Judges 15 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Epiphany of Hope - May 23, 2022

On April 21, 2008, Katherine Wolf suffered a massive stroke. She lost her ability to walk, talk clearly, and care for herself. She went from being a California model to a wheelchair-bound patient. God stepped in. In her wonderful book, Hope Heals, she writes, “I felt a deep awakening of the Word of God, which I had known since I was a little girl…It was my epiphany of hope! I would never lose heart in this situation because my soul was not what was wasting away.”

Don’t try to weather this storm alone my friend. He is still the great I AM. The next time you pray, Is anyone coming to help me? listen for the response of Jesus: I AM with you in the storm. And remember my friend, you are never alone.

Judges 15

Later on—it was during the wheat harvest—Samson visited his bride, bringing a young goat. He said, “Let me see my wife—show me her bedroom.”

But her father wouldn’t let him in. He said, “I concluded that by now you hated her with a passion, so I gave her to your best man. But her little sister is even more beautiful. Why not take her instead?”

3 Samson said, “That does it. This time when I wreak havoc on the Philistines, I’m blameless.”

4-5 Samson then went out and caught three hundred jackals. He lashed the jackals’ tails together in pairs and tied a torch between each pair of tails. He then set fire to the torches and let them loose in the Philistine fields of ripe grain. Everything burned, both stacked and standing grain, vineyards and olive orchards—everything.

6 The Philistines said, “Who did this?”

They were told, “Samson, son-in-law of the Timnite who took his bride and gave her to his best man.”

The Philistines went up and burned both her and her father to death.

7 Samson then said, “If this is the way you’re going to act, I swear I’ll get even with you. And I’m not quitting till the job’s done!”

8 With that he tore into them, ripping them limb from limb—a huge slaughter. Then he went down and stayed in a cave at Etam Rock.

* * *

9-10 The Philistines set out and made camp in Judah, preparing to attack Lehi (Jawbone). When the men of Judah asked, “Why have you come up against us?” they said, “We’re out to get Samson. We’re going after Samson to do to him what he did to us.”

11 Three companies of men from Judah went down to the cave at Etam Rock and said to Samson, “Don’t you realize that the Philistines already bully and lord it over us? So what’s going on with you, making things even worse?”

He said, “It was tit for tat. I only did to them what they did to me.”

12 They said, “Well, we’ve come down here to tie you up and turn you over to the Philistines.”

Samson said, “Just promise not to hurt me.”

13 “We promise,” they said. “We will tie you up and surrender you to them but, believe us, we won’t kill you.” They proceeded to tie him with new ropes and led him up from the Rock.

14-16 As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came to meet him, shouting in triumph. And then the Spirit of God came on him with great power. The ropes on his arms fell apart like flax on fire; the strips of leather slipped off his hands. He spotted a fresh donkey jawbone, reached down and grabbed it, and with it killed the whole company. And Samson said,

With a donkey’s jawbone
I made heaps of donkeys of them.
With a donkey’s jawbone
I killed an entire company.

17 When he finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone. He named that place Ramath Lehi (Jawbone Hill).

18-19 Now he was suddenly very thirsty. He called out to God, “You have given your servant this great victory. Are you going to abandon me to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?” So God split open the rock basin in Lehi; water gushed out and Samson drank. His spirit revived—he was alive again! That’s why it’s called En Hakkore (Caller’s Spring). It’s still there at Lehi today.

20 Samson judged Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines.

* * *

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Monday, May 23, 2022

Today's Scripture
2 Timothy 4:6–8

    You take over. I’m about to die, my life an offering on God’s altar. This is the only race worth running. I’ve run hard right to the finish, believed all the way. All that’s left now is the shouting—God’s applause! Depend on it, he’s an honest judge. He’ll do right not only by me, but by everyone eager for his coming.

Insight

Paul used several word pictures in 2 Timothy 4 to describe his life. He noted that he was “being poured out like a drink offering” (v. 6). This is likely a reference to the sacrificial ceremony instituted by God in Numbers 15:1–10, in which wine was poured out (see Hosea 9:4). However, well before the time of Moses, Jacob “poured out a drink offering” to God at Bethel (Genesis 35:14).

Paul also employed two metaphors from athletic competition, including fighting “the good fight” and completing “the race” (2 Timothy 4:7), references to Olympic sports of the day. And he spoke of “the time for my departure” (v. 6), an image evocative of a voyage. Paul, who’d traveled much during his lifetime to share the good news of Jesus, was now constrained by chains. Yet one final trip awaited him. His cold, damp prison cell served as a port of departure for heaven. By: Tim Gustafson

In the End

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
2 Timothy 4:7

I’m often given the privilege of leading spiritual retreats. Getting away for a few days to pray and reflect can be deeply enriching, and during the program I sometimes ask participants to do an exercise: “Imagine your life is over and your obituary is published in the paper. What would you like it to say?” Some attendees change their life’s priorities as a result, aiming to finish their lives well.

Second Timothy 4 contains the last known written words of the apostle Paul. Though probably only in his sixties, and though having faced death before, he senses his life is nearly over (2 Timothy 4:6). There will be no more mission trips now or writing letters to his churches. He looks back over his life and says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (v. 7). While he hasn’t been perfect (1 Timothy 1:15–16), Paul assesses his life on how true he’s stayed to God and the gospel. Tradition suggests he was martyred soon after.

Contemplating our final days has a way of clarifying what matters now. Paul’s words can be a good model to follow. Fight the good fight. Finish the race. Keep the faith. Because in the end what will matter is that we’ve stayed true to God and His ways as He provides what we need to live, fight life’s spiritual battles, and finish well. By:  Sheridan Voysey

Reflect & Pray

Imagine your life is over and your obituary is published. What would you like it to say? What changes might you make now to “finish the race” well?

Father God, strengthen me to live faithfully for You, right to the end.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 23, 2022  
Our Careful Unbelief

…do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. —Matthew 6:25

Jesus summed up commonsense carefulness in the life of a disciple as unbelief. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will squeeze right through our lives, as if to ask, “Now where do I come into this relationship, this vacation you have planned, or these new books you want to read?” And He always presses the point until we learn to make Him our first consideration. Whenever we put other things first, there is confusion.

“…do not worry about your life….” Don’t take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No— “the cares of this world” (Matthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, “I will not trust when I cannot see”— and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.

The greatest word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

Bible in a Year: 1 Chronicles 19-21; John 8:1-27

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 23, 2022

The Cost of Fitting In - #9226

Yeah it was known to be a pretty frequent refrain about our house. I'd try to read a label or some instructions that my wife had given me to look at it, and it became obvious that I was having a hard time deciphering what was in front of me. The first clue; my arm would be extended as far as it could go with that item in my hand. And she knew I was not seeing words clearly; I was seeing a blur or I was seeing letters or words that weren't really there. Thus, the refrain "Put your glasses on!" Oh yeah. I do that, and what looked blurry suddenly looked pretty clear.

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

Something exciting happens when you begin a personal relationship with Jesus. You get a new pair of glasses. It's the ability, actually, to look at your world, look at our culture, look at your choices and see it through God's eyes. Our vision of what really matters, or what's valuable, or what's right is pretty blurred and fuzzy and often it's expensively wrong. But when you start evaluating and living according to what God says in His Book, the Bible, you could see what's really going on.

The problem is, though, that we tend to be defined much more by our culture than by our Christ. Oh yeah, we have Jesus in our heart, but we've got a lot of earth-junk in the way we think. It's not a new problem. When God's ancient people were entering a culture with values that were the opposite of God's, He gave them a very important warning. It's one we need every bit as much today, and it's our word for today from the Word of God. In Leviticus 18, beginning in verse 2, God says, "I am the Lord your God. You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live, and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices. You must obey My laws and be careful to follow My decrees." In other words, don't take your cue from your culture...take your cue from your Creator!

One of the reasons we're so spiritually lame and powerless is that we mix our faith with a lot of garbage from Egypt and Canaan. So we end up seeing our faith more through our culture than seeing our culture through our faith. And there are lots of cultures people are or have been a part of, each with its own values, its own lies and its own distortions about life. Which culture or cultures have shaped your attitudes and actions: the business culture, where people are commodities and profit is decisive? Or maybe the academic culture, where you must believe certain premises in order to be considered academically respectable? The youth culture, the entertainment culture, the pop culture where trivial things get hyped, superficial is important, and where irreverence and disrespect are the style?

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft's godly father told him when he was going to Washington to become a United States Senator, "John, the culture of Washington is a culture of arrogance; the culture of Jesus is a culture of humility. Don't ever let Washington's arrogance replace Jesus' humility." Wow! In a sense, Jesus calls us to live counter-culturally, judging everything by His standards, seeing everything through His glasses.

Follow the culture and you'll be cynical, sarcastic, irreverent...maybe arrogant, negative, casual about sex, or driven by the bottom line. But when you trade in your blurred vision for what Jesus sees, you'll realize that a lot that looks cool is not cool. A lot that is supposed to be funny isn't really funny. That some of what's considered an "educated viewpoint" isn't wise at all. A lot that most people consider acceptable has no place in a life that Jesus bought with His blood.

So, "Put your glasses on!" God might be trying to say to you. Would you let God show you what things look like through His glasses? You'll see things as they really are, and believe me, it will change your life.