Max Lucado Daily: A New Plan
As children, the minute we got home from school we would hit the pavement. The kid across the street had a dad with a great arm and a strong addiction to football. He couldn't resist when we would yell for him to play ball. He'd always ask, "Which team is losing?" Then he'd join that team, which often seemed to be mine. His appearance changed the whole ball game. He was confident, strong, and most of all, had a plan. "Okay boys, here's what we are going to do." You see, we not only had a new plan, we had a new leader. He brought new life to our team.
God does precisely the same. We didn't need a new play; we needed a new plan. We needed a new player, Jesus Christ, God's firstborn Son. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come."
From In the Grip of Grace
2 Chronicles 5
That completed the work King Solomon did on The Temple of God. He then brought in the holy offerings of his father David, the silver and the gold and the artifacts. He placed them all in the treasury of God’s Temple.
Installing the Chest
2–3 Bringing all this to a climax, Solomon got all the leaders together in Jerusalem—all the chiefs of tribes and the family patriarchs—to move the Chest of the Covenant of God from Zion and install it in The Temple. All the men of Israel assembled before the king on the feast day of the seventh month, the Feast of Booths.
4–6 When all the leaders of Israel were ready, the Levites took up the Chest. They carried the Chest, the Tent of Meeting, and all the sacred things in the Tent used in worship. The priests, all Levites, carried them. King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel were there before the Chest, worshiping and sacrificing huge numbers of sheep and cattle—so many that no one could keep track.
7–10 The priests brought the Chest of the Covenant of God to its place in the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim. The outspread wings of the cherubim formed a canopy over the Chest and its poles. The ends of the poles were so long that they stuck out from the entrance of the Inner Sanctuary, but were not noticeable further out—they’re still there today. There was nothing in the Chest itself but the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb where God made a covenant with Israel after bringing them up from Egypt.
11–13 The priests then left the Holy Place. All the priests there were consecrated, regardless of rank or assignment; and all the Levites who were musicians were there—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their families, dressed in their worship robes; the choir and orchestra assembled on the east side of the Altar and were joined by 120 priests blowing trumpets. The choir and trumpets made one voice of praise and thanks to God—orchestra and choir in perfect harmony singing and playing praise to God:
Yes! God is good!
His loyal love goes on forever!
13–14 Then a billowing cloud filled The Temple of God. The priests couldn’t even carry out their duties because of the cloud—the glory of God!—that filled The Temple of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Today's Scripture
Romans 12:1–2
Place Your Life Before God
1–2 12 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Insight
Paul wrote the book of Romans to believers in Jesus at Rome (Romans 1:7) to show that all human beings are sinners in need of salvation (chs. 1–3), what God did to save us, and how we can have a right relationship with Him (chs. 4–11). After explaining the theological foundations of the gospel (chs. 1–11), the apostle instructed believers in Christ how to live in a right relationship with God (chs. 12–16). The last four chapters provide a pattern of discipleship, teaching believers how to respond to God’s mercy and grace (12:1–2), how to use spiritual gifts (vv. 3–8), and how to relate to different people in the church and society (12:9–16:27). Though Jesus died to save us, God doesn’t demand that we die for Him. Rather, we’re to live for Him in His perfect will (12:1–2), in humility (v. 3), and in unity (vv. 4–8). By: K. T. Sim
Just Like Jesus
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2
In 2014, biologists captured a pair of orange pygmy seahorses in the Philippines. They took the marine creatures, along with a section of the orange coral sea fan they called home, to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Scientists wanted to know if the pygmy seahorses were born to match the color of their parents or their environment. When the pygmy seahorses gave birth to dull brown babies, scientists placed a purple coral sea fan into the tank. The babies, whose parents were orange, changed their color to match the purple sea fan. Due to their fragility by nature, their survival depends on their God-given ability to blend into their environment.
Blending-in is a useful defense mechanism in nature. However, God invites all people to receive salvation and stand out in the world by how we live. The apostle Paul urges believers in Jesus to honor God in every aspect of our lives, to worship Him by offering our bodies as a “living sacrifice” (Romans 12:1). Due to our fragility as human beings affected by sin, our spiritual health as believers depends on the Holy Spirit “renewing” our minds and empowering us to avoid conforming to “the pattern of this world” that rejects God and glorifies sin (v. 2).
Blending into this world means living in opposition to the Scriptures. However, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can look and love just like Jesus! By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How have you been blending into the world? How has God changed you?
Dear God, please make me more like Jesus each day.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, September 16, 2023
Praying to God in Secret
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place… —Matthew 6:6
The primary thought in the area of religion is— keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
“When you pray, do not use vain repetitions…” (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly— He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God— that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
“Everyone who asks receives…” (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer— but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, “…you will ask what you desire…” (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, “Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask.” But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
Bible in a Year: Proverbs 25-26; 2 Corinthians 9