Luke 10:25-42, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: My Grace Is Sufficient - April 21, 2022

Paul wrote, “There was given me a thorn in my flesh, from Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).

The cancer in the body. The sorrow in the heart. The child in the rehab center. The craving for whiskey in the middle of the day. The tears in the middle of the night. The thorn in the flesh. “Take it away!” you’ve pleaded. Not once, twice, or even three times. You’ve out-prayed the apostle Paul, and you’re about to hit the wall. But what you hear Jesus say is this: “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Sustaining grace. Grace that meets us at our point of need and equips us with courage and wisdom and strength. Sustaining grace. It doesn’t promise the absence of struggle, but it does promise the presence of God.


Luke 10:25-42

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

26 He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

27 He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

28 “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

29 Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

30-32 Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

33-35 “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

36 “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”

37 “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”
Mary and Martha

38-40 As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”

41-42 The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Thursday, April 21, 2022

Today's Scripture
Revelation 21:1–7

Everything New

1     21 I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.

2     I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband.

3–5     I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

6–8     Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me.

Insight

Today’s passage gives us a glimpse of heaven, describing it as a physical place (Revelation 21:1–2). Jesus said He was going to prepare a place for us (John 14:2–3), and this promise is fulfilled in the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, (Revelation 21:2). While it’s a great comfort that heaven is a perfect place (v. 4), the most important thing is that it’s the dwelling place of God (v. 3).

In this final vision of the beginning of eternity (21:1–22:9), John hears Christ declaring, “It is done” (21:6). The New Living Translation renders it, “It is finished!” echoing Christ’s victorious cry from the cross (John 19:30). Sin’s curse will one day be completely removed and reversed (Revelation 21:4–5; see Genesis 3:16–19).  By: K. T. Sim

Really Alive

There will be no more death.
Revelation 21:4

Since it was the week after Easter, our five-year-old son, Wyatt, had heard plenty of resurrection talk. He always had questions—usually real stumpers. I was driving, and he was buckled into his seat behind me. Wyatt peered out the window, deep in thought. “Daddy,” he said, pausing and preparing to ask me a tough one. “When Jesus brings us back to life, are we going to be really alive—or just alive in our heads?”

This is the question so many of us carry, whether or not we have the courage to speak it aloud. Is God really going to heal us? Is He really going to raise us from the dead? Is He really going to keep all His promises?

The apostle John describes our certain future as “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). In that holy city, “God himself will be with [us] and be [our] God” (v. 3). Because of Christ’s victory, we’re promised a future where there’s no more tears, no evil arrayed against God and His people. In this good future, “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (v. 4).

In other words, in the future God promises, we’ll be really alive. We’ll be so alive that our life now will seem a mere shadow. By:  Winn Collier

Reflect & Pray

Where do you experience death in your life? If God promises that death is doomed and we’re going to really live, how does this renew your hope?

God, You said death will meet its end and You promise me genuine life. Thank You

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 21, 2022

Don’t Hurt the Lord

Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? —John 14:9

Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us— astounded at how “un-simple” we are. It is our own opinions that make us dense and slow to understand, but when we are simple we are never dense; we have discernment all the time. Philip expected the future revelation of a tremendous mystery, but not in Jesus, the Person he thought he already knew. The mystery of God is not in what is going to be— it is now, though we look for it to be revealed in the future in some overwhelming, momentous event. We have no reluctance to obey Jesus, but it is highly probable that we are hurting Him by what we ask— “Lord, show us the Father…” (John 14:8). His response immediately comes back to us as He says, “Can’t you see Him? He is always right here or He is nowhere to be found.” We look for God to exhibit Himself to His children, but God only exhibits Himself in His children. And while others see the evidence, the child of God does not. We want to be fully aware of what God is doing in us, but we cannot have complete awareness and expect to remain reasonable or balanced in our expectations of Him. If all we are asking God to give us is experiences, and the awareness of those experiences is blocking our way, we hurt the Lord. The very questions we ask hurt Jesus, because they are not the questions of a child.

“Let not your heart be troubled…” (14:1, 27). Am I then hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If I believe in Jesus and His attributes, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to disturb my heart, or am I allowing any questions to come in which are unsound or unbalanced? I have to get to the point of the absolute and unquestionable relationship that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him. God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the freedom you receive is immediate.

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus.  Facing Reality, 34 R

Bible in a Year: 2 Samuel 12-13; Luke 16

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 21, 2022

Life in the Backwards Seat - #9204

Our grandson was gaining weight, and boy, he was going to be glad! (Unlike his grandfather who happens to find weight gain depressing.) Yeah, he was soon going to be over 20 pounds. Well, that meant his parents would turn his car seat around. No more looking out the rear window. That's a great feeling! You know, you don't have to keep looking back at where you've already been. It's all about looking where you are going - now.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Life in the Backwards Seat."

Now, that's a change that's good news for even us grown up kids; turning your "seat" around I mean. Moving past that depressing view you get when you just keep looking back at where you've been, especially when what you see is the hits, the hurts, the hard times in your past. Every time I look through that window, clouds roll in and start to cover the sun. If I look back a lot, I'll end up looking down even more.

I flew to a meeting and I had that same predictable experience at baggage claim. Not a missing suitcase. I'm talking about the mystery suitcase. You know, that one that just keeps going around and around on the baggage carousel, and nobody ever claims it. We just keep watching that same old bag go by again and again.

Well, sadly, too many folks live their life that way -watching the same old baggage over and over again, and triggering those all-too-familiar - and often disabling - feelings of resentment, anger, depression, "poor me," victim-itis.

There was a time my wife and I were talking with a woman who had been hurt and wounded quite a bit. And as she retold it, we could watch her visibly wilt. I had to share with her a bold and a hopeful alternative from the Bible. It's one I've fallen back on so many times. It's a "catch me, I'm falling" prescription for us when the old baggage circles back on our radar.

In our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 43:18-19, God says, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! It is springing up before you. Do you not perceive it?" Now, "dwell." That's an interesting word. Don't live in, don't camp out on, don't stay in what happened in the past. The enemy of my soul, the devil, he loves to have me living in the past, because it can't be changed. And dwelling on what can't be changed equals despair.

Now, while our enemy keeps pointing backwards, our Savior keeps pointing to what's ahead. "I am doing a new thing" He says. But those who insist on rehashing the old things are going to be looking the wrong way and they're going to miss God's new thing.

Now, God doesn't ask us to deny the past. But He tells us we don't have to be defined by our past. He invites us to release all the hurts and all the hurters. Release them to Him and to His justice. Leave the payback to Him. To open up the locked closet doors of your past, to drag all that's ugly there into the light and face it once and for all, but with Jesus standing there by your side. And then let the healing begin.

For two thousand years, wounded people have found Jesus to be the Lord of New Beginnings. See, first, the Bible says He makes us a "new creation in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17) - with rewired desires, self-worth, hopes and a passion to live pure. He says, "The old has gone; a new life has begun." That's the rebirth miracle He made possible by dying to cancel and forgive every sin you've ever committed - including mine. That's the rebirth miracle He made possible by dying to cancel and forgive every sin you've ever committed.

Jesus forgives what no one else can forgive and He heals what no one else can heal. With Jesus running things, your life becomes what He's going to do for you and through you - rather than what others have done to you. You really can turn your seat around. It's a whole lot better to see where you're going than where you've already been. Just ask my grandson.

The new beginning can be today when you say, "Jesus, I'm yours." We'd like to help with that. Go to our website. It's ANewStory.com. See, hope has a name. His name is Jesus.