Max Lucado Daily: DON’T SETTLE FOR SHECHEM - October 16, 2023
Scripture is straightforward about the ugly underbelly of human nature. Left to our own devices, the human heart is a wicked thing. And because it is, history bears witness to dreadful events like the slaughter at Shechem.
It’s a jagged-edged story. The warning is hard to miss: Don’t settle for Shechem when the blessing is in Bethel. The command God gave Jacob was clear. “I want you to leave here and go back to the land where you were born” (Genesis 31:13). The itinerary was singular – journey to Bethel.
Shechem was only twenty miles from Bethel. Jacob was within eyeshot of his goal. Jacob and his nomadic clan, weary from travel, decided to pitch their tents. They met some Shechemites. They made a few friends. They bought land. Jacob lived to regret each choice. What about you? Make it your aim to obey God. Blessing follows obedience.
Joel 2
The Locust Army
1–3 2 Blow the ram’s horn trumpet in Zion!
Trumpet the alarm on my holy mountain!
Shake the country up!
God’s Judgment’s on its way—the Day’s almost here!
A black day! A Doomsday!
Clouds with no silver lining!
Like dawn light moving over the mountains,
a huge army is coming.
There’s never been anything like it
and never will be again.
Wildfire burns everything before this army
and fire licks up everything in its wake.
Before it arrives, the country is like the Garden of Eden.
When it leaves, it is Death Valley.
Nothing escapes unscathed.
4–6 The locust army seems all horses—
galloping horses, an army of horses.
It sounds like thunder
leaping on mountain ridges,
Or like the roar of wildfire
through grass and brush,
Or like an invincible army shouting for blood,
ready to fight, straining at the bit.
At the sight of this army,
the people panic, faces white with terror.
7–11 The invaders charge.
They climb barricades. Nothing stops them.
Each soldier does what he’s told,
so disciplined, so determined.
They don’t get in each other’s way.
Each one knows his job and does it.
Undaunted and fearless,
unswerving, unstoppable.
They storm the city,
swarm its defenses,
Loot the houses,
breaking down doors, smashing windows.
They arrive like an earthquake,
sweep through like a tornado.
Sun and moon turn out their lights,
stars black out.
God himself bellows in thunder
as he commands his forces.
Look at the size of that army!
And the strength of those who obey him!
God’s Judgment Day—great and terrible.
Who can possibly survive this?
Change Your Life
12 But there’s also this, it’s not too late—
God’s personal Message!—
“Come back to me and really mean it!
Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!”
13–14 Change your life, not just your clothes.
Come back to God, your God.
And here’s why: God is kind and merciful.
He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot,
This most patient God, extravagant in love,
always ready to cancel catastrophe.
Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it now,
maybe he’ll turn around and show pity.
Maybe, when all’s said and done,
there’ll be blessings full and robust for your God!
15–17 Blow the ram’s horn trumpet in Zion!
Declare a day of repentance, a holy fast day.
Call a public meeting.
Get everyone there. Consecrate the congregation.
Make sure the elders come,
but bring in the children, too, even the nursing babies,
Even men and women on their honeymoon—
interrupt them and get them there.
Between Sanctuary entrance and altar,
let the priests, God’s servants, weep tears of repentance.
Let them intercede: “Have mercy, God, on your people!
Don’t abandon your heritage to contempt.
Don’t let the pagans take over and rule them
and sneer, ‘And so where is this God of theirs?’ ”
18–20 At that, God went into action to get his land back.
He took pity on his people.
God answered and spoke to his people,
“Look, listen—I’m sending a gift:
Grain and wine and olive oil.
The fast is over—eat your fill!
I won’t expose you any longer
to contempt among the pagans.
I’ll head off the final enemy coming out of the north
and dump them in a wasteland.
Half of them will end up in the Dead Sea,
the other half in the Mediterranean.
There they’ll rot, a stench to high heaven.
The bigger the enemy, the stronger the stench!”
The Trees Are Bearing Fruit Again
21–24 Fear not, Earth! Be glad and celebrate!
God has done great things.
Fear not, wild animals!
The fields and meadows are greening up.
The trees are bearing fruit again:
a bumper crop of fig trees and vines!
Children of Zion, celebrate!
Be glad in your God.
He’s giving you a teacher
to train you how to live right—
Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words
to refresh and nourish your soul, just as he used to do.
And plenty of food for your body—silos full of grain,
casks of wine and barrels of olive oil.
25–27 “I’ll make up for the years of the locust,
the great locust devastation—
Locusts savage, locusts deadly,
fierce locusts, locusts of doom,
That great locust invasion
I sent your way.
You’ll eat your fill of good food.
You’ll be full of praises to your God,
The God who has set you back on your heels in wonder.
Never again will my people be despised.
You’ll know without question
that I’m in the thick of life with Israel,
That I’m your God, yes, your God,
the one and only real God.
Never again will my people be despised.
The Sun Turning Black and the Moon Blood-Red
28–32 “And that’s just the beginning: After that—
“I will pour out my Spirit
on every kind of people:
Your sons will prophesy,
also your daughters.
Your old men will dream,
your young men will see visions.
I’ll even pour out my Spirit on the servants,
men and women both.
I’ll set wonders in the sky above
and signs on the earth below:
Blood and fire and billowing smoke,
the sun turning black and the moon blood-red,
Before the Judgment Day of God,
the Day tremendous and awesome.
Whoever calls, ‘Help, God!’
gets help.
On Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be a great rescue—just as God said.
Included in the survivors
are those that God calls.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, October 16, 2023
Today's Scripture
Exodus 4:1–5
Moses objected, “They won’t trust me. They won’t listen to a word I say. They’re going to say, ‘God? Appear to him? Hardly!’ ”
2 So God said, “What’s that in your hand?”
“A staff.”
3 “Throw it on the ground.” He threw it. It became a snake; Moses jumped back—fast!
4–5 God said to Moses, “Reach out and grab it by the tail.” He reached out and grabbed it—and he was holding his staff again. “That’s so they will trust that God appeared to you, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Insight
Exodus 3:1–4:17 tells how God called Moses to deliver His people from Egyptian bondage. Moses protested, giving various excuses for why he was unfit for the job. He doubted his own identity and ability (3:11) and his lack of authority (v. 13). In chapter 4, Moses gave his third excuse: the lack of legitimacy and credibility (v. 1). Having been rejected by the Israelites forty years earlier (2:11–14), Moses argued that they wouldn’t believe that he was now divinely commissioned (4:1). To authenticate his commission, Moses was to offer three signs: a rod becoming a snake (vv. 2–5), his hands turning leprous (vv. 6–7), and water turning to blood (v. 9). These signs prefigured the realms of the plagues—blood (7:19), animals and insects (8:2–4, 16, 21; 9:3), and diseases (9:9)—that God would bring upon the Egyptians so that they too would know that He was the true God (7:5). By: K. T. Sim
Who Am I?
God said, “I will be with you.” Exodus 3:12
Kizombo sat watching the campfire, pondering the great questions of his life. What have I accomplished? he thought. Too quickly the answer came back: Not much, really. He was back in the land of his birth, serving at the school his father had started deep in the rainforest. He was also trying to write his father’s powerful story of surviving two civil wars. Who am I to try to do all this?
Kizombo’s misgivings sound like those of Moses. God had just given Moses a mission: “I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). Moses replied, “Who am I?” (v. 11).
After some weak excuses from Moses, God asked him, “What is that in your hand?” It was a staff (4:2). At God’s direction, Moses threw it on the ground. The staff turned into a snake. Against his instincts, Moses picked it up. Again, it became a staff (v. 4). In God’s power, Moses could face Pharaoh. He literally had one of the “gods” of Egypt—a snake—in his hand. Egypt’s gods were no threat to the one true God.
Kizombo thought of Moses, and he sensed God’s answer: You have Me and My Word. He thought too of friends who encouraged him to write his father’s story so others would learn of God’s power in his life. He wasn’t alone.
On our own, our best efforts are inadequate. But we serve the God who says, “I will be with you” (3:12). By: Tim Gustafson
Reflect & Pray
What do you have that God can use? How might it encourage you to consider what He might do with you?
Father, with You I lack nothing, no matter the situation.
Discover your God-given calling.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, October 16, 2023
The Key to the Master’s Orders
Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. —Matthew 9:38
The key to the missionary’s difficult task is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work— that is, not work as the word is commonly used today, which often results in the shifting of our focus away from God. The key to the missionary’s difficult task is also not the key of common sense, nor is it the key of medicine, civilization, education, or even evangelization. The key is in following the Master’s orders— the key is prayer. “Pray the Lord of the harvest….” In the natural realm, prayer is not practical but absurd. We have to realize that prayer is foolish from the commonsense point of view.
From Jesus Christ’s perspective, there are no nations, but only the world. How many of us pray without regard to the persons, but with regard to only one Person— Jesus Christ? He owns the harvest that is produced through distress and through conviction of sin. This is the harvest for which we have to pray that laborers be sent out to reap. We stay busy at work, while people all around us are ripe and ready to be harvested; we do not reap even one of them, but simply waste our Lord’s time in over-energized activities and programs. Suppose a crisis were to come into your father’s or your brother’s life— are you there as a laborer to reap the harvest for Jesus Christ? Is your response, “Oh, but I have a special work to do!” No Christian has a special work to do. A Christian is called to be Jesus Christ’s own, “a servant [who] is not greater than his master” (John 13:16), and someone who does not dictate to Jesus Christ what he intends to do. Our Lord calls us to no special work— He calls us to Himself. “Pray the Lord of the harvest,” and He will engineer your circumstances to send you out as His laborer.
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. The Place of Help, 1005 R
Bible in a Year: Isaiah 47-49; 1 Thessalonians 4
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, October 16, 2023
When Your Supply Line Stops - #959
Sometimes I forget all the things that our uncle pays for. I mean, Uncle Sam. Well, a while back they were talking about another government shutdown. Oh, it's happened before, and it probably will happen again sometime when there's political deadlock in Washington. But I remember this time as they talked about it, they started to reveal all the things that wouldn't happen if the government shut down; all the people and the services that would feel the pain if Uncle Sam didn't get some money. For example, it looked like America's military and government workers might not get paid, and they're doing more things for us than we ever realized, and they wouldn't be seeing their paycheck on time. It looked like even our National Parks were going to be affected. Can you imagine Smokey the Bear not getting paid?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Your Supply Line Stops."
You know, beyond all the convoluted politics, I'm actually thinking about times when our personal supply (my wife and I), that when that's been shut down. Like the time the ministry we worked in...well, they couldn't pay us for a while. We were six months behind in our salary; we were two years behind in getting our expenses reimbursed. My wife worked for a Christian organization who actually had some "Chicken and Stars" soup leftover from some summer camps. Well, that kept us going for a little while, although I have to tell you, I haven't eaten any "Chicken and Stars'' since then. We reached the point where our fridge was literally empty. Well, no, wait a minute... wait, almost empty. There was this half bottle of ketchup. That's right. We racked our brains; we really couldn't think of a good ketchup recipe. (Feel free to send me...no, don't, please.) There was no food and there was no money to buy any.
Now, that morning we prayed and we committed our need to our Heavenly Father again and we went off to work. We got home that night, guess what? The fridge was still empty. Well, again, almost empty. Did I mention the ketchup? Yeah. Well, suddenly, the doorbell rang. I opened the door and I met a miracle. Up the stairs came one lady after another, carrying a big bag of groceries. They didn't know anything about our need, but their women's missionary group was having a meeting and they up and decided, "You know, let's have a pantry shower for the Hutchcrafts." It might as well have been God Himself coming up the stairs with all that food.
I can't begin to tell you all the times and all the ways that amazing God has shown up when the usual supply line was shut down. It's true that God often, even usually, supplies through our job and our paycheck. But there are those times when that faucet is suddenly turned off. And that's when God has said to me, "Ron, did you think it was ever your work or your boss that was providing for you? That was just one of My many delivery systems. I'm your Provider, and I never run out of resources, my son."
Well, our word for today from the word of God shows us that Jesus was pretty plain about this. Matthew 6 beginning in verse 31 says, "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
If you have put your trust in Jesus, you belong to the God who Jeremiah said has "compassions that never fail. They are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22-23). He's the faithful Father who is infinitely creative in how He meets our needs: bread from heaven, water from rocks, shoes that don't wear out in the wilderness, one lunch that feeds a multitude, food delivered by ravens...or ladies from the church.
When the usual supply line suddenly shuts down, it might be a good idea to open the windows for the ravens.