Joshua 14 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Search Your Heart - April 19, 2022

What would an X-ray—an MRI—of your soul reveal? Regrets over teenage relationships? Remorse over a poor choice? Interested in an extraction? Confess. Request a spiritual MRI. “Search me, O God and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).

Many voices urge you to look deep within and find an invisible strength or hidden power, but that’s a dangerous exercise. Self-assessment without God’s guidance just leads to denial or shame, justification or humiliation. We need neither. We need a prayer of grace-based confession: God, I’ve done what you say is wrong. Would you wash away my guilt and make me clean again? No chant, no candle needed. Just a prayer of confession – try it.

Joshua 14

Land West of the Jordan

Here are the inheritance allotments that the People of Israel received in the land of Canaan. Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the heads of the family clans made the allotments. Each inheritance was assigned by lot to the nine and a half tribes, just as God had commanded Moses.

3-4 Moses had given the two and a half tribes their inheritance east of the Jordan, but hadn’t given an inheritance to the Levites, as he had to the others. Because the sons of Joseph had become two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim, they gave no allotment to the Levites; but they did give them cities to live in with pasture rights for their flocks and herds.

5 The People of Israel followed through exactly as God had commanded Moses. They apportioned the land.
Caleb

6-12 The people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite spoke: “You’ll remember what God said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me back at Kadesh Barnea. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of God sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. And I brought back an honest and accurate report. My companions who went with me discouraged the people, but I stuck to my guns, totally with God, my God. That was the day that Moses solemnly promised, ‘The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance, you and your children’s, forever. Yes, you have lived totally for God.’ Now look at me: God has kept me alive, as he promised. It is now forty-five years since God spoke this word to Moses, years in which Israel wandered in the wilderness. And here I am today, eighty-five years old! I’m as strong as I was the day Moses sent me out. I’m as strong as ever in battle, whether coming or going. So give me this hill country that God promised me. You yourself heard the report, that the Anakim were there with their great fortress cities. If God goes with me, I will drive them out, just as God said.”

13-14 Joshua blessed him. He gave Hebron to Caleb son of Jephunneh as an inheritance. Hebron belongs to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite still today, because he gave himself totally to God, the God of Israel.

15 The name of Hebron used to be Kiriath Arba, named after Arba, the greatest man among the Anakim.

And the land had rest from war.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Today's Scripture
Deuteronomy 31:9–13

Moses wrote out this Revelation and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Chest of the Covenant of God, and to all the leaders of Israel. And he gave these orders: “At the end of every seven years, the Year-All-Debts-Are-Canceled, during the pilgrim Festival of Booths when everyone in Israel comes to appear in the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates, read out this Revelation to all Israel, with everyone listening. Gather the people together—men, women, children, and the foreigners living among you—so they can listen well, so they may learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, and diligently keep everything in this Revelation. And do this so that their children, who don’t yet know all this, will also listen and learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, for as long as you live on the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.”

Insight

The hopeful picture that Moses paints in Deuteronomy 31:9–13 of Israel gathered to hear the law of God foreshadows sadness. Throughout the Old Testament, it’s disheartening to notice that Israel never followed this command that Moses gave the people until after the exile.

We get reports of the abject failure of the priesthood (1 Samuel 2:22–36; 8:1–3), but nowhere until the time of Ezra do we find the priests teaching the people to follow God (Nehemiah 8:1–3). This is the first recorded time Israel obeyed Moses’ directions after nearly a millennium.  

Then the zeal of Ezra eventually led to the increasingly legalistic approach of the Pharisees. Israel always struggled with the law—first ignoring it and then making it more than it should be. The true task of following God’s law, as Jesus said, is summed up in loving God first and others as ourselves (Matthew 22:37–39). By: Jed Ostoich

Come and Worship

Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns.
Deuteronomy 31:12

As they sang praise songs together in the multi-generational worship service, many experienced joy and peace. But not a frazzled mother. As she jiggled her baby, who was on the verge of crying, she held the songbook for her five-year-old while trying to stop her toddler from running off. Then an older gentleman sitting behind her offered to walk the toddler around the church and a young woman motioned that she could hold the songbook for the eldest child. Within two minutes, the mother’s experience was transformed and she could exhale, close her eyes, and worship God.

God has always intended that all His people worship Him—men and women, old and young, longtime believers, and newcomers. As Moses blessed the tribes of Israel before they entered the promised land, he urged them all to meet together, “men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns,” so that they could “listen and learn to fear the Lord your God” and to follow His commands (Deuteronomy 31:12). It honors God when we make it possible for His people to worship Him together, no matter our stage of life.

That morning in church, the mother, the older gentleman, and the young woman each experienced God’s love through giving and receiving. Perhaps the next time you’re at church, you too could either extend God’s love through an offer of help or you could be the one accepting the act of grace. By:  Amy Boucher Pye

Reflect & Pray

How have you experienced the body of Christ as encompassing many generations and people groups? How have you given and received God’s love while at church?

Loving Jesus, You long that all people would feel welcomed when they come to worship You. Help us to be those who notice others and reach out in love.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Beware of the Least Likely Temptation

Joab had defected to Adonijah, though he had not defected to Absalom. —1 Kings 2:28

Joab withstood the greatest test of his life, remaining absolutely loyal to David by not turning to follow after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. Yet toward the end of his life he turned to follow after the weak and cowardly Adonijah. Always remain alert to the fact that where one person has turned back is exactly where anyone may be tempted to turn back (see 1 Corinthians 10:11-13). You may have just victoriously gone through a great crisis, but now be alert about the things that may appear to be the least likely to tempt you. Beware of thinking that the areas of your life where you have experienced victory in the past are now the least likely to cause you to stumble and fall.

We are apt to say, “It is not at all likely that having been through the greatest crisis of my life I would now turn back to the things of the world.” Do not try to predict where the temptation will come; it is the least likely thing that is the real danger. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual event that the least likely things begin to have an effect. They may not be forceful and dominant, but they are there. And if you are not careful to be forewarned, they will trip you. You have remained true to God under great and intense trials— now beware of the undercurrent. Do not be abnormally examining your inner self, looking forward with dread, but stay alert; keep your memory sharp before God. Unguarded strength is actually a double weakness, because that is where the least likely temptations will be effective in sapping strength. The Bible characters stumbled over their strong points, never their weak ones.

“…kept by the power of God…”— that is the only safety. (1 Peter 1:5).

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.  The Place of Help, 1032 L

Bible in a Year: 2 Samuel 6-8; Luke 15:1-10

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, April 19, 2022

A Shattered Trophy - #9202

I don't talk about it much, because I don't want people putting me on a pedestal or asking for autographs. But the fact is I was the (Are you ready for this? Drum roll...) the champion of our county's 8th grade spelling bee. Yep, I even got a trophy. That's right.

Can't find the trophy though. No, I think the last time I saw it, it was broken. Of course, that's the problem with trophies. Just ask the University of Alabama football team. They won it all a few years back, including the national champion trophy. It was a $30,000 Waterford crystal football. I said was.

Over one parent's weekend, a player's father somehow (I could see me doing this) knocked it off its stand. It's not a crystal football anymore; it's a million little pieces. Once again, that's the problem with trophies. They break.

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

All of life's prizes ultimately shatter and disappoint us. I remember one player on a past national champion football team saying how depressed he was the day after his sports dream had come true. Here's what he said, "When I saw that front page headline about us winning, all I could think was, 'My god just died.'"

Sounds like Alexander the Great. By the age of 33, he had conquered the then "known" world - a ton of trophies. But instead of being elated, he reportedly was darkly depressed. When an officer asked him why, he just said, "I have no more worlds to conquer."

One way or another, life's trophies seem to shatter on us. Oh, before we have our trophies in our hand, they look like they're worth whatever we need to do to get it. But then, they disappoint, they disillusion, they disappear. Like that football trophy, they're just like so breakable.

I suspect we all have a "trophy" we've pursued or are pursuing. You have recognition by some people or group that means a lot to you, a championship, a scholarship, a relationship, raising 'superkids', a dream home, a dream job, a dream person.

The problem, though, is that trophies tend to become idols; something or someone that pushes God from the center of your life to the margins, and that gets the best of your time, your talent, your treasure.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to something John Calvin said, that "the human heart is an idol-making factory." Even your work for God can, at times, become an idol that usurps God's throne in your life. Your ministry can subtly become your master rather than your vehicle for loving Jesus. And suddenly you've got an idol, all wrapped up in Christian garb.

Trophies shatter because they become too important to us. It's the Demas syndrome. The Apostle Paul described Demas as his "fellow worker," a valued, spiritual soldier (Colossians 4:14). But then, in Paul's greatest hour of need, it says, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world" (2 Timothy 4:10).

See, God loves us too much to let our idols stand. When the Old Testament Philistines hijacked God's sacred Ark of the Covenant, "they set it beside (their god) Dagon." When they went to the temple the next day, "there was Dagon fallen on his face on the ground before the Ark of the Lord." After they had set poor little Dagon up again, the next morning they found him "with his head and hands broken off, lying on the threshold" (1 Samuel 5:1-4). That's got to be really disturbing to find your god without his head! You know?

Well, when something becomes an idol, it's going to break on you. In our word for today from the Word of God, Jonah 2:8, it says it is because "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Looking back, I see the broken pieces of some shattered trophies. And the wonderful discovery I've found in those fragments; the only real treasure is Christ.

The failure of our other "gods" points the way to the true God that we were made by and for. The God Jesus died to reunite us with. If you're tired of the disappointment, your heart's ready for Jesus; the Savior who died for you, who rose again from the dead, who's ready to come into your life and fill the hole only He can fill.

Which would make this a very good time for you to visit our website, ANewStory.com. Because the Bible says about Jesus, we are complete in Him.