Luke 22:1-23, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: In the Midst of Darkness - July 12, 2022

Mary Magdalene’s world had officially hit rock bottom. Her Master murdered, his body buried in a borrowed grave, his body stolen.

Have you ever had a moment like this? In which you came looking for God yet could not find him? In the midst of Mary’s darkest moment, the Son—the S-O-N son—came out. She didn’t recognize her Lord, so Jesus called her by name. In a second her world went from a dead Jesus to a living one. She took hold of him. Even if the gesture lasted only a moment, Jesus allowed it.

This moment serves a sacred role in the Easter story. It, at once, reminds us that Jesus is the conquering King and Good Shepherd. He has power over death, but he also has a soft spot for the Mary Magdalenes of the world. Our regal hero is relentlessly tender.

Luke 22:1-23

The Passover Meal

 The Feast of Unleavened Bread, also called Passover, drew near. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way to do away with Jesus but, fearful of the people, they were also looking for a way to cover their tracks.

3-6 That’s when Satan entered Judas, the one called Iscariot. He was one of the Twelve. Leaving the others, he conferred with the high priests and the Temple guards about how he might betray Jesus to them. They couldn’t believe their good luck and agreed to pay him well. He gave them his word and started looking for a way to betray Jesus, but out of sight of the crowd.

7-8 The Day of Unleavened Bread came, the day the Passover lamb was butchered. Jesus sent Peter and John off, saying, “Go prepare the Passover for us so we can eat it together.”

9 They said, “Where do you want us to do this?”

10-12 He said, “Keep your eyes open as you enter the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him home. Then speak with the owner of the house: The Teacher wants to know, ‘Where is the guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare the meal there.”

13 They left, found everything just as he told them, and prepared the Passover meal.

14-16 When it was time, he sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, “You’ve no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It’s the last one I’ll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God.”

17-18 Taking the cup, he blessed it, then said, “Take this and pass it among you. As for me, I’ll not drink wine again until the kingdom of God arrives.”

19 Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory.”

20 He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.

21-22 “Do you realize that the hand of the one who is betraying me is at this moment on this table? It’s true that the Son of Man is going down a path already marked out—no surprises there. But for the one who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man, this is doomsday.”

23 They immediately became suspicious of each other and began quizzing one another, wondering who might be about to do this.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Today's Scripture
Proverbs 1:1–7

These are the wise sayings of Solomon,

David’s son, Israel’s king—

Written down so we’ll know how to live well and right,

to understand what life means and where it’s going;

A manual for living,

for learning what’s right and just and fair;

To teach the inexperienced the ropes

and give our young people a grasp on reality.

There’s something here also for seasoned men and women,

still a thing or two for the experienced to learn—

Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate,

the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women.

Start with God

7     Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God;

only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.


Insight

Solomon, the wisest person in the ancient world, wrote three thousand proverbs (1 Kings 4:30–34), but only a fraction of these were collated into the book of Proverbs in the Bible. Solomon’s wisdom was God’s gift to him (1 Kings 3:5–13). But being wise one day is no guarantee that you’ll be wise the next, for this wisdom can be easily abandoned and lost—as Solomon abandoned God’s wisdom in his later years. He became the classic example of foolishness as he turned from Him to follow idols (11:4–6). Ironically, he ignored his own warning: “If you stop listening to instruction, my child, you will turn your back on knowledge” (Proverbs 19:27 nlt), for “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (1:7). By: K. T. Sim

A Teachable Spirit

Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.
Proverbs 1:5

It has become sadly “normal” to attack not only the opinions of others but also the person holding the opinion. This can be true in academic circles as well. For this reason, I was stunned when scholar and theologian Richard B. Hays wrote a paper that forcefully took to task a work that he himself had written years earlier! In Reading with the Grain of Scripture, Hays demonstrated great humility of heart as he corrected his own past thinking, now fine-tuned by his lifelong commitment to learning.   

As the book of Proverbs was being introduced, King Solomon listed the various intents of this collection of wise sayings. But in the midst of those purposes, he inserted this challenge, “Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance” (Proverbs 1:5). Like the apostle Paul, who claimed that, even after following Christ for decades, he continued to pursue knowing Jesus (Philippians 3:10), Solomon urged the wise to listen, to learn, and to continue to grow.

No one is ever hurt by maintaining a teachable spirit. As we seek to continue to grow and learn about the things of faith (and the things of life), may we allow the Holy Spirit to guide us into truth (John 16:13), that we might better comprehend the wonders of our good and great God. By:  Bill Crowder

Reflect & Pray

In what areas of life or spiritual growth have you become stale or stunted? How can you become more teachable, allowing God to grow you beyond where you are at this moment?

Loving God, give me a humble, teachable spirit that I might continually be growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.

For further study, see Why Read the Bible?.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, July 12, 2022

The Spiritually Self-Seeking Church

…till we all come…to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ… —Ephesians 4:13

Reconciliation means the restoring of the relationship between the entire human race and God, putting it back to what God designed it to be. This is what Jesus Christ did in redemption. The church ceases to be spiritual when it becomes self-seeking, only interested in the development of its own organization. The reconciliation of the human race according to His plan means realizing Him not only in our lives individually, but also in our lives collectively. Jesus Christ sent apostles and teachers for this very purpose— that the corporate Person of Christ and His church, made up of many members, might be brought into being and made known. We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.

Am I building up the body of Christ, or am I only concerned about my own personal development? The essential thing is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ— “…that I may know Him…” (Philippians 3:10). To fulfill God’s perfect design for me requires my total surrender— complete abandonment of myself to Him. Whenever I only want things for myself, the relationship is distorted. And I will suffer great humiliation once I come to acknowledge and understand that I have not really been concerned about realizing Jesus Christ Himself, but only concerned with knowing what He has done for me.

My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace,
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God.

Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?

Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

Bible in a Year: Psalms 4-6; Acts 17:16-34

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, July 12, 2022

The Dark Closet - #9262

She was just such a sweet little old lady - the housemother who inspected our dorm rooms every week at college. I didn't want her to get hurt. You know? I mean, I was afraid she would, if she opened my closet door. Yeah, you know, you're busy in college with all kinds of important things - who's got time to clean your room? Right? Some days, it was almost impossible to tell that I had furniture in there. Everything was covered with what looked like the fallout from some bomb blast, but not on inspection day. Nope, I managed to get all that junk somehow stuffed into my closet. Sometimes it took three guys to close the door, but eventually what I needed to hide was safely inside that closet. Safe, that is, unless you opened the door.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Dark Closet."

A lot of us still have a closet today where we try to hide the stuff we don't want discovered. Maybe there's some dark stuff you've managed to keep in that closet for a long time. Like my college room, on the surface you look clean. But just inside the closet is stuff you don't want anyone to see. And so far, no one has. Well, except for the One who matters most.

Nine words; that's all it is. But these nine words in Numbers 32:23, our word for today from the Word of God, literally blow the door off your closet. Here they are: "Be sure that your sin will find you out." Wow! No loopholes, no exceptions-including yours. God knows everything you've done, everything you've thought, and everything you've said. So you're caught! And without exception, someday your sin will be out of the closet.

You can rationalize it away. We're good at that. "Hey, it's just a little while, I can't help it, I deserve this, I need this, this is love, I'll quit soon." Lies that you may believe but God doesn't buy. You can compare yourself with others and feel pretty good about yourself - until you remember that God doesn't grade on the curve. His standard is His holiness - perfection. You can excuse what you're doing, call it by a nice name, blame somebody else, live in denial about it, or try to compensate for it by doing some good things. But it's still sin, it's still something that helped cause the death of your Savior, it still stinks to God, and it's building up judgment for you all the time.

I remember when a major church was rocked by the public confession by one of its longtime leaders; a man described as the most trusted person in the church. But behind that closet door, turned out there was 20 years of blatant sexual sin, a sin he had even confronted in others as a church leader. It had been successfully concealed from everyone but God. And now comes the picking up of the pieces of so many lives.

King David did everything to keep his adultery hidden in the closet. Until God's man, Nathan, tore the door off with these words, "You are the man." Finally, David faced the ugly truth and he said, "I have sinned against the Lord." Right now, God, through His Holy Spirit, may be saying to you, "You are the man. You are the woman." He's giving you this chance to finally be free of that inner torment, to stop the mounting consequences, to experience at Jesus' cross the incomparable relief and the release of finally getting clean.

You've hidden it, but the sin, the price, and the guilt? They continue growing behind that door. It's going to be tough to open that closet and deal with what's in there. But it's going to be a whole lot tougher not to. It's haunted you. It has shamed you. It has shackled you long enough. Jesus is right there with you to help you open that door, and to once and for all get rid of that awful secret behind it.