” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.

We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth. The Place of Help, 1005 R

Bible in a Year: Psalms 113-115; 1 Corinthians 6

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, August 23, 2021

A Precarious Planet - #9031

There have been a lot of changes in the space program over the years, but I'll tell you, I like thinking back to those original pioneering flights to the moon. Those are pretty heroic deals - the Apollo missions. It was mind-blowing to think that we had reached the point where men like us could actually walk on that moon that had just been that distant light in the night for millennia. It really was a big deal!

But Buzz Aldrin, one of the astronauts to first walk on the moon, put things in perspective when their spacecraft was about halfway to the moon. He said he looked out the window at our earth and then he put his thumb up in his line of vision. He said, "Suddenly, no earth." WOW! This planet that's like our everything could be covered by a man's thumb. But not only is it a small planet in the cosmic scheme of things, but well, as events will often remind us, it's a vulnerable little place, too.

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

A while back, when Japan was rocked by a 9.0 earthquake and then inundated by that monster tsunami and they even fought fears of a nuclear meltdown, I think, you know, the whole world felt the tremors. I couldn't help but think about what a precarious planet we live on. Some tectonic plates move a relatively few feet and a chunk of our world convulses for a few seconds. A nation moves, the earth's axis shifts and the landscape changes forever. And in those little brief convulsions that can spawn a monstrous wall of water that erases towns and sweeps away everything in its path. And destructive tsunami waves race 5,000 miles across the Pacific and they're felt in California and Oregon. All because of some sliding rock beneath the ocean.

You know, on a normal day we just breeze through our life, acting like we'll be here forever. And then comes the wakeup call of some trauma or tragedy that briefly snaps us out of our complacency. Life really is fragile. Eternity really is close. And I could be there in a moment.

Occasionally I'll see one of those road signs with a five-word warning. It happens to be our word for today from the Word of God. It's in Amos 4:12 - "Prepare to meet your God."

You know, in the days of the tragedy like a great tsunami, the difference between life and death is the warning and whether or not you get to high ground before the tsunami hits.

Every day on this planet, a "tsunami" called death sweeps 150,000 people into eternity ready or not. Since it happens with, you know, one heart attack here and one traffic accident there, we don't see it on the news like we do an attack of a killer wave. But it's real, it's relentless, and it's coming my way. God clearly tells us what to expect: "Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). "Judgment!" I mean, that's facing the penalty for a lifetime of marginalizing God and hijacking the running of my life from Him.

The tsunami warning of God has sounded. The warning is clear. The Bible says, "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). But the high ground is within reach. It says, "but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Romans 6:23). He took on Himself the full fury of the tsunami of God's judgment for my sins when He died on the cross. The Bible says, "He personally carried our sins in His body on the cross" (1 Peter 2:24). He did what no religion on earth could do. He paid the death penalty for our sins so we could be forgiven, and clean, and ready for eternity whenever it comes, however it comes.

The high ground is on a hill with a cross on it. Millions of people have fled to that cross and found safety. I have. And Jesus stands there today, extending His invitation to you. If you've never come to Him, if you've never given yourself to Him, put your life (your fragile life) in His hands, tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours."

This is a turning-point time in your life. I want to encourage you to go to our website, because you're going to find some very encouraging information there about securing this relationship with God. The website is ANewStory.com.

It's a precarious planet. It's a fragile life we have. Yes, we have an appointment with God and there's a way to be ready. This is a good day to run to Him.