Psalm 14, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

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Psalm 14
Bilious and bloated, they gas,
    “God is gone.”
Their words are poison gas,
    fouling the air; they poison
Rivers and skies;
    thistles are their cash crop.
2 God sticks his head out of heaven.
    He looks around.
He’s looking for someone not stupid—
    one man, even, God-expectant,
    just one God-ready woman.
3 He comes up empty. A string
    of zeros. Useless, unshepherded
Sheep, taking turns pretending
    to be Shepherd.
The ninety and nine
    follow their fellow.
4 Don’t they know anything,
    all these predators?
Don’t they know
    they can’t get away with this—
Treating people like a fast-food meal
    over which they’re too busy to pray?
5-6 Night is coming for them, and nightmares,
    for God takes the side of victims.
Do you think you can mess
    with the dreams of the poor?
You can’t, for God
    makes their dreams come true.
7 Is there anyone around to save Israel?
    Yes. God is around; God turns life around.
Turned-around Jacob skips rope,
    turned-around Israel sings laughter.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, October 01, 2022
Today's Scripture
Matthew 7:15–20
 “Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.
Insight
The problem of false teachers that Jesus addressed in Matthew 7 troubled the early church, as evidenced throughout the New Testament. Peter reinforced Jesus’ words with his own comments in 2 Peter 2:1: “There were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.” The apostle Paul used strong words of condemnation for those who would misrepresent the gospel, saying, “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1:9). Anyone who perverts the message of God’s good news is accursed, the Greek term anathema, which means “dedicated to destruction.” Additionally, the entire letter of Jude appears to have been written as an argument against false teachers.
By: Bill Crowder

Look at the Fruit
By their fruit you will recognize them. Matthew 7:16
“Will the real [person’s name] please stand up?” That’s the familiar line at the end of the game show To Tell the Truth. A panel of four celebrities asks questions of three individuals claiming to be the same person. Of course, two are impostors, but it’s up to the panel to discern the actual person. In one episode, the celebrities tried to guess “the real Johnny Marks,” who wrote the lyrics to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” The celebrities found out how difficult it was to figure out who’s who, even when asking good questions. Impostors finagled the truth, which made for entertaining television.
Discerning who’s who when it comes to “false teachers” is a far cry from television game show antics, but it can be equally as challenging and is infinitely more important. The “ferocious wolves” often come to us in “sheep’s clothing,” and Jesus warns even the wise among us to “watch out” (Matthew 7:15). The best test is not so much good questions, but good eyes. Look at their fruit, for that’s how you’ll recognize them (vv. 16–20).
Scripture gives us assistance in seeing good and bad fruit. The good looks like “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). We’ve got to pay close attention, for wolves play by deception. But as believers, who are filled with the Spirit, we serve the real Good Shepherd, “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
By:  John Blase
Reflect & Pray
When have you met a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Apply the “look for the fruit” test to that experience and now what do you see?
Great Shepherd, give me eyes and ears to look and listen for good fruit.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, October 01, 2022

The Place of Exaltation
…Jesus took…them up on a high mountain apart by themselves… —Mark 9:2
We have all experienced times of exaltation on the mountain, when we have seen things from God’s perspective and have wanted to stay there. But God will never allow us to stay there. The true test of our spiritual life is in exhibiting the power to descend from the mountain. If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the demon-possessed people in the valley (see Mark 9:14-18). We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life— those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life, and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength. Yet our spiritual selfishness always wants repeated moments on the mountain. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times of exaltation are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time.
We are inclined to think that everything that happens is to be turned into useful teaching. In actual fact, it is to be turned into something even better than teaching, namely, character. The mountaintop is not meant to teach us anything, it is meant to make us something. There is a terrible trap in always asking, “What’s the use of this experience?” We can never measure spiritual matters in that way. The moments on the mountaintop are rare moments, and they are meant for something in God’s purpose.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
Bible in a Year: Isaiah 11-13; Ephesians 4