Max Lucado Daily: ENJOY GOD’S PRESENCE
You will never go where God is not! Envision the next few hours of your life. Where will you find yourself? In a school? God indwells the classroom. On the highways? His presence lingers among the traffic. In the hospital, the boardroom, the living room, the funeral home? God will be there.
Acts 17:27 says, “He is not far from each one of us.” Each of us. God doesn’t play favorites. All people can enjoy God’s presence. But many don’t. They plod through life as if their only strength was their own. As if their only solution comes from within and not from above. They live God-less lives. Lay claim to the nearness of God. Grip God’s promise like the parachute it is. Repeat it to yourself over and over: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
From You’ll Get Through This
1 John 2
1-2 I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good—not only ours, but the whole world’s.
The Only Way to Know We’re in Him
2-3 Here’s how we can be sure that we know God in the right way: Keep his commandments.
4-6 If someone claims, “I know him well!” but doesn’t keep his commandments, he’s obviously a liar. His life doesn’t match his words. But the one who keeps God’s word is the person in whom we see God’s mature love. This is the only way to be sure we’re in God. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived.
7-8 My dear friends, I’m not writing anything new here. This is the oldest commandment in the book, and you’ve known it from day one. It’s always been implicit in the Message you’ve heard. On the other hand, perhaps it is new, freshly minted as it is in both Christ and you—the darkness on its way out and the True Light already blazing!
9-11 Anyone who claims to live in God’s light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark. It’s the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God’s light and doesn’t block the light from others. But whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn’t know which end is up, blinded by the darkness.
Loving the World
12-13 I remind you, my dear children: Your sins are forgiven in Jesus’ name. You veterans were in on the ground floor, and know the One who started all this; you newcomers have won a big victory over the Evil One.
13-14 And a second reminder, dear children: You know the Father from personal experience. You veterans know the One who started it all; and you newcomers—such vitality and strength! God’s word is so steady in you. Your fellowship with God enables you to gain a victory over the Evil One.
15-17 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.
Antichrists Everywhere You Look
18 Children, time is just about up. You heard that Antichrist is coming. Well, they’re all over the place, antichrists everywhere you look. That’s how we know that we’re close to the end.
19 They left us, but they were never really with us. If they had been, they would have stuck it out with us, loyal to the end. In leaving, they showed their true colors, showed they never did belong.
20-21 But you belong. The Holy One anointed you, and you all know it. I haven’t been writing this to tell you something you don’t know, but to confirm the truth you do know, and to remind you that the truth doesn’t breed lies.
22-23 So who is lying here? It’s the person who denies that Jesus is the Divine Christ, that’s who. This is what makes an antichrist: denying the Father, denying the Son. No one who denies the Son has any part with the Father, but affirming the Son is an embrace of the Father as well.
24-25 Stay with what you heard from the beginning, the original message. Let it sink into your life. If what you heard from the beginning lives deeply in you, you will live deeply in both Son and Father. This is exactly what Christ promised: eternal life, real life!
26-27 I’ve written to warn you about those who are trying to deceive you. But they’re no match for what is embedded deeply within you—Christ’s anointing, no less! You don’t need any of their so-called teaching. Christ’s anointing teaches you the truth on everything you need to know about yourself and him, uncontaminated by a single lie. Live deeply in what you were taught.
Live Deeply in Christ
28 And now, children, stay with Christ. Live deeply in Christ. Then we’ll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms, with no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives.
29 Once you’re convinced that he is right and righteous, you’ll recognize that all who practice righteousness are God’s true children.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Read: Matthew 11:25–30
Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: “Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You’ve concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that’s the way you like to work.”
27 Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. “The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I’m not keeping it to myself; I’m ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen.
28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
INSIGHT:
How could Jesus offer rest and relief to His followers while knowing the road ahead was steep and difficult? (see Matt: 10:17–24, 34–36). A careful reading of Matthew’s gospel answers such questions. In His day, Jesus was a breath of fresh air. He wasn’t like the self-righteous teachers who had a moral principle for every problem. He was a giver. When He sent His disciples out to announce the good news of His coming, He gave them the ability to do life-giving miracles to show their credibility (10:1). Imagine the exhilaration they must have felt at the end of a hard day. They were discovering for themselves what it meant to reach out to sick, oppressed, and troubled people by the Spirit Jesus gave them, rather than by the strain and monotony of religious duty.
Now the offer is ours to accept. Our Lord invites us to come to Him and discover His “unforced rhythms of grace” and rest. The promise is for the joy of what He can do in us and in the lives of those He inspires us to love and serve.
Rhythms of Grace
By David C. McCasland
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11:29
A friend and his wife, now in their early nineties and married for sixty-six years, wrote their family history for their children, grandchildren, and generations to come. The final chapter, “A Letter from Mom and Dad,” contains important life-lessons they’ve learned. One caused me to pause and take inventory of my own life: “If you find that Christianity exhausts you, draining you of your energy, then you are practicing religion rather than enjoying a relationship with Jesus Christ. Your walk with the Lord will not make you weary; it will invigorate you, restore your strength, and energize your life” (Matt. 11:28–29).
Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of Jesus’s invitation in this passage begins, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? . . . Walk with me and work with me. . . . Learn the unforced rhythms of grace” (The Message).
Lord Jesus, I come to You today to exchange my frenzied work for Your pathway of grace.
When I think that serving God is all up to me, I’ve begun working for Him instead of walking with Him. There is a vital difference. If I’m not walking with Christ, my spirit becomes dry and brittle. People are annoyances, not fellow humans created in God’s image. Nothing seems right.
When I sense that I’m practicing religion instead of enjoying a relationship with Jesus, it’s time to lay the burden down and walk with Him in His “unforced rhythms of grace.”
Lord Jesus, I come to You today to exchange my frenzied work for Your pathway of grace.
Jesus wants us to walk with Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Get Moving! (1)
Abide in Me… —John 15:4
In the matter of determination. The Spirit of Jesus is put into me by way of the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I then have to build my thinking patiently to bring it into perfect harmony with my Lord. God will not make me think like Jesus— I have to do it myself. I have to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). “Abide in Me”— in intellectual matters, in money matters, in every one of the matters that make human life what it is. Our lives are not made up of only one neatly confined area.
Am I preventing God from doing things in my circumstances by saying that it will only serve to hinder my fellowship with Him? How irrelevant and disrespectful that is! It does not matter what my circumstances are. I can be as much assured of abiding in Jesus in any one of them as I am in any prayer meeting. It is unnecessary to change and arrange my circumstances myself. Our Lord’s inner abiding was pure and unblemished. He was at home with God wherever His body was. He never chose His own circumstances, but was meek, submitting to His Father’s plans and directions for Him. Just think of how amazingly relaxed our Lord’s life was! But we tend to keep God at a fever pitch in our lives. We have none of the serenity of the life which is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
Think of the things that take you out of the position of abiding in Christ. You say, “Yes, Lord, just a minute— I still have this to do. Yes, I will abide as soon as this is finished, or as soon as this week is over. It will be all right, Lord. I will abide then.” Get moving— begin to abide now. In the initial stages it will be a continual effort to abide, but as you continue, it will become so much a part of your life that you will abide in Him without any conscious effort. Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony, 1166 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
The Greatest Gift You Can Give - #7938
I met this intriguing guy. He's a recently retired Marine who had the great privilege of working security for George W. Bush when he was President of the United States. He's even worked as President Bush's spotter when he was in the weight room working out! On a couple of occasions, my friend had the opportunity to tell the President something that was very much on his heart. He said, "Mr. President, the folks from my church wanted me to tell you that we're praying for you all the time." At that point, the President turned to my friend, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "Then, would you please give them a message for me? Tell them the President is deeply grateful. There's nothing greater they could do for me."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Greatest Gift You Can Give."
The most powerful man in the world realized the most powerful thing you can do for a person-even for him-especially for him...pray for him. At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Bush talked about working the rope lines at events and being stopped often by people who told him they were praying for him. He said, "I tell them this is the greatest gift you can give a person." He's right. It's a gift I hope you're giving to people every day, with all your heart.
Our word for today from the Word of God, here's a revealing picture of what really happens when you pray for someone. It's found in Exodus 17, beginning with verse 10. The Jewish General, Joshua, has led his troops into battle against the brutal Amalekites. And old Moses goes to fight the real battle. The Bible says, "Moses, Aaron, and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning... Aaron and Hur held his hands up-one on one side, one on the other-so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So, Joshua overcame the Amalekite army."
Just in case someone wondered what this "holding up his hands" business was all about, Moses explained it. He said, "Hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord." Moses made it very clear he was praying up on that hill. And notice how the battle was decided. Not by what the warriors on the battlefield were doing, but by what the prayer warrior on the hill was doing! That's always where the battles are decided-in the Throne Room of the Most High God as someone intercedes there for someone or something they care about.
God must get tired of us saying, "Well, I guess all we can do is pray." What? All I can do is go to the One who rules a hundred billion galaxies and focus on His love and power and aim it at some person or situation or need? There's nothing else you can do that is even remotely as powerful as that! So who are the people that you pray for on a regular basis?
Commit yourself to be the Moses for some folks you know, and for some servants of God who are fighting on the front lines. There's no greater gift people can ever give to me, to the people on our ministry team than to say, "I pray for you every day." I just praise God for those people. And I hope there's some lost people for whom maybe no one else may have ever prayed that you're praying for.
Let me tell you, as one person who's trying to serve the Most High God, there is nothing more decisive you can do than to be a regular prayer warrior as we fight for some of those lost people.
Let people know you're fighting for them in the Throne Room of God. Find out what they need you to be praying for. You'll be their Moses, praying down victory for their battle. You'll be their Aaron or Hur, holding up their arms when they can't go another step. When you pray fervently for someone, you are playing a vital part in guarding their life, in meeting their need, in changing their heart, in winning their battle. You are praying for them, you are going to the Throne Room of God for them. You are indeed, giving them the greatest gift anyone can give!
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Ezekiel 45, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE ONE GIFT TROUBLES CANNOT TOUCH
There’s one gift your troubles cannot touch: your destiny. I remember when my father had just retired. He and mom wanted to visit every national park in their travel trailer. Then came the diagnosis of ALS, a cruel degenerative disease that affects the muscles. Within months, the world, as he knew it, was gone.
Denalyn and I were preparing to do mission work in Brazil. I offered to change my plans. But Dad’s reply was immediate and confident. “Go, I have no fear of death or eternity, so don’t be concerned about me. Just Go. Please Him.” Much was lost: his retirement, years with his children and grandchildren, years with his wife. The lost was severe, but it wasn’t complete. “Dad,” I could’ve asked him, “what do you have that you cannot lose?” He still had God’s call on his heart! And so do you.
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 45
Sacred Space for God
1-4 “When you divide up the inheritance of the land, you must set aside part of the land as sacred space for God: approximately seven miles long by six miles wide, all of it holy ground. Within this rectangle, reserve a seven-hundred-fifty-foot square for the Sanctuary with a seventy-five-foot buffer zone surrounding it. Mark off within the sacred reserve a section seven miles long by three miles wide. The Sanctuary with its Holy of Holies will be placed there. This is where the priests will live, those who lead worship in the Sanctuary and serve God there. Their houses will be there along with The Holy Place.
5 “To the north of the sacred reserve, an area roughly seven miles long and two and a quarter miles wide will be set aside as land for the villages of the Levites who administer the affairs of worship in the Sanctuary.
6 “To the south of the sacred reserve, measure off a section seven miles long and about a mile and a half wide for the city itself, an area held in common by the whole family of Israel.
7-8 “The prince gets the land abutting the seven-mile east and west borders of the central sacred square, extending eastward toward the Jordan and westward toward the Mediterranean. This is the prince’s possession in Israel. My princes will no longer bully my people, running roughshod over them. They’ll respect the land as it has been allotted to the tribes.
9-12 “This is the Message of God, the Master: ‘I’ve put up with you long enough, princes of Israel! Quit bullying and taking advantage of my people. Do what’s just and right for a change. Use honest scales—honest weights and honest measures. Every pound must have sixteen ounces. Every gallon must measure four quarts. The ounce is the basic measure for both. And your coins must be honest—no wooden nickels!
Everyone in the Land Must Contribute
13-15 “‘These are the prescribed offerings you are to supply: one-sixtieth part of your wheat, one-sixtieth part of your barley, one-hundredth part of your oil, one sheep out of every two hundred from the lush pastures of Israel. These will be used for the grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making the atonement sacrifices for the people. Decree of God, the Master.
16-17 “‘Everyone in the land must contribute to these special offerings that the prince in Israel will administer. It’s the prince’s job to provide the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings at the Holy Festivals, the New Moons, and the Sabbaths—all the commanded feasts among the people of Israel. Sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making atonement for the people of Israel are his responsibility.
18-20 “‘This is the Message from God, the Master: On the first day of the first month, take an unblemished bull calf and purify the Sanctuary. The priest is to take blood from the sin offerings and rub it on the doorposts of the Temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gate entrance to the inside courtyard. Repeat this ritual on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins without knowing it. In this way you make atonement for the Temple.
21 “‘On the fourteenth day of the first month, you will observe the Passover, a feast of seven days. During the feast you will eat bread made without yeast.
22-23 “‘On Passover, the prince supplies a bull as a sin offering for himself and all the people of the country. Each day for each of the seven days of the feast, he will supply seven bulls and seven rams unblemished as a burnt offering to God, and also each day a male goat.
24 “‘He will supply about five and a half gallons of grain offering and a gallon of oil for each bull and each ram.
25 “‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and on each of the seven days of the feast, he is to supply the same materials for sin offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and oil.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Read: Job 37:1–16
1-13 “Whenever this happens, my heart stops—
I’m stunned, I can’t catch my breath.
Listen to it! Listen to his thunder,
the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice.
He lets loose his lightnings from horizon to horizon,
lighting up the earth from pole to pole.
In their wake, the thunder echoes his voice,
powerful and majestic.
He lets out all the stops, he holds nothing back.
No one can mistake that voice—
His word thundering so wondrously,
his mighty acts staggering our understanding.
He orders the snow, ‘Blanket the earth!’
and the rain, ‘Soak the whole countryside!’
No one can escape the weather—it’s there.
And no one can escape from God.
Wild animals take shelter,
crawling into their dens,
When blizzards roar out of the north
and freezing rain crusts the land.
It’s God’s breath that forms the ice,
it’s God’s breath that turns lakes and rivers solid.
And yes, it’s God who fills clouds with rainwater
and hurls lightning from them every which way.
He puts them through their paces—first this way, then that—
commands them to do what he says all over the world.
Whether for discipline or grace or extravagant love,
he makes sure they make their mark.
A Terrible Beauty Streams from God
14-18 “Job, are you listening? Have you noticed all this?
Stop in your tracks! Take in God’s miracle-wonders!
Do you have any idea how God does it all,
how he makes bright lightning from dark storms,
How he piles up the cumulus clouds—
all these miracle-wonders of a perfect Mind?
Why, you don’t even know how to keep cool
on a sweltering hot day,
So how could you even dream
of making a dent in that hot-tin-roof sky?
INSIGHT:
"The heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps. 19:1). The word glory is often misunderstood. In Psalm 19:1, the Hebrew word for glory is kabod, meaning “weight, significance.” God’s eternal significance is seen in the fact that He brought a universe into existence! In the New Testament, the Greek term for glory is doxa, which speaks of honor, dignity, or praise. The God who created the universe and sent His Son for our rescue is to be praised because of who He is and because of all He has done.
As you observe God’s created world today, what evokes a spirit of worship and praise?
Consider the Clouds
By David H. Roper
Do you know how the clouds hang poised? Job 37:16
One day many years ago my boys and I were lying on our backs in the yard watching the clouds drift by. “Dad,” one asked, “why do clouds float?” “Well, son,” I began, intending to give him the benefit of my vast knowledge, but then I lapsed into silence. “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’ll find out for you.”
The answer, I discovered, is that condensed moisture, descending by gravity, meets warmer temperatures rising from the land. That moisture then changes into vapor and ascends back into the air. That’s a natural explanation for the phenomenon.
We are amazed at You, wonderful Creator, as we look at Your world. We praise you!
But natural explanations are not final answers. Clouds float because God in His wisdom has ordered the natural laws in such a way that they reveal the “wonders of him who has perfect knowledge” (Job 37:16). Clouds then can be thought of as a symbol—an outward and visible sign of God’s goodness and grace in creation.
So someday when you’re taking some time to see what images you can imagine in the clouds, remember this: The One who made all things beautiful makes the clouds float through the air. He does so to call us to wonder and adoration. The heavens—even the cumulus, stratus, and cirrus clouds—declare the glory of God.
We are amazed at You, wonderful Creator, as we look at Your world. You deserve all the praise our hearts can give and so much more!
Creation is filled with signs that point to the Creator.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Getting There (3)
…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of isolation; beware of the idea that you have to develop a holy life alone. It is impossible to develop a holy life alone; you will develop into an oddity and a peculiarism, into something utterly unlike what God wants you to be. The only way to develop spiritually is to go into the society of God’s own children, and you will soon find how God alters your set. God does not contradict our social instincts; He alters them. Biblical Psychology, 189 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Escape From Lonely Island - #7937
There's this beautiful spot on the coast of Maine called Bar Harbor, because there's a bar in the harbor. It's a sandbar that's totally exposed at low tide and totally submerged at high tide. The bar goes from the mainland to a little island called, (You'll never guess.) Bar Island. The island's okay, but you will not spend a lot of time there. Although some people do – a lot more time than they had planned to spend. When our family walked across the bar at low tide, we made sure to check that tide chart to see when the tide would be coming back. As we were walking back from the island, the bar was already a little narrower than it had been – the tide had started coming in. Then there were those intelligent tourists who waited a little too long to start back, and there was no way back! Now, you know what? No one has to be stranded on that island. There is a way off, if you take it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Escape From Lonely Island."
Lonely Island is not on any map that I know of, but it's an island we've all spent time on. Loneliness is like an emotional island and we can get stranded there when we've been isolated, or ignored, or left out, or forgotten, maybe misunderstood, abandoned. Maybe even today finds you in the middle of another one of your lonely times.
The good news is you don't have to be stuck on Lonely Island. Loneliness is ultimately not a prison sentence. It's a choice! Feeling lonely is unavoidable. It's part of being human, but staying lonely is a choice. Just like Bar Island, there are some steps you can take to leave that island.
One way to make a lonely time a short time is to find somebody who needs you; to reach out from your loneliness, even if you don't feel like it, to make a difference for someone else. At a time when loneliness leaves you thinking mostly about you, it's important to decide to look beyond yourself. Another antidote to loneliness is to expand your world, especially your circle of friendships. If you take the risks to reach out to more people, you can reduce your trips to Lonely Island.
But even with all our efforts to cope with the lonely times, a lot of us carry this gnawing sense of loneliness with us most of the time. It isn't necessarily that there aren't people there for us, it's just that those people have never been enough to fill us up inside. It's like there's always something missing. Actually, like someone missing. Well, there is – the One you were made by; the One you were made for.
The incurable loneliness in the human heart is ultimately cosmic loneliness. We're lonely for God. No earth relationship has ever been able to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart. In the words of the Bible, in Isaiah 59:2, "Your sins have separated you from your God." Your sins are all those thousands of choices you've made in your lifetime that disregarded God's way for "your way." So here we are, away from the one person who has the love we're looking for. The only person who knows why we were created; the person we will meet the moment we die.
For our word for today from the Word of God, consider this promise from Jesus in light of the loneliness you know all too well. Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." Think of it – unloseable love, unconditional love. Jesus' love for you took Him all the way to a brutal death on a cross, where He gave His life to pay your sin-bill with God. The one whose love you've been looking for all these years is yours the moment you say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." You are one step of faith away from the world's only "never leave you" love. Would you take that step today? "Jesus, I'm yours."
Our website is there to help you begin a whole new story in your life. In fact, that's the name of the website - ANewStory.com. I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today.
Your anchor relationship could begin this very day and it will never end. Never, no matter what else changes and no matter who else leaves. And you will have just spent your last day alone.
There’s one gift your troubles cannot touch: your destiny. I remember when my father had just retired. He and mom wanted to visit every national park in their travel trailer. Then came the diagnosis of ALS, a cruel degenerative disease that affects the muscles. Within months, the world, as he knew it, was gone.
Denalyn and I were preparing to do mission work in Brazil. I offered to change my plans. But Dad’s reply was immediate and confident. “Go, I have no fear of death or eternity, so don’t be concerned about me. Just Go. Please Him.” Much was lost: his retirement, years with his children and grandchildren, years with his wife. The lost was severe, but it wasn’t complete. “Dad,” I could’ve asked him, “what do you have that you cannot lose?” He still had God’s call on his heart! And so do you.
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 45
Sacred Space for God
1-4 “When you divide up the inheritance of the land, you must set aside part of the land as sacred space for God: approximately seven miles long by six miles wide, all of it holy ground. Within this rectangle, reserve a seven-hundred-fifty-foot square for the Sanctuary with a seventy-five-foot buffer zone surrounding it. Mark off within the sacred reserve a section seven miles long by three miles wide. The Sanctuary with its Holy of Holies will be placed there. This is where the priests will live, those who lead worship in the Sanctuary and serve God there. Their houses will be there along with The Holy Place.
5 “To the north of the sacred reserve, an area roughly seven miles long and two and a quarter miles wide will be set aside as land for the villages of the Levites who administer the affairs of worship in the Sanctuary.
6 “To the south of the sacred reserve, measure off a section seven miles long and about a mile and a half wide for the city itself, an area held in common by the whole family of Israel.
7-8 “The prince gets the land abutting the seven-mile east and west borders of the central sacred square, extending eastward toward the Jordan and westward toward the Mediterranean. This is the prince’s possession in Israel. My princes will no longer bully my people, running roughshod over them. They’ll respect the land as it has been allotted to the tribes.
9-12 “This is the Message of God, the Master: ‘I’ve put up with you long enough, princes of Israel! Quit bullying and taking advantage of my people. Do what’s just and right for a change. Use honest scales—honest weights and honest measures. Every pound must have sixteen ounces. Every gallon must measure four quarts. The ounce is the basic measure for both. And your coins must be honest—no wooden nickels!
Everyone in the Land Must Contribute
13-15 “‘These are the prescribed offerings you are to supply: one-sixtieth part of your wheat, one-sixtieth part of your barley, one-hundredth part of your oil, one sheep out of every two hundred from the lush pastures of Israel. These will be used for the grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making the atonement sacrifices for the people. Decree of God, the Master.
16-17 “‘Everyone in the land must contribute to these special offerings that the prince in Israel will administer. It’s the prince’s job to provide the burnt offerings, grain offerings, and drink offerings at the Holy Festivals, the New Moons, and the Sabbaths—all the commanded feasts among the people of Israel. Sin offerings, grain offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings for making atonement for the people of Israel are his responsibility.
18-20 “‘This is the Message from God, the Master: On the first day of the first month, take an unblemished bull calf and purify the Sanctuary. The priest is to take blood from the sin offerings and rub it on the doorposts of the Temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the gate entrance to the inside courtyard. Repeat this ritual on the seventh day of the month for anyone who sins without knowing it. In this way you make atonement for the Temple.
21 “‘On the fourteenth day of the first month, you will observe the Passover, a feast of seven days. During the feast you will eat bread made without yeast.
22-23 “‘On Passover, the prince supplies a bull as a sin offering for himself and all the people of the country. Each day for each of the seven days of the feast, he will supply seven bulls and seven rams unblemished as a burnt offering to God, and also each day a male goat.
24 “‘He will supply about five and a half gallons of grain offering and a gallon of oil for each bull and each ram.
25 “‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, and on each of the seven days of the feast, he is to supply the same materials for sin offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and oil.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Read: Job 37:1–16
1-13 “Whenever this happens, my heart stops—
I’m stunned, I can’t catch my breath.
Listen to it! Listen to his thunder,
the rolling, rumbling thunder of his voice.
He lets loose his lightnings from horizon to horizon,
lighting up the earth from pole to pole.
In their wake, the thunder echoes his voice,
powerful and majestic.
He lets out all the stops, he holds nothing back.
No one can mistake that voice—
His word thundering so wondrously,
his mighty acts staggering our understanding.
He orders the snow, ‘Blanket the earth!’
and the rain, ‘Soak the whole countryside!’
No one can escape the weather—it’s there.
And no one can escape from God.
Wild animals take shelter,
crawling into their dens,
When blizzards roar out of the north
and freezing rain crusts the land.
It’s God’s breath that forms the ice,
it’s God’s breath that turns lakes and rivers solid.
And yes, it’s God who fills clouds with rainwater
and hurls lightning from them every which way.
He puts them through their paces—first this way, then that—
commands them to do what he says all over the world.
Whether for discipline or grace or extravagant love,
he makes sure they make their mark.
A Terrible Beauty Streams from God
14-18 “Job, are you listening? Have you noticed all this?
Stop in your tracks! Take in God’s miracle-wonders!
Do you have any idea how God does it all,
how he makes bright lightning from dark storms,
How he piles up the cumulus clouds—
all these miracle-wonders of a perfect Mind?
Why, you don’t even know how to keep cool
on a sweltering hot day,
So how could you even dream
of making a dent in that hot-tin-roof sky?
INSIGHT:
"The heavens declare the glory of God" (Ps. 19:1). The word glory is often misunderstood. In Psalm 19:1, the Hebrew word for glory is kabod, meaning “weight, significance.” God’s eternal significance is seen in the fact that He brought a universe into existence! In the New Testament, the Greek term for glory is doxa, which speaks of honor, dignity, or praise. The God who created the universe and sent His Son for our rescue is to be praised because of who He is and because of all He has done.
As you observe God’s created world today, what evokes a spirit of worship and praise?
Consider the Clouds
By David H. Roper
Do you know how the clouds hang poised? Job 37:16
One day many years ago my boys and I were lying on our backs in the yard watching the clouds drift by. “Dad,” one asked, “why do clouds float?” “Well, son,” I began, intending to give him the benefit of my vast knowledge, but then I lapsed into silence. “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but I’ll find out for you.”
The answer, I discovered, is that condensed moisture, descending by gravity, meets warmer temperatures rising from the land. That moisture then changes into vapor and ascends back into the air. That’s a natural explanation for the phenomenon.
We are amazed at You, wonderful Creator, as we look at Your world. We praise you!
But natural explanations are not final answers. Clouds float because God in His wisdom has ordered the natural laws in such a way that they reveal the “wonders of him who has perfect knowledge” (Job 37:16). Clouds then can be thought of as a symbol—an outward and visible sign of God’s goodness and grace in creation.
So someday when you’re taking some time to see what images you can imagine in the clouds, remember this: The One who made all things beautiful makes the clouds float through the air. He does so to call us to wonder and adoration. The heavens—even the cumulus, stratus, and cirrus clouds—declare the glory of God.
We are amazed at You, wonderful Creator, as we look at Your world. You deserve all the praise our hearts can give and so much more!
Creation is filled with signs that point to the Creator.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Getting There (3)
…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22
Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of isolation; beware of the idea that you have to develop a holy life alone. It is impossible to develop a holy life alone; you will develop into an oddity and a peculiarism, into something utterly unlike what God wants you to be. The only way to develop spiritually is to go into the society of God’s own children, and you will soon find how God alters your set. God does not contradict our social instincts; He alters them. Biblical Psychology, 189 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Escape From Lonely Island - #7937
There's this beautiful spot on the coast of Maine called Bar Harbor, because there's a bar in the harbor. It's a sandbar that's totally exposed at low tide and totally submerged at high tide. The bar goes from the mainland to a little island called, (You'll never guess.) Bar Island. The island's okay, but you will not spend a lot of time there. Although some people do – a lot more time than they had planned to spend. When our family walked across the bar at low tide, we made sure to check that tide chart to see when the tide would be coming back. As we were walking back from the island, the bar was already a little narrower than it had been – the tide had started coming in. Then there were those intelligent tourists who waited a little too long to start back, and there was no way back! Now, you know what? No one has to be stranded on that island. There is a way off, if you take it!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Escape From Lonely Island."
Lonely Island is not on any map that I know of, but it's an island we've all spent time on. Loneliness is like an emotional island and we can get stranded there when we've been isolated, or ignored, or left out, or forgotten, maybe misunderstood, abandoned. Maybe even today finds you in the middle of another one of your lonely times.
The good news is you don't have to be stuck on Lonely Island. Loneliness is ultimately not a prison sentence. It's a choice! Feeling lonely is unavoidable. It's part of being human, but staying lonely is a choice. Just like Bar Island, there are some steps you can take to leave that island.
One way to make a lonely time a short time is to find somebody who needs you; to reach out from your loneliness, even if you don't feel like it, to make a difference for someone else. At a time when loneliness leaves you thinking mostly about you, it's important to decide to look beyond yourself. Another antidote to loneliness is to expand your world, especially your circle of friendships. If you take the risks to reach out to more people, you can reduce your trips to Lonely Island.
But even with all our efforts to cope with the lonely times, a lot of us carry this gnawing sense of loneliness with us most of the time. It isn't necessarily that there aren't people there for us, it's just that those people have never been enough to fill us up inside. It's like there's always something missing. Actually, like someone missing. Well, there is – the One you were made by; the One you were made for.
The incurable loneliness in the human heart is ultimately cosmic loneliness. We're lonely for God. No earth relationship has ever been able to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart. In the words of the Bible, in Isaiah 59:2, "Your sins have separated you from your God." Your sins are all those thousands of choices you've made in your lifetime that disregarded God's way for "your way." So here we are, away from the one person who has the love we're looking for. The only person who knows why we were created; the person we will meet the moment we die.
For our word for today from the Word of God, consider this promise from Jesus in light of the loneliness you know all too well. Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you. I will never forsake you." Think of it – unloseable love, unconditional love. Jesus' love for you took Him all the way to a brutal death on a cross, where He gave His life to pay your sin-bill with God. The one whose love you've been looking for all these years is yours the moment you say, "Jesus, I'm Yours." You are one step of faith away from the world's only "never leave you" love. Would you take that step today? "Jesus, I'm yours."
Our website is there to help you begin a whole new story in your life. In fact, that's the name of the website - ANewStory.com. I hope you'll go there as soon as you can today.
Your anchor relationship could begin this very day and it will never end. Never, no matter what else changes and no matter who else leaves. And you will have just spent your last day alone.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Ezekiel 44, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: DON’T SETTLE FOR A SMALL DESTINY
We re-define ourselves according to our catastrophes. As a result, we settle for a small destiny! Think you’ve lost it all? You haven’t. The truth of Romans 11:29 is that “God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.”
Here’s how it works. Your boss calls you into the office. As kind as it sounds, a layoff is a layoff. How will I pay the bills? Who’s going to hire me? Dread dominates your thoughts. But then you remember your destiny: What do I have that I cannot lose? Wait a second. I’m still God’s child. My life’s more than this life. God will make something good out of this. I will work hard, stay faithful, and trust Him—no matter what. Bingo! You just trusted your destiny. Another victory for God. It begins with a yes to God’s call on your life!
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 44
Sanctuary Rules
Then the man brought me back to the outside gate complex of the Sanctuary that faces east. But it was shut.
2-3 God spoke to me: “This gate is shut and it’s to stay shut. No one is to go through it because God, the God of Israel, has gone through it. It stays shut. Only the prince, because he’s the prince, may sit there to eat in the presence of God. He is to enter the gate complex through the porch and leave by the same way.”
4 The man led me through the north gate to the front of the Temple. I looked, and—oh!—the bright Glory of God filling the Temple of God! I fell on my face in worship.
5 God said to me, “Son of man, get a grip on yourself. Use your eyes, use your ears, pay careful attention to everything I tell you about the ordinances of this Temple of God, the way all the laws work, instructions regarding it and all the entrances and exits of the Sanctuary.
6-9 “Tell this bunch of rebels, this family Israel, ‘Message of God, the Master: No more of these vile obscenities, Israel, dragging irreverent and unrepentant outsiders, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, into my Sanctuary, feeding them the sacrificial offerings as if it were the food for a neighborhood picnic. With all your vile obscenities, you’ve broken trust with me, the solemn covenant I made with you. You haven’t taken care of my holy things. You’ve hired out the work to foreigners who care nothing for this place, my Sanctuary. No irreverent and unrepentant aliens, uncircumcised in heart or flesh, not even the ones who live among Israelites, are to enter my Sanctuary.’
10-14 “The Levites who walked off and left me, along with everyone else—all Israel—who took up with all the no-god idols, will pay for everything they did wrong. From now on they’ll do only the menial work in the Sanctuary: guard the gates and help out with the Temple chores—and also kill the sacrificial animals for the people and serve them. Because they acted as priests to the no-god idols and made my people Israel stumble and fall, I’ve taken an oath to punish them. Decree of God, the Master. Yes, they’ll pay for what they’ve done. They’re fired from the priesthood. No longer will they come into my presence and take care of my holy things. No more access to The Holy Place! They’ll have to live with what they’ve done, carry the shame of their vile and obscene lives. From now on, their job is to sweep up and run errands. That’s it.
15-16 “But the Levitical priests who descend from Zadok, who faithfully took care of my Sanctuary when everyone else went off and left me, are going to come into my presence and serve me. They are going to carry out the priestly work of offering the solemn sacrifices of worship. Decree of God, the Master. They’re the only ones permitted to enter my Sanctuary. They’re the only ones to approach my table and serve me, accompanying me in my work.
17-19 “When they enter the gate complex of the inside courtyard, they are to dress in linen. No woolens are to be worn while serving at the gate complex of the inside courtyard or inside the Temple itself. They’re to wear linen turbans on their heads and linen underclothes—nothing that makes them sweat. When they go out into the outside courtyard where the people gather, they must first change out of the clothes they have been serving in, leaving them in the sacred rooms where they change to their everyday clothes, so that they don’t trivialize their holy work by the way they dress.
20 “They are to neither shave their heads nor let their hair become unkempt, but must keep their hair trimmed and neat.
21 “No priest is to drink on the job—no wine while in the inside courtyard.
22 “Priests are not to marry widows or divorcees, but only Israelite virgins or widows of priests.
23 “Their job is to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, to show them how to discern between unclean and clean.
24 “When there’s a difference of opinion, the priests will arbitrate. They’ll decide on the basis of my judgments, laws, and statutes. They are in charge of making sure the appointed feasts are honored and my Sabbaths kept holy in the ways I’ve commanded.
25-27 “A priest must not contaminate himself by going near a corpse. But when the dead person is his father or mother, son or daughter, brother or unmarried sister, he can approach the dead. But after he has been purified, he must wait another seven days. Then, when he returns to the inside courtyard of the Sanctuary to do his priestly work in the Sanctuary, he must first offer a sin offering for himself. Decree of God, the Master.
28-30 “As to priests owning land, I am their inheritance. Don’t give any land in Israel to them. I am their ‘land,’ their inheritance. They’ll take their meals from the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings. Everything in Israel offered to God in worship is theirs. The best of everything grown, plus all special gifts, comes to the priests. All that is given in worship to God goes to them. Serve them first. Serve from your best and your home will be blessed.
31 “Priests are not to eat any meat from bird or animal unfit for ordinary human consumption, such as carcasses found dead on the road or in the field.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 12, 2017
Read: 1 Corinthians 15:42–58
42-44 This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!
45-49 We follow this sequence in Scripture: The First Adam received life, the Last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. Physical life comes first, then spiritual—a firm base shaped from the earth, a final completion coming out of heaven. The First Man was made out of earth, and people since then are earthy; the Second Man was made out of heaven, and people now can be heavenly. In the same way that we’ve worked from our earthy origins, let’s embrace our heavenly ends.
50 I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don’t in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very “nature” is to die, so how could they “naturally” end up in the Life kingdom?
51-57 But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
INSIGHT:
What small act of service can you perform today out of love for God?
Nothing Is Useless
By Xochitl Dixon
Nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. 1 Corinthians 15:58 nlt
In my third year battling discouragement and depression caused by limited mobility and chronic pain, I confided to a friend, “My body’s falling apart. I feel like I have nothing of value to offer God or anyone else.”
Her hand rested on mine. “Would you say it doesn’t make a difference when I greet you with a smile or listen to you? Would you tell me it’s worthless when I pray for you or offer a kind word?”
Do what you can with what you have and leave the results to God.
I settled into my recliner. “Of course not.”
She frowned. “Then why are you telling yourself those lies? You do all those things for me and for others.”
I thanked God for reminding me that nothing we do for Him is useless.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul assures us that our bodies may be weak now but they will be “raised in power” (v. 43). Because God promises we’ll be resurrected through Christ, we can trust Him to use every offering, every small effort done for Him, to make a difference in His kingdom (v. 58).
Even when we’re physically limited, a smile, a word of encouragement, a prayer, or a display of faith during our trial can be used to minister to the diverse and interdependent body of Christ. When we serve the Lord, no job or act of love is too menial to matter.
Jesus, thank You for valuing us and using us to build up others.
Do what you can with what you have and leave the results to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 12, 2017
Getting There (2)
They said to Him, "Rabbi…where are You staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." —John 1:38-39
Where our self-interest sleeps and the real interest is awakened. “They…remained with Him that day….” That is about all some of us ever do. We stay with Him a short time, only to wake up to our own realities of life. Our self-interest rises up and our abiding with Him is past. Yet there is no circumstance of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
“You are Simon….You shall be called Cephas” (John 1:42). God writes our new name only on those places in our lives where He has erased our pride, self-sufficiency, and self-interest. Some of us have our new name written only in certain spots, like spiritual measles. And in those areas of our lives we look all right. When we are in our best spiritual mood, you would think we were the highest quality saints. But don’t dare look at us when we are not in that mood. A true disciple is one who has his new name written all over him— self-interest, pride, and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.
Pride is the sin of making “self” our god. And some of us today do this, not like the Pharisee, but like the tax collector (see Luke 18:9-14). For you to say, “Oh, I’m no saint,” is acceptable by human standards of pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. You defy God to make you a saint, as if to say, “I am too weak and hopeless and outside the reach of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.” Why aren’t you a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe that God can make you into one. You say it would be all right if God saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is exactly what He will do! And not only do we make our home with Him, but Jesus said of His Father and Himself, “…We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). Put no conditions on your life— let Jesus be everything to you, and He will take you home with Him not only for a day, but for eternity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 12, 2017
The Most Dangerous Time of All - #7936
When you think of being a tourist in Hawaii, you think about fabulous beaches, luaus, enchanted islands-fun stuff. My first visit to Hawaii was on a stopover from a mission to Singapore and I saw some of the fun stuff. But there's one thing to see in Hawaii that isn't very happy – Pearl Harbor. It was really touching for me to stand at the USS Arizona Memorial in the middle of Pearl Harbor, right over the wreckage of one of the ships sunk by Japanese bombers that awful December morning. Entombed inside that ship are hundreds of American servicemen who went down with her. How could such a total surprise attack have happened? Actually that's been debated by historians for a long time. But one reason the attack was so tragically successful was this-it came at 7:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning-in a place where everyone felt pretty safe...and at a time when everyone's guard was down.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Dangerous Time of All."
Which leads us to our word for today from the Word of God in Deuteronomy 6:10-12. It's a warning from God about when His people tend to be the most vulnerable to spiritual disaster. "When the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers...to give you a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things that you did not provide, wells that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant-then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of...the land of slavery."
God says, "Look, when times are comfortable and you're doing well, look out. That's when My people forget Me." Like Pearl Harbor, we're most vulnerable to an enemy victory when it's a quiet time, a relaxing time-a time when our spiritual guard is down. So if these are basically good times right now, you could be in the most dangerous time of all.
Why? Because when things are tough, we've got no choice but to depend totally on our God. When the Jews were in the wilderness, they couldn't afford to forget what God wanted-they needed Him for the next day's manna, for water to drink, for protection from their enemies. But now they're in a season where they've got what they need...they're enjoying God's wonderful gifts to them, but they're not feeling the need for God like they did during those lean times. Good times are the times we're most likely to forget the Lord.
That doesn't necessarily mean you wander off into gross sin. It's usually more subtle than that. You just gradually stop putting Jesus first. He's still officially #1, but His Lordship is more honorary than real. In good times, we tend to become more and more self-focused-spending on ourselves rather than sacrificing for God's work, increasing the time we spend on ourselves and decreasing our involvement in the work of Christ, missing our daily time with the Lord-which was our life preserver when times were harder. It's just a general spiritual laxness, casual. And boy, your enemy has been waiting for this.
In those times when actually you're not consciously putting Jesus first like you were when it was tougher, that's when he hits you with his Pearl Harbor attack and he does damage you never could have dreamed. And when you have stopped putting Jesus first because things are going well, you know what He'll do? He'll inevitably do what it takes to make you remember how much you need Him.
So, if this is a relatively comfortable time right now, enjoy those great gifts from God. But don't ruin it by losing your Jesus-focus and trading it for your old self-focus. Seek first His Kingdom as much in the good times as you do in the bad times.
In the wilderness, God brought you out of yourself and He brought you deep into Him. Now don't forget Him when you're in the Promised Land He's given you.
We re-define ourselves according to our catastrophes. As a result, we settle for a small destiny! Think you’ve lost it all? You haven’t. The truth of Romans 11:29 is that “God’s gifts and God’s call are under full warranty—never canceled, never rescinded.”
Here’s how it works. Your boss calls you into the office. As kind as it sounds, a layoff is a layoff. How will I pay the bills? Who’s going to hire me? Dread dominates your thoughts. But then you remember your destiny: What do I have that I cannot lose? Wait a second. I’m still God’s child. My life’s more than this life. God will make something good out of this. I will work hard, stay faithful, and trust Him—no matter what. Bingo! You just trusted your destiny. Another victory for God. It begins with a yes to God’s call on your life!
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 44
Sanctuary Rules
Then the man brought me back to the outside gate complex of the Sanctuary that faces east. But it was shut.
2-3 God spoke to me: “This gate is shut and it’s to stay shut. No one is to go through it because God, the God of Israel, has gone through it. It stays shut. Only the prince, because he’s the prince, may sit there to eat in the presence of God. He is to enter the gate complex through the porch and leave by the same way.”
4 The man led me through the north gate to the front of the Temple. I looked, and—oh!—the bright Glory of God filling the Temple of God! I fell on my face in worship.
5 God said to me, “Son of man, get a grip on yourself. Use your eyes, use your ears, pay careful attention to everything I tell you about the ordinances of this Temple of God, the way all the laws work, instructions regarding it and all the entrances and exits of the Sanctuary.
6-9 “Tell this bunch of rebels, this family Israel, ‘Message of God, the Master: No more of these vile obscenities, Israel, dragging irreverent and unrepentant outsiders, uncircumcised in heart and flesh, into my Sanctuary, feeding them the sacrificial offerings as if it were the food for a neighborhood picnic. With all your vile obscenities, you’ve broken trust with me, the solemn covenant I made with you. You haven’t taken care of my holy things. You’ve hired out the work to foreigners who care nothing for this place, my Sanctuary. No irreverent and unrepentant aliens, uncircumcised in heart or flesh, not even the ones who live among Israelites, are to enter my Sanctuary.’
10-14 “The Levites who walked off and left me, along with everyone else—all Israel—who took up with all the no-god idols, will pay for everything they did wrong. From now on they’ll do only the menial work in the Sanctuary: guard the gates and help out with the Temple chores—and also kill the sacrificial animals for the people and serve them. Because they acted as priests to the no-god idols and made my people Israel stumble and fall, I’ve taken an oath to punish them. Decree of God, the Master. Yes, they’ll pay for what they’ve done. They’re fired from the priesthood. No longer will they come into my presence and take care of my holy things. No more access to The Holy Place! They’ll have to live with what they’ve done, carry the shame of their vile and obscene lives. From now on, their job is to sweep up and run errands. That’s it.
15-16 “But the Levitical priests who descend from Zadok, who faithfully took care of my Sanctuary when everyone else went off and left me, are going to come into my presence and serve me. They are going to carry out the priestly work of offering the solemn sacrifices of worship. Decree of God, the Master. They’re the only ones permitted to enter my Sanctuary. They’re the only ones to approach my table and serve me, accompanying me in my work.
17-19 “When they enter the gate complex of the inside courtyard, they are to dress in linen. No woolens are to be worn while serving at the gate complex of the inside courtyard or inside the Temple itself. They’re to wear linen turbans on their heads and linen underclothes—nothing that makes them sweat. When they go out into the outside courtyard where the people gather, they must first change out of the clothes they have been serving in, leaving them in the sacred rooms where they change to their everyday clothes, so that they don’t trivialize their holy work by the way they dress.
20 “They are to neither shave their heads nor let their hair become unkempt, but must keep their hair trimmed and neat.
21 “No priest is to drink on the job—no wine while in the inside courtyard.
22 “Priests are not to marry widows or divorcees, but only Israelite virgins or widows of priests.
23 “Their job is to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, to show them how to discern between unclean and clean.
24 “When there’s a difference of opinion, the priests will arbitrate. They’ll decide on the basis of my judgments, laws, and statutes. They are in charge of making sure the appointed feasts are honored and my Sabbaths kept holy in the ways I’ve commanded.
25-27 “A priest must not contaminate himself by going near a corpse. But when the dead person is his father or mother, son or daughter, brother or unmarried sister, he can approach the dead. But after he has been purified, he must wait another seven days. Then, when he returns to the inside courtyard of the Sanctuary to do his priestly work in the Sanctuary, he must first offer a sin offering for himself. Decree of God, the Master.
28-30 “As to priests owning land, I am their inheritance. Don’t give any land in Israel to them. I am their ‘land,’ their inheritance. They’ll take their meals from the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings. Everything in Israel offered to God in worship is theirs. The best of everything grown, plus all special gifts, comes to the priests. All that is given in worship to God goes to them. Serve them first. Serve from your best and your home will be blessed.
31 “Priests are not to eat any meat from bird or animal unfit for ordinary human consumption, such as carcasses found dead on the road or in the field.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 12, 2017
Read: 1 Corinthians 15:42–58
42-44 This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!
45-49 We follow this sequence in Scripture: The First Adam received life, the Last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. Physical life comes first, then spiritual—a firm base shaped from the earth, a final completion coming out of heaven. The First Man was made out of earth, and people since then are earthy; the Second Man was made out of heaven, and people now can be heavenly. In the same way that we’ve worked from our earthy origins, let’s embrace our heavenly ends.
50 I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don’t in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very “nature” is to die, so how could they “naturally” end up in the Life kingdom?
51-57 But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
58 With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
INSIGHT:
What small act of service can you perform today out of love for God?
Nothing Is Useless
By Xochitl Dixon
Nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. 1 Corinthians 15:58 nlt
In my third year battling discouragement and depression caused by limited mobility and chronic pain, I confided to a friend, “My body’s falling apart. I feel like I have nothing of value to offer God or anyone else.”
Her hand rested on mine. “Would you say it doesn’t make a difference when I greet you with a smile or listen to you? Would you tell me it’s worthless when I pray for you or offer a kind word?”
Do what you can with what you have and leave the results to God.
I settled into my recliner. “Of course not.”
She frowned. “Then why are you telling yourself those lies? You do all those things for me and for others.”
I thanked God for reminding me that nothing we do for Him is useless.
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul assures us that our bodies may be weak now but they will be “raised in power” (v. 43). Because God promises we’ll be resurrected through Christ, we can trust Him to use every offering, every small effort done for Him, to make a difference in His kingdom (v. 58).
Even when we’re physically limited, a smile, a word of encouragement, a prayer, or a display of faith during our trial can be used to minister to the diverse and interdependent body of Christ. When we serve the Lord, no job or act of love is too menial to matter.
Jesus, thank You for valuing us and using us to build up others.
Do what you can with what you have and leave the results to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 12, 2017
Getting There (2)
They said to Him, "Rabbi…where are You staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." —John 1:38-39
Where our self-interest sleeps and the real interest is awakened. “They…remained with Him that day….” That is about all some of us ever do. We stay with Him a short time, only to wake up to our own realities of life. Our self-interest rises up and our abiding with Him is past. Yet there is no circumstance of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
“You are Simon….You shall be called Cephas” (John 1:42). God writes our new name only on those places in our lives where He has erased our pride, self-sufficiency, and self-interest. Some of us have our new name written only in certain spots, like spiritual measles. And in those areas of our lives we look all right. When we are in our best spiritual mood, you would think we were the highest quality saints. But don’t dare look at us when we are not in that mood. A true disciple is one who has his new name written all over him— self-interest, pride, and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.
Pride is the sin of making “self” our god. And some of us today do this, not like the Pharisee, but like the tax collector (see Luke 18:9-14). For you to say, “Oh, I’m no saint,” is acceptable by human standards of pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. You defy God to make you a saint, as if to say, “I am too weak and hopeless and outside the reach of the atonement by the Cross of Christ.” Why aren’t you a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe that God can make you into one. You say it would be all right if God saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is exactly what He will do! And not only do we make our home with Him, but Jesus said of His Father and Himself, “…We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23). Put no conditions on your life— let Jesus be everything to you, and He will take you home with Him not only for a day, but for eternity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 12, 2017
The Most Dangerous Time of All - #7936
When you think of being a tourist in Hawaii, you think about fabulous beaches, luaus, enchanted islands-fun stuff. My first visit to Hawaii was on a stopover from a mission to Singapore and I saw some of the fun stuff. But there's one thing to see in Hawaii that isn't very happy – Pearl Harbor. It was really touching for me to stand at the USS Arizona Memorial in the middle of Pearl Harbor, right over the wreckage of one of the ships sunk by Japanese bombers that awful December morning. Entombed inside that ship are hundreds of American servicemen who went down with her. How could such a total surprise attack have happened? Actually that's been debated by historians for a long time. But one reason the attack was so tragically successful was this-it came at 7:00 A.M. on a Sunday morning-in a place where everyone felt pretty safe...and at a time when everyone's guard was down.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Dangerous Time of All."
Which leads us to our word for today from the Word of God in Deuteronomy 6:10-12. It's a warning from God about when His people tend to be the most vulnerable to spiritual disaster. "When the Lord your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers...to give you a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things that you did not provide, wells that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant-then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of...the land of slavery."
God says, "Look, when times are comfortable and you're doing well, look out. That's when My people forget Me." Like Pearl Harbor, we're most vulnerable to an enemy victory when it's a quiet time, a relaxing time-a time when our spiritual guard is down. So if these are basically good times right now, you could be in the most dangerous time of all.
Why? Because when things are tough, we've got no choice but to depend totally on our God. When the Jews were in the wilderness, they couldn't afford to forget what God wanted-they needed Him for the next day's manna, for water to drink, for protection from their enemies. But now they're in a season where they've got what they need...they're enjoying God's wonderful gifts to them, but they're not feeling the need for God like they did during those lean times. Good times are the times we're most likely to forget the Lord.
That doesn't necessarily mean you wander off into gross sin. It's usually more subtle than that. You just gradually stop putting Jesus first. He's still officially #1, but His Lordship is more honorary than real. In good times, we tend to become more and more self-focused-spending on ourselves rather than sacrificing for God's work, increasing the time we spend on ourselves and decreasing our involvement in the work of Christ, missing our daily time with the Lord-which was our life preserver when times were harder. It's just a general spiritual laxness, casual. And boy, your enemy has been waiting for this.
In those times when actually you're not consciously putting Jesus first like you were when it was tougher, that's when he hits you with his Pearl Harbor attack and he does damage you never could have dreamed. And when you have stopped putting Jesus first because things are going well, you know what He'll do? He'll inevitably do what it takes to make you remember how much you need Him.
So, if this is a relatively comfortable time right now, enjoy those great gifts from God. But don't ruin it by losing your Jesus-focus and trading it for your old self-focus. Seek first His Kingdom as much in the good times as you do in the bad times.
In the wilderness, God brought you out of yourself and He brought you deep into Him. Now don't forget Him when you're in the Promised Land He's given you.
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Ezekiel 43, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Don't Settle for a Small Destiny
We re-define ourselves according to our catastrophes. As a result, we settle for a small destiny!
Think you've lost it all? You haven't. The truth of Romans 11:29 is that God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty-never canceled, never rescinded.
Here's how it works. Your boss calls you into the office. As kind as it sounds, a layoff is a layoff. How will I pay the bills? Who's going to hire me? Dread dominates your thoughts. But then you remember your destiny. What do I have that I cannot lose? Wait a second- I am still God's child. My life is more than this life. God will make something good out of this. I will work hard, stay faithful, and trust Him-no matter what.
Bingo! You just trusted your destiny. Another victory for God. It begins with a yes to God's call on your life!
From You'll Get Through This
Ezekiel 43
The Meaning of the Temple
1-3 The man brought me to the east gate. Oh! The bright Glory of the God of Israel rivered out of the east sounding like the roar of floodwaters, and the earth itself glowed with the bright Glory. It looked just like what I had seen when he came to destroy the city, exactly like what I had seen earlier at the Kebar River. And again I fell, face to the ground.
4-5 The bright Glory of God poured into the Temple through the east gate. The Spirit put me on my feet and led me to the inside courtyard and—oh! the bright Glory of God filled the Temple!
6-9 I heard someone speaking to me from inside the Temple while the man stood beside me. He said, “Son of man, this is the place for my throne, the place I’ll plant my feet. This is the place where I’ll live with the Israelites forever. Neither the people of Israel nor their kings will ever again drag my holy name through the mud with their whoring and the no-god idols their kings set up at all the wayside shrines. When they set up their worship shrines right alongside mine with only a thin wall between them, they dragged my holy name through the mud with their obscene and vile worship. Is it any wonder that I destroyed them in anger? So let them get rid of their whoring ways and the stinking no-god idols introduced by their kings and I’ll move in and live with them forever.
10-11 “Son of man, tell the people of Israel all about the Temple so they’ll be dismayed by their wayward lives. Get them to go over the layout. That will bring them up short. Show them the whole plan of the Temple, its ins and outs, the proportions, the regulations, and the laws. Draw a picture so they can see the design and meaning and live by its design and intent.
12 “This is the law of the Temple: As it radiates from the top of the mountain, everything around it becomes holy ground. Yes, this is law, the meaning, of the Temple.
13-14 “These are the dimensions of the altar, using the long (twenty-one-inch) ruler. The gutter at its base is twenty-one inches deep and twenty-one inches wide, with a four-inch lip around its edge.
14-15 “The height of the altar is three and a half feet from the base to the first ledge and twenty inches wide. From the first ledge to the second ledge it is seven feet high and twenty-one inches wide. The altar hearth is another seven feet high. Four horns stick upward from the hearth twenty-one inches high.
16-17 “The top of the altar, the hearth, is square, twenty-one by twenty-one feet. The upper ledge is also square, twenty-four and a half feet on each side, with a ten-and-a-half-inch lip and a twenty-one-inch-wide gutter all the way around.
“The steps of the altar ascend from the east.”
18 Then the man said to me, “Son of man, God, the Master, says: ‘These are the ordinances for conduct at the altar when it is built, for sacrificing burnt offerings and sprinkling blood on it.
19-21 “‘For a sin offering, give a bull to the priests, the Levitical priests who are from the family of Zadok who come into my presence to serve me. Take some of its blood and smear it on the four horns of the altar that project from the four corners of the top ledge and all around the lip. That’s to purify the altar and make it fit for the sacrifice. Then take the bull for the sin offerings and burn it in the place set aside for this in the courtyard outside the Sanctuary.
22-24 “‘On the second day, offer a male goat without blemish for a sin offering. Purify the altar the same as you purified it for the bull. Then, when you have purified it, offer a bull without blemish and a ram without blemish from the flock. Present them before God. Sprinkle salt on them and offer them as a burnt offering to God.
25-26 “‘For seven days, prepare a goat for a sin offering daily, and also a bull and a ram from the flock, animals without blemish. For seven days the priests are to get the altar ready for its work, purifying it. This is how you dedicate it.
27 “‘After these seven days of dedication, from the eighth day on, the priests will present your burnt offerings and your peace offerings. And I’ll accept you with pleasure, with delight! Decree of God, the Master.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Read: 2 Chronicles 6:7–9, 12–15
7-9 “My father David very much wanted to build a temple honoring the Name of God, the God of Israel, but God told him, ‘It was good that you wanted to build a temple in my honor—most commendable! But you are not the one to do it. Your son, who will carry on your dynasty, will build it for my Name.’
12-16 Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took his position at the Altar of God and stretched out his hands. Solomon had made a bronze dais seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high and placed it inside the court; that’s where he now stood. Then he knelt in full view of the whole congregation, stretched his hands to heaven, and prayed:
God, O God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below, who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and unfailingly loves them while they sincerely live in obedience to your way. You kept your word to David my father, your promise. You did exactly what you promised—every detail. The proof is before us today!
Keep it up, God, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, “You’ll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel’s throne, on the one condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have.”
INSIGHT:
The dedication of the temple was much more than a formality; it was a celebration. God had kept His promise to David about the temple being built, but it was also tangible evidence of the settling and permanence of Israel. The temple wasn’t simply where Israelites went to meet with God; it was the place where God resided among His people. Truly that was reason to celebrate! It’s no wonder that Solomon knelt and spread out his hands before the Lord in response to what the Lord had done. In light of the faithful love of God, Solomon could only bow in worship and prayer.
What is your reaction to the faithfulness of the Lord? Why not pause and worship Him now with a humble heart.
Postures of the Heart
By Cindy Hess Kasper
[Solomon] knelt in front of the entire community of Israel and lifted his hands toward heaven [and] he prayed. 2 Chronicles 6:13–14 nlt
When my husband plays the harmonica for our church praise team, I have noticed that he sometimes closes his eyes when he plays a song. He says this helps him focus and block out distractions so he can play his best—just his harmonica, the music, and him—all praising God.
Some people wonder if our eyes must be closed when we pray. Since we can pray at any time in any place, however, it might prove difficult to always close our eyes—especially if we are taking a walk, pulling weeds, or driving a vehicle!
Lord, direct my focus always toward You and teach me to follow You in obedience and love.
There are also no rules on what position our body must be in when we talk to God. When King Solomon prayed to dedicate the temple he had built, he knelt down and “spread out his hands toward heaven” (2 Chron. 6:13–14). Kneeling (Eph. 3:14), standing (Luke 18:10–13), and even lying face down (Matt. 26:39) are all mentioned in the Bible as positions for prayer.
Whether we kneel or stand before God, whether we lift our hands heavenward or close our eyes so we can better focus on God—it is not the posture of our body, but of our heart that is important. Everything we do “flows from [our heart]” (Prov. 4:23). When we pray, may our hearts always be bowed in adoration, gratitude, and humility to our loving God, for we know that His eyes are “open and [His] ears attentive to the prayers” of His people (2 Chron. 6:40).
Lord, direct my focus always toward You and teach me to follow You in obedience and love.
The highest form of prayer comes from the depths of a humble heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Getting There (1)
Come to Me… —Matthew 11:28
Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words— “Come to Me.” Our Lord’s words are not, “Do this, or don’t do that,” but— “Come to me.” If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing— “Come to Me.” If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord— “Come to Me,” and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be “foolish” enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
“…and I will give you rest”— that is, “I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm.” He is not saying, “I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep.” But, in essence, He is saying, “I will get you out of bed— out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity.” Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about “suffering” the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
We re-define ourselves according to our catastrophes. As a result, we settle for a small destiny!
Think you've lost it all? You haven't. The truth of Romans 11:29 is that God's gifts and God's call are under full warranty-never canceled, never rescinded.
Here's how it works. Your boss calls you into the office. As kind as it sounds, a layoff is a layoff. How will I pay the bills? Who's going to hire me? Dread dominates your thoughts. But then you remember your destiny. What do I have that I cannot lose? Wait a second- I am still God's child. My life is more than this life. God will make something good out of this. I will work hard, stay faithful, and trust Him-no matter what.
Bingo! You just trusted your destiny. Another victory for God. It begins with a yes to God's call on your life!
From You'll Get Through This
Ezekiel 43
The Meaning of the Temple
1-3 The man brought me to the east gate. Oh! The bright Glory of the God of Israel rivered out of the east sounding like the roar of floodwaters, and the earth itself glowed with the bright Glory. It looked just like what I had seen when he came to destroy the city, exactly like what I had seen earlier at the Kebar River. And again I fell, face to the ground.
4-5 The bright Glory of God poured into the Temple through the east gate. The Spirit put me on my feet and led me to the inside courtyard and—oh! the bright Glory of God filled the Temple!
6-9 I heard someone speaking to me from inside the Temple while the man stood beside me. He said, “Son of man, this is the place for my throne, the place I’ll plant my feet. This is the place where I’ll live with the Israelites forever. Neither the people of Israel nor their kings will ever again drag my holy name through the mud with their whoring and the no-god idols their kings set up at all the wayside shrines. When they set up their worship shrines right alongside mine with only a thin wall between them, they dragged my holy name through the mud with their obscene and vile worship. Is it any wonder that I destroyed them in anger? So let them get rid of their whoring ways and the stinking no-god idols introduced by their kings and I’ll move in and live with them forever.
10-11 “Son of man, tell the people of Israel all about the Temple so they’ll be dismayed by their wayward lives. Get them to go over the layout. That will bring them up short. Show them the whole plan of the Temple, its ins and outs, the proportions, the regulations, and the laws. Draw a picture so they can see the design and meaning and live by its design and intent.
12 “This is the law of the Temple: As it radiates from the top of the mountain, everything around it becomes holy ground. Yes, this is law, the meaning, of the Temple.
13-14 “These are the dimensions of the altar, using the long (twenty-one-inch) ruler. The gutter at its base is twenty-one inches deep and twenty-one inches wide, with a four-inch lip around its edge.
14-15 “The height of the altar is three and a half feet from the base to the first ledge and twenty inches wide. From the first ledge to the second ledge it is seven feet high and twenty-one inches wide. The altar hearth is another seven feet high. Four horns stick upward from the hearth twenty-one inches high.
16-17 “The top of the altar, the hearth, is square, twenty-one by twenty-one feet. The upper ledge is also square, twenty-four and a half feet on each side, with a ten-and-a-half-inch lip and a twenty-one-inch-wide gutter all the way around.
“The steps of the altar ascend from the east.”
18 Then the man said to me, “Son of man, God, the Master, says: ‘These are the ordinances for conduct at the altar when it is built, for sacrificing burnt offerings and sprinkling blood on it.
19-21 “‘For a sin offering, give a bull to the priests, the Levitical priests who are from the family of Zadok who come into my presence to serve me. Take some of its blood and smear it on the four horns of the altar that project from the four corners of the top ledge and all around the lip. That’s to purify the altar and make it fit for the sacrifice. Then take the bull for the sin offerings and burn it in the place set aside for this in the courtyard outside the Sanctuary.
22-24 “‘On the second day, offer a male goat without blemish for a sin offering. Purify the altar the same as you purified it for the bull. Then, when you have purified it, offer a bull without blemish and a ram without blemish from the flock. Present them before God. Sprinkle salt on them and offer them as a burnt offering to God.
25-26 “‘For seven days, prepare a goat for a sin offering daily, and also a bull and a ram from the flock, animals without blemish. For seven days the priests are to get the altar ready for its work, purifying it. This is how you dedicate it.
27 “‘After these seven days of dedication, from the eighth day on, the priests will present your burnt offerings and your peace offerings. And I’ll accept you with pleasure, with delight! Decree of God, the Master.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Read: 2 Chronicles 6:7–9, 12–15
7-9 “My father David very much wanted to build a temple honoring the Name of God, the God of Israel, but God told him, ‘It was good that you wanted to build a temple in my honor—most commendable! But you are not the one to do it. Your son, who will carry on your dynasty, will build it for my Name.’
12-16 Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took his position at the Altar of God and stretched out his hands. Solomon had made a bronze dais seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high and placed it inside the court; that’s where he now stood. Then he knelt in full view of the whole congregation, stretched his hands to heaven, and prayed:
God, O God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below, who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and unfailingly loves them while they sincerely live in obedience to your way. You kept your word to David my father, your promise. You did exactly what you promised—every detail. The proof is before us today!
Keep it up, God, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, “You’ll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel’s throne, on the one condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have.”
INSIGHT:
The dedication of the temple was much more than a formality; it was a celebration. God had kept His promise to David about the temple being built, but it was also tangible evidence of the settling and permanence of Israel. The temple wasn’t simply where Israelites went to meet with God; it was the place where God resided among His people. Truly that was reason to celebrate! It’s no wonder that Solomon knelt and spread out his hands before the Lord in response to what the Lord had done. In light of the faithful love of God, Solomon could only bow in worship and prayer.
What is your reaction to the faithfulness of the Lord? Why not pause and worship Him now with a humble heart.
Postures of the Heart
By Cindy Hess Kasper
[Solomon] knelt in front of the entire community of Israel and lifted his hands toward heaven [and] he prayed. 2 Chronicles 6:13–14 nlt
When my husband plays the harmonica for our church praise team, I have noticed that he sometimes closes his eyes when he plays a song. He says this helps him focus and block out distractions so he can play his best—just his harmonica, the music, and him—all praising God.
Some people wonder if our eyes must be closed when we pray. Since we can pray at any time in any place, however, it might prove difficult to always close our eyes—especially if we are taking a walk, pulling weeds, or driving a vehicle!
Lord, direct my focus always toward You and teach me to follow You in obedience and love.
There are also no rules on what position our body must be in when we talk to God. When King Solomon prayed to dedicate the temple he had built, he knelt down and “spread out his hands toward heaven” (2 Chron. 6:13–14). Kneeling (Eph. 3:14), standing (Luke 18:10–13), and even lying face down (Matt. 26:39) are all mentioned in the Bible as positions for prayer.
Whether we kneel or stand before God, whether we lift our hands heavenward or close our eyes so we can better focus on God—it is not the posture of our body, but of our heart that is important. Everything we do “flows from [our heart]” (Prov. 4:23). When we pray, may our hearts always be bowed in adoration, gratitude, and humility to our loving God, for we know that His eyes are “open and [His] ears attentive to the prayers” of His people (2 Chron. 6:40).
Lord, direct my focus always toward You and teach me to follow You in obedience and love.
The highest form of prayer comes from the depths of a humble heart.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Getting There (1)
Come to Me… —Matthew 11:28
Where sin and sorrow stops, and the song of the saint starts. Do I really want to get there? I can right now. The questions that truly matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words— “Come to Me.” Our Lord’s words are not, “Do this, or don’t do that,” but— “Come to me.” If I will simply come to Jesus, my real life will be brought into harmony with my real desires. I will actually cease from sin, and will find the song of the Lord beginning in my life.
Have you ever come to Jesus? Look at the stubbornness of your heart. You would rather do anything than this one simple childlike thing— “Come to Me.” If you really want to experience ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.
Jesus Christ makes Himself the test to determine your genuineness. Look how He used the word come. At the most unexpected moments in your life there is this whisper of the Lord— “Come to Me,” and you are immediately drawn to Him. Personal contact with Jesus changes everything. Be “foolish” enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude necessary for you to come to Him is one where your will has made the determination to let go of everything and deliberately commit it all to Him.
“…and I will give you rest”— that is, “I will sustain you, causing you to stand firm.” He is not saying, “I will put you to bed, hold your hand, and sing you to sleep.” But, in essence, He is saying, “I will get you out of bed— out of your listlessness and exhaustion, and out of your condition of being half dead while you are still alive. I will penetrate you with the spirit of life, and you will be sustained by the perfection of vital activity.” Yet we become so weak and pitiful and talk about “suffering” the will of the Lord! Where is the majestic vitality and the power of the Son of God in that?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Ezekiel 42, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A NEW SONG
What do we say about someone who claims to be a Christian yet behaves like anything but one. God places a song in the hearts of his saved children. Some sing this song loud and long every single day of their lives. In other cases the song falls silent. Life’s hurts and happenings mute the music within. Long seasons pass in which God’s song is not sung.
The truth is, we don’t always know if someone has trusted God’s grace. A person may have feigned belief but not meant it. Whether or not someone’s faith is real isn’t ours to know. But we do know this: where there is genuine conversion, there is eternal salvation. Our task is to trust God’s ability to call his children home. We join God as he walks among his wayward and wounded children, singing. Eventually his own will hear his voice, and something within them will awaken. And when it does, they will begin to sing again.
From God is With You Every Day
Ezekiel 42
1-9 The man led me north into the outside courtyard and brought me to the rooms that are in front of the open space and the house facing north. The length of the house on the north was one hundred seventy-five feet, and its width eighty-seven and a half feet. Across the thirty-five feet that separated the inside courtyard from the paved walkway at the edge of the outside courtyard, the rooms rose level by level for three stories. In front of the rooms on the inside was a hallway seventeen and a half feet wide and one hundred seventy-five feet long. Its entrances were from the north. The upper rooms themselves were narrower, their galleries being wider than on the first and second floors of the building. The rooms on the third floor had no pillars like the pillars in the outside courtyard and were smaller than the rooms on the first and second floors. There was an outside wall parallel to the rooms and the outside courtyard. It fronted the rooms for eighty-seven and a half feet. The row of rooms facing the outside courtyard was eighty-seven and a half feet long. The row on the side nearest the Sanctuary was one hundred seventy-five feet long. The first-floor rooms had their entrance from the east, coming in from the outside courtyard.
10-12 On the south side along the length of the courtyard’s outside wall and fronting on the Temple courtyard were rooms with a walkway in front of them. These were just like the rooms on the north—same exits and dimensions—with the main entrance from the east leading to the hallway and the doors to the rooms the same as those on the north side. The design on the south was a mirror image of that on the north.
13-14 Then he said to me, “The north and south rooms adjacent to the open area are holy rooms where the priests who come before God eat the holy offerings. There they place the holy offerings—grain offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. These are set-apart rooms, holy space. After the priests have entered the Sanctuary, they must not return to the outside courtyard and mingle among the people until they change the sacred garments in which they minister and put on their regular clothes.”
15-16 After he had finished measuring what was inside the Temple area, he took me out the east gate and measured it from the outside. Using his measuring stick, he measured the east side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
17 He measured the north side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
18 He measured the south side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
19 Last of all he went to the west side and measured it: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
20 He measured the wall on all four sides. Each wall was eight hundred seventy-five feet. The walls separated the holy from the ordinary.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Read: Acts 8:26–40
The Ethiopian Eunuch
26-28 Later God’s angel spoke to Philip: “At noon today I want you to walk over to that desolate road that goes from Jerusalem down to Gaza.” He got up and went. He met an Ethiopian eunuch coming down the road. The eunuch had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was returning to Ethiopia, where he was minister in charge of all the finances of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He was riding in a chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah.
29-30 The Spirit told Philip, “Climb into the chariot.” Running up alongside, Philip heard the eunuch reading Isaiah and asked, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”
31-33 He answered, “How can I without some help?” and invited Philip into the chariot with him. The passage he was reading was this:
As a sheep led to slaughter,
and quiet as a lamb being sheared,
He was silent, saying nothing.
He was mocked and put down, never got a fair trial.
But who now can count his kin
since he’s been taken from the earth?
34-35 The eunuch said, “Tell me, who is the prophet talking about: himself or some other?” Philip grabbed his chance. Using this passage as his text, he preached Jesus to him.
36-39 As they continued down the road, they came to a stream of water. The eunuch said, “Here’s water. Why can’t I be baptized?” He ordered the chariot to stop. They both went down to the water, and Philip baptized him on the spot. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of God suddenly took Philip off, and that was the last the eunuch saw of him. But he didn’t mind. He had what he’d come for and went on down the road as happy as he could be.
40 Philip showed up in Azotus and continued north, preaching the Message in all the villages along that route until he arrived at Caesarea.
Finding Waldo
By Randy Kilgore
The [Ethiopian] asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Acts 8:34
Waldo is the cartoonish star of “Where’s Waldo,” a now-classic best-selling children’s book series. Waldo hides himself in the crowded scenes on each page, inviting children to find where he’s hiding. Parents around the world love the moments of sweet discovery when their children’s faces signal they’ve found Waldo. They also enjoy the occasions when they’re invited to help find him.
Shortly after Stephen, a deacon in the early church, was stoned to death for proclaiming Christ (see Acts 7), widespread persecution broke out against Christians, causing many to flee Jerusalem. Another deacon, Philip, followed these fleeing Christians into Samaria, where he proclaimed Christ and it was well received (8:6). While there, the Holy Spirit sent Philip on a special mission to “the desert road.” It must have seemed a strange request given the fruit his preaching was producing in Samaria itself. Imagine Philip’s joy, then, when he met and helped the Ethiopian court official find Jesus in the pages of Isaiah (vv. 26–40).
May we be prepared to share Christ as the Spirit leads us.
We too are often given the chance to help others “find Jesus” throughout the Scriptures so they may know Him more fully. Like a parent witnessing the joy of discovery in their child’s eyes and like Philip helping the Ethiopian find Jesus, it can be exhilarating for us to witness the moment of discovery in those around us. As we go through our days, may we be prepared to share Christ as the Spirit leads us, whether they are people we know well or those we meet even just once.
The biggest work a Christian can do is to find his friend and introduce him to Jesus Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 10, 2017
And After That What’s Next To Do?
…seek, and you will find… —Luke 11:9
Seek if you have not found. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss…” (James 4:3). If you ask for things from life instead of from God, “you ask amiss”; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment. The more you fulfill yourself the less you will seek God. “…seek, and you will find….” Get to work— narrow your focus and interests to this one thing. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience? “…seek, [focus,] and you will find….”
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…” (Isaiah 55:1). Are you thirsty, or complacent and indifferent— so satisfied with your own experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a doorway, not a final goal. Beware of building your faith on experience, or your life will not ring true and will only sound the note of a critical spirit. Remember that you can never give another person what you have found, but you can cause him to have a desire for it.
“…knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9). “Draw near to God…” (James 4:8). Knock— the door is closed, and your heartbeat races as you knock. “Cleanse your hands…” (James 4:8). Knock a bit louder— you begin to find that you are dirty. “…purify your hearts…” (James 4:8). It is becoming even more personal— you are desperate and serious now— you will do anything. “Lament…” (James 4:9). Have you ever lamented, expressing your sorrow before God for the condition of your inner life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are. “Humble yourselves…” (James 4:10). It is a humbling experience to knock at God’s door— you have to knock with the crucified thief. “…to him who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1465 R
What do we say about someone who claims to be a Christian yet behaves like anything but one. God places a song in the hearts of his saved children. Some sing this song loud and long every single day of their lives. In other cases the song falls silent. Life’s hurts and happenings mute the music within. Long seasons pass in which God’s song is not sung.
The truth is, we don’t always know if someone has trusted God’s grace. A person may have feigned belief but not meant it. Whether or not someone’s faith is real isn’t ours to know. But we do know this: where there is genuine conversion, there is eternal salvation. Our task is to trust God’s ability to call his children home. We join God as he walks among his wayward and wounded children, singing. Eventually his own will hear his voice, and something within them will awaken. And when it does, they will begin to sing again.
From God is With You Every Day
Ezekiel 42
1-9 The man led me north into the outside courtyard and brought me to the rooms that are in front of the open space and the house facing north. The length of the house on the north was one hundred seventy-five feet, and its width eighty-seven and a half feet. Across the thirty-five feet that separated the inside courtyard from the paved walkway at the edge of the outside courtyard, the rooms rose level by level for three stories. In front of the rooms on the inside was a hallway seventeen and a half feet wide and one hundred seventy-five feet long. Its entrances were from the north. The upper rooms themselves were narrower, their galleries being wider than on the first and second floors of the building. The rooms on the third floor had no pillars like the pillars in the outside courtyard and were smaller than the rooms on the first and second floors. There was an outside wall parallel to the rooms and the outside courtyard. It fronted the rooms for eighty-seven and a half feet. The row of rooms facing the outside courtyard was eighty-seven and a half feet long. The row on the side nearest the Sanctuary was one hundred seventy-five feet long. The first-floor rooms had their entrance from the east, coming in from the outside courtyard.
10-12 On the south side along the length of the courtyard’s outside wall and fronting on the Temple courtyard were rooms with a walkway in front of them. These were just like the rooms on the north—same exits and dimensions—with the main entrance from the east leading to the hallway and the doors to the rooms the same as those on the north side. The design on the south was a mirror image of that on the north.
13-14 Then he said to me, “The north and south rooms adjacent to the open area are holy rooms where the priests who come before God eat the holy offerings. There they place the holy offerings—grain offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings. These are set-apart rooms, holy space. After the priests have entered the Sanctuary, they must not return to the outside courtyard and mingle among the people until they change the sacred garments in which they minister and put on their regular clothes.”
15-16 After he had finished measuring what was inside the Temple area, he took me out the east gate and measured it from the outside. Using his measuring stick, he measured the east side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
17 He measured the north side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
18 He measured the south side: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
19 Last of all he went to the west side and measured it: eight hundred seventy-five feet.
20 He measured the wall on all four sides. Each wall was eight hundred seventy-five feet. The walls separated the holy from the ordinary.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, June 10, 2017
Read: Acts 8:26–40
The Ethiopian Eunuch
26-28 Later God’s angel spoke to Philip: “At noon today I want you to walk over to that desolate road that goes from Jerusalem down to Gaza.” He got up and went. He met an Ethiopian eunuch coming down the road. The eunuch had been on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and was returning to Ethiopia, where he was minister in charge of all the finances of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He was riding in a chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah.
29-30 The Spirit told Philip, “Climb into the chariot.” Running up alongside, Philip heard the eunuch reading Isaiah and asked, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”
31-33 He answered, “How can I without some help?” and invited Philip into the chariot with him. The passage he was reading was this:
As a sheep led to slaughter,
and quiet as a lamb being sheared,
He was silent, saying nothing.
He was mocked and put down, never got a fair trial.
But who now can count his kin
since he’s been taken from the earth?
34-35 The eunuch said, “Tell me, who is the prophet talking about: himself or some other?” Philip grabbed his chance. Using this passage as his text, he preached Jesus to him.
36-39 As they continued down the road, they came to a stream of water. The eunuch said, “Here’s water. Why can’t I be baptized?” He ordered the chariot to stop. They both went down to the water, and Philip baptized him on the spot. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of God suddenly took Philip off, and that was the last the eunuch saw of him. But he didn’t mind. He had what he’d come for and went on down the road as happy as he could be.
40 Philip showed up in Azotus and continued north, preaching the Message in all the villages along that route until he arrived at Caesarea.
Finding Waldo
By Randy Kilgore
The [Ethiopian] asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Acts 8:34
Waldo is the cartoonish star of “Where’s Waldo,” a now-classic best-selling children’s book series. Waldo hides himself in the crowded scenes on each page, inviting children to find where he’s hiding. Parents around the world love the moments of sweet discovery when their children’s faces signal they’ve found Waldo. They also enjoy the occasions when they’re invited to help find him.
Shortly after Stephen, a deacon in the early church, was stoned to death for proclaiming Christ (see Acts 7), widespread persecution broke out against Christians, causing many to flee Jerusalem. Another deacon, Philip, followed these fleeing Christians into Samaria, where he proclaimed Christ and it was well received (8:6). While there, the Holy Spirit sent Philip on a special mission to “the desert road.” It must have seemed a strange request given the fruit his preaching was producing in Samaria itself. Imagine Philip’s joy, then, when he met and helped the Ethiopian court official find Jesus in the pages of Isaiah (vv. 26–40).
May we be prepared to share Christ as the Spirit leads us.
We too are often given the chance to help others “find Jesus” throughout the Scriptures so they may know Him more fully. Like a parent witnessing the joy of discovery in their child’s eyes and like Philip helping the Ethiopian find Jesus, it can be exhilarating for us to witness the moment of discovery in those around us. As we go through our days, may we be prepared to share Christ as the Spirit leads us, whether they are people we know well or those we meet even just once.
The biggest work a Christian can do is to find his friend and introduce him to Jesus Christ.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 10, 2017
And After That What’s Next To Do?
…seek, and you will find… —Luke 11:9
Seek if you have not found. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss…” (James 4:3). If you ask for things from life instead of from God, “you ask amiss”; that is, you ask out of your desire for self-fulfillment. The more you fulfill yourself the less you will seek God. “…seek, and you will find….” Get to work— narrow your focus and interests to this one thing. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience? “…seek, [focus,] and you will find….”
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters…” (Isaiah 55:1). Are you thirsty, or complacent and indifferent— so satisfied with your own experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a doorway, not a final goal. Beware of building your faith on experience, or your life will not ring true and will only sound the note of a critical spirit. Remember that you can never give another person what you have found, but you can cause him to have a desire for it.
“…knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9). “Draw near to God…” (James 4:8). Knock— the door is closed, and your heartbeat races as you knock. “Cleanse your hands…” (James 4:8). Knock a bit louder— you begin to find that you are dirty. “…purify your hearts…” (James 4:8). It is becoming even more personal— you are desperate and serious now— you will do anything. “Lament…” (James 4:9). Have you ever lamented, expressing your sorrow before God for the condition of your inner life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are. “Humble yourselves…” (James 4:10). It is a humbling experience to knock at God’s door— you have to knock with the crucified thief. “…to him who knocks it will be opened” (Luke 11:10).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1465 R
Friday, June 9, 2017
1 John 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: HIS FIRST CHOICE
You are God’s child. He saw you, picked you, and placed you! Jesus said, “You did not choose me, I chose you!” You are God’s child! Replacement or fill-in? Hardly. You are His first choice. The choice wasn’t obligatory, required, compulsory, forced, or compelled. He selected you because He wanted to. You are His open, willful, voluntary choice. He walked onto the auction block where you stood, and He proclaimed, “This child is mine.”
1 Peter 1:19 says, He bought you “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” You are His child forever. Your struggles will not last forever—but you will. The promise is in 2 Timothy 2:12. “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” Believe it…clutch it…tattoo it on the interior of your heart! You are God’s child!
From You’ll Get Through This
1 John 1
1-2 From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.
3-4 We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!
Walk in the Light
5 This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.
6-7 If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
8-10 If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 09, 2017
Read: 2 Chronicles 20:14–22
14-17 Then Jahaziel was moved by the Spirit of God to speak from the midst of the congregation. (Jahaziel was the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah the Levite of the Asaph clan.) He said, “Attention everyone—all of you from out of town, all you from Jerusalem, and you King Jehoshaphat—God’s word: Don’t be afraid; don’t pay any mind to this vandal horde. This is God’s war, not yours. Tomorrow you’ll go after them; see, they’re already on their way up the slopes of Ziz; you’ll meet them at the end of the ravine near the wilderness of Jeruel. You won’t have to lift a hand in this battle; just stand firm, Judah and Jerusalem, and watch God’s saving work for you take shape. Don’t be afraid, don’t waver. March out boldly tomorrow—God is with you.”
18-19 Then Jehoshaphat knelt down, bowing with his face to the ground. All Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping God. The Levites (both Kohathites and Korahites) stood to their feet to praise God, the God of Israel; they praised at the top of their lungs!
20 They were up early in the morning, ready to march into the wilderness of Tekoa. As they were leaving, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Listen Judah and Jerusalem! Listen to what I have to say! Believe firmly in God, your God, and your lives will be firm! Believe in your prophets and you’ll come out on top!”
21 After talking it over with the people, Jehoshaphat appointed a choir for God; dressed in holy robes, they were to march ahead of the troops, singing,
Give thanks to God,
His love never quits.
22-23 As soon as they started shouting and praising, God set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir as they were attacking Judah, and they all ended up dead. The Ammonites and Moabites mistakenly attacked those from Mount Seir and massacred them. Then, further confused, they went at each other, and all ended up killed.
A Reason to Sing
By Amy Peterson
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. Psalm 47:6
Singing changes the brain! Some studies show that when we sing, our bodies release hormones that relieve anxiety and stress. Other research indicates that when a group of people sings together, their heartbeats actually synchronize with each other.
The apostle Paul’s writing encourages the church to speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19). And the Bible repeats, “Sing praise” more than fifty times.
Praising God has power to change our thoughts, our hearts, and our lives.
In 2 Chronicles 20, we read a story of God’s people demonstrating their trust in God by singing as they marched into battle. Enemies were heading toward the people of Judah. Alarmed, King Jehoshaphat called everyone together. He led the community in intense prayer. They didn’t eat or drink, but only prayed, “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (v. 12). The next day, they set out. They weren’t led by their fiercest warriors, but by their choir. They believed God’s promise that they would be delivered without having to fight at all (v. 17).
While they sang and walked toward the conflict, their enemies fought each other! By the time God’s people reached the battlefield, the fighting had ended. God saved His people as they marched by faith toward the unknown, singing His praises.
God encourages us to praise Him for good reasons. Whether or not we are marching into battle, praising God has power to change our thoughts, our hearts, and our lives.
God, we praise Your everlasting love and faithfulness! You protect and guide us, and we trust You with our lives.
Hearts in tune with God sing His praises.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 09, 2017
Then What’s Next To Do?
Everyone who asks receives… —Luke 11:10
Ask if you have not received. There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty? “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God…” (James 1:5), but be sure that you do lack wisdom before you ask. You cannot bring yourself to the point of spiritual reality anytime you choose. The best thing to do, once you realize you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit, basing your request on the promise of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the one who makes everything that Jesus did for you real in your life.
“Everyone who asks receives….” This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (seeMatthew 5:45). To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God.
“If any of you lacks wisdom….” If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality— do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means “beg.” Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg— blessed are the paupers in spirit (see Matthew 5:3).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us. Disciples Indeed, 388 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 09, 2017
No Blood, No Life - 7935
There were only two words in the headline in USA Today, but most of us understand the urgency of those two words: "Blood needed!" They were talking about an alarming shortage of blood available in blood banks due to a severe winter, a holiday season, and a bad flu season. One spokesman for the Association of Blood Banks said, "If you've had a bad car accident or a couple of gunshot wounds, you're in a world of trouble." I guess so. There is no fact more basic to human life – without the blood you need, you die.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Blood, No Life."
We understand the need for blood physically. But if God didn't explain it to us, we'd never understand our need for blood to live spiritually and to live eternally after we die. Our word for today from the Word of God tells us about it and it's a good thing. It's in Hebrews 9:22. It says, "Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness." That's pretty straight out isn't it?
The reason forgiveness is so critical is because that's the only way to have the sins of your life removed from God's book. There's no chance of heaven for you or me if we try to go there with our sin, and there's no way to get rid of our sin without God's forgiveness. And here God tells us there's no way to get that forgiveness without blood – blood that is shed for the death penalty that sin carries.
For God's ancient people, the Jews, that meant a system of regular animal sacrifices where the shedding of a substitute's blood – the blood of that animal – could provide a way to be forgiven. But it was only temporary and it was very incomplete because, as God says later in Hebrews, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). But then God sent to earth the only One who was perfect enough to be the substitute for all of us, shedding His blood for us. "We have been made holy" the Bible says. That means acceptable to God, "through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." (Hebrews 10:10)
Now, there are some people who don't like all this talk about blood. But this isn't about gore. It's about love. We just don't understand the seriousness of our condition with God. We're lifelong rebels against His rule over us. We're under an eternal death penalty that can only be paid by someone dying! If you want to see the horror of all of our lies and our selfishness and our lust and our pride and our sexual sins and all the hurting we've done, just walk up to the Cross of Jesus and look at the mangled form of the Son of God. Listen as He cries out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" That's what our sin looks like. That's what it took to pay for my sin. It took the blood of the Son of God.
If you're depending on anything else, no matter how spiritual or how religious to get you to God, you're not going to make it. God provided this way for you to be forgiven, for you to live forever. The question is, have you ever been to Jesus' cross in your heart and put all your trust in the One who died there in your place? There's no reason you have to pay for your sin. Not when Jesus, in His love, already paid it for you as your substitute. The Bible says, "He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world"...and yours.
Have you ever put your total trust in Jesus to be your Savior, your Rescuer, your Forgiver? If not, why not begin your relationship with Him today? Just say, "Jesus, I've been running my own life. I resign. I know there's a death penalty for hijacking my life from you. But I believe you loved me so much you died my death penalty when you died on that cross. You took my hell, and I know it took your blood being shed for me to be right with God. And today, I'm abandoning all trust in everything else and putting all my trust in You to be my personal Savior from my personal sin.
I'd love to help you make that commitment to Christ and understand it better. That's why our website's there. I would encourage you to go there as soon as you can. Go to ANewStory.com.
For you to have a relationship with your creator, for you to ever go to heaven, there's blood needed – the blood of Jesus Christ covering the sin of your life. Without the blood, we die. But life is within your reach right now, right where you are.
You are God’s child. He saw you, picked you, and placed you! Jesus said, “You did not choose me, I chose you!” You are God’s child! Replacement or fill-in? Hardly. You are His first choice. The choice wasn’t obligatory, required, compulsory, forced, or compelled. He selected you because He wanted to. You are His open, willful, voluntary choice. He walked onto the auction block where you stood, and He proclaimed, “This child is mine.”
1 Peter 1:19 says, He bought you “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” You are His child forever. Your struggles will not last forever—but you will. The promise is in 2 Timothy 2:12. “If we endure, we shall also reign with Him.” Believe it…clutch it…tattoo it on the interior of your heart! You are God’s child!
From You’ll Get Through This
1 John 1
1-2 From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.
3-4 We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!
Walk in the Light
5 This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.
6-7 If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
8-10 If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 09, 2017
Read: 2 Chronicles 20:14–22
14-17 Then Jahaziel was moved by the Spirit of God to speak from the midst of the congregation. (Jahaziel was the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah the Levite of the Asaph clan.) He said, “Attention everyone—all of you from out of town, all you from Jerusalem, and you King Jehoshaphat—God’s word: Don’t be afraid; don’t pay any mind to this vandal horde. This is God’s war, not yours. Tomorrow you’ll go after them; see, they’re already on their way up the slopes of Ziz; you’ll meet them at the end of the ravine near the wilderness of Jeruel. You won’t have to lift a hand in this battle; just stand firm, Judah and Jerusalem, and watch God’s saving work for you take shape. Don’t be afraid, don’t waver. March out boldly tomorrow—God is with you.”
18-19 Then Jehoshaphat knelt down, bowing with his face to the ground. All Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping God. The Levites (both Kohathites and Korahites) stood to their feet to praise God, the God of Israel; they praised at the top of their lungs!
20 They were up early in the morning, ready to march into the wilderness of Tekoa. As they were leaving, Jehoshaphat stood up and said, “Listen Judah and Jerusalem! Listen to what I have to say! Believe firmly in God, your God, and your lives will be firm! Believe in your prophets and you’ll come out on top!”
21 After talking it over with the people, Jehoshaphat appointed a choir for God; dressed in holy robes, they were to march ahead of the troops, singing,
Give thanks to God,
His love never quits.
22-23 As soon as they started shouting and praising, God set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir as they were attacking Judah, and they all ended up dead. The Ammonites and Moabites mistakenly attacked those from Mount Seir and massacred them. Then, further confused, they went at each other, and all ended up killed.
A Reason to Sing
By Amy Peterson
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. Psalm 47:6
Singing changes the brain! Some studies show that when we sing, our bodies release hormones that relieve anxiety and stress. Other research indicates that when a group of people sings together, their heartbeats actually synchronize with each other.
The apostle Paul’s writing encourages the church to speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19). And the Bible repeats, “Sing praise” more than fifty times.
Praising God has power to change our thoughts, our hearts, and our lives.
In 2 Chronicles 20, we read a story of God’s people demonstrating their trust in God by singing as they marched into battle. Enemies were heading toward the people of Judah. Alarmed, King Jehoshaphat called everyone together. He led the community in intense prayer. They didn’t eat or drink, but only prayed, “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (v. 12). The next day, they set out. They weren’t led by their fiercest warriors, but by their choir. They believed God’s promise that they would be delivered without having to fight at all (v. 17).
While they sang and walked toward the conflict, their enemies fought each other! By the time God’s people reached the battlefield, the fighting had ended. God saved His people as they marched by faith toward the unknown, singing His praises.
God encourages us to praise Him for good reasons. Whether or not we are marching into battle, praising God has power to change our thoughts, our hearts, and our lives.
God, we praise Your everlasting love and faithfulness! You protect and guide us, and we trust You with our lives.
Hearts in tune with God sing His praises.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 09, 2017
Then What’s Next To Do?
Everyone who asks receives… —Luke 11:10
Ask if you have not received. There is nothing more difficult than asking. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, and even suffer as a result of their going unfulfilled, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of your total insufficiency and poverty? “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God…” (James 1:5), but be sure that you do lack wisdom before you ask. You cannot bring yourself to the point of spiritual reality anytime you choose. The best thing to do, once you realize you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit, basing your request on the promise of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the one who makes everything that Jesus did for you real in your life.
“Everyone who asks receives….” This does not mean that you will not get if you do not ask, but it means that until you come to the point of asking, you will not receive from God (seeMatthew 5:45). To be able to receive means that you have to come into the relationship of a child of God, and then you comprehend and appreciate mentally, morally, and with spiritual understanding, that these things come from God.
“If any of you lacks wisdom….” If you realize that you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality— do not put the blinders of reason on again. The word ask actually means “beg.” Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are poor enough spiritually to show our interest. Yet we will never receive if we ask with a certain result in mind, because we are asking out of our lust, not out of our poverty. A pauper does not ask out of any reason other than the completely hopeless and painful condition of his poverty. He is not ashamed to beg— blessed are the paupers in spirit (see Matthew 5:3).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us. Disciples Indeed, 388 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 09, 2017
No Blood, No Life - 7935
There were only two words in the headline in USA Today, but most of us understand the urgency of those two words: "Blood needed!" They were talking about an alarming shortage of blood available in blood banks due to a severe winter, a holiday season, and a bad flu season. One spokesman for the Association of Blood Banks said, "If you've had a bad car accident or a couple of gunshot wounds, you're in a world of trouble." I guess so. There is no fact more basic to human life – without the blood you need, you die.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Blood, No Life."
We understand the need for blood physically. But if God didn't explain it to us, we'd never understand our need for blood to live spiritually and to live eternally after we die. Our word for today from the Word of God tells us about it and it's a good thing. It's in Hebrews 9:22. It says, "Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness." That's pretty straight out isn't it?
The reason forgiveness is so critical is because that's the only way to have the sins of your life removed from God's book. There's no chance of heaven for you or me if we try to go there with our sin, and there's no way to get rid of our sin without God's forgiveness. And here God tells us there's no way to get that forgiveness without blood – blood that is shed for the death penalty that sin carries.
For God's ancient people, the Jews, that meant a system of regular animal sacrifices where the shedding of a substitute's blood – the blood of that animal – could provide a way to be forgiven. But it was only temporary and it was very incomplete because, as God says later in Hebrews, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (Hebrews 10:4). But then God sent to earth the only One who was perfect enough to be the substitute for all of us, shedding His blood for us. "We have been made holy" the Bible says. That means acceptable to God, "through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all." (Hebrews 10:10)
Now, there are some people who don't like all this talk about blood. But this isn't about gore. It's about love. We just don't understand the seriousness of our condition with God. We're lifelong rebels against His rule over us. We're under an eternal death penalty that can only be paid by someone dying! If you want to see the horror of all of our lies and our selfishness and our lust and our pride and our sexual sins and all the hurting we've done, just walk up to the Cross of Jesus and look at the mangled form of the Son of God. Listen as He cries out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" That's what our sin looks like. That's what it took to pay for my sin. It took the blood of the Son of God.
If you're depending on anything else, no matter how spiritual or how religious to get you to God, you're not going to make it. God provided this way for you to be forgiven, for you to live forever. The question is, have you ever been to Jesus' cross in your heart and put all your trust in the One who died there in your place? There's no reason you have to pay for your sin. Not when Jesus, in His love, already paid it for you as your substitute. The Bible says, "He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world"...and yours.
Have you ever put your total trust in Jesus to be your Savior, your Rescuer, your Forgiver? If not, why not begin your relationship with Him today? Just say, "Jesus, I've been running my own life. I resign. I know there's a death penalty for hijacking my life from you. But I believe you loved me so much you died my death penalty when you died on that cross. You took my hell, and I know it took your blood being shed for me to be right with God. And today, I'm abandoning all trust in everything else and putting all my trust in You to be my personal Savior from my personal sin.
I'd love to help you make that commitment to Christ and understand it better. That's why our website's there. I would encourage you to go there as soon as you can. Go to ANewStory.com.
For you to have a relationship with your creator, for you to ever go to heaven, there's blood needed – the blood of Jesus Christ covering the sin of your life. Without the blood, we die. But life is within your reach right now, right where you are.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
2 Peter 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LOOKING UPWARD
Genesis tells us, “When Joseph had come to his brothers, they stripped him of his tunic. . .they took him and cast him into a pit. . .and they sat down to eat a meal.” Joseph’s hands were bound, his ankles tied, and his voice became hoarse from screaming. It wasn’t that his brothers didn’t hear him. Twenty-two years later, when a famine tamed their swagger, they would confess, “We saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear.”
You’re a version of Joseph. You carry something of God within you—something the world needs. If Satan can neutralize you, he can mute your influence. Life in the pit stinks! Yet it forces you to look upward. Someone from up there must come down here and give you a hand. God did for Joseph. He will do the same for you!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Peter 3
In the Last Days
1-2 My dear friends, this is now the second time I’ve written to you, both letters reminders to hold your minds in a state of undistracted attention. Keep in mind what the holy prophets said, and the command of our Master and Savior that was passed on by your apostles.
3-4 First off, you need to know that in the last days, mockers are going to have a heyday. Reducing everything to the level of their puny feelings, they’ll mock, “So what’s happened to the promise of his Coming? Our ancestors are dead and buried, and everything’s going on just as it has from the first day of creation. Nothing’s changed.”
5-7 They conveniently forget that long ago all the galaxies and this very planet were brought into existence out of watery chaos by God’s word. Then God’s word brought the chaos back in a flood that destroyed the world. The current galaxies and earth are fuel for the final fire. God is poised, ready to speak his word again, ready to give the signal for the judgment and destruction of the desecrating skeptics.
The Day the Sky Will Collapse
8-9 Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
10 But when the Day of God’s Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment.
11-13 Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life? Daily expect the Day of God, eager for its arrival. The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day—but we’ll hardly notice. We’ll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.
14-16 So, my dear friends, since this is what you have to look forward to, do your very best to be found living at your best, in purity and peace. Interpret our Master’s patient restraint for what it is: salvation. Our good brother Paul, who was given much wisdom in these matters, refers to this in all his letters, and has written you essentially the same thing. Some things Paul writes are difficult to understand. Irresponsible people who don’t know what they are talking about twist them every which way. They do it to the rest of the Scriptures, too, destroying themselves as they do it.
17-18 But you, friends, are well-warned. Be on guard lest you lose your footing and get swept off your feet by these lawless and loose-talking teachers. Grow in grace and understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Glory to the Master, now and forever! Yes!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 08, 2017
Read: Hebrews 8:6–13
6-13 But Jesus’ priestly work far surpasses what these other priests do, since he’s working from a far better plan. If the first plan—the old covenant—had worked out, a second wouldn’t have been needed. But we know the first was found wanting, because God said,
Heads up! The days are coming
when I’ll set up a new plan
for dealing with Israel and Judah.
I’ll throw out the old plan
I set up with their ancestors
when I led them by the hand out of Egypt.
They didn’t keep their part of the bargain,
so I looked away and let it go.
This new plan I’m making with Israel
isn’t going to be written on paper,
isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;
This time I’m writing out the plan in them,
carving it on the lining of their hearts.
I’ll be their God,
they’ll be my people.
They won’t go to school to learn about me,
or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons.
They’ll all get to know me firsthand,
the little and the big, the small and the great.
They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven,
with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.
By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.
INSIGHT:
The book of Hebrews was written to a Jewish audience who had trusted Jesus as Messiah. Because of their Old Testament background, they were tempted to regress into trusting the Mosaic law instead of Christ’s sufficiency. So the author speaks of Jesus as providing a superior ministry, a superior covenant, and better promises (8:6).
Consider God’s promise of forgiveness in Hebrews 8:12—“I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”—and see how you have every reason to rejoice.
Rings and Grace
By Keila Ochoa
[I] will remember their sins no more. Hebrews 8:12
When I look at my hands, I am reminded that I lost my wedding and engagement rings. I was multitasking as I packed for a trip, and I still have no idea where they ended up.
I dreaded telling my husband about my careless mistake—worried how the news would affect him. But he responded with more compassion and care for me than concern over the rings. However, there are times when I still want to do something to earn his grace! He, on the contrary, doesn’t hold this episode against me.
Grace and forgiveness are unearned gifts.
So many times we remember our sins and feel we must do something to earn God’s forgiveness. But God has said it is by grace, not by works, that we are saved (Eph. 2:8–9). Speaking of a new covenant, God promised Israel, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34). We have a God who forgives and no longer calls to mind the wrongs we have done.
We may still feel sad about our past, but we need to trust His promise and believe His grace and forgiveness is real through faith in Jesus Christ. This news should lead us to thankfulness and the assurance faith brings. When God forgives, He forgets.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your grace and Your offer of salvation and forgiveness through Christ. Thank You for this free gift that is not based on anything I can do.
Grace and forgiveness are unearned gifts.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 08, 2017
What’s Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. —John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).
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
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 08, 2017
Re-Aiming Your Lens - #7934
It was an ugly day. The worst part was that it was a weekend when Karen and I had finally been able to get away for a weekend in the Adirondack Mountains. But the weather didn't seem to care. Our Saturday was drippy and damp and chilly. I finally said, "Let's go home, Karen. We can get this weather for free there!" So I started hauling out suitcases and grumbling most of the way. When I looked around to see where Karen was, I saw her leaning over this wishing well-and she wasn't moving. Old Happy Husband ambled over there to get her to the car. When I got to the well, I saw she had her long camera lens trained on something just inside the well. Quite a good photographer, this girl. And I learned that she usually knew what she was doing when it looked like she didn't. She said, "Look at this." It was a large, perfectly engineered spider web, and little rain droplets sprinkled all over it. Wouldn't you know, she went back, enlarged that photo and took first prize in an art contest for a picture called "Jeweled Web". Amazing! While I was looking at the ugly all around us, she found something beautiful to train her lens on!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Re-Aiming Your Lens."
I wonder where you've been aiming your lens and what kind of attitude you've had lately. Those two things really go together.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 34-where our lens is supposed to be focused. David is writing from a miserable situation. The king of Israel is furiously jealous of him and pursuing him with a posse. The king wants him dead. David is hiding in a cave, he's a fugitive, unsure if he will be alive or dead tomorrow. His situation probably might even make yours look fairly bright.
Here's what he says, "I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips." He says, "I've decided to focus my lens-not on the bad things going on. There's a lot of them, but on the greatness of my God and the great things He's doing." So, here are some things David finds to be thankful for in this dark season.
"I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears...the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and he delivers him...those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." Just like my wife on that ugly day, David finds what's beautiful and focuses his lens on it. His praise just lifts him above his situation.
So what would a tape of this last week's conversations reveal about what's in your heart? Have you been tending to lead with the negative...to talk a lot about what's wrong? Or would the recording reflect a conversation that was filled with things to thank God for...with the good things He's doing? God tells us we're to be known for consistent praise-"always on my lips".
It's also contagious praise. David says, "Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together." There's something about 'praisy' talk that affects the overall climate in the room, and it starts turning a cloudy climate into a sunny day. David also talks about the fact that praise is comforting. "My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice."
Your negative talk is just going to further submerge someone who is already sinking. But your positive praise, your focus on an awesome God, you can lighten their load and help them aim their lens at the Savior instead of the situation.
Here's what happens to the person who determines that praise is going to be what their mouth is used for-"Those who look to Him (David says) are radiant." They carry this God-glow with them wherever they are. And it's all in which way you decide to aim your lens.
Make a choice. Focus on what's beautiful.
Genesis tells us, “When Joseph had come to his brothers, they stripped him of his tunic. . .they took him and cast him into a pit. . .and they sat down to eat a meal.” Joseph’s hands were bound, his ankles tied, and his voice became hoarse from screaming. It wasn’t that his brothers didn’t hear him. Twenty-two years later, when a famine tamed their swagger, they would confess, “We saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear.”
You’re a version of Joseph. You carry something of God within you—something the world needs. If Satan can neutralize you, he can mute your influence. Life in the pit stinks! Yet it forces you to look upward. Someone from up there must come down here and give you a hand. God did for Joseph. He will do the same for you!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Peter 3
In the Last Days
1-2 My dear friends, this is now the second time I’ve written to you, both letters reminders to hold your minds in a state of undistracted attention. Keep in mind what the holy prophets said, and the command of our Master and Savior that was passed on by your apostles.
3-4 First off, you need to know that in the last days, mockers are going to have a heyday. Reducing everything to the level of their puny feelings, they’ll mock, “So what’s happened to the promise of his Coming? Our ancestors are dead and buried, and everything’s going on just as it has from the first day of creation. Nothing’s changed.”
5-7 They conveniently forget that long ago all the galaxies and this very planet were brought into existence out of watery chaos by God’s word. Then God’s word brought the chaos back in a flood that destroyed the world. The current galaxies and earth are fuel for the final fire. God is poised, ready to speak his word again, ready to give the signal for the judgment and destruction of the desecrating skeptics.
The Day the Sky Will Collapse
8-9 Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
10 But when the Day of God’s Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment.
11-13 Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life? Daily expect the Day of God, eager for its arrival. The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day—but we’ll hardly notice. We’ll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.
14-16 So, my dear friends, since this is what you have to look forward to, do your very best to be found living at your best, in purity and peace. Interpret our Master’s patient restraint for what it is: salvation. Our good brother Paul, who was given much wisdom in these matters, refers to this in all his letters, and has written you essentially the same thing. Some things Paul writes are difficult to understand. Irresponsible people who don’t know what they are talking about twist them every which way. They do it to the rest of the Scriptures, too, destroying themselves as they do it.
17-18 But you, friends, are well-warned. Be on guard lest you lose your footing and get swept off your feet by these lawless and loose-talking teachers. Grow in grace and understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Glory to the Master, now and forever! Yes!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 08, 2017
Read: Hebrews 8:6–13
6-13 But Jesus’ priestly work far surpasses what these other priests do, since he’s working from a far better plan. If the first plan—the old covenant—had worked out, a second wouldn’t have been needed. But we know the first was found wanting, because God said,
Heads up! The days are coming
when I’ll set up a new plan
for dealing with Israel and Judah.
I’ll throw out the old plan
I set up with their ancestors
when I led them by the hand out of Egypt.
They didn’t keep their part of the bargain,
so I looked away and let it go.
This new plan I’m making with Israel
isn’t going to be written on paper,
isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;
This time I’m writing out the plan in them,
carving it on the lining of their hearts.
I’ll be their God,
they’ll be my people.
They won’t go to school to learn about me,
or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons.
They’ll all get to know me firsthand,
the little and the big, the small and the great.
They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven,
with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.
By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.
INSIGHT:
The book of Hebrews was written to a Jewish audience who had trusted Jesus as Messiah. Because of their Old Testament background, they were tempted to regress into trusting the Mosaic law instead of Christ’s sufficiency. So the author speaks of Jesus as providing a superior ministry, a superior covenant, and better promises (8:6).
Consider God’s promise of forgiveness in Hebrews 8:12—“I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”—and see how you have every reason to rejoice.
Rings and Grace
By Keila Ochoa
[I] will remember their sins no more. Hebrews 8:12
When I look at my hands, I am reminded that I lost my wedding and engagement rings. I was multitasking as I packed for a trip, and I still have no idea where they ended up.
I dreaded telling my husband about my careless mistake—worried how the news would affect him. But he responded with more compassion and care for me than concern over the rings. However, there are times when I still want to do something to earn his grace! He, on the contrary, doesn’t hold this episode against me.
Grace and forgiveness are unearned gifts.
So many times we remember our sins and feel we must do something to earn God’s forgiveness. But God has said it is by grace, not by works, that we are saved (Eph. 2:8–9). Speaking of a new covenant, God promised Israel, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34). We have a God who forgives and no longer calls to mind the wrongs we have done.
We may still feel sad about our past, but we need to trust His promise and believe His grace and forgiveness is real through faith in Jesus Christ. This news should lead us to thankfulness and the assurance faith brings. When God forgives, He forgets.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your grace and Your offer of salvation and forgiveness through Christ. Thank You for this free gift that is not based on anything I can do.
Grace and forgiveness are unearned gifts.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 08, 2017
What’s Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. —John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).
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
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 08, 2017
Re-Aiming Your Lens - #7934
It was an ugly day. The worst part was that it was a weekend when Karen and I had finally been able to get away for a weekend in the Adirondack Mountains. But the weather didn't seem to care. Our Saturday was drippy and damp and chilly. I finally said, "Let's go home, Karen. We can get this weather for free there!" So I started hauling out suitcases and grumbling most of the way. When I looked around to see where Karen was, I saw her leaning over this wishing well-and she wasn't moving. Old Happy Husband ambled over there to get her to the car. When I got to the well, I saw she had her long camera lens trained on something just inside the well. Quite a good photographer, this girl. And I learned that she usually knew what she was doing when it looked like she didn't. She said, "Look at this." It was a large, perfectly engineered spider web, and little rain droplets sprinkled all over it. Wouldn't you know, she went back, enlarged that photo and took first prize in an art contest for a picture called "Jeweled Web". Amazing! While I was looking at the ugly all around us, she found something beautiful to train her lens on!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Re-Aiming Your Lens."
I wonder where you've been aiming your lens and what kind of attitude you've had lately. Those two things really go together.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 34-where our lens is supposed to be focused. David is writing from a miserable situation. The king of Israel is furiously jealous of him and pursuing him with a posse. The king wants him dead. David is hiding in a cave, he's a fugitive, unsure if he will be alive or dead tomorrow. His situation probably might even make yours look fairly bright.
Here's what he says, "I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips." He says, "I've decided to focus my lens-not on the bad things going on. There's a lot of them, but on the greatness of my God and the great things He's doing." So, here are some things David finds to be thankful for in this dark season.
"I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears...the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and he delivers him...those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." Just like my wife on that ugly day, David finds what's beautiful and focuses his lens on it. His praise just lifts him above his situation.
So what would a tape of this last week's conversations reveal about what's in your heart? Have you been tending to lead with the negative...to talk a lot about what's wrong? Or would the recording reflect a conversation that was filled with things to thank God for...with the good things He's doing? God tells us we're to be known for consistent praise-"always on my lips".
It's also contagious praise. David says, "Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together." There's something about 'praisy' talk that affects the overall climate in the room, and it starts turning a cloudy climate into a sunny day. David also talks about the fact that praise is comforting. "My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice."
Your negative talk is just going to further submerge someone who is already sinking. But your positive praise, your focus on an awesome God, you can lighten their load and help them aim their lens at the Savior instead of the situation.
Here's what happens to the person who determines that praise is going to be what their mouth is used for-"Those who look to Him (David says) are radiant." They carry this God-glow with them wherever they are. And it's all in which way you decide to aim your lens.
Make a choice. Focus on what's beautiful.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Ezekiel 41, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE MASTER BUILDER
Several years ago the state was rebuilding an overpass near my house. Three lanes reduced to one, transforming a morning commute into a daily stew. The project, like human history, had been in development since before time began. My next-door neighbors were highway engineers, consultants to the department of transportation. “It’ll take time,” they responded to my grumbles, “but it will get finished. “ They had seen the plans.
In the Old Testament story of Joseph, God allows us to study His plans. Brothers dumping brother. Their family feuds scattered like nails and cement bags on a vacant lot. But watch the Master Builder at work. He cleared the debris and stabilized the structure. And the chaos of Genesis 37:24—“They cast him into the pit”—became the triumph of Genesis 50:20—“life for many people.” God redeemed the story of Joseph. Can’t He redeem your story as well?
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 41
1-2 He brought me into the Temple itself and measured the doorposts on each side. Each was ten and a half feet thick. The entrance was seventeen and a half feet wide. The walls on each side were eight and three-quarters feet thick.
He also measured the Temple Sanctuary: seventy feet by thirty-five feet.
3-4 He went further in and measured the doorposts at the entrance: Each was three and a half feet thick. The entrance itself was ten and a half feet wide, and the entrance walls were twelve and a quarter feet thick. He measured the inside Sanctuary, thirty-five feet square, set at the end of the main Sanctuary. He told me, “This is The Holy of Holies.”
5-7 He measured the wall of the Temple. It was ten and a half feet thick. The side rooms around the Temple were seven feet wide. There were three floors of these side rooms, thirty rooms on each of the three floors. There were supporting beams around the Temple wall to hold up the side rooms, but they were freestanding, not attached to the wall itself. The side rooms around the Temple became wider from first floor to second floor to third floor. A staircase went from the bottom floor, through the middle, and then to the top floor.
8-11 I observed that the Temple had a ten-and-a-half-foot-thick raised base around it, which provided a foundation for the side rooms. The outside walls of the side rooms were eight and three-quarters feet thick. The open area between the side rooms of the Temple and the priests’ rooms was a thirty-five-foot-wide strip all around the Temple. There were two entrances to the side rooms from the open area, one placed on the north side, the other on the south. There were eight and three-quarters feet of open space all around.
12 The house that faced the Temple courtyard to the west was one hundred twenty-two and a half feet wide, with eight-and-three-quarters-foot-thick walls. The length of the wall and building was one hundred fifty-seven and a half feet.
13-14 He measured the Temple: one hundred seventy-five feet long. The Temple courtyard and the house, including its walls, measured a hundred seventy-five feet. The breadth of the front of the Temple and the open area to the east was a hundred seventy-five feet.
15-18 He measured the length of the house facing the courtyard at the back of the Temple, including the shelters on each side: one hundred seventy-five feet. The main Sanctuary, the inner Sanctuary, and the vestibule facing the courtyard were paneled with wood, and had window frames and door frames in all three sections. From floor to windows the walls were paneled. Above the outside entrance to the inner Sanctuary and on the walls at regular intervals all around the inner Sanctuary and the main Sanctuary, angel-cherubim and palm trees were carved in alternating sequence.
18-20 Each angel-cherub had two faces: a human face toward the palm tree on the right and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the left. They were carved around the entire Temple. The cherubim–palm tree motif was carved from floor to door height on the wall of the main Sanctuary.
21-22 The main Sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe. In front of the Holy Place was something that looked like an altar of wood, five and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. The man said to me, “This is the table that stands before God.”
23-26 Both the main Sanctuary and the Holy Place had double doors. Each door had two leaves: two hinged leaves for each door, one set swinging inward and the other set outward. The doors of the main Sanctuary were carved with angel-cherubim and palm trees. There was a canopy of wood in front of the vestibule outside. There were narrow windows alternating with carved palm trees on both sides of the porch.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Read: Genesis 3:1–10
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
INSIGHT:
God did not force Adam and Eve to obey Him but allowed them to choose whether or not they would obey. Similarly, He did not force them to come to Him after they sinned. Instead, He called to them and allowed them to respond to His call. Have you responded to God’s offer of a restored relationship with Him?
God Calling
By James Banks
This is how God showed his love . . . : He sent his one and only Son into the world. 1 John 4:9
One morning my daughter gave her eleven-month-old son her cell phone for a moment to entertain him. Less than a minute later my phone rang, and as I picked it up I heard his little voice. He had somehow hit the “speed dial” to my number, and what followed was a “conversation” I will long remember. My grandson can only say a few words, but he knows my voice and responds to it. So I talked to him and told him how much I love him.
The joy I felt at the sound of my grandson’s voice was a reminder to me of God’s deep desire for a relationship with us. From the very beginning, the Bible shows God actively pursuing us. After Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God and then hid from Him in the garden, “the Lord God called” to Adam (Gen. 3:9).
God's love for us is revealed through Jesus.
God continued to pursue humanity through Jesus. Because God desires a relationship with us, He sent Jesus to earth to pay the penalty for our sin by His death on the cross. “This is how God showed his love . . . . He sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God” (1 John 4:9–10 The Message).
How good it is to know that God loves us and wants us to respond to His love through Jesus. Even when we don't quite know what to say, our Father longs to hear from us!
Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me and pursuing a relationship with me. Help me to be a joy to You by drawing near to You.
God’s love for us is revealed through Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do… —John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point— the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? “If you abide in Me…”— that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point— “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these— what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
“Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do….” The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God’s foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The message of the prophets is that although they have forsaken God, it has not altered God. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the same truth, that God remains God even when we are unfaithful (see 2 Timothy 2:13). Never interpret God as changing with our changes. He never does; there is no variableness in Him. Notes on Ezekiel, 1477 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love - #7933
It was a 2004 American League Championship Series. I remember it because my Yankees were in it. One big reason the Boston Red Sox triumphed over my New York Yankees (Boo!) was a veteran pitcher named Curt Schilling. He was selected to pitch the opening game in the New York series, and although he had torn an ankle tendon in his previous start, he thought he could gut it out. He was wrong. Losing that game actually started the Red Sox into a 3-0 deficit in the best of seven series. They started to come back, and amazingly, Curt Schilling had a chance to try again. Later he would tell the press that the first game showed what he could do. He said the second outing showed what God can do. Although Curt had been named "Good Guy of the Year" by Sporting News, he had never talked publicly about the commitment to Jesus Christ that he'd made several years before.
This time, while he was praying with his pastor before the game, he expressed his willingness to speak up about his Lord if he was given the opportunity. Well, he pitched an incredible four-hit victory that gave him that chance. He clearly glorified God in that post game interview. Later, when he pitched a winning game in Game 2 of the World Series, Curt Schilling told reporters, "If you haven't checked it out, read Philippians 4:13. That's 'I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.' I can't do anything these days without having that reverberate in my head." Those public declarations of his dependency on Christ - that might have been his greatest victories. He said later, "I've learned that you should never hide your faith. I had wasted seven years. People didn't know."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love."
And what is that? Remaining silent about your Savior to the people in your personal world. First, because Jesus died publicly on a cross for you. He was not ashamed of us. How can we be ashamed of Him? Secondly, because the eternity of the people you care about depends on them understanding what Jesus did on that cross for them. You know what He did. They probably don't. That makes you responsible.
"Never hide." That was Curt Schilling's conclusion looking back on what he called the "wasted years" of his spiritual silence. Sure, everyone knew he was a "good guy." But people "didn't know it was all about his Jesus." If you belong to Jesus, He laid out very plainly your role in the world in Matthew 5:14-16, our word for today from the Word of God. "You are the light of the world...People do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl! Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." So Jesus says, "Show them the difference I make by the way you live, and then tell them I'm the One who's making the difference."
Helping people you care about be in heaven with you begins with repenting of the silence that has left them in the dark spiritually. Then you start praying daily for natural opportunities to bring up your personal relationship with Jesus and to tell them about the difference He's making when you're winning, when you're struggling, when you're there for them, when they're in a crisis or when you are in a crisis. Open doors to talk about Jesus, because He's the great Difference-Maker.
Out of all the Christians on this planet, God has placed you in their life as His chosen messenger to introduce them to His Son. How are you doing? You're the Jesus-light where you work, where you play, where you go to school, and where you live. In olden days, if the lighthouse went out, ships were lost - lives were lost.
If your light isn't shining where you are, lives will be lost – forever; people you care about, people who need a rescuer, people who desperately need for you to tell them about your Jesus.
Several years ago the state was rebuilding an overpass near my house. Three lanes reduced to one, transforming a morning commute into a daily stew. The project, like human history, had been in development since before time began. My next-door neighbors were highway engineers, consultants to the department of transportation. “It’ll take time,” they responded to my grumbles, “but it will get finished. “ They had seen the plans.
In the Old Testament story of Joseph, God allows us to study His plans. Brothers dumping brother. Their family feuds scattered like nails and cement bags on a vacant lot. But watch the Master Builder at work. He cleared the debris and stabilized the structure. And the chaos of Genesis 37:24—“They cast him into the pit”—became the triumph of Genesis 50:20—“life for many people.” God redeemed the story of Joseph. Can’t He redeem your story as well?
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 41
1-2 He brought me into the Temple itself and measured the doorposts on each side. Each was ten and a half feet thick. The entrance was seventeen and a half feet wide. The walls on each side were eight and three-quarters feet thick.
He also measured the Temple Sanctuary: seventy feet by thirty-five feet.
3-4 He went further in and measured the doorposts at the entrance: Each was three and a half feet thick. The entrance itself was ten and a half feet wide, and the entrance walls were twelve and a quarter feet thick. He measured the inside Sanctuary, thirty-five feet square, set at the end of the main Sanctuary. He told me, “This is The Holy of Holies.”
5-7 He measured the wall of the Temple. It was ten and a half feet thick. The side rooms around the Temple were seven feet wide. There were three floors of these side rooms, thirty rooms on each of the three floors. There were supporting beams around the Temple wall to hold up the side rooms, but they were freestanding, not attached to the wall itself. The side rooms around the Temple became wider from first floor to second floor to third floor. A staircase went from the bottom floor, through the middle, and then to the top floor.
8-11 I observed that the Temple had a ten-and-a-half-foot-thick raised base around it, which provided a foundation for the side rooms. The outside walls of the side rooms were eight and three-quarters feet thick. The open area between the side rooms of the Temple and the priests’ rooms was a thirty-five-foot-wide strip all around the Temple. There were two entrances to the side rooms from the open area, one placed on the north side, the other on the south. There were eight and three-quarters feet of open space all around.
12 The house that faced the Temple courtyard to the west was one hundred twenty-two and a half feet wide, with eight-and-three-quarters-foot-thick walls. The length of the wall and building was one hundred fifty-seven and a half feet.
13-14 He measured the Temple: one hundred seventy-five feet long. The Temple courtyard and the house, including its walls, measured a hundred seventy-five feet. The breadth of the front of the Temple and the open area to the east was a hundred seventy-five feet.
15-18 He measured the length of the house facing the courtyard at the back of the Temple, including the shelters on each side: one hundred seventy-five feet. The main Sanctuary, the inner Sanctuary, and the vestibule facing the courtyard were paneled with wood, and had window frames and door frames in all three sections. From floor to windows the walls were paneled. Above the outside entrance to the inner Sanctuary and on the walls at regular intervals all around the inner Sanctuary and the main Sanctuary, angel-cherubim and palm trees were carved in alternating sequence.
18-20 Each angel-cherub had two faces: a human face toward the palm tree on the right and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the left. They were carved around the entire Temple. The cherubim–palm tree motif was carved from floor to door height on the wall of the main Sanctuary.
21-22 The main Sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe. In front of the Holy Place was something that looked like an altar of wood, five and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. The man said to me, “This is the table that stands before God.”
23-26 Both the main Sanctuary and the Holy Place had double doors. Each door had two leaves: two hinged leaves for each door, one set swinging inward and the other set outward. The doors of the main Sanctuary were carved with angel-cherubim and palm trees. There was a canopy of wood in front of the vestibule outside. There were narrow windows alternating with carved palm trees on both sides of the porch.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Read: Genesis 3:1–10
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
INSIGHT:
God did not force Adam and Eve to obey Him but allowed them to choose whether or not they would obey. Similarly, He did not force them to come to Him after they sinned. Instead, He called to them and allowed them to respond to His call. Have you responded to God’s offer of a restored relationship with Him?
God Calling
By James Banks
This is how God showed his love . . . : He sent his one and only Son into the world. 1 John 4:9
One morning my daughter gave her eleven-month-old son her cell phone for a moment to entertain him. Less than a minute later my phone rang, and as I picked it up I heard his little voice. He had somehow hit the “speed dial” to my number, and what followed was a “conversation” I will long remember. My grandson can only say a few words, but he knows my voice and responds to it. So I talked to him and told him how much I love him.
The joy I felt at the sound of my grandson’s voice was a reminder to me of God’s deep desire for a relationship with us. From the very beginning, the Bible shows God actively pursuing us. After Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God and then hid from Him in the garden, “the Lord God called” to Adam (Gen. 3:9).
God's love for us is revealed through Jesus.
God continued to pursue humanity through Jesus. Because God desires a relationship with us, He sent Jesus to earth to pay the penalty for our sin by His death on the cross. “This is how God showed his love . . . . He sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God” (1 John 4:9–10 The Message).
How good it is to know that God loves us and wants us to respond to His love through Jesus. Even when we don't quite know what to say, our Father longs to hear from us!
Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me and pursuing a relationship with me. Help me to be a joy to You by drawing near to You.
God’s love for us is revealed through Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do… —John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point— the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? “If you abide in Me…”— that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point— “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these— what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
“Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do….” The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God’s foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The message of the prophets is that although they have forsaken God, it has not altered God. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the same truth, that God remains God even when we are unfaithful (see 2 Timothy 2:13). Never interpret God as changing with our changes. He never does; there is no variableness in Him. Notes on Ezekiel, 1477 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love - #7933
It was a 2004 American League Championship Series. I remember it because my Yankees were in it. One big reason the Boston Red Sox triumphed over my New York Yankees (Boo!) was a veteran pitcher named Curt Schilling. He was selected to pitch the opening game in the New York series, and although he had torn an ankle tendon in his previous start, he thought he could gut it out. He was wrong. Losing that game actually started the Red Sox into a 3-0 deficit in the best of seven series. They started to come back, and amazingly, Curt Schilling had a chance to try again. Later he would tell the press that the first game showed what he could do. He said the second outing showed what God can do. Although Curt had been named "Good Guy of the Year" by Sporting News, he had never talked publicly about the commitment to Jesus Christ that he'd made several years before.
This time, while he was praying with his pastor before the game, he expressed his willingness to speak up about his Lord if he was given the opportunity. Well, he pitched an incredible four-hit victory that gave him that chance. He clearly glorified God in that post game interview. Later, when he pitched a winning game in Game 2 of the World Series, Curt Schilling told reporters, "If you haven't checked it out, read Philippians 4:13. That's 'I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.' I can't do anything these days without having that reverberate in my head." Those public declarations of his dependency on Christ - that might have been his greatest victories. He said later, "I've learned that you should never hide your faith. I had wasted seven years. People didn't know."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love."
And what is that? Remaining silent about your Savior to the people in your personal world. First, because Jesus died publicly on a cross for you. He was not ashamed of us. How can we be ashamed of Him? Secondly, because the eternity of the people you care about depends on them understanding what Jesus did on that cross for them. You know what He did. They probably don't. That makes you responsible.
"Never hide." That was Curt Schilling's conclusion looking back on what he called the "wasted years" of his spiritual silence. Sure, everyone knew he was a "good guy." But people "didn't know it was all about his Jesus." If you belong to Jesus, He laid out very plainly your role in the world in Matthew 5:14-16, our word for today from the Word of God. "You are the light of the world...People do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl! Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." So Jesus says, "Show them the difference I make by the way you live, and then tell them I'm the One who's making the difference."
Helping people you care about be in heaven with you begins with repenting of the silence that has left them in the dark spiritually. Then you start praying daily for natural opportunities to bring up your personal relationship with Jesus and to tell them about the difference He's making when you're winning, when you're struggling, when you're there for them, when they're in a crisis or when you are in a crisis. Open doors to talk about Jesus, because He's the great Difference-Maker.
Out of all the Christians on this planet, God has placed you in their life as His chosen messenger to introduce them to His Son. How are you doing? You're the Jesus-light where you work, where you play, where you go to school, and where you live. In olden days, if the lighthouse went out, ships were lost - lives were lost.
If your light isn't shining where you are, lives will be lost – forever; people you care about, people who need a rescuer, people who desperately need for you to tell them about your Jesus.
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