Max Lucado Daily: THE GIFT OF ENCOURAGEMENT
Every person needs to hear a “wonderful.” Here is why. Companies spend billions of dollars to convince us that we are chubby, smelly, ugly and out-of-date. Inadequacy indwells a billion hearts.
Would you distribute encouragement? Will you make some happiness happen? Will you remind humanity that we are made in God’s image? That we are chosen, destined, and loved?
Start by listening intently. Ask someone to tell you his, or her, story. Give the rarest of gifts— your full attention.
Praise abundantly. Biblical encouragement is no casual, kind word but rather a premeditated resolve to lift the spirit of another person. Everyone needs a cheerleader.
Give the gift that God loves to give— the gift of encouragement. This is how happiness happens.
2 Kings 23
The king acted immediately, assembling all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem. Then the king proceeded to The Temple of God, bringing everyone in his train—priests and prophets and people ranging from the famous to the unknown. Then he read out publicly everything written in the Book of the Covenant that was found in The Temple of God. The king stood by the pillar and before God solemnly committed them all to the covenant: to follow God believingly and obediently; to follow his instructions, heart and soul, on what to believe and do; to put into practice the entire covenant, all that was written in the book. The people stood in affirmation; their commitment was unanimous.
4-9 Then the king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, his associate priest, and The Temple sentries to clean house—to get rid of everything in The Temple of God that had been made for worshiping Baal and Asherah and the cosmic powers. He had them burned outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and then disposed of the ashes in Bethel. He fired the pagan priests whom the kings of Judah had hired to supervise the local sex-and-religion shrines in the towns of Judah and neighborhoods of Jerusalem. In a stroke he swept the country clean of the polluting stench of the round-the-clock worship of Baal, sun and moon, stars—all the so-called cosmic powers. He took the obscene phallic Asherah pole from The Temple of God to the Valley of Kidron outside Jerusalem, burned it up, then ground up the ashes and scattered them in the cemetery. He tore out the rooms of the male sacred prostitutes that had been set up in The Temple of God; women also used these rooms for weavings for Asherah. He swept the outlying towns of Judah clean of priests and smashed the sex-and-religion shrines where they worked their trade from one end of the country to the other—all the way from Geba to Beersheba. He smashed the sex-and-religion shrine that had been set up just to the left of the city gate for the private use of Joshua, the city mayor. Even though these sex-and-religion priests did not defile the Altar in The Temple itself, they were part of the general priestly corruption and had to go.
10-11 Then Josiah demolished the Topheth, the iron furnace griddle set up in the Valley of Ben Hinnom for sacrificing children in the fire. No longer could anyone burn son or daughter to the god Molech. He hauled off the horse statues honoring the sun god that the kings of Judah had set up near the entrance to The Temple. They were in the courtyard next to the office of Nathan-Melech, the warden. He burned up the sun-chariots as so much rubbish.
12-15 The king smashed all the altars to smithereens—the altar on the roof shrine of Ahaz, the various altars the kings of Judah had made, the altars of Manasseh that littered the courtyard of The Temple—he smashed them all, pulverized the fragments, and scattered their dust in the Valley of Kidron. The king proceeded to make a clean sweep of all the sex-and-religion shrines that had proliferated east of Jerusalem on the south slope of Abomination Hill, the ones Solomon king of Israel had built to the obscene Sidonian sex goddess Ashtoreth, to Chemosh the dirty-old-god of the Moabites, and to Milcom the depraved god of the Ammonites. He tore apart the altars, chopped down the phallic Asherah-poles, and scattered old bones over the sites. Next, he took care of the altar at the shrine in Bethel that Jeroboam son of Nebat had built—the same Jeroboam who had led Israel into a life of sin. He tore apart the altar, burned down the shrine leaving it in ashes, and then lit fire to the phallic Asherah-pole.
16 As Josiah looked over the scene, he noticed the tombs on the hillside. He ordered the bones removed from the tombs and had them cremated on the ruined altars, desacralizing the evil altars. This was a fulfillment of the word of God spoken by the Holy Man years before when Jeroboam had stood by the altar at the sacred convocation.
17 Then the king said, “And that memorial stone—whose is that?”
The men from the city said, “That’s the grave of the Holy Man who spoke the message against the altar at Bethel that you have just fulfilled.”
18 Josiah said, “Don’t trouble his bones.” So they left his bones undisturbed, along with the bones of the prophet from Samaria.
19-20 But Josiah hadn’t finished. He now moved through all the towns of Samaria where the kings of Israel had built neighborhood sex-and-religion shrines, shrines that had so angered God. He tore the shrines down and left them in ruins—just as at Bethel. He killed all the priests who had conducted the sacrifices and cremated them on their own altars, thus desacralizing the altars. Only then did Josiah return to Jerusalem.
21 The king now commanded the people, “Celebrate the Passover to God, your God, exactly as directed in this Book of the Covenant.”
22-23 This commanded Passover had not been celebrated since the days that the judges judged Israel—none of the kings of Israel and Judah had celebrated it. But in the eighteenth year of the rule of King Josiah this very Passover was celebrated to God in Jerusalem.
24 Josiah scrubbed the place clean and trashed spirit-mediums, sorcerers, domestic gods, and carved figures—all the vast accumulation of foul and obscene relics and images on display everywhere you looked in Judah and Jerusalem. Josiah did this in obedience to the words of God’s Revelation written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in The Temple of God.
25 There was no king to compare with Josiah—neither before nor after—a king who turned in total and repentant obedience to God, heart and mind and strength, following the instructions revealed to and written by Moses. The world would never again see a king like Josiah.
26-27 But despite Josiah, God’s hot anger did not cool; the raging anger ignited by Manasseh burned unchecked. And God, not swerving in his judgment, gave sentence: “I’ll remove Judah from my presence in the same way I removed Israel. I’ll turn my back on this city, Jerusalem, that I chose, and even from this Temple of which I said, ‘My Name lives here.’”
28-30 The rest of the life and times of Josiah is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Josiah’s death came about when Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt marched out to join forces with the king of Assyria at the Euphrates River. When King Josiah intercepted him at the Plain of Megiddo, Neco killed him. Josiah’s servants took his body in a chariot, returned him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. By popular choice Jehoahaz son of Josiah was anointed and succeeded his father as king.
31 Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to rule. He was king in Jerusalem for a mere three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah. She came from Libnah.
32 In God’s opinion, he was an evil king, reverting to the evil ways of his ancestors.
33-34 Pharaoh Neco captured Jehoahaz at Riblah in the country of Hamath and put him in chains, preventing him from ruling in Jerusalem. He demanded that Judah pay tribute of nearly four tons of silver and seventy-five pounds of gold. Then Pharaoh Neco made Eliakim son of Josiah the successor to Josiah, but changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz was carted off to Egypt and eventually died there.
35 Meanwhile Jehoiakim, like a good puppet, dutifully paid out the silver and gold demanded by Pharaoh. He scraped up the money by gouging the people, making everyone pay an assessed tax.
36-37 Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to rule; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zebidah daughter of Pedaiah. She had come from Rumah. In God’s opinion he was an evil king, picking up on the evil ways of his ancestors.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, September 16, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Proverbs 26:4–12
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes.
6 Sending a message by the hands of a fool
is like cutting off one’s feet or drinking poison.
7 Like the useless legs of one who is lame
is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
8 Like tying a stone in a sling
is the giving of honor to a fool.
9 Like a thornbush in a drunkard’s hand
is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.
10 Like an archer who wounds at random
is one who hires a fool or any passer-by.
11 As a dog returns to its vomit,
so fools repeat their folly.
12 Do you see a person wise in their own eyes?
There is more hope for a fool than for them.
Insight
The Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) is Hebrew poetry that uses a variety of poetic devices. In Proverbs 26, metaphors and analogies are used. The foolish person is compared to weather that’s inappropriate for the season (v. 1), an animal that needs to be constrained (v. 3), a useless leg (v. 7), and a powerless sling (v. 8). These comparisons warn about the self-destructive nature of foolish choices. By: Bill Crowder
Don’t Feed the Trolls
Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace. Colossians 4:5–6
Ever heard the expression, “Don’t feed the trolls”? “Trolls” refers to a new problem in today’s digital world—online users who repeatedly post intentionally inflammatory and hurtful comments on news or social media discussion boards. But ignoring such comments—not “feeding” the trolls—makes it harder for them to derail a conversation.
Of course, it’s nothing new to encounter people who aren’t genuinely interested in productive conversation. “Don’t feed the trolls” could almost be a modern equivalent of Proverbs 26:4, which warns that arguing with an arrogant, unreceptive person risks stooping to their level.
And yet . . . even the most seemingly stubborn person is also a priceless image-bearer of God. If we’re quick to dismiss others, we may be the ones in danger of being arrogant and becoming unreceptive to God’s grace (see Matthew 5:22).
That might, in part, explain why Proverbs 26:5 offers the exact opposite guideline. Because it takes humble, prayerful dependence on God to discern how best to show others love in each situation (see Colossians 4:5–6). Sometimes we speak up; other times, it’s best to be silent.
May we find peace in knowing that the same God who drew us near while we were still in hardened opposition to Him (Romans 5:6) is powerfully at work in each person’s heart. By: Monica Brands
Reflect & Pray
How have you witnessed very different approaches being used by God to touch others? How can you better speak the truth in love?
Loving God, help me share Your love with others around me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, September 16, 2019
Praying to God in Secret
When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place… —Matthew 6:6
The primary thought in the area of religion is— keep your eyes on God, not on people. Your motivation should not be the desire to be known as a praying person. Find an inner room in which to pray where no one even knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret. Have no motivation other than to know your Father in heaven. It is impossible to carry on your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer.
“When you pray, do not use vain repetitions…” (Matthew 6:7). God does not hear us because we pray earnestly— He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. Prayer is not simply getting things from God— that is only the most elementary kind of prayer. Prayer is coming into perfect fellowship and oneness with God. If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
“Everyone who asks receives…” (Matthew 7:8). We pray religious nonsense without even involving our will, and then we say that God did not answer— but in reality we have never asked for anything. Jesus said, “…you will ask what you desire…” (John 15:7). Asking means that our will must be involved. Whenever Jesus talked about prayer, He spoke with wonderful childlike simplicity. Then we respond with our critical attitude, saying, “Yes, but even Jesus said that we must ask.” But remember that we have to ask things of God that are in keeping with the God whom Jesus Christ revealed.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
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, September 16, 2019
The Days of The King - #8526
The battles were horrendous. The casualties were many. But the outcome changed everything. That's a very quick summary of the final episode of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic trilogy, Lord of the Rings. That trilogy actually jumped off of dusty bookshelves and into the popular culture with their portrayal in three very successful movies. In the story, Tolkien weaves a tale of a world called Middle Earth where these soulless, subhuman beings are attempting to stamp out what they call the "Age of Humans." Finally, in the concluding "Return of the King," Middle Earth's rightful king, Aragorn, leads the humans in one last, all-out attempt to turn back the forces of evil. After many costly battles, there's this glorious coronation day for the triumphant king. As the crown is placed on the head of the rightful ruler before this jubilant crowd of his subjects, they know the dark days are over. And the one who crowned him makes this hopeful announcement, "Now begin the days of the King!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Days of The King."
It might be time for that announcement in your life - that the rightful King is finally on the throne. Because up until now, you've been there making the calls, running things your way, giving Jesus time and maybe even money, but not the throne.
In Tolkien's Return of the King, there was a man who was supposed to be the caretaker of the throne until the rightful ruler takes his place there. But when it comes time for the king to take the throne, the caretaker refuses to let go of it. He has to be forcibly and violently overthrown. Don't wait for that to happen to you. Jesus is the King of all kings. He is the Lord of all lords. What are you doing holding onto the throne of your life where He is supposed to reign supreme?
Our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 3:15 reveals this straightforward command: "In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord." Notice it says, "in your heart." A lot of people are willing to let Christ be Lord in their head. He's like the honorary chairman of their life, but they're still doing what they want to do, deciding which things Jesus can run and which things they'll not let Him run. Jesus rips the mask off of that charade with His penetrating question in Luke 6:46, "Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?"
Lord in your head, Lord in your theology, Lord in your vocabulary...that's not what Lord means! "Lord" is the one who is running things, and could the reality be that you are the real "Lord" of much of your life? Then you're a rebel against the only rightful King - no matter how religiously you dress up your rebellion.
Western Christianity honestly is often a compartmentalized faith: where you have this beautiful Jesus compartment in your life where you pray, you go to His meetings, you read His book, you do His work. But then there are all the other compartments: how you treat people, how you spend your money, what you do on a date, what you watch, what you listen to, how you run your business, your social life, your finances. Wait a minute! What are you doing running all that anyway? Jesus paid everything He had for your life. He's not interested in just occupying a compartment! He paid the whole price; He should have the whole thing!
The original word for "Lord" literally means "the controller." Honestly now, who's the controller in your life? If it's not Jesus, then a rebel is on the throne - His throne. And things will never be right in your life so long as you are on the throne. Today this could be one of the most liberating, most decisive days of your life, if you would make this Coronation Day for the One who is the nail-scarred, death-conquering, rightful King of you. Find a place where you can bow before King Jesus today and surrender it all to Him, where you can relinquish a throne that has cost you all ready so much to occupy.
If you've never begun your relationship with Him, putting your trust in what he did on the cross for you, tell him today, "Jesus, it's all you beginning today." Go to our website, get the information you need to secure that relationship. It's ANewStory.com.
Today could begin the days of the King!
Monday, September 16, 2019
Sunday, September 15, 2019
2 Kings 22, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Scripture Memory - Week 1
Welcome to the first week of a special Glory Days Scripture Memory Challenge.
In Joshua Chapter 1 God said to Joshua, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. . .meditate on it. . .observe to do all that's written in it. . ."
We all have battles to fight and strongholds to face. How do we fight these? By hiding the Word of God deep in our hearts. Start by memorizing Joshua 1:9: "Have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
Go to GloryDaysToday.com-and I'll show you a simple way to memorize this week's verse. And as you commit this verse to memory, remember God has given you power and he is with you wherever you go!
Verses to remember.
2 Kings 22
Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. He lived the way God wanted. He kept straight on the path blazed by his ancestor David, not one step to either left or right.
3-7 One day in the eighteenth year of his kingship, King Josiah sent the royal secretary Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to The Temple of God with instructions: “Go to Hilkiah the high priest and have him count the money that has been brought to The Temple of God that the doormen have collected from the people. Have them turn it over to the foremen who are managing the work on The Temple of God so they can pay the workers who are repairing God’s Temple, all the carpenters, construction workers, and masons. Also, authorize them to buy the lumber and dressed stone for The Temple repairs. You don’t need to get a receipt for the money you give them—they’re all honest men.”
8 The high priest Hilkiah reported to Shaphan the royal secretary, “I’ve just found the Book of God’s Revelation, instructing us in God’s ways. I found it in The Temple!” He gave it to Shaphan and Shaphan read it.
9 Then Shaphan the royal secretary came back to the king and gave him an account of what had gone on: “Your servants have bagged up the money that has been collected for The Temple; they have given it to the foremen to pay The Temple workers.”
10 Then Shaphan the royal secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest gave me a book.” Shaphan proceeded to read it to the king.
11-13 When the king heard what was written in the book, God’s Revelation, he ripped his robes in dismay. And then he called for Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the royal secretary, and Asaiah the king’s personal aide. He ordered them all: “Go and pray to God for me and for this people—for all Judah! Find out what we must do in response to what is written in this book that has just been found! God’s anger must be burning furiously against us—our ancestors haven’t obeyed a thing written in this book, followed none of the instructions directed to us.”
14-17 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went straight to Huldah the prophetess. She was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, who was in charge of the palace wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter. The five men consulted with her. In response to them she said, “God’s word, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you here that I’m on my way to bring the doom of judgment on this place and this people. Every word written in the book read by the king of Judah will happen. And why? Because they’ve deserted me and taken up with other gods, made me thoroughly angry by setting up their god-making businesses. My anger is raging white-hot against this place and nobody is going to put it out.
18-20 “And also tell the king of Judah, since he sent you to ask God for direction; tell him this, God’s comment on what he read in the book: ‘Because you took seriously the doom of judgment I spoke against this place and people, and because you responded in humble repentance, tearing your robe in dismay and weeping before me, I’m taking you seriously. God’s word: I’ll take care of you. You’ll have a quiet death and be buried in peace. You won’t be around to see the doom that I’m going to bring upon this place.’”
The men took her message back to the king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:1–6
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Insight
Paul and his team planted the church at Ephesus during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:19). He returned during his third journey, spending three years there growing the faith of the young believers in Jesus (19:1–41; 20:31). We read of the apostle’s final direct engagement with the Ephesians in Acts 20:17–38. As he was traveling to Jerusalem at the conclusion of his third missionary journey, Paul stopped at the port city of Miletus in western Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and called for the Ephesian elders so he could invest in the congregation there one final time. Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians some years later while he was under house arrest in Rome, awaiting his hearing before Caesar (28:30). Combined together, these points of contact reveal a deeper investment and relationship of Paul with the Ephesians than any of the other churches he served.
To learn more about Paul’s interaction with the Ephesian believers, visit christianuniversity.org/NT334-03.
Unity
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3
In 1722 a small group of Moravian Christians, who lived in what is now the Czech Republic, found refuge from persecution on the estate of a generous German count. Within four years, more than 300 people came. But instead of an ideal community for persecuted refugees, the settlement became filled with discord. Different perspectives on Christianity brought division. What they did next may seem like a small choice, but it launched an incredible revival: They began to focus on what they agreed on rather than on what they disagreed on. The result was unity.
The apostle Paul strongly encouraged the believers in the church in Ephesus to live in unity. Sin would always bring trouble, selfish desires, and conflict in relationships. But as those who were made “alive with Christ” the Ephesians were called to live out their new identity in practical ways (Ephesians 5:2). Primarily, they were to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (4:3).
This unity isn’t just simple camaraderie achieved through human strength. We are to “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (v. 2). From a human perspective, it’s impossible to act in this way. We can’t reach unity through our own power but through God’s perfect power “that is at work within us” (3:20). By: Estera Pirosca Escobar
Reflect & Pray
How are you experiencing division or unity in your community of faith? What efforts can you make in God’s strength to keep the unity of the Spirit?
Father, You who are over all and through all and in all, live among us in such a way that unity will be present.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 15, 2019
What To Renounce
We have renounced the hidden things of shame… —2 Corinthians 4:2
Have you “renounced the hidden things of shame” in your life— the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind— renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don’t necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.
“…not walking in craftiness…” (2 Corinthians 4:2). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way— the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way— the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God’s blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others— God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest— your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God’s perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance. Baffled to Fight Better, 59 R
Welcome to the first week of a special Glory Days Scripture Memory Challenge.
In Joshua Chapter 1 God said to Joshua, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. . .meditate on it. . .observe to do all that's written in it. . ."
We all have battles to fight and strongholds to face. How do we fight these? By hiding the Word of God deep in our hearts. Start by memorizing Joshua 1:9: "Have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
Go to GloryDaysToday.com-and I'll show you a simple way to memorize this week's verse. And as you commit this verse to memory, remember God has given you power and he is with you wherever you go!
Verses to remember.
Joshua 1:9Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."2 Timothy 3:16-17 New International Version (NIV)16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.Joshua 21:43-45 New International Version (NIV)43 So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled there. 44 The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their ancestors. Not one of their enemies withstood them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hands. 45 Not one of all the Lord’s good promises to Israel failed; every one was fulfilled.
2 Kings 22
Josiah was eight years old when he became king. He ruled for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. He lived the way God wanted. He kept straight on the path blazed by his ancestor David, not one step to either left or right.
3-7 One day in the eighteenth year of his kingship, King Josiah sent the royal secretary Shaphan son of Azaliah, the son of Meshullam, to The Temple of God with instructions: “Go to Hilkiah the high priest and have him count the money that has been brought to The Temple of God that the doormen have collected from the people. Have them turn it over to the foremen who are managing the work on The Temple of God so they can pay the workers who are repairing God’s Temple, all the carpenters, construction workers, and masons. Also, authorize them to buy the lumber and dressed stone for The Temple repairs. You don’t need to get a receipt for the money you give them—they’re all honest men.”
8 The high priest Hilkiah reported to Shaphan the royal secretary, “I’ve just found the Book of God’s Revelation, instructing us in God’s ways. I found it in The Temple!” He gave it to Shaphan and Shaphan read it.
9 Then Shaphan the royal secretary came back to the king and gave him an account of what had gone on: “Your servants have bagged up the money that has been collected for The Temple; they have given it to the foremen to pay The Temple workers.”
10 Then Shaphan the royal secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest gave me a book.” Shaphan proceeded to read it to the king.
11-13 When the king heard what was written in the book, God’s Revelation, he ripped his robes in dismay. And then he called for Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the royal secretary, and Asaiah the king’s personal aide. He ordered them all: “Go and pray to God for me and for this people—for all Judah! Find out what we must do in response to what is written in this book that has just been found! God’s anger must be burning furiously against us—our ancestors haven’t obeyed a thing written in this book, followed none of the instructions directed to us.”
14-17 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went straight to Huldah the prophetess. She was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, who was in charge of the palace wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem in the Second Quarter. The five men consulted with her. In response to them she said, “God’s word, the God of Israel: Tell the man who sent you here that I’m on my way to bring the doom of judgment on this place and this people. Every word written in the book read by the king of Judah will happen. And why? Because they’ve deserted me and taken up with other gods, made me thoroughly angry by setting up their god-making businesses. My anger is raging white-hot against this place and nobody is going to put it out.
18-20 “And also tell the king of Judah, since he sent you to ask God for direction; tell him this, God’s comment on what he read in the book: ‘Because you took seriously the doom of judgment I spoke against this place and people, and because you responded in humble repentance, tearing your robe in dismay and weeping before me, I’m taking you seriously. God’s word: I’ll take care of you. You’ll have a quiet death and be buried in peace. You won’t be around to see the doom that I’m going to bring upon this place.’”
The men took her message back to the king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, September 15, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:1–6
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Insight
Paul and his team planted the church at Ephesus during his second missionary journey (Acts 18:19). He returned during his third journey, spending three years there growing the faith of the young believers in Jesus (19:1–41; 20:31). We read of the apostle’s final direct engagement with the Ephesians in Acts 20:17–38. As he was traveling to Jerusalem at the conclusion of his third missionary journey, Paul stopped at the port city of Miletus in western Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and called for the Ephesian elders so he could invest in the congregation there one final time. Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians some years later while he was under house arrest in Rome, awaiting his hearing before Caesar (28:30). Combined together, these points of contact reveal a deeper investment and relationship of Paul with the Ephesians than any of the other churches he served.
To learn more about Paul’s interaction with the Ephesian believers, visit christianuniversity.org/NT334-03.
Unity
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3
In 1722 a small group of Moravian Christians, who lived in what is now the Czech Republic, found refuge from persecution on the estate of a generous German count. Within four years, more than 300 people came. But instead of an ideal community for persecuted refugees, the settlement became filled with discord. Different perspectives on Christianity brought division. What they did next may seem like a small choice, but it launched an incredible revival: They began to focus on what they agreed on rather than on what they disagreed on. The result was unity.
The apostle Paul strongly encouraged the believers in the church in Ephesus to live in unity. Sin would always bring trouble, selfish desires, and conflict in relationships. But as those who were made “alive with Christ” the Ephesians were called to live out their new identity in practical ways (Ephesians 5:2). Primarily, they were to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (4:3).
This unity isn’t just simple camaraderie achieved through human strength. We are to “be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love” (v. 2). From a human perspective, it’s impossible to act in this way. We can’t reach unity through our own power but through God’s perfect power “that is at work within us” (3:20). By: Estera Pirosca Escobar
Reflect & Pray
How are you experiencing division or unity in your community of faith? What efforts can you make in God’s strength to keep the unity of the Spirit?
Father, You who are over all and through all and in all, live among us in such a way that unity will be present.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, September 15, 2019
What To Renounce
We have renounced the hidden things of shame… —2 Corinthians 4:2
Have you “renounced the hidden things of shame” in your life— the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind— renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don’t necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.
“…not walking in craftiness…” (2 Corinthians 4:2). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way— the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way— the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God’s blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others— God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest— your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God’s perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance. Baffled to Fight Better, 59 R
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Galatians 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: An Invitation
In Joshua Chapter 1 God said, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth; but you shall meditate on it day and night that you may observe to do all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, and you will have good success."
God's word to Joshua is God's word to us! I invite you to join me at GloryDaysToday.com for a 4-week journey in a Glory Days Scripture Memorization Challenge to memorize a verse a week.
Start with Joshua 1:9- the reminder that God has given you power. Then 2 Timothy 3:16-17- Scripture is a weapon useful in all situations. John 1:12- a reminder to inherit your inheritance. And then Joshua 21:43-45- the reminder that God fights for you, in the power of God's Word, to face down every stronghold that stands against us!
From Glory Days
Galatians 5
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.
4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
7-10 You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.
11-12 As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!
13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 12:37–43
Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet:
“Lord, who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”[a]
39 For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:
40 “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes,
nor understand with their hearts,
nor turn—and I would heal them.”[b]
41 Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.
42 Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved human praise more than praise from God.
Footnotes:
John 12:38 Isaiah 53:1
John 12:40 Isaiah 6:10
Insight
When John (12:38–40) quotes Isaiah 53:1 and 6:10, it might appear that he’s blaming God for pre-determining widespread unbelief in Jesus. But when we read both Isaiah and John in context, we see that God decided ahead of time to give His people the freedom to have their own way so that He could show them how far He would go to rescue them from themselves.
John described religious leaders who, for their own political and religious reasons, were afraid to believe in Jesus (John 11:45–53; 12:42–43). Isaiah—a prophet living six centuries before Christ—wrote about a King who would eventually show up in the story and glory of Jesus (Isaiah 6:1–10; John 12:41) and in the God-given freedom of those who refused to believe in Him. Without divine revelation, they couldn’t and wouldn’t believe Christ was their Messiah.
Whatever the Cost
They would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear. John 12:42
The film Paul, Apostle of Christ takes an unflinching look at persecution in the early days of the church. Even the movie’s minor characters reveal how dangerous it was to follow Jesus. Consider these roles listed in the credits: Beaten Woman; Beaten Man; Christian Victims 1, 2, and 3.
Identifying with Christ often came at a high cost. And in much of the world, it’s still dangerous to follow Jesus. Many in the church today can relate to that kind of persecution. Some of us, however, may feel “persecuted” prematurely—outraged any time our faith is mocked or we suspect we were passed over for a promotion because of our beliefs.
Obviously, there’s a colossal difference between sacrificing social status and sacrificing our lives. Realistically, though, self-interest, financial stability, and social acceptance have always been intense human motivators. We see this in the actions of some of Jesus’s earliest converts. The apostle John reports that, mere days before Jesus’s crucifixion, although most Israelites were still rejecting Him (John 12:37), many “even among the leaders believed” (v. 42). However, “They would not openly acknowledge their faith . . . for they loved human praise more than praise from God” (vv. 42–43).
Today we still face societal pressures (and worse) to keep our faith in Christ hidden. Whatever the cost, let’s stand together as a people who seek God’s approval more than human praise. By: Tim Gustafson
Reflect & Pray
We might be tempted to judge the early believers who hid their faith, but are we any different? Are there times we choose to be quiet so we can hide our identification with Jesus?
Jesus, I want to be a close friend of Yours.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Arguments or Obedience
…the simplicity that is in Christ. —2 Corinthians 11:3
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and…every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you (2 Corinthians 10:5). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25).
Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L
In Joshua Chapter 1 God said, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth; but you shall meditate on it day and night that you may observe to do all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous, and you will have good success."
God's word to Joshua is God's word to us! I invite you to join me at GloryDaysToday.com for a 4-week journey in a Glory Days Scripture Memorization Challenge to memorize a verse a week.
Start with Joshua 1:9- the reminder that God has given you power. Then 2 Timothy 3:16-17- Scripture is a weapon useful in all situations. John 1:12- a reminder to inherit your inheritance. And then Joshua 21:43-45- the reminder that God fights for you, in the power of God's Word, to face down every stronghold that stands against us!
From Glory Days
Galatians 5
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.
4-6 I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.
7-10 You were running superbly! Who cut in on you, deflecting you from the true course of obedience? This detour doesn’t come from the One who called you into the race in the first place. And please don’t toss this off as insignificant. It only takes a minute amount of yeast, you know, to permeate an entire loaf of bread. Deep down, the Master has given me confidence that you will not defect. But the one who is upsetting you, whoever he is, will bear the divine judgment.
11-12 As for the rumor that I continue to preach the ways of circumcision (as I did in those pre-Damascus Road days), that is absurd. Why would I still be persecuted, then? If I were preaching that old message, no one would be offended if I mentioned the Cross now and then—it would be so watered-down it wouldn’t matter one way or the other. Why don’t these agitators, obsessive as they are about circumcision, go all the way and castrate themselves!
13-15 It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?
16-18 My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
22-23 But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
23-24 Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.
25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 12:37–43
Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet:
“Lord, who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”[a]
39 For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:
40 “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their hearts,
so they can neither see with their eyes,
nor understand with their hearts,
nor turn—and I would heal them.”[b]
41 Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.
42 Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved human praise more than praise from God.
Footnotes:
John 12:38 Isaiah 53:1
John 12:40 Isaiah 6:10
Insight
When John (12:38–40) quotes Isaiah 53:1 and 6:10, it might appear that he’s blaming God for pre-determining widespread unbelief in Jesus. But when we read both Isaiah and John in context, we see that God decided ahead of time to give His people the freedom to have their own way so that He could show them how far He would go to rescue them from themselves.
John described religious leaders who, for their own political and religious reasons, were afraid to believe in Jesus (John 11:45–53; 12:42–43). Isaiah—a prophet living six centuries before Christ—wrote about a King who would eventually show up in the story and glory of Jesus (Isaiah 6:1–10; John 12:41) and in the God-given freedom of those who refused to believe in Him. Without divine revelation, they couldn’t and wouldn’t believe Christ was their Messiah.
Whatever the Cost
They would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear. John 12:42
The film Paul, Apostle of Christ takes an unflinching look at persecution in the early days of the church. Even the movie’s minor characters reveal how dangerous it was to follow Jesus. Consider these roles listed in the credits: Beaten Woman; Beaten Man; Christian Victims 1, 2, and 3.
Identifying with Christ often came at a high cost. And in much of the world, it’s still dangerous to follow Jesus. Many in the church today can relate to that kind of persecution. Some of us, however, may feel “persecuted” prematurely—outraged any time our faith is mocked or we suspect we were passed over for a promotion because of our beliefs.
Obviously, there’s a colossal difference between sacrificing social status and sacrificing our lives. Realistically, though, self-interest, financial stability, and social acceptance have always been intense human motivators. We see this in the actions of some of Jesus’s earliest converts. The apostle John reports that, mere days before Jesus’s crucifixion, although most Israelites were still rejecting Him (John 12:37), many “even among the leaders believed” (v. 42). However, “They would not openly acknowledge their faith . . . for they loved human praise more than praise from God” (vv. 42–43).
Today we still face societal pressures (and worse) to keep our faith in Christ hidden. Whatever the cost, let’s stand together as a people who seek God’s approval more than human praise. By: Tim Gustafson
Reflect & Pray
We might be tempted to judge the early believers who hid their faith, but are we any different? Are there times we choose to be quiet so we can hide our identification with Jesus?
Jesus, I want to be a close friend of Yours.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, September 14, 2019
Arguments or Obedience
…the simplicity that is in Christ. —2 Corinthians 11:3
Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering thoughts and more confusion. If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring all your “arguments and…every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you (2 Corinthians 10:5). Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise we see nothing (see Matthew 11:25).
Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still never make it clear. Spiritual confusion can only be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment. This is humiliating, because when we are confused we know that the reason lies in the state of our mind. But when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our entire life is kept in simplicity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L
Friday, September 13, 2019
2 Kings 21, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE MICHELANGELO IMPACT
Three years into my role as senior minister of our church, a former senior minister returned to live in our city and serve on our staff. Charles Prince was thirty years my senior, Harvard educated, and a member of the Mensa society. I was in my thirties, a rookie, and a charter member of the Dense Society. Charles said, “There will be no tension in our relationship. I’m going to be your biggest cheerleader.” And he was— for twenty-five years, until the day he died!
Intentional encouragement has a Michelangelo impact on people. The sculptor saw the figure of David within the marble and carved it out. The encourager does the same. He sees your best self and calls it out, not with a chisel, but with words of affirmation. That is how happiness happens!
2 Kings 21
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. In God’s judgment he was a bad king—an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when God dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel. He rebuilt all the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and sex goddess Asherah, exactly what Ahaz king of Israel had done. He worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations. He even built these pagan altars in The Temple of God, the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by God’s decree (“in Jerusalem I place my Name”) to God’s Name. And he built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of God. He burned his own son in a sacrificial offering. He practiced black magic and fortunetelling. He held séances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil—in God’s judgment, a career in evil. And God was angry.
7-8 As a last straw he placed the carved image of the sex goddess Asherah in The Temple of God, a flagrant and provocative violation of God’s well-known statement to both David and Solomon, “In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name—exclusively and forever. Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I gave to their ancestors. But here’s the condition: They must keep everything I’ve commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them.”
9 But the people didn’t listen. Manasseh led them off the beaten path into practices of evil even exceeding the evil of the pagan nations that God had earlier destroyed.
10-12 God, thoroughly fed up, sent word through his servants the prophets: “Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these outrageous sins, eclipsing the sin-performance of the Amorites before him, setting new records in evil, using foul idols to debase Judah into a nation of sinners, this is my judgment, God’s verdict: I, the God of Israel, will visit catastrophe on Jerusalem and Judah, a doom so terrible that when people hear of it they’ll shake their heads in disbelief, saying, ‘I can’t believe it!’
13-15 “I’ll visit the fate of Samaria on Jerusalem, a rerun of Ahab’s doom. I’ll wipe out Jerusalem as you would wipe out a dish, wiping it out and turning it over to dry. I’ll get rid of what’s left of my inheritance, dumping them on their enemies. If their enemies can salvage anything from them, they’re welcome to it. They’ve been nothing but trouble to me from the day their ancestors left Egypt until now. They pushed me to my limit; I won’t put up with their evil any longer.”
16 The final word on Manasseh was that he was an indiscriminate murderer. He drenched Jerusalem with the innocent blood of his victims. That’s on top of all the sins in which he involved his people. As far as God was concerned, he’d turned them into a nation of sinners.
17-18 The rest of the life and times of Manasseh, everything he did and his sorry record of sin, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Manasseh died and joined his ancestors. He was buried in the palace garden, the Garden of Uzza. His son Amon became the next king.
19-22 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz. She was from Jotbah. In God’s opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh. He followed in the footsteps of his father, serving and worshiping the same foul gods his father had served. He totally deserted the God of his ancestors; he did not live God’s way.
23-24 Amon’s servants revolted and assassinated him, killing the king right in his own palace. But the people, in their turn, killed the conspirators against King Amon and then crowned Josiah, Amon’s son, as king.
25-26 The rest of the life and times of Amon is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. They buried Amon in his burial plot in the Garden of Uzza. His son Josiah became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 13, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Proverbs 16:1–9
To humans belong the plans of the heart,
but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue.
2 All a person’s ways seem pure to them,
but motives are weighed by the Lord.
3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.
4 The Lord works out everything to its proper end—
even the wicked for a day of disaster.
5 The Lord detests all the proud of heart.
Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.
6 Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for;
through the fear of the Lord evil is avoided.
7 When the Lord takes pleasure in anyone’s way,
he causes their enemies to make peace with them.
8 Better a little with righteousness
than much gain with injustice.
9 In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.
Insight
The book of Proverbs stresses honoring God in whatever we do. One phrase that parallels this sentiment is “the fear of the Lord” (16:6), which speaks of profound reverence and respect for God. Such awe, honor, and deference should be reserved uniquely for Him as Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Lord over all. The personal and corporate value of possessing this essential quality is noted throughout the Proverbs. The fear of the Lord is foundational for wise living (1:7; 9:10); it’s something that can be chosen (1:29); possessing it prolongs one’s life (10:27); and its value is greater than material wealth (15:16). Those who are guided by the fear of the Lord protect themselves from evil (16:6; 19:23) and have everything they need (10:3).
Whatever We Do
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Proverbs 16:3
In Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis confessed he came to Christianity at the age of thirty-three, “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape.” Despite Lewis’s own personal resistance, his shortcomings, and the obstacles he faced, the Lord transformed him into a courageous and creative defender of the faith. Lewis proclaimed God’s truth and love through writing powerful essays and novels that are still being read, studied, and shared more than fifty-five years after his death. His life reflected his belief that a person is “never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.”
As we make plans and follow dreams, God can purify our motives and empower us to devote whatever we do to Him (Proverbs 16:1–3). From the most ordinary tasks to the greatest challenges, we can live for the glory of our almighty Maker, who “works out everything to its proper end” (v. 4). Every action, every word, and every thought can become an expression of heartfelt worship, a sacrificial gift to honor our Lord, as He watches over us (v. 7).
God can’t be limited by our limitations, our reservations, or our tendencies to settle or dream small. As we choose to live for Him—dedicated to and dependent on Him—He will bring about His plans for us. Whatever we do can be done with Him, for Him, and only because of Him. By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How can Proverbs 16:3 help you be more confident in the use of your gifts? What steps can you take to honor God as you follow a dream He’s placed on your heart?
God, thank You for reminding us that no jobs are too small and no dreams are too big in Your great kingdom.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 13, 2019
After Surrender— Then What?
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. —John 17:4
True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will— and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person’s will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.
Surrender for Deliverance. “Come to Me…and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will— “Come to Me.” And it is a voluntary coming.
Surrender for Devotion. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…” (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, “If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me.” And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and Philippians 4:19).
Surrender for Death. “…another will gird you…” (John 21:18; also see John 21:19). Have you learned what it means to be girded for death? Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being “united together [with Jesus] in the likeness of His death” (Romans 6:5) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.
And after you surrender— then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 13, 2019
The Very Best Day...When Your Debt Goes Away! - #8525
Oh there's always lots of commencement speeches come about May and June. Most of them, pretty predictable. "Live up to your potential." "Follow your dreams." "The sky's the limit." But maybe there's never been a commencement speech like the one at Morehouse College recently. Billionaire businessman Robert Smith set 396 graduates free in one day.
He was reflecting on the long history of an African-American family, and then he announced that "on behalf of the eight generations of my family who have been in this country, we're going to put a little fuel in your bus." More like rocket fuel! In one breathtaking moment, he suddenly announced that his family was creating a grant that would pay the student loans of every graduate! What a moment! The dreaded debt just beyond the degree - suddenly gone!
In the case of one graduate I heard interviewed, those loans amounted to $200,000! Paid for in a day! Once he got past the shock of what he had just heard, he literally began jumping up and down. And shouting out loud, "I'm debt free! I'm debt free! Thank God!" And the interviewer said simply, "This is life-changing for you."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Very Best Day...When Your Debt Goes Away!"
Now I've certainly never been to a graduation like that one. But I understand the crazy joy of people who've had their debt erased in a day. A much larger debt than any of them could pay in a lifetime. I know. I'm one of them.
The announcement that has set millions free from the most crushing debt of all was made in three words... "It is finished." Jesus made that announcement as He died an undeserved death on an unthinkable cross. Those three words were just one word in the language of the day. "Tetelestai." Archaeologists actually found that word carved on stone tablet receipts in an ancient accountant's office. It meant, "paid in full."
Jesus was paying the biggest, most consequential debt I owe. Because I owe the very God who gave me my life. Because I hijacked that life from my Creator and, in essence, I declared myself the god of what I did with His gift. Or, as the Bible says, "All of us have wandered away like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). "All of us," it says. Ignoring Him. Pushing the Creator of the universe to the edge of our life. And ending up with a wall between us and Him. So, as the Bible says, "your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2).
I think we already knew that. Because we do things to try to make it right with God. After all, why do we bother with religion and trying to do some good deeds? Maybe we're hoping to somehow pay down our moral debt from a life lived "my way" instead of His way.
But we're in way too deep to ever be able to pay for our cosmic rebellion. Because "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). He's a perfect God. I'm a serial sinner. All the good I could ever do can't pay my death penalty. But somebody has to die, and somebody did. Jesus did. As it says in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 John 2:24, "He personally carried our sins (my sins!) in His body on the cross."
All the hurtful things I've ever done. All the lies I've ever told. All the things that I thought I'd never do and I did. All the trust betrayed. All the dirty things, the selfish things, the secret things. "Finished" on that day when He took my debt and became, on that cross both debtor and the deliverer. He might as well have been looking straight at me when He spoke those three liberating words.
It is this unspeakable love that has won my heart. And the hearts of millions who've carried with them to that cross their backpack full of rocks - all the guilt, the shame, the regrets, the sin of a lifetime. Debtors who left that cross with the backpack gone. Their sins forgiven. Their debt erased. And their eternity secure because the One who paid their debt that conquered death by walking out of His grave and now into their life. We can shout, "I'm debt free! Thank God!"
I want that for you. He wants that for you. Tell Him today, "Jesus, I believe when you died it was for my sin. I'm yours." Go to our website today at this crossroads moment and get the information that will help you be sure that you know him. It's ANewStory.com.
I've had people tell me so many times, "I feel like a 100-pound weight has been lifted off my back!" Well, it has. You're forgiven. You're going to Heaven. The debt is gone, paid in full.
Three years into my role as senior minister of our church, a former senior minister returned to live in our city and serve on our staff. Charles Prince was thirty years my senior, Harvard educated, and a member of the Mensa society. I was in my thirties, a rookie, and a charter member of the Dense Society. Charles said, “There will be no tension in our relationship. I’m going to be your biggest cheerleader.” And he was— for twenty-five years, until the day he died!
Intentional encouragement has a Michelangelo impact on people. The sculptor saw the figure of David within the marble and carved it out. The encourager does the same. He sees your best self and calls it out, not with a chisel, but with words of affirmation. That is how happiness happens!
2 Kings 21
Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. He ruled for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. In God’s judgment he was a bad king—an evil king. He reintroduced all the moral rot and spiritual corruption that had been scoured from the country when God dispossessed the pagan nations in favor of the children of Israel. He rebuilt all the sex-and-religion shrines that his father Hezekiah had torn down, and he built altars and phallic images for the sex god Baal and sex goddess Asherah, exactly what Ahaz king of Israel had done. He worshiped the cosmic powers, taking orders from the constellations. He even built these pagan altars in The Temple of God, the very Jerusalem Temple dedicated exclusively by God’s decree (“in Jerusalem I place my Name”) to God’s Name. And he built shrines to the cosmic powers and placed them in both courtyards of The Temple of God. He burned his own son in a sacrificial offering. He practiced black magic and fortunetelling. He held séances and consulted spirits from the underworld. Much evil—in God’s judgment, a career in evil. And God was angry.
7-8 As a last straw he placed the carved image of the sex goddess Asherah in The Temple of God, a flagrant and provocative violation of God’s well-known statement to both David and Solomon, “In this Temple and in this city Jerusalem, my choice out of all the tribes of Israel, I place my Name—exclusively and forever. Never again will I let my people Israel wander off from this land I gave to their ancestors. But here’s the condition: They must keep everything I’ve commanded in the instructions my servant Moses passed on to them.”
9 But the people didn’t listen. Manasseh led them off the beaten path into practices of evil even exceeding the evil of the pagan nations that God had earlier destroyed.
10-12 God, thoroughly fed up, sent word through his servants the prophets: “Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these outrageous sins, eclipsing the sin-performance of the Amorites before him, setting new records in evil, using foul idols to debase Judah into a nation of sinners, this is my judgment, God’s verdict: I, the God of Israel, will visit catastrophe on Jerusalem and Judah, a doom so terrible that when people hear of it they’ll shake their heads in disbelief, saying, ‘I can’t believe it!’
13-15 “I’ll visit the fate of Samaria on Jerusalem, a rerun of Ahab’s doom. I’ll wipe out Jerusalem as you would wipe out a dish, wiping it out and turning it over to dry. I’ll get rid of what’s left of my inheritance, dumping them on their enemies. If their enemies can salvage anything from them, they’re welcome to it. They’ve been nothing but trouble to me from the day their ancestors left Egypt until now. They pushed me to my limit; I won’t put up with their evil any longer.”
16 The final word on Manasseh was that he was an indiscriminate murderer. He drenched Jerusalem with the innocent blood of his victims. That’s on top of all the sins in which he involved his people. As far as God was concerned, he’d turned them into a nation of sinners.
17-18 The rest of the life and times of Manasseh, everything he did and his sorry record of sin, is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Manasseh died and joined his ancestors. He was buried in the palace garden, the Garden of Uzza. His son Amon became the next king.
19-22 Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king. He was king for two years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Meshullemeth, the daughter of Haruz. She was from Jotbah. In God’s opinion he lived an evil life, just like his father Manasseh. He followed in the footsteps of his father, serving and worshiping the same foul gods his father had served. He totally deserted the God of his ancestors; he did not live God’s way.
23-24 Amon’s servants revolted and assassinated him, killing the king right in his own palace. But the people, in their turn, killed the conspirators against King Amon and then crowned Josiah, Amon’s son, as king.
25-26 The rest of the life and times of Amon is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. They buried Amon in his burial plot in the Garden of Uzza. His son Josiah became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, September 13, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Proverbs 16:1–9
To humans belong the plans of the heart,
but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue.
2 All a person’s ways seem pure to them,
but motives are weighed by the Lord.
3 Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.
4 The Lord works out everything to its proper end—
even the wicked for a day of disaster.
5 The Lord detests all the proud of heart.
Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.
6 Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for;
through the fear of the Lord evil is avoided.
7 When the Lord takes pleasure in anyone’s way,
he causes their enemies to make peace with them.
8 Better a little with righteousness
than much gain with injustice.
9 In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.
Insight
The book of Proverbs stresses honoring God in whatever we do. One phrase that parallels this sentiment is “the fear of the Lord” (16:6), which speaks of profound reverence and respect for God. Such awe, honor, and deference should be reserved uniquely for Him as Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Lord over all. The personal and corporate value of possessing this essential quality is noted throughout the Proverbs. The fear of the Lord is foundational for wise living (1:7; 9:10); it’s something that can be chosen (1:29); possessing it prolongs one’s life (10:27); and its value is greater than material wealth (15:16). Those who are guided by the fear of the Lord protect themselves from evil (16:6; 19:23) and have everything they need (10:3).
Whatever We Do
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Proverbs 16:3
In Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis confessed he came to Christianity at the age of thirty-three, “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape.” Despite Lewis’s own personal resistance, his shortcomings, and the obstacles he faced, the Lord transformed him into a courageous and creative defender of the faith. Lewis proclaimed God’s truth and love through writing powerful essays and novels that are still being read, studied, and shared more than fifty-five years after his death. His life reflected his belief that a person is “never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.”
As we make plans and follow dreams, God can purify our motives and empower us to devote whatever we do to Him (Proverbs 16:1–3). From the most ordinary tasks to the greatest challenges, we can live for the glory of our almighty Maker, who “works out everything to its proper end” (v. 4). Every action, every word, and every thought can become an expression of heartfelt worship, a sacrificial gift to honor our Lord, as He watches over us (v. 7).
God can’t be limited by our limitations, our reservations, or our tendencies to settle or dream small. As we choose to live for Him—dedicated to and dependent on Him—He will bring about His plans for us. Whatever we do can be done with Him, for Him, and only because of Him. By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How can Proverbs 16:3 help you be more confident in the use of your gifts? What steps can you take to honor God as you follow a dream He’s placed on your heart?
God, thank You for reminding us that no jobs are too small and no dreams are too big in Your great kingdom.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, September 13, 2019
After Surrender— Then What?
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. —John 17:4
True surrender is not simply surrender of our external life but surrender of our will— and once that is done, surrender is complete. The greatest crisis we ever face is the surrender of our will. Yet God never forces a person’s will into surrender, and He never begs. He patiently waits until that person willingly yields to Him. And once that battle has been fought, it never needs to be fought again.
Surrender for Deliverance. “Come to Me…and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will— “Come to Me.” And it is a voluntary coming.
Surrender for Devotion. “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…” (Matthew 16:24). The surrender here is of my self to Jesus, with His rest at the heart of my being. He says, “If you want to be My disciple, you must give up your right to yourself to Me.” And once this is done, the remainder of your life will exhibit nothing but the evidence of this surrender, and you never need to be concerned again with what the future may hold for you. Whatever your circumstances may be, Jesus is totally sufficient (see 2 Corinthians 12:9 and Philippians 4:19).
Surrender for Death. “…another will gird you…” (John 21:18; also see John 21:19). Have you learned what it means to be girded for death? Beware of some surrender that you make to God in an ecstatic moment in your life, because you are apt to take it back again. True surrender is a matter of being “united together [with Jesus] in the likeness of His death” (Romans 6:5) until nothing ever appeals to you that did not appeal to Him.
And after you surrender— then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally. The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, September 13, 2019
The Very Best Day...When Your Debt Goes Away! - #8525
Oh there's always lots of commencement speeches come about May and June. Most of them, pretty predictable. "Live up to your potential." "Follow your dreams." "The sky's the limit." But maybe there's never been a commencement speech like the one at Morehouse College recently. Billionaire businessman Robert Smith set 396 graduates free in one day.
He was reflecting on the long history of an African-American family, and then he announced that "on behalf of the eight generations of my family who have been in this country, we're going to put a little fuel in your bus." More like rocket fuel! In one breathtaking moment, he suddenly announced that his family was creating a grant that would pay the student loans of every graduate! What a moment! The dreaded debt just beyond the degree - suddenly gone!
In the case of one graduate I heard interviewed, those loans amounted to $200,000! Paid for in a day! Once he got past the shock of what he had just heard, he literally began jumping up and down. And shouting out loud, "I'm debt free! I'm debt free! Thank God!" And the interviewer said simply, "This is life-changing for you."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Very Best Day...When Your Debt Goes Away!"
Now I've certainly never been to a graduation like that one. But I understand the crazy joy of people who've had their debt erased in a day. A much larger debt than any of them could pay in a lifetime. I know. I'm one of them.
The announcement that has set millions free from the most crushing debt of all was made in three words... "It is finished." Jesus made that announcement as He died an undeserved death on an unthinkable cross. Those three words were just one word in the language of the day. "Tetelestai." Archaeologists actually found that word carved on stone tablet receipts in an ancient accountant's office. It meant, "paid in full."
Jesus was paying the biggest, most consequential debt I owe. Because I owe the very God who gave me my life. Because I hijacked that life from my Creator and, in essence, I declared myself the god of what I did with His gift. Or, as the Bible says, "All of us have wandered away like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). "All of us," it says. Ignoring Him. Pushing the Creator of the universe to the edge of our life. And ending up with a wall between us and Him. So, as the Bible says, "your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2).
I think we already knew that. Because we do things to try to make it right with God. After all, why do we bother with religion and trying to do some good deeds? Maybe we're hoping to somehow pay down our moral debt from a life lived "my way" instead of His way.
But we're in way too deep to ever be able to pay for our cosmic rebellion. Because "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). He's a perfect God. I'm a serial sinner. All the good I could ever do can't pay my death penalty. But somebody has to die, and somebody did. Jesus did. As it says in our word for today from the Word of God in 1 John 2:24, "He personally carried our sins (my sins!) in His body on the cross."
All the hurtful things I've ever done. All the lies I've ever told. All the things that I thought I'd never do and I did. All the trust betrayed. All the dirty things, the selfish things, the secret things. "Finished" on that day when He took my debt and became, on that cross both debtor and the deliverer. He might as well have been looking straight at me when He spoke those three liberating words.
It is this unspeakable love that has won my heart. And the hearts of millions who've carried with them to that cross their backpack full of rocks - all the guilt, the shame, the regrets, the sin of a lifetime. Debtors who left that cross with the backpack gone. Their sins forgiven. Their debt erased. And their eternity secure because the One who paid their debt that conquered death by walking out of His grave and now into their life. We can shout, "I'm debt free! Thank God!"
I want that for you. He wants that for you. Tell Him today, "Jesus, I believe when you died it was for my sin. I'm yours." Go to our website today at this crossroads moment and get the information that will help you be sure that you know him. It's ANewStory.com.
I've had people tell me so many times, "I feel like a 100-pound weight has been lifted off my back!" Well, it has. You're forgiven. You're going to Heaven. The debt is gone, paid in full.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
2 Kings 20 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: JESUS AFFIRMS PETER
Encouragement occurs when we “come alongside and call out.” Jesus modeled this. Peter was prone to speak too soon and boast too much. Yet Jesus saw something in the heart of this crusty fisherman worth calling forth. Jesus asked his followers, “Who do you say that I am?” I hear silence. Finally Peter spoke up. He looked at the penniless rabbi from Galilee and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
Jesus all but jumped for joy at the confession. He even changed the apostle’s name. Simon would now be called Peter, a name that is next of kin to petros or Rocky. Simon, the man who expressed rock-solid faith, needed a rock-solid name. Jesus did to Peter what encouragers do. He summoned the best. He built Peter up. Will you do the same for someone else?
2 Kings 20
Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz paid him a visit and said, “Put your affairs in order; you’re about to die—you haven’t long to live.”
2-3 Hezekiah turned from Isaiah and faced God, praying:
Remember, O God, who I am, what I’ve done!
I’ve lived an honest life before you,
My heart’s been true and steady,
I’ve lived to please you; lived for your approval.
And then the tears flowed. Hezekiah wept.
4-6 Isaiah, leaving, was not halfway across the courtyard when the word of God stopped him: “Go back and tell Hezekiah, prince of my people, ‘God’s word, Hezekiah! From the God of your ancestor David: I’ve listened to your prayer and I’ve observed your tears. I’m going to heal you. In three days you will walk on your own legs into The Temple of God. I’ve just added fifteen years to your life; I’m saving you from the king of Assyria, and I’m covering this city with my shield—for my sake and my servant David’s sake.’”
7 Isaiah then said, “Prepare a plaster of figs.”
They prepared the plaster, applied it to the boil, and Hezekiah was on his way to recovery.
8 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “How do I know whether this is of God and not just the fig plaster? What confirming sign is there that God is healing me and that in three days I’ll walk into The Temple of God on my own legs?”
9 “This will be your sign from God,” said Isaiah, “that God is doing what he said he’d do: Do you want the shadow to advance ten degrees on the sundial or go back ten degrees? You choose.”
10 Hezekiah said, “It would be easy to make the sun’s shadow advance ten degrees. Make it go back ten degrees.”
11 So Isaiah called out in prayer to God, and the shadow went back ten degrees on Ahaz’s sundial.
12-13 Shortly after this, Merodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, having heard that the king was sick, sent a get-well card and a gift to Hezekiah. Hezekiah was pleased and showed the messengers around the place—silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, his stockpile of weapons—a guided tour of all his prized possessions. There wasn’t a thing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah didn’t show them.
14 And then Isaiah the prophet showed up: “And just what were these men doing here? Where did they come from and why?”
Hezekiah said, “They came from far away—from Babylon.”
15 “And what did they see in your palace?”
“Everything,” said Hezekiah. “There isn’t anything I didn’t show them—I gave them the grand tour.”
16-18 Then Isaiah spoke to Hezekiah, “Listen to what God has to say about this: The day is coming when everything you own and everything your ancestors have passed down to you, right down to the last cup and saucer, will be cleaned out of here—plundered and packed off to Babylon. God’s word! Worse yet, your sons, the progeny of sons you’ve begotten, will end up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
19 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “If God says it, it must be good.” But he was thinking to himself, “It won’t happen during my lifetime—I’ll enjoy peace and security as long as I live.”
20-21 The rest of the life and times of Hezekiah, along with his projects, especially the way he engineered the Upper Pool and brought water into the city, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Hezekiah died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Manasseh became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
James 3:1–6
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
Insight
Who was James, the “servant of God” (1:1) and author of this epistle? Several different men named James appear in the New Testament. The most prominent is James, Zebedee’s son and John’s brother (Matthew 4:21). Another of Christ’s disciples was James the son of Alphaeus (10:3). James the younger or “the Less” (nkjv) is mentioned in Mark 15:40, but some scholars say this James might have been James the son of Alphaeus. Another was the father of Judas (not Iscariot, Luke 6:16). Finally, is James the half-brother of Jesus Himself (Matthew 13:55; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19). This James most likely wrote the book. James the son of Zebedee was the first of Christ’s disciples to be martyred (Acts 12:2), and the others were not prominent enough to have such broad influence.
Tongue Tamers
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up. Ephesians 4:29
In West with the Night, author Beryl Markham detailed her work with Camciscan, a feisty stallion she was tasked with taming. She’d met her match with Camciscan. No matter what strategy she employed, she could never fully tame the proud stallion, chalking up only one victory over his stubborn will.
How many of us feel this way in the battle to tame our tongues? While James compares the tongue to the bit in a horse’s mouth or a ship’s rudder (James 3:3–5), he also laments, “Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be” (v. 10).
So, how can we win the battle over the tongue? The apostle Paul offers tongue-taming advice. The first involves speaking only the truth (Ephesians 4:25). This is not a license to be painfully blunt, however. Paul follows up with “do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up” (v. 29). We can also take out the trash: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (v. 31). Is this easy? Not if we attempt to do it on our own. Thankfully, we have the Holy Spirit who helps us as we rely on Him.
As Markham learned, consistency with Camciscan was needed in the battle of wills. Such is the case in the taming of the tongue. By: Linda Washington
Reflect & Pray
What do you find most challenging in taming your tongue? What practical steps can you take to win the battle in the coming week?
Jesus, I need You to help me be mindful of the words I use.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Going Through Spiritual Confusion
Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask." —Matthew 20:22
There are times in your spiritual life when there is confusion, and the way out of it is not simply to say that you should not be confused. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding of what God wants for you.
The Shrouding of His Friendship (see Luke 11:5-8). Jesus gave the illustration here of a man who appears not to care for his friend. He was saying, in effect, that is how the heavenly Father will appear to you at times. You will think that He is an unkind friend, but remember— He is not. The time will come when everything will be explained. There seems to be a cloud on the friendship of the heart, and often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller fellowship and oneness. When God appears to be completely shrouded, will you hang on with confidence in Him?
The Shadow on His Fatherhood (see Luke 11:11-13). Jesus said that there are times when your Father will appear as if He were an unnatural father— as if He were callous and indifferent— but remember, He is not. “Everyone who asks receives…” (Luke 11:10). If all you see is a shadow on the face of the Father right now, hang on to the fact that He will ultimately give you clear understanding and will fully justify Himself in everything that He has allowed into your life.
The Strangeness of His Faithfulness (see Luke 18:1-8). “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Will He find the kind of faith that counts on Him in spite of the confusion? Stand firm in faith, believing that what Jesus said is true, although in the meantime you do not understand what God is doing. He has bigger issues at stake than the particular things you are asking of Him right now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Born to Fly - #8524
I read once that Benjamin Franklin had nominated the turkey to be America's national bird. With all due respect to our wonderful founding father, I'm glad Ben got outvoted on that one, aren't you? I'm glad they picked the American eagle. What a majestic bird! They're even a good example for us humans! They mate for life, they build a family home called a nest to last for life, and they do a good job raising their kids. Veteran eagle watchers have told us that Mom and Pop eagle cover the floor of their nest with feathers and fur and, you know, soft stuff for their little babies. And then one day that little eaglet ventures outside the nest for a little walk on the cliff. And that's when the renovations start. Mr. and Mrs. Eagle start removing the fur and the feathers from the nest. When the eaglet returns from his little stroll, he returns to a nest that doesn't feel as good as it did before. Oooh, ouch! He's resting on sticks and stones now. Suddenly the comfy nest isn't comfortable anymore. Actually, this is the first step in getting that eagle to do what he otherwise might never do. What he was born to do - fly!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Born to Fly."
Now God likes eagles, too. He talks about them many times in the Bible. One of them is in Deuteronomy 32. I'll begin reading at verse 10 - it's our word for today from the Word of God. Speaking of his leadership of some of the believers in the past it says, "He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led him." How does he lead him? Well, part of his leading of him is to stir up the nest.
Maybe that's a fair description of what's been happening in your life recently? Your nest isn't as comfortable as it used to be; you're restless, and maybe even hurting. It's obvious something is going on but you haven't been able to figure out what it is. Well, it could be that your loving Father is stirring up your nest. Why? The same reason the father eagle stirs up the nest of that eaglet...to move you out of your comfort zone so you can fly! God's moving you to do what you were made for, but you don't know it.
I remember a call we got from our son just a couple of weeks after he had followed the Lord's leading to go work for the Lord among a tough southwestern Indian tribe. He was just out of college, obeying the Lord's call, but without much that folks would call security. Believe me. He had actually broken an engagement a few months earlier because of his calling. He'd been sleeping on a table in a church storeroom, that's all he had to start with. He was totally depending on the Lord to support his daily needs.
He called early one morning and he said, "Mom, Dad, you know when I was in college and I needed friends, they were right there. If I needed a girl, not a problem, and If I needed money, I knew what I had to do." He said, "I don't have any of that here and I'm really lonely." You know, we're parents. We're like, "Oh, boy." But then he said, "I have never had such peace and contentment like this in my whole life." And then I will never forget what he said after that, "Because I am where I was born to be."
Man, that is the peace the Lord wants you to have. That's where your Lord wants to take you to be the kind of person you were born to be, to be in the place you were born to be, the work you were born to do. But He has got to get you out of that comfy nest first, so He's stirring it up.
I'm sure if Papa Eagle told that eaglet that he was going to hang out there in mid-air and fly, that baby would say, "No way I'm doing that." But then comes the discomforting of his nest! If your comfortable spot is suddenly getting uncomfortable, it's time to be asking, "Lord, what do you want me to do?" I'm ready for whatever you have for me.
See, He's moving you to what you were created for. Which wasn't to spend your life in the nest. No, you were born to fly!
Encouragement occurs when we “come alongside and call out.” Jesus modeled this. Peter was prone to speak too soon and boast too much. Yet Jesus saw something in the heart of this crusty fisherman worth calling forth. Jesus asked his followers, “Who do you say that I am?” I hear silence. Finally Peter spoke up. He looked at the penniless rabbi from Galilee and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
Jesus all but jumped for joy at the confession. He even changed the apostle’s name. Simon would now be called Peter, a name that is next of kin to petros or Rocky. Simon, the man who expressed rock-solid faith, needed a rock-solid name. Jesus did to Peter what encouragers do. He summoned the best. He built Peter up. Will you do the same for someone else?
2 Kings 20
Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz paid him a visit and said, “Put your affairs in order; you’re about to die—you haven’t long to live.”
2-3 Hezekiah turned from Isaiah and faced God, praying:
Remember, O God, who I am, what I’ve done!
I’ve lived an honest life before you,
My heart’s been true and steady,
I’ve lived to please you; lived for your approval.
And then the tears flowed. Hezekiah wept.
4-6 Isaiah, leaving, was not halfway across the courtyard when the word of God stopped him: “Go back and tell Hezekiah, prince of my people, ‘God’s word, Hezekiah! From the God of your ancestor David: I’ve listened to your prayer and I’ve observed your tears. I’m going to heal you. In three days you will walk on your own legs into The Temple of God. I’ve just added fifteen years to your life; I’m saving you from the king of Assyria, and I’m covering this city with my shield—for my sake and my servant David’s sake.’”
7 Isaiah then said, “Prepare a plaster of figs.”
They prepared the plaster, applied it to the boil, and Hezekiah was on his way to recovery.
8 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “How do I know whether this is of God and not just the fig plaster? What confirming sign is there that God is healing me and that in three days I’ll walk into The Temple of God on my own legs?”
9 “This will be your sign from God,” said Isaiah, “that God is doing what he said he’d do: Do you want the shadow to advance ten degrees on the sundial or go back ten degrees? You choose.”
10 Hezekiah said, “It would be easy to make the sun’s shadow advance ten degrees. Make it go back ten degrees.”
11 So Isaiah called out in prayer to God, and the shadow went back ten degrees on Ahaz’s sundial.
12-13 Shortly after this, Merodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, having heard that the king was sick, sent a get-well card and a gift to Hezekiah. Hezekiah was pleased and showed the messengers around the place—silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, his stockpile of weapons—a guided tour of all his prized possessions. There wasn’t a thing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah didn’t show them.
14 And then Isaiah the prophet showed up: “And just what were these men doing here? Where did they come from and why?”
Hezekiah said, “They came from far away—from Babylon.”
15 “And what did they see in your palace?”
“Everything,” said Hezekiah. “There isn’t anything I didn’t show them—I gave them the grand tour.”
16-18 Then Isaiah spoke to Hezekiah, “Listen to what God has to say about this: The day is coming when everything you own and everything your ancestors have passed down to you, right down to the last cup and saucer, will be cleaned out of here—plundered and packed off to Babylon. God’s word! Worse yet, your sons, the progeny of sons you’ve begotten, will end up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
19 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “If God says it, it must be good.” But he was thinking to himself, “It won’t happen during my lifetime—I’ll enjoy peace and security as long as I live.”
20-21 The rest of the life and times of Hezekiah, along with his projects, especially the way he engineered the Upper Pool and brought water into the city, are written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. Hezekiah died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Manasseh became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
James 3:1–6
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.
3 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. 4 Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. 5 Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
Insight
Who was James, the “servant of God” (1:1) and author of this epistle? Several different men named James appear in the New Testament. The most prominent is James, Zebedee’s son and John’s brother (Matthew 4:21). Another of Christ’s disciples was James the son of Alphaeus (10:3). James the younger or “the Less” (nkjv) is mentioned in Mark 15:40, but some scholars say this James might have been James the son of Alphaeus. Another was the father of Judas (not Iscariot, Luke 6:16). Finally, is James the half-brother of Jesus Himself (Matthew 13:55; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19). This James most likely wrote the book. James the son of Zebedee was the first of Christ’s disciples to be martyred (Acts 12:2), and the others were not prominent enough to have such broad influence.
Tongue Tamers
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up. Ephesians 4:29
In West with the Night, author Beryl Markham detailed her work with Camciscan, a feisty stallion she was tasked with taming. She’d met her match with Camciscan. No matter what strategy she employed, she could never fully tame the proud stallion, chalking up only one victory over his stubborn will.
How many of us feel this way in the battle to tame our tongues? While James compares the tongue to the bit in a horse’s mouth or a ship’s rudder (James 3:3–5), he also laments, “Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be” (v. 10).
So, how can we win the battle over the tongue? The apostle Paul offers tongue-taming advice. The first involves speaking only the truth (Ephesians 4:25). This is not a license to be painfully blunt, however. Paul follows up with “do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up” (v. 29). We can also take out the trash: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (v. 31). Is this easy? Not if we attempt to do it on our own. Thankfully, we have the Holy Spirit who helps us as we rely on Him.
As Markham learned, consistency with Camciscan was needed in the battle of wills. Such is the case in the taming of the tongue. By: Linda Washington
Reflect & Pray
What do you find most challenging in taming your tongue? What practical steps can you take to win the battle in the coming week?
Jesus, I need You to help me be mindful of the words I use.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Going Through Spiritual Confusion
Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask." —Matthew 20:22
There are times in your spiritual life when there is confusion, and the way out of it is not simply to say that you should not be confused. It is not a matter of right and wrong, but a matter of God taking you through a way that you temporarily do not understand. And it is only by going through the spiritual confusion that you will come to the understanding of what God wants for you.
The Shrouding of His Friendship (see Luke 11:5-8). Jesus gave the illustration here of a man who appears not to care for his friend. He was saying, in effect, that is how the heavenly Father will appear to you at times. You will think that He is an unkind friend, but remember— He is not. The time will come when everything will be explained. There seems to be a cloud on the friendship of the heart, and often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller fellowship and oneness. When God appears to be completely shrouded, will you hang on with confidence in Him?
The Shadow on His Fatherhood (see Luke 11:11-13). Jesus said that there are times when your Father will appear as if He were an unnatural father— as if He were callous and indifferent— but remember, He is not. “Everyone who asks receives…” (Luke 11:10). If all you see is a shadow on the face of the Father right now, hang on to the fact that He will ultimately give you clear understanding and will fully justify Himself in everything that He has allowed into your life.
The Strangeness of His Faithfulness (see Luke 18:1-8). “When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Will He find the kind of faith that counts on Him in spite of the confusion? Stand firm in faith, believing that what Jesus said is true, although in the meantime you do not understand what God is doing. He has bigger issues at stake than the particular things you are asking of Him right now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The attitude of a Christian towards the providential order in which he is placed is to recognize that God is behind it for purposes of His own. Biblical Ethics, 99 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Born to Fly - #8524
I read once that Benjamin Franklin had nominated the turkey to be America's national bird. With all due respect to our wonderful founding father, I'm glad Ben got outvoted on that one, aren't you? I'm glad they picked the American eagle. What a majestic bird! They're even a good example for us humans! They mate for life, they build a family home called a nest to last for life, and they do a good job raising their kids. Veteran eagle watchers have told us that Mom and Pop eagle cover the floor of their nest with feathers and fur and, you know, soft stuff for their little babies. And then one day that little eaglet ventures outside the nest for a little walk on the cliff. And that's when the renovations start. Mr. and Mrs. Eagle start removing the fur and the feathers from the nest. When the eaglet returns from his little stroll, he returns to a nest that doesn't feel as good as it did before. Oooh, ouch! He's resting on sticks and stones now. Suddenly the comfy nest isn't comfortable anymore. Actually, this is the first step in getting that eagle to do what he otherwise might never do. What he was born to do - fly!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Born to Fly."
Now God likes eagles, too. He talks about them many times in the Bible. One of them is in Deuteronomy 32. I'll begin reading at verse 10 - it's our word for today from the Word of God. Speaking of his leadership of some of the believers in the past it says, "He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led him." How does he lead him? Well, part of his leading of him is to stir up the nest.
Maybe that's a fair description of what's been happening in your life recently? Your nest isn't as comfortable as it used to be; you're restless, and maybe even hurting. It's obvious something is going on but you haven't been able to figure out what it is. Well, it could be that your loving Father is stirring up your nest. Why? The same reason the father eagle stirs up the nest of that eaglet...to move you out of your comfort zone so you can fly! God's moving you to do what you were made for, but you don't know it.
I remember a call we got from our son just a couple of weeks after he had followed the Lord's leading to go work for the Lord among a tough southwestern Indian tribe. He was just out of college, obeying the Lord's call, but without much that folks would call security. Believe me. He had actually broken an engagement a few months earlier because of his calling. He'd been sleeping on a table in a church storeroom, that's all he had to start with. He was totally depending on the Lord to support his daily needs.
He called early one morning and he said, "Mom, Dad, you know when I was in college and I needed friends, they were right there. If I needed a girl, not a problem, and If I needed money, I knew what I had to do." He said, "I don't have any of that here and I'm really lonely." You know, we're parents. We're like, "Oh, boy." But then he said, "I have never had such peace and contentment like this in my whole life." And then I will never forget what he said after that, "Because I am where I was born to be."
Man, that is the peace the Lord wants you to have. That's where your Lord wants to take you to be the kind of person you were born to be, to be in the place you were born to be, the work you were born to do. But He has got to get you out of that comfy nest first, so He's stirring it up.
I'm sure if Papa Eagle told that eaglet that he was going to hang out there in mid-air and fly, that baby would say, "No way I'm doing that." But then comes the discomforting of his nest! If your comfortable spot is suddenly getting uncomfortable, it's time to be asking, "Lord, what do you want me to do?" I'm ready for whatever you have for me.
See, He's moving you to what you were created for. Which wasn't to spend your life in the nest. No, you were born to fly!
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
2 Kings 19, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A CROWD OF ENCOURAGERS
God is “the God who gives endurance and encouragement” (Romans 15:5). God encourages us. So does Jesus. Jesus called the Holy Spirit paraklétos, the noun form of the very word for encouragement.
Scripture encourages us. “The Scriptures, according to Romans 15:4, were written to teach and encourage us by giving us hope.” The saints in heaven encourage us. Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”
A “crowd of witnesses” applauds from the heavens, calling on us to finish strong. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the holy Scriptures, and the saints. God places a premium on encouragement.
2 Kings 19
When Hezekiah heard it all, he too ripped his robes apart and dressed himself in rough burlap. Then he went into The Temple of God. He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all of them dressed in rough burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They said to him, “A message from Hezekiah: ‘This is a black day, a terrible day—doomsday!
Babies poised to be born,
No strength to birth them.
4 “‘Maybe God, your God, has been listening to the blasphemous speech of the Rabshakeh who was sent by the king of Assyria, his master, to humiliate the living God; maybe God, your God, won’t let him get by with such talk; and you, maybe you will lift up prayers for what’s left of these people.’”
5 That’s the message King Hezekiah’s servants delivered to Isaiah.
6-7 Isaiah answered them, “Tell your master, ‘God’s word: Don’t be at all concerned about what you’ve heard from the king of Assyria’s bootlicking errand boys—these outrageous blasphemies. Here’s what I’m going to do: Afflict him with self-doubt. He’s going to hear a rumor and, frightened for his life, retreat to his own country. Once there, I’ll see to it that he gets killed.’”
8-13 The Rabshakeh left and found that the king of Assyria had pulled up stakes from Lachish and was now fighting against Libnah. Then Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Cush was on his way to fight against him. So he sent another envoy with orders to deliver this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: “Don’t let that god that you think so much of keep stringing you along with the line, ‘Jerusalem will never fall to the king of Assyria.’ That’s a barefaced lie. You know the track record of the kings of Assyria—country after country laid waste, devastated. And what makes you think you’ll be an exception? Take a good look at these wasted nations, destroyed by my ancestors; did their gods do them any good? Look at Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the people of Eden at Tel Assar. Ruins. And what’s left of the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of Sepharvaim, of Hena, of Ivvah? Bones.”
14-15 Hezekiah took the letter from the envoy and read it. He went to The Temple of God and spread it out before God. And Hezekiah prayed—oh, how he prayed!
God, God of Israel, seated
in majesty on the cherubim-throne.
You are the one and only God,
sovereign over all kingdoms on earth,
Maker of heaven,
maker of earth.
16 Open your ears, God, and listen,
open your eyes and look.
Look at this letter Sennacherib has sent,
a brazen insult to the living God!
17 The facts are true, O God: The kings of Assyria
have laid waste countries and kingdoms.
18 Huge bonfires they made of their gods, their
no-gods hand-made from wood and stone.
19 But now O God, our God,
save us from raw Assyrian power;
Make all the kingdoms on earth know
that you are God, the one and only God.
20-21 It wasn’t long before Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah:
God’s word: You’ve prayed to me regarding Sennacherib king of Assyria; I’ve heard your prayer. This is my response to him:
The Virgin Daughter of Zion
holds you in utter contempt;
Daughter Jerusalem
thinks you’re nothing but scum.
22 Who do you think it is you’ve insulted?
Who do you think you’ve been bad-mouthing?
Before whom do you suppose you’ve been strutting?
The Holy One of Israel, that’s who!
23 You dispatched your errand boys
to humiliate the Master.
You bragged, “With my army of chariots
I’ve climbed the highest mountains,
snow-peaked alpine Lebanon mountains!
I’ve cut down its giant cedars,
chopped down its prize pine trees.
I’ve traveled the world,
visited the finest forest retreats.
24 I’ve dug wells in faraway places
and drunk their exotic waters;
I’ve waded and splashed barefoot
in the rivers of Egypt.”
25 Did it never occur to you
that I’m behind all this?
Long, long ago I drew up the plans,
and now I’ve gone into action,
Using you as a doomsday weapon,
reducing proud cities to piles of rubble,
26 Leaving their people dispirited,
slumped shoulders, limp souls.
Useless as weeds, fragile as grass,
insubstantial as wind-blown chaff.
27 I know when you sit down, when you come
and when you go;
And, yes, I’ve marked every one
of your temper tantrums against me.
28 It’s because of your temper,
your blasphemous foul temper,
That I’m putting my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth
And turning you back
to where you came from.
29 And this, Hezekiah, will be for you the confirming sign:
This year you’ll eat the gleanings, next year
whatever you can beg, borrow, or steal;
But the third year you’ll sow and harvest,
plant vineyards and eat grapes.
30 A remnant of the family of Judah yet again
will sink down roots and raise up fruit.
31 The remnant will come from Jerusalem,
the survivors from Mount Zion.
The Zeal of God
will make it happen.
32 To sum up, this is what God says regarding the king of Assyria:
He won’t enter this city,
nor shoot so much as a single arrow there;
Won’t brandish a shield,
won’t even begin to set siege;
33 He’ll go home by the same road he came;
he won’t enter this city. God’s word!
34 I’ll shield this city, I’ll save this city,
for my sake and for David’s sake.
35 And it so happened that that very night an angel of God came and massacred 185,000 Assyrians. When the people of Jerusalem got up next morning, there it was—a whole camp of corpses!
36-37 Sennacherib king of Assyria got out of there fast, headed straight home for Nineveh, and stayed put. One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered him and then escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
2 Corinthians 4:16–5:9
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
Insight
Paul often compares our current existence to what we’ll experience with God in eternity. In fact, this passage in 2 Corinthians is the second time he’s addressed this issue with the Corinthian church. In his first letter to them, Paul spent a great deal of time (most of chapter 15) discussing the difference between life now and the life to come. He also talks about our future hope in Ephesians (1:18–23), Philippians (1:20–23), 1 Thessalonians (4:13–18), and 1 Timothy (6:17–19).
Better Than Ever
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16
The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a spectacular building. Its architecture is spellbinding, and its stained-glass windows and beautiful interior features are breathtaking. But after centuries of towering over the Paris landscape, it needed renovation—which had begun when a devastating fire caused extensive damage to the glorious old building.
So the people who love this eight-century-old landmark are coming to its rescue. More than a billion dollars has been raised to restore the building. The stone structure must be shored up. The damaged interior and its prized artifacts need to be repaired. The effort is worthwhile, though, because for many this ancient cathedral stands as a symbol of hope.
What’s true of buildings is also true of us. Our bodies, like this old church, will eventually look a bit worse for wear! But as the apostle Paul explains, there’s good news: while we might gradually lose the physical vibrancy of youth, the core of who we are—our spiritual being—can be continually renewed and growing (2 Corinthians 4:16).
As “we make it our goal to please [the Lord]” (5:9), relying on the Holy Spirit to fill and transform us (3:18; Ephesians 5:18), our spiritual growth need never stop—no matter what our “building” looks like. By: Dave Branon
Reflect & Pray
Where have you seen the Spirit renewing your spiritual being? How does the knowledge that our spiritual growth never stops inspire you?
God, thank You for Your Spirit renewing and transforming us. Please continue to give us the strength and courage to rest in You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Missionary Weapons (2)
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. —John 13:14
Ministering in Everyday Opportunities. Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings— it means being God’s very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.
The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God’s power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary things in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done.
Jesus said, “I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you” (John 13:15). Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.
Do you find yourself responding by saying, “Oh, I will do all that once I’m out on the mission field”? Talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of war while in the trenches of the battlefield— you will be killed while trying to do it.
We have to go the “second mile” with God (see Matthew 5:41). Yet some of us become worn out in the first ten steps. Then we say, “Well, I’ll just wait until I get closer to the next big crisis in my life.” But if we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, we will do nothing when the crisis comes.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
A Heroic Ambassador - #8523
I had already been feeling some of the residual sadness of another September 11th in America, and then the headlines screamed out that there had been another 9/11 tragedy. Maybe you remember the deaths of an American ambassador and three of his staff, killed - as they often say about police officers or soldiers – in the line of duty.
It seemed like the man that we lost was the kind of person that we want representing our country. I remember what they said about him. He was proficient in the language, he was out among the people, he was building relationships, taking risks so folks could be free. I mean, that's what you call an ambassador.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I'd like to have A Word With You today about "A Heroic Ambassador."
Now, with that word "ambassador" in the news occasionally, I keep thinking, "You know, I'm one, too." Just like every one of us who belongs to Jesus. I mean, it's right there in black-and-white in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in 2 Corinthians 5:20 - "We are Christ's ambassadors."
Now, that news flash that we heard about that ambassador several years ago was a vivid reminder of exactly what the title ambassador means. An ambassador is appointed by the highest authority there is (in this case, the President of the United States) to represent him in a specific place. Sometimes that requires risks, sometimes sacrifice.
So, along with all my spiritual brothers and sisters, I've been assigned by the highest Authority in the universe to represent Him wherever He places me. That makes the Jesus-follower the most important person in any room, whether anyone recognizes it or not, because he or she is that representative of Heaven.
That means I must act like Jesus, I need to respond like Jesus, no matter what my circumstances; no matter how I'm getting treated. There's no excuse for losing my temper, or being harsh, or compromising my integrity, or acting selfish, or flirting with sin, being too busy for people who need me, because Jesus has staked His reputation on His ambassador. He literally says I am where He's put me - here are the words - "on Christ's behalf" (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Now, I can't stay cloistered in the "embassy." I mean, I guess that would be the church. I have to do what my Master did – go outside the walls to meet people where they are. Ambassadors succeed or fail depending on how well they build relationships with the people where they're assigned. Well, no true ambassador could be content just to hang out with those of their own spiritual "country." We've got to be intentional, passionate, about building some authentic relationships with the people who need our Jesus.
I need to remember, too, that an ambassador's job is to fully and accurately deliver the message of the one who sent him. Now, for a Jesus-ambassador that message is clear. 1 Corinthians 2:2 - "Nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." So our message needs to be uncluttered by politics, my church, my religion, my personal hobby-horses, culture issues, or attacking lifestyles. It's just Jesus and His cross. A message so eternally important that it needs to be delivered, not in my churchy "Christianese" language, but in the non-religious language of the people that I'm there to reach.
And, yes, there is risk involved. Just ask Jesus, the original and ultimate Ambassador of Heaven. He gave His life in exchange for mine. So I'm supposed to get off cheap? My fear of losing someone for eternity has to trump my fear of whatever I think I'll lose by speaking up for Jesus.
I can't let the spinning gerbil wheel of an overstuffed life make me forget who I am. I'm on assignment from Heaven to help other people go there.
God is “the God who gives endurance and encouragement” (Romans 15:5). God encourages us. So does Jesus. Jesus called the Holy Spirit paraklétos, the noun form of the very word for encouragement.
Scripture encourages us. “The Scriptures, according to Romans 15:4, were written to teach and encourage us by giving us hope.” The saints in heaven encourage us. Hebrews 12:1 says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”
A “crowd of witnesses” applauds from the heavens, calling on us to finish strong. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the holy Scriptures, and the saints. God places a premium on encouragement.
2 Kings 19
When Hezekiah heard it all, he too ripped his robes apart and dressed himself in rough burlap. Then he went into The Temple of God. He sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, all of them dressed in rough burlap, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. They said to him, “A message from Hezekiah: ‘This is a black day, a terrible day—doomsday!
Babies poised to be born,
No strength to birth them.
4 “‘Maybe God, your God, has been listening to the blasphemous speech of the Rabshakeh who was sent by the king of Assyria, his master, to humiliate the living God; maybe God, your God, won’t let him get by with such talk; and you, maybe you will lift up prayers for what’s left of these people.’”
5 That’s the message King Hezekiah’s servants delivered to Isaiah.
6-7 Isaiah answered them, “Tell your master, ‘God’s word: Don’t be at all concerned about what you’ve heard from the king of Assyria’s bootlicking errand boys—these outrageous blasphemies. Here’s what I’m going to do: Afflict him with self-doubt. He’s going to hear a rumor and, frightened for his life, retreat to his own country. Once there, I’ll see to it that he gets killed.’”
8-13 The Rabshakeh left and found that the king of Assyria had pulled up stakes from Lachish and was now fighting against Libnah. Then Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah king of Cush was on his way to fight against him. So he sent another envoy with orders to deliver this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: “Don’t let that god that you think so much of keep stringing you along with the line, ‘Jerusalem will never fall to the king of Assyria.’ That’s a barefaced lie. You know the track record of the kings of Assyria—country after country laid waste, devastated. And what makes you think you’ll be an exception? Take a good look at these wasted nations, destroyed by my ancestors; did their gods do them any good? Look at Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, the people of Eden at Tel Assar. Ruins. And what’s left of the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of Sepharvaim, of Hena, of Ivvah? Bones.”
14-15 Hezekiah took the letter from the envoy and read it. He went to The Temple of God and spread it out before God. And Hezekiah prayed—oh, how he prayed!
God, God of Israel, seated
in majesty on the cherubim-throne.
You are the one and only God,
sovereign over all kingdoms on earth,
Maker of heaven,
maker of earth.
16 Open your ears, God, and listen,
open your eyes and look.
Look at this letter Sennacherib has sent,
a brazen insult to the living God!
17 The facts are true, O God: The kings of Assyria
have laid waste countries and kingdoms.
18 Huge bonfires they made of their gods, their
no-gods hand-made from wood and stone.
19 But now O God, our God,
save us from raw Assyrian power;
Make all the kingdoms on earth know
that you are God, the one and only God.
20-21 It wasn’t long before Isaiah son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah:
God’s word: You’ve prayed to me regarding Sennacherib king of Assyria; I’ve heard your prayer. This is my response to him:
The Virgin Daughter of Zion
holds you in utter contempt;
Daughter Jerusalem
thinks you’re nothing but scum.
22 Who do you think it is you’ve insulted?
Who do you think you’ve been bad-mouthing?
Before whom do you suppose you’ve been strutting?
The Holy One of Israel, that’s who!
23 You dispatched your errand boys
to humiliate the Master.
You bragged, “With my army of chariots
I’ve climbed the highest mountains,
snow-peaked alpine Lebanon mountains!
I’ve cut down its giant cedars,
chopped down its prize pine trees.
I’ve traveled the world,
visited the finest forest retreats.
24 I’ve dug wells in faraway places
and drunk their exotic waters;
I’ve waded and splashed barefoot
in the rivers of Egypt.”
25 Did it never occur to you
that I’m behind all this?
Long, long ago I drew up the plans,
and now I’ve gone into action,
Using you as a doomsday weapon,
reducing proud cities to piles of rubble,
26 Leaving their people dispirited,
slumped shoulders, limp souls.
Useless as weeds, fragile as grass,
insubstantial as wind-blown chaff.
27 I know when you sit down, when you come
and when you go;
And, yes, I’ve marked every one
of your temper tantrums against me.
28 It’s because of your temper,
your blasphemous foul temper,
That I’m putting my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth
And turning you back
to where you came from.
29 And this, Hezekiah, will be for you the confirming sign:
This year you’ll eat the gleanings, next year
whatever you can beg, borrow, or steal;
But the third year you’ll sow and harvest,
plant vineyards and eat grapes.
30 A remnant of the family of Judah yet again
will sink down roots and raise up fruit.
31 The remnant will come from Jerusalem,
the survivors from Mount Zion.
The Zeal of God
will make it happen.
32 To sum up, this is what God says regarding the king of Assyria:
He won’t enter this city,
nor shoot so much as a single arrow there;
Won’t brandish a shield,
won’t even begin to set siege;
33 He’ll go home by the same road he came;
he won’t enter this city. God’s word!
34 I’ll shield this city, I’ll save this city,
for my sake and for David’s sake.
35 And it so happened that that very night an angel of God came and massacred 185,000 Assyrians. When the people of Jerusalem got up next morning, there it was—a whole camp of corpses!
36-37 Sennacherib king of Assyria got out of there fast, headed straight home for Nineveh, and stayed put. One day when he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer murdered him and then escaped to the land of Ararat. His son Esarhaddon became the next king.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
2 Corinthians 4:16–5:9
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, 3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
6 Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7 For we live by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
Insight
Paul often compares our current existence to what we’ll experience with God in eternity. In fact, this passage in 2 Corinthians is the second time he’s addressed this issue with the Corinthian church. In his first letter to them, Paul spent a great deal of time (most of chapter 15) discussing the difference between life now and the life to come. He also talks about our future hope in Ephesians (1:18–23), Philippians (1:20–23), 1 Thessalonians (4:13–18), and 1 Timothy (6:17–19).
Better Than Ever
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16
The Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is a spectacular building. Its architecture is spellbinding, and its stained-glass windows and beautiful interior features are breathtaking. But after centuries of towering over the Paris landscape, it needed renovation—which had begun when a devastating fire caused extensive damage to the glorious old building.
So the people who love this eight-century-old landmark are coming to its rescue. More than a billion dollars has been raised to restore the building. The stone structure must be shored up. The damaged interior and its prized artifacts need to be repaired. The effort is worthwhile, though, because for many this ancient cathedral stands as a symbol of hope.
What’s true of buildings is also true of us. Our bodies, like this old church, will eventually look a bit worse for wear! But as the apostle Paul explains, there’s good news: while we might gradually lose the physical vibrancy of youth, the core of who we are—our spiritual being—can be continually renewed and growing (2 Corinthians 4:16).
As “we make it our goal to please [the Lord]” (5:9), relying on the Holy Spirit to fill and transform us (3:18; Ephesians 5:18), our spiritual growth need never stop—no matter what our “building” looks like. By: Dave Branon
Reflect & Pray
Where have you seen the Spirit renewing your spiritual being? How does the knowledge that our spiritual growth never stops inspire you?
God, thank You for Your Spirit renewing and transforming us. Please continue to give us the strength and courage to rest in You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Missionary Weapons (2)
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. —John 13:14
Ministering in Everyday Opportunities. Ministering in everyday opportunities that surround us does not mean that we select our own surroundings— it means being God’s very special choice to be available for use in any of the seemingly random surroundings which He has engineered for us. The very character we exhibit in our present surroundings is an indication of what we will be like in other surroundings.
The things Jesus did were the most menial of everyday tasks, and this is an indication that it takes all of God’s power in me to accomplish even the most common tasks in His way. Can I use a towel as He did? Towels, dishes, sandals, and all the other ordinary things in our lives reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done.
Jesus said, “I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you” (John 13:15). Notice the kind of people that God brings around you, and you will be humiliated once you realize that this is actually His way of revealing to you the kind of person you have been to Him. Now He says we should exhibit to those around us exactly what He has exhibited to us.
Do you find yourself responding by saying, “Oh, I will do all that once I’m out on the mission field”? Talking in this way is like trying to produce the weapons of war while in the trenches of the battlefield— you will be killed while trying to do it.
We have to go the “second mile” with God (see Matthew 5:41). Yet some of us become worn out in the first ten steps. Then we say, “Well, I’ll just wait until I get closer to the next big crisis in my life.” But if we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, we will do nothing when the crisis comes.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word. Disciples Indeed, 386 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
A Heroic Ambassador - #8523
I had already been feeling some of the residual sadness of another September 11th in America, and then the headlines screamed out that there had been another 9/11 tragedy. Maybe you remember the deaths of an American ambassador and three of his staff, killed - as they often say about police officers or soldiers – in the line of duty.
It seemed like the man that we lost was the kind of person that we want representing our country. I remember what they said about him. He was proficient in the language, he was out among the people, he was building relationships, taking risks so folks could be free. I mean, that's what you call an ambassador.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I'd like to have A Word With You today about "A Heroic Ambassador."
Now, with that word "ambassador" in the news occasionally, I keep thinking, "You know, I'm one, too." Just like every one of us who belongs to Jesus. I mean, it's right there in black-and-white in our word for today from the Word of God. It's in 2 Corinthians 5:20 - "We are Christ's ambassadors."
Now, that news flash that we heard about that ambassador several years ago was a vivid reminder of exactly what the title ambassador means. An ambassador is appointed by the highest authority there is (in this case, the President of the United States) to represent him in a specific place. Sometimes that requires risks, sometimes sacrifice.
So, along with all my spiritual brothers and sisters, I've been assigned by the highest Authority in the universe to represent Him wherever He places me. That makes the Jesus-follower the most important person in any room, whether anyone recognizes it or not, because he or she is that representative of Heaven.
That means I must act like Jesus, I need to respond like Jesus, no matter what my circumstances; no matter how I'm getting treated. There's no excuse for losing my temper, or being harsh, or compromising my integrity, or acting selfish, or flirting with sin, being too busy for people who need me, because Jesus has staked His reputation on His ambassador. He literally says I am where He's put me - here are the words - "on Christ's behalf" (2 Corinthians 5:20).
Now, I can't stay cloistered in the "embassy." I mean, I guess that would be the church. I have to do what my Master did – go outside the walls to meet people where they are. Ambassadors succeed or fail depending on how well they build relationships with the people where they're assigned. Well, no true ambassador could be content just to hang out with those of their own spiritual "country." We've got to be intentional, passionate, about building some authentic relationships with the people who need our Jesus.
I need to remember, too, that an ambassador's job is to fully and accurately deliver the message of the one who sent him. Now, for a Jesus-ambassador that message is clear. 1 Corinthians 2:2 - "Nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." So our message needs to be uncluttered by politics, my church, my religion, my personal hobby-horses, culture issues, or attacking lifestyles. It's just Jesus and His cross. A message so eternally important that it needs to be delivered, not in my churchy "Christianese" language, but in the non-religious language of the people that I'm there to reach.
And, yes, there is risk involved. Just ask Jesus, the original and ultimate Ambassador of Heaven. He gave His life in exchange for mine. So I'm supposed to get off cheap? My fear of losing someone for eternity has to trump my fear of whatever I think I'll lose by speaking up for Jesus.
I can't let the spinning gerbil wheel of an overstuffed life make me forget who I am. I'm on assignment from Heaven to help other people go there.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Galatians 4 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: ENCOURAGE ONE ANOTHER
My big brother used to pick on me. For Dee no day was complete unless he had made mine miserable. He stole my allowance. He called me a sissy.
But all his cruel antics were offset by one great act of grace on a summer day in the park. He picked me to play on his baseball team. Everyone else was a middle-schooler. I was a third-grader. I went from the back of the pack to the front of line, all because he picked me. Dee didn’t pick me because I was good. He called my name for one reason only. He was my big brother. And on that day he decided to be a good big brother.
The New Testament has a word for such activity– encouragement. “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). This is how happiness happens.
Galatians 4
Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance, he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation. That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives.
4-7 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.
8-11 Earlier, before you knew God personally, you were enslaved to so-called gods that had nothing of the divine about them. But now that you know the real God—or rather since God knows you—how can you possibly subject yourselves again to those paper tigers? For that is exactly what you do when you are intimidated into scrupulously observing all the traditions, taboos, and superstitions associated with special days and seasons and years. I am afraid that all my hard work among you has gone up in a puff of smoke!
12-13 My dear friends, what I would really like you to do is try to put yourselves in my shoes to the same extent that I, when I was with you, put myself in yours. You were very sensitive and kind then. You did not come down on me personally. You were well aware that the reason I ended up preaching to you was that I was physically broken, and so, prevented from continuing my journey, I was forced to stop with you. That is how I came to preach to you.
14-16 And don’t you remember that even though taking in a sick guest was most troublesome for you, you chose to treat me as well as you would have treated an angel of God—as well as you would have treated Jesus himself if he had visited you? What has happened to the satisfaction you felt at that time? There were some of you then who, if possible, would have given your very eyes to me—that is how deeply you cared! And now have I suddenly become your enemy simply by telling you the truth? I can’t believe it.
17 Those heretical teachers go to great lengths to flatter you, but their motives are rotten. They want to shut you out of the free world of God’s grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important.
18-20 It is a good thing to be ardent in doing good, but not just when I am in your presence. Can’t you continue the same concern for both my person and my message when I am away from you that you had when I was with you? Do you know how I feel right now, and will feel until Christ’s life becomes visible in your lives? Like a mother in the pain of childbirth. Oh, I keep wishing that I was with you. Then I wouldn’t be reduced to this blunt, letter-writing language out of sheer frustration.
21-31 Tell me now, you who have become so enamored with the law: Have you paid close attention to that law? Abraham, remember, had two sons: one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. The son of the slave woman was born by human connivance; the son of the free woman was born by God’s promise. This illustrates the very thing we are dealing with now. The two births represent two ways of being in relationship with God. One is from Mount Sinai in Arabia. It corresponds with what is now going on in Jerusalem—a slave life, producing slaves as offspring. This is the way of Hagar. In contrast to that, there is an invisible Jerusalem, a free Jerusalem, and she is our mother—this is the way of Sarah. Remember what Isaiah wrote:
Rejoice, barren woman who bears no children,
shout and cry out, woman who has no birth pangs,
Because the children of the barren woman
now surpass the children of the chosen woman.
Isn’t it clear, friends, that you, like Isaac, are children of promise? In the days of Hagar and Sarah, the child who came from faithless connivance (Ishmael) harassed the child who came—empowered by the Spirit—from the faithful promise (Isaac). Isn’t it clear that the harassment you are now experiencing from the Jerusalem heretics follows that old pattern? There is a Scripture that tells us what to do: “Expel the slave mother with her son, for the slave son will not inherit with the free son.” Isn’t that conclusive? We are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
Footnotes:
Psalm 23:4 Or the valley of the shadow of death
Insight
Psalm 23, penned by David, is an expression of trust in God. The imagery builds the metaphor of God as a Shepherd leading His people (v. 1)—a metaphor commonly used for kings (2 Samuel 5:2; Isaiah. 44:28). The Shepherd leads the psalmist by “quiet waters” (Psalm 23:2) and “along the right paths” (v. 3), indicating the peace that sustains our journey even “through the darkest valley” (v. 4).
The rod and staff (v. 4) were typically used by shepherds to guide and protect the sheep. David knew from tending his father’s flocks that these had to be actively used to keep the sheep safe (1 Samuel 17:34–35). The mention of God’s goodness and love following him was also an active act—the Hebrew word radaph can be translated “pursue.” These final words affirm that God would be with David both during his life on earth and in heaven, where he would “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6). By: Julie Schwab
I Will Fear No Evil
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Psalm 23:4
In 1957, Melba Pattillo Beals was selected to be one of the “Little Rock Nine,” a group of nine African American students who first integrated the previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In her 2018 memoir, I Will Not Fear: My Story of a Lifetime of Building Faith under Fire, Beals gives a heartbreaking account of the injustices and harassment she struggled to face courageously every day as a fifteen-year-old student.
But she also wrote about her deep faith in God. In her darkest moments, when fear almost overwhelmed her, Beals repeated the familiar Bible verses she had learned at an early age from her grandmother. As she recited them, she was reminded of God’s presence with her, and Scripture gave her courage to endure.
Beals frequently recited Psalm 23, finding comfort in confessing, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (v. 4). Her grandmother’s encouragement would ring through her ears as well, reassuring her that God “is as close as your skin, and you have only to call on Him for help.”
Although our particular situations may vary, we will all likely endure difficult struggles and overwhelming circumstances that could easily cause us to give in to fear. In those moments, may your heart find encouragement in the truth that God’s powerful presence is always with us. By: Lisa M. Samra
Reflect & Pray
When have you felt God’s presence in a fearful situation? How is it comforting to know that God is always with you?
Father, when circumstances cause me to fear, help me to remember that You are near, and to find courage in the power of Your presence.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Missionary Weapons (1)
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you. —John 1:48
Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us— it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, “If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion”? Yet you won’t rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God’s training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person’s true character.
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private “fig-tree” life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.
Are you saying, “But I can’t be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn’t come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready”? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God’s work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.
God’s training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth. The Place of Help, 1005 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
The Missing Birthday - #8522
We just finished celebrating our grandson's tenth birthday. We didn't forget it. I mean, he wouldn't let us forget it back then! I mean, this boy knew his birthday when he was two years old. So, you know, every year - big deal. Well, I'm never going to forget the day he was born, because my wife and I were there! We waited outside that birthing room, and then we got the word that he was in the process of arriving, and then we got the summons to come in and see him. One of life's ultimate, well they used to call it "Kodak moments." And suddenly a day that had been just another number on the calendar before became one of the most special days in our life from then on!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Missing Birthday."
Our grandson always knew when he was born - still does. You know when you were born, even if you've got so many candles on your cake now that it sets off the smoke detector. Basic fact of life: your life had a definite beginning. There was a point in time at which you were born into your family.
It's the same in God's family. If you belong to Him, there was a definite beginning to that relationship, a time when you were born into His family. You may or may not remember the specific date, but you need to know there was one. Listen to how Jesus describes our entrance into God's family. It's in John 1:12, our word for today from the Word of God. Speaking of Jesus, He says, "To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." Born into the family of God, at the point where you consciously welcome Jesus Christ into your life.
You'll hear people say, "We're all God's children." Well, not according to the Bible. We're all God's creation, but you're only His child if you've been born into His family. And that happens at the point where you recognize your desperate need of Jesus and you throw open the door of your life, you let Him in, and you "receive" Him as it says. Obviously, if you've done that, you know you've done it. If you don't know that you have, well, you probably haven't. If you asked me if I'm married, I'd say, "Well, I'm not sure." You'd go, "Wait a minute. You've got to know." Or what if I said, "Well, I think we must have gotten hitched somewhere along the way," you'd say, "Man, if you're married, you know you're married! It's a conscious decision!"
So is turning over your life to Jesus Christ. It happens when you realize that you're away from God because you've done your life your way instead of God's way, and you decide it can't be that way anymore. You recognize your only hope of being forgiven, your only hope of heaven is Jesus and the dying that He did for your sins on the cross and then His coming back from death. And you reach out and you grab Him like a drowning person would grab a lifeguard and you say, "You're my only hope, Jesus!" Has there been a time when you did that with Him? If you don't know, you probably don't belong to Him. But you could today.
This could be the day when for sure you do what maybe you've somehow missed all these years. You agree with Jesus. You go to His meetings. You believe His beliefs. You try to live Jesus' way, but somehow you've never consciously given yourself to the one who gave His life for you. But once again, He's knocking on the door of your heart, He's giving you one more chance to belong to Him.
Why don't you get this settled once and for all today? Get it done! Tell Him, "Jesus, I am Yours beginning today! I am putting all my trust in what You did on the cross for me. And the fact that You came out of Your grave, You are alive. And I want to move from just believing about You to belonging to You. Let this be the day I am born into God's family. I'm yours." Wow!
Once you do that, you will finally experience the unspeakable joy of knowing Him for real. Knowing there was a day you began your relationship with Him. This can be your Jesus-day!
My big brother used to pick on me. For Dee no day was complete unless he had made mine miserable. He stole my allowance. He called me a sissy.
But all his cruel antics were offset by one great act of grace on a summer day in the park. He picked me to play on his baseball team. Everyone else was a middle-schooler. I was a third-grader. I went from the back of the pack to the front of line, all because he picked me. Dee didn’t pick me because I was good. He called my name for one reason only. He was my big brother. And on that day he decided to be a good big brother.
The New Testament has a word for such activity– encouragement. “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). This is how happiness happens.
Galatians 4
Let me show you the implications of this. As long as the heir is a minor, he has no advantage over the slave. Though legally he owns the entire inheritance, he is subject to tutors and administrators until whatever date the father has set for emancipation. That is the way it is with us: When we were minors, we were just like slaves ordered around by simple instructions (the tutors and administrators of this world), with no say in the conduct of our own lives.
4-7 But when the time arrived that was set by God the Father, God sent his Son, born among us of a woman, born under the conditions of the law so that he might redeem those of us who have been kidnapped by the law. Thus we have been set free to experience our rightful heritage. You can tell for sure that you are now fully adopted as his own children because God sent the Spirit of his Son into our lives crying out, “Papa! Father!” Doesn’t that privilege of intimate conversation with God make it plain that you are not a slave, but a child? And if you are a child, you’re also an heir, with complete access to the inheritance.
8-11 Earlier, before you knew God personally, you were enslaved to so-called gods that had nothing of the divine about them. But now that you know the real God—or rather since God knows you—how can you possibly subject yourselves again to those paper tigers? For that is exactly what you do when you are intimidated into scrupulously observing all the traditions, taboos, and superstitions associated with special days and seasons and years. I am afraid that all my hard work among you has gone up in a puff of smoke!
12-13 My dear friends, what I would really like you to do is try to put yourselves in my shoes to the same extent that I, when I was with you, put myself in yours. You were very sensitive and kind then. You did not come down on me personally. You were well aware that the reason I ended up preaching to you was that I was physically broken, and so, prevented from continuing my journey, I was forced to stop with you. That is how I came to preach to you.
14-16 And don’t you remember that even though taking in a sick guest was most troublesome for you, you chose to treat me as well as you would have treated an angel of God—as well as you would have treated Jesus himself if he had visited you? What has happened to the satisfaction you felt at that time? There were some of you then who, if possible, would have given your very eyes to me—that is how deeply you cared! And now have I suddenly become your enemy simply by telling you the truth? I can’t believe it.
17 Those heretical teachers go to great lengths to flatter you, but their motives are rotten. They want to shut you out of the free world of God’s grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important.
18-20 It is a good thing to be ardent in doing good, but not just when I am in your presence. Can’t you continue the same concern for both my person and my message when I am away from you that you had when I was with you? Do you know how I feel right now, and will feel until Christ’s life becomes visible in your lives? Like a mother in the pain of childbirth. Oh, I keep wishing that I was with you. Then I wouldn’t be reduced to this blunt, letter-writing language out of sheer frustration.
21-31 Tell me now, you who have become so enamored with the law: Have you paid close attention to that law? Abraham, remember, had two sons: one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. The son of the slave woman was born by human connivance; the son of the free woman was born by God’s promise. This illustrates the very thing we are dealing with now. The two births represent two ways of being in relationship with God. One is from Mount Sinai in Arabia. It corresponds with what is now going on in Jerusalem—a slave life, producing slaves as offspring. This is the way of Hagar. In contrast to that, there is an invisible Jerusalem, a free Jerusalem, and she is our mother—this is the way of Sarah. Remember what Isaiah wrote:
Rejoice, barren woman who bears no children,
shout and cry out, woman who has no birth pangs,
Because the children of the barren woman
now surpass the children of the chosen woman.
Isn’t it clear, friends, that you, like Isaac, are children of promise? In the days of Hagar and Sarah, the child who came from faithless connivance (Ishmael) harassed the child who came—empowered by the Spirit—from the faithful promise (Isaac). Isn’t it clear that the harassment you are now experiencing from the Jerusalem heretics follows that old pattern? There is a Scripture that tells us what to do: “Expel the slave mother with her son, for the slave son will not inherit with the free son.” Isn’t that conclusive? We are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
Footnotes:
Psalm 23:4 Or the valley of the shadow of death
Insight
Psalm 23, penned by David, is an expression of trust in God. The imagery builds the metaphor of God as a Shepherd leading His people (v. 1)—a metaphor commonly used for kings (2 Samuel 5:2; Isaiah. 44:28). The Shepherd leads the psalmist by “quiet waters” (Psalm 23:2) and “along the right paths” (v. 3), indicating the peace that sustains our journey even “through the darkest valley” (v. 4).
The rod and staff (v. 4) were typically used by shepherds to guide and protect the sheep. David knew from tending his father’s flocks that these had to be actively used to keep the sheep safe (1 Samuel 17:34–35). The mention of God’s goodness and love following him was also an active act—the Hebrew word radaph can be translated “pursue.” These final words affirm that God would be with David both during his life on earth and in heaven, where he would “dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalm 23:6). By: Julie Schwab
I Will Fear No Evil
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Psalm 23:4
In 1957, Melba Pattillo Beals was selected to be one of the “Little Rock Nine,” a group of nine African American students who first integrated the previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In her 2018 memoir, I Will Not Fear: My Story of a Lifetime of Building Faith under Fire, Beals gives a heartbreaking account of the injustices and harassment she struggled to face courageously every day as a fifteen-year-old student.
But she also wrote about her deep faith in God. In her darkest moments, when fear almost overwhelmed her, Beals repeated the familiar Bible verses she had learned at an early age from her grandmother. As she recited them, she was reminded of God’s presence with her, and Scripture gave her courage to endure.
Beals frequently recited Psalm 23, finding comfort in confessing, “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (v. 4). Her grandmother’s encouragement would ring through her ears as well, reassuring her that God “is as close as your skin, and you have only to call on Him for help.”
Although our particular situations may vary, we will all likely endure difficult struggles and overwhelming circumstances that could easily cause us to give in to fear. In those moments, may your heart find encouragement in the truth that God’s powerful presence is always with us. By: Lisa M. Samra
Reflect & Pray
When have you felt God’s presence in a fearful situation? How is it comforting to know that God is always with you?
Father, when circumstances cause me to fear, help me to remember that You are near, and to find courage in the power of Your presence.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Missionary Weapons (1)
When you were under the fig tree, I saw you. —John 1:48
Worshiping in Everyday Occasions. We presume that we would be ready for battle if confronted with a great crisis, but it is not the crisis that builds something within us— it simply reveals what we are made of already. Do you find yourself saying, “If God calls me to battle, of course I will rise to the occasion”? Yet you won’t rise to the occasion unless you have done so on God’s training ground. If you are not doing the task that is closest to you now, which God has engineered into your life, when the crisis comes, instead of being fit for battle, you will be revealed as being unfit. Crises always reveal a person’s true character.
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness. The time will come, as Nathanael experienced in this passage, that a private “fig-tree” life will no longer be possible. Everything will be out in the open, and you will find yourself to be of no value there if you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions in your own home. If your worship is right in your private relationship with God, then when He sets you free, you will be ready. It is in the unseen life, which only God saw, that you have become perfectly fit. And when the strain of the crisis comes, you can be relied upon by God.
Are you saying, “But I can’t be expected to live a sanctified life in my present circumstances; I have no time for prayer or Bible study right now; besides, my opportunity for battle hasn’t come yet, but when it does, of course I will be ready”? No, you will not. If you have not been worshiping in everyday occasions, when you get involved in God’s work, you will not only be useless yourself but also a hindrance to those around you.
God’s training ground, where the missionary weapons are found, is the hidden, personal, worshiping life of the saint.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth. The Place of Help, 1005 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
The Missing Birthday - #8522
We just finished celebrating our grandson's tenth birthday. We didn't forget it. I mean, he wouldn't let us forget it back then! I mean, this boy knew his birthday when he was two years old. So, you know, every year - big deal. Well, I'm never going to forget the day he was born, because my wife and I were there! We waited outside that birthing room, and then we got the word that he was in the process of arriving, and then we got the summons to come in and see him. One of life's ultimate, well they used to call it "Kodak moments." And suddenly a day that had been just another number on the calendar before became one of the most special days in our life from then on!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Missing Birthday."
Our grandson always knew when he was born - still does. You know when you were born, even if you've got so many candles on your cake now that it sets off the smoke detector. Basic fact of life: your life had a definite beginning. There was a point in time at which you were born into your family.
It's the same in God's family. If you belong to Him, there was a definite beginning to that relationship, a time when you were born into His family. You may or may not remember the specific date, but you need to know there was one. Listen to how Jesus describes our entrance into God's family. It's in John 1:12, our word for today from the Word of God. Speaking of Jesus, He says, "To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." Born into the family of God, at the point where you consciously welcome Jesus Christ into your life.
You'll hear people say, "We're all God's children." Well, not according to the Bible. We're all God's creation, but you're only His child if you've been born into His family. And that happens at the point where you recognize your desperate need of Jesus and you throw open the door of your life, you let Him in, and you "receive" Him as it says. Obviously, if you've done that, you know you've done it. If you don't know that you have, well, you probably haven't. If you asked me if I'm married, I'd say, "Well, I'm not sure." You'd go, "Wait a minute. You've got to know." Or what if I said, "Well, I think we must have gotten hitched somewhere along the way," you'd say, "Man, if you're married, you know you're married! It's a conscious decision!"
So is turning over your life to Jesus Christ. It happens when you realize that you're away from God because you've done your life your way instead of God's way, and you decide it can't be that way anymore. You recognize your only hope of being forgiven, your only hope of heaven is Jesus and the dying that He did for your sins on the cross and then His coming back from death. And you reach out and you grab Him like a drowning person would grab a lifeguard and you say, "You're my only hope, Jesus!" Has there been a time when you did that with Him? If you don't know, you probably don't belong to Him. But you could today.
This could be the day when for sure you do what maybe you've somehow missed all these years. You agree with Jesus. You go to His meetings. You believe His beliefs. You try to live Jesus' way, but somehow you've never consciously given yourself to the one who gave His life for you. But once again, He's knocking on the door of your heart, He's giving you one more chance to belong to Him.
Why don't you get this settled once and for all today? Get it done! Tell Him, "Jesus, I am Yours beginning today! I am putting all my trust in what You did on the cross for me. And the fact that You came out of Your grave, You are alive. And I want to move from just believing about You to belonging to You. Let this be the day I am born into God's family. I'm yours." Wow!
Once you do that, you will finally experience the unspeakable joy of knowing Him for real. Knowing there was a day you began your relationship with Him. This can be your Jesus-day!
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