Judges 12 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 Max Lucado Daily: I AM Is Near - May 19, 2022

Jesus says to us what he said to the disciples on the stormy sea. “It is I! Don’t be afraid” (John 6:20).

The literal translation of what Jesus said is “I AM; don’t be afraid.” I AM. That’s God’s name. When we wonder if God is coming, he answers with his name, “I AM!” When we wonder if he is able, he declares, “I AM.” When we see nothing but darkness, feel nothing but doubt, and wonder if God is near or aware, the welcome answer from Jesus is this: “I AM!”

Pause for a moment and let him tell you his name. Your greatest need is his presence. Yes, you want this storm to pass. Yes, you want the winds to still. But yes, yes, yes, you want to know, need to know, and must know that the great I AM is near. Remember, friends, you are never alone.

Judges 12

The men of Ephraim mustered their troops, crossed to Zaphon, and said to Jephthah, “Why did you go out to fight the Ammonites without letting us go with you? We’re going to burn your house down on you!”

2-3 Jephthah said, “I and my people had our hands full negotiating with the Ammonites. And I did call to you for help but you ignored me. When I saw that you weren’t coming, I took my life in my hands and confronted the Ammonites myself. And God gave them to me! So why did you show up here today? Are you spoiling for a fight with me?”

4 So Jephthah got his Gilead troops together and fought Ephraim. And the men of Gilead hit them hard because they were saying, “Gileadites are nothing but half breeds and rejects from Ephraim and Manasseh.”

5-6 Gilead captured the fords of the Jordan at the crossing to Ephraim. If an Ephraimite fugitive said, “Let me cross,” the men of Gilead would ask, “Are you an Ephraimite?” and he would say, “No.” And they would say, “Say, ‘Shibboleth.’” But he would always say, “Sibboleth”—he couldn’t say it right. Then they would grab him and kill him there at the fords of the Jordan. Forty-two Ephraimite divisions were killed on that occasion.

7 Jephthah judged Israel six years. Jephthah the Gileadite died and was buried in his city, Mizpah of Gilead.
Ibzan

8-9 After him, Ibzan of Bethlehem judged Israel. He had thirty sons and thirty daughters. He gave his daughters in marriage outside his clan and brought in thirty daughters-in-law from the outside for his sons.

10 He judged Israel seven years. Ibzan died and was buried in Bethlehem.
Elon

11-12 After him, Elon the Zebulunite judged Israel. He judged Israel ten years. Elon the Zebulunite died and was buried at Aijalon in the land of Zebulun.
Abdon

13-15 After him, Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite judged Israel. He had forty sons and thirty grandsons who rode on seventy donkeys. He judged Israel eight years. Abdon son of Hillel the Pirathonite died and was buried at Pirathon in the land of Ephraim in the Amalekite hill country.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Thursday, May 19, 2022

Today's Scripture
Exodus 16:4–5, 13–18

     God said to Moses, “I’m going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day’s ration. I’m going to test them to see if they’ll live according to my Teaching or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they have gathered, it will turn out to be twice as much as their daily ration.”

    That evening quail flew in and covered the camp and in the morning there was a layer of dew all over the camp. When the layer of dew had lifted, there on the wilderness ground was a fine flaky something, fine as frost on the ground. The Israelites took one look and said to one another, man-hu (What is it?). They had no idea what it was.

15–16     So Moses told them, “It’s the bread God has given you to eat. And these are God’s instructions: ‘Gather enough for each person, about two quarts per person; gather enough for everyone in your tent.’ ”

17–18     The People of Israel went to work and started gathering, some more, some less, but when they measured out what they had gathered, those who gathered more had no extra and those who gathered less weren’t short—each person had gathered as much as was needed.

Insight

Scholars have attempted to explain the source of manna that fed Israel during the exodus from Egypt. Some have theorized that it was the product of tamarisk bushes that grow in the Sinai region. But this isn’t likely. Such desert plants are insufficient in number to have fed an entire nation. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible reports another theory, suggesting that manna may have been a type of insect secretion. Regardless of how the manna appeared, the fact remains that God said, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you” (Exodus 16:4).

John 6:30–51 provides insight on this. Here, Jesus referred to “my Father” (v. 32) as the source of the manna. He said, “The bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (v. 33). He then applied this to Himself: “I am the bread of life” (v. 35). By: Tim Gustafson

Food from Heaven

The Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.”
Exodus 16:4

In August 2020, residents of Olten, Switzerland, were startled to find that it was snowing chocolate! A malfunction in the ventilation system of the local chocolate factory had caused chocolate particles to be diffused into the air. As a result, a dusting of edible chocolate flakes covered cars and streets and made the whole town smell like a candy store.

When I think of delicious food “magically” falling from the heavens, I can’t help but think of God’s provision for the people of Israel in Exodus. Following their dramatic escape from Egypt, the people faced significant challenges in the desert, especially a scarcity of food and water. And God, moved by the plight of the people, promised to “rain down bread from heaven” (Exodus 16:4). The next morning, a layer of thin flakes appeared on the desert ground. This daily provision, known as manna, continued for the next forty years.

When Jesus came to earth, people began to believe He was sent from God when He miraculously provided bread for a large crowd (John 6:5–14). But Jesus taught that He Himself was the “bread of life” (v. 35), sent to bring not just temporary nourishment but eternal life (v. 51).

For those of us hungry for spiritual nourishment, Jesus extends the offer of unending life with God. May we believe and trust that He came to satisfy those deepest longings. By:  Lisa M. Samra

Reflect & Pray

When did you come to realize your need for Jesus? How have you experienced being spiritually satisfied?

Jesus, thank You for choosing to come to earth to offer Your life so that I could enjoy a relationship with God for all eternity.

Learn more about growing spiritually.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Out of the Wreck I Rise

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? —Romans 8:35

God does not keep His child immune from trouble; He promises, “I will be with him in trouble…” (Psalm 91:15). It doesn’t matter how real or intense the adversities may be; nothing can ever separate him from his relationship to God. “In all these things we are more than conquerors…” (Romans 8:37). Paul was not referring here to imaginary things, but to things that are dangerously real. And he said we are “super-victors” in the midst of them, not because of our own ingenuity, nor because of our courage, but because none of them affects our essential relationship with God in Jesus Christ. I feel sorry for the Christian who doesn’t have something in the circumstances of his life that he wishes were not there.

“Shall tribulation…?” Tribulation is never a grand, highly welcomed event; but whatever it may be— whether exhausting, irritating, or simply causing some weakness— it is not able to “separate us from the love of Christ.” Never allow tribulations or the “cares of this world” to separate you from remembering that God loves you (Matthew 13:22).

“Shall…distress…?” Can God’s love continue to hold fast, even when everyone and everything around us seems to be saying that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice?

“Shall…famine…?” Can we not only believe in the love of God but also be “more than conquerors,” even while we are being starved?

Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver, having deceived even Paul, or else some extraordinary thing happens to someone who holds on to the love of God when the odds are totally against him. Logic is silenced in the face of each of these things which come against him. Only one thing can account for it— the love of God in Christ Jesus. “Out of the wreck I rise” every time.

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.

Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 7-9; John 6:22-44

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, May 19, 2022

The High Cost of Forgetting - #9224

Well, you probably know the feeling too, you go in the other room to get something, and you can't remember why you went there. Until you go and sit down in the other room again, and then you remember. How many times do we do that? I guess that's the harmless kind of forgetfulness. But too many of us have had loved ones who, as the years went on, remembered less and less; sometimes even the people who loved them. When people's memory goes, they can become very easily disoriented; they can make some very bad decisions and even place themselves in great danger.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The High Cost of Forgetting."

For the most part, there's not much you can do about memory loss - the mental kind, that is. But there is something you can do about spiritual memory loss, because forgetting spiritually can be pretty damaging, too. It was, in fact, one fundamental reason why God's ancient people kept wandering from God, messing up their lives, and suffering God's judgment. And it's one reason we make the same kinds of mistakes.

In Psalm 106, beginning in verse 12, our word for today from the Word of God, God summarizes the unhappy history of His people then and now. "They believed His promises and sang His praise." That's the good news. "But they soon forgot what He had done and did not wait for His counsel." Now, the results were disobedience and resulting judgment. In the same psalm, God says that at other times, "They gave no thought to Your miracles; they did not remember Your many kindnesses, and they rebelled" (Psalm 106:7) ... "they forgot the God who saved them" (Psalm 106:21). Again, disastrous results came.

We're all prone to quickly forget the great God we have and the amazing things He's done for us. And like a person who loses their cognitive memory, we start to get disoriented - to wander where we never should wander - to leave God's ways and to leave God's will, and to experience the pain of God's correction and God's judgment or simply the painful consequences of our wrong choices.

But unlike cognitive memory loss, there's a simple antidote for spiritual forgetting. It's called praise - regular, specific, conscious praise to God for who He is and what He's done. Praise is actually a discipline - a deliberate focusing of your thoughts on things you have to thank God for. We should wake up praising. As we're getting ready in the morning, we should train our mind and our heart to be expressing thanks to God, enumerating things we appreciate about Him. Talk about getting your day off to a right kind of start! Whenever we pray, we should train ourselves to begin with praises to God before we rush to our requests. And through the day, we need to be looking for evidence of God. (I love calling them God sightings.) And they're all over the place and then you send up thanks to God for them.

When we stop praising God, we start forgetting God. And when we forget the kind of God we have, we start wandering, we start getting hurt, we are much more likely to take matters into our own hands, to panic, to get impatient, to get discouraged or even depressed. But the more you train yourself to be a "praiser," the less mistakes you're going to make - the less regrets you're going to have. You lose so much when you forget.