Max Lucado Daily: MADE IN GOD’S IMAGE
We all ask the question, “Am I somebody important?” It’s easy to feel anything but important when your ex takes your energy, or old age takes your dignity. Somebody important? Hardly. But remember this promise of God: you were created by God, in God’s image, for God’s glory.
God spoke, “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature, so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth” (Genesis 1:26 MSG).
God never declared, “Let us make oceans in our image,” or “birds in our likeness.” The heavens above reflect the glory of God, but they are not made in the image of God. Yet you are! And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 8
At the end of twenty years, Solomon had quite a list of accomplishments. He had:
built The Temple of God and his own palace;
rebuilt the cities that Hiram had given him and colonized them with Israelites;
marched on Hamath Zobah and took it;
fortified Tadmor in the desert and all the store-cities he had founded in Hamath;
built the fortress cities Upper Beth Horon and Lower Beth Horon, complete with walls, gates, and bars;
built Baalath and store-cities;
built chariot-cities for his horses.
Solomon built impulsively and extravagantly—whenever a whim took him. And in Jerusalem, in Lebanon—wherever he fancied.
7-10 The remnants from the original inhabitants of the land (Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites—all non-Israelites), survivors of the holy wars, were rounded up by Solomon for his gangs of slave labor. The policy is in effect today. But true Israelites were not treated this way; they were used in his army and administration—government leaders and commanders of his chariots and charioteers. They were also the project managers responsible for Solomon’s building operations—250 in all in charge of the workforce.
11 Solomon brought Pharaoh’s daughter from the City of David to a house built especially for her, “Because,” he said, “my wife cannot live in the house of David king of Israel, for the areas in which the Chest of God has entered are sacred.”
12-13 Then Solomon offered Whole-Burnt-Offerings to God on the Altar of God that he had built in front of The Temple porch. He kept to the regular schedule of worship set down by Moses: Sabbaths, New Moons, and the three annual feasts of Unraised Bread (Passover), Weeks (Pentecost), and Booths.
14-15 He followed the practice of his father David in setting up groups of priests carrying out the work of worship, with the Levites assigned to lead the sacred music for praising God and to assist the priests in the daily worship; he assigned security guards to be on duty at each gate—that’s what David the man of God had ordered. The king’s directions to the priests and Levites and financial stewards were kept right down to the fine print—no innovations—including the treasuries.
16 All that Solomon set out to do, from the groundbreaking of The Temple of God to its finish, was now complete.
17-18 Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and Elath on the coast of Edom. Hiram sent him ships and with them veteran sailors. Joined by Solomon’s men they sailed to Ophir (in east Africa), loaded on fifteen tons of gold, and brought it back to King Solomon.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 07, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Colossians 3:12–17
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselvesu with compassion, kindness, humility,v gentleness and patience.w 13 Bear with each otherx and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.y 14 And over all these virtues put on love,z which binds them all together in perfect unity.a
15 Let the peace of Christb rule in your hearts, since as members of one bodyc you were called to peace.d And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christe dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdomf through psalms,g hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.h 17 And whatever you do,i whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanksj to God the Father through him.
Insight
It appears that the faith community in Colossae was a sister church to the church at nearby Laodicea (the same Laodicea Jesus so strongly challenged in Revelation 3:14–22). Paul writes to the church at Colossae: “After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16). Not only were these cities close geographically, but there was a solid relationship between them—even to the point of sharing their letters with one another. Additionally, the church at Colossae received a letter written to one of its leaders, Philemon. The Colossians would have had the benefit of no less than three letters from the apostle Paul. By: Bill Crowder
Does What We Do Matter?
Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31
I dropped my forehead to my hand with a sigh, “I don’t know how I’m going to get it all done.” My friend’s voice crackled through the phone: “You have to give yourself some credit. You’re doing a lot.” He then listed the things I was trying to do—maintain a healthy lifestyle, work, do well in graduate school, write, and attend a Bible study. I wanted to do all these things for God, but instead I was more focused on what I was doing than how I was doing it—or that perhaps I was trying to do too much.
Paul reminded the church in Colossae that they were to live in a way that glorified God. Ultimately, what they specifically did on a day-to-day basis was not as important as how they did it. They were to do their work with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12), to be forgiving, and above all to love (vv. 13–14) and to “do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (v. 17). Their work wasn’t to be separated from Christlike living.
What we do matters, but how we do it, why, and who we do it for matters more. Each day we can choose to work in a stressed-out way or in a way that honors God and seeks out the meaning Jesus adds to our work. When we pursue the latter, we find satisfaction. By: Julie Schwab
Reflect & Pray
In what ways do you do things out of need or obligation rather than for God’s glory? How do you think meaning is found in Christ rather than accomplishments?
Jesus, forgive me for the times I stress over what I’m trying to accomplish. Help me to instead seek to accomplish things for Your glory.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 07, 2020
Spiritual Dejection
We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. —Luke 24:21
Every fact that the disciples stated was right, but the conclusions they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that has even a hint of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If I am depressed or burdened, I am to blame, not God or anyone else. Dejection stems from one of two sources— I have either satisfied a lust or I have not had it satisfied. In either case, dejection is the result. Lust means “I must have it at once.” Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God Himself who gives the answer. What have I been hoping or trusting God would do? Is today “the third day” and He has still not done what I expected? Am I therefore justified in being dejected and in blaming God? Whenever we insist that God should give us an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get ahold of God, not of the answer. It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected, because dejection is a sign of sickness. This is also true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is wrong, and we are always to blame for it.
We look for visions from heaven and for earth-shaking events to see God’s power. Even the fact that we are dejected is proof that we do this. Yet we never realize that all the time God is at work in our everyday events and in the people around us. If we will only obey, and do the task that He has placed closest to us, we will see Him. One of the most amazing revelations of God comes to us when we learn that it is in the everyday things of life that we realize the magnificent deity of Jesus Christ.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible; some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples. Approved Unto God, 11 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 07, 2020
A Father's Greatest Gift - #8630
Okay, so it was one of those times when our kids were going crazy that my wife would love to repeat one of her favorite sayings, "The apple falls not far from the tree." I never did hear her say that when they did something good. Actually, I have been credited or blamed for a number of things as their father. Supposedly, my daughter has her father's nose, and some people think she got some writing ability from me. My sons have been accused of having my sense of humor, which is totally scary. I wish I could find out who has their father's hair; more and more of it is missing. Well, if you're a father, your children do have a lot of you in them, let's face it. I hope they've inherited what really matters from you.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "A Father's Greatest Gift."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Exodus 3:6. Moses is at the crossroads of his life. He is about to be directed by God to lead God's people out of slavery in Egypt. This is huge! God is making this awesome personal appearance to him, and He tells Moses how to approach this holy ground. And then, in a sense, He introduces Himself to this overwhelmed servant of God. Here's what the Bible says, "Then He said, 'I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'" Now that last part of God's signature was a title He used often in Old Testament times. But what's distinctive was that God begins by telling Moses he was the God of his father.
Deep inside Moses was this buried treasure that God was opening at the burning bush - a lifetime of knowing Jehovah God. Moses had lived in pagan affluence, he'd lived in a wilderness, but no matter where he went, he carried this spiritual treasure. And who put it there? His father!
But then, a lot of our attitude toward God comes from the kind of man Dad is. After all, God has asked us to call Him Father. And when we hear about God, we tend to call up our feelings about our earthly father. Sadly, those feelings are pretty painful and negative in some young people. I've often had to remind them that God is not the father you had on earth, but he's the father you always wished you had.
As a father, you have a lot of important roles, but none is so cosmic, so eternal as planting God in your son or daughter. Our culture has this idea that spiritual stuff is a mom's business, but that's dead wrong. God didn't introduce Himself as the God of your mother, even though she was a godly woman. In Ephesians 6:4, when God gives the New Testament instruction to raise your children in the Lord, it is introduced to fathers! The spiritual buck stops with the man!
Your child is learning how important this Heavenly Father is from your teaching or how unimportant He seems to be from your silence. Your son or daughter is learning about God from how you treat them. Is "father" forgiving or unforgiving; attentive or inattentive; affectionate or detached; pure or profane; truthful or untrustworthy. Is he fair or arbitrary? Is he there for you or not there for you?
What if God were to appear to your child in their moment of crisis and say, "I am the God of your father." What kind of God would they think He is? There was a five-year-old boy in a New York hospital who was dying of leukemia. One night his father was getting ready to leave, and the boy said, "Daddy, what is God like?" The father cleared his throat a couple of times and fumbled around for an answer. The little guy could tell his dad was uncomfortable, so he just said, "Daddy, that's OK. If God's like you, then I'm not afraid." Wow!
Dad, show them that kind of God. And if you can't because you don't know Him
yourself, maybe it's time to make God your Father by trusting Jesus to be your Savior. If you want to know how to have that relationship with Him, Dad, go to our website. It's ANewStory.com.
And make sure daily you give your precious son or daughter more of God, because all a child can get from a father, that is His greatest gift of all.
Friday, February 7, 2020
Thursday, February 6, 2020
2 Chronicles 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S GREAT AND PRECIOUS PROMISES
According to Peter, God’s promises aren’t just great, they are very great. They aren’t just valuable, they are precious! (2 Peter 1:4).
It is God’s great and precious promises that lead us into a new reality, a holy environment. They are direction signs intended to guide us away from the toxic swampland and into the clean air of heaven. They are strong boulders that form the bridge over which we walk from our sin to salvation.
Promises are the stitching in the spine of the Bible. Receive them. Allow them to soak you like a spring shower. Let’s be what we were intended to be —people of the Promise. Fill your heart with hope, and let the devil himself hear you declare your belief in God’s goodness! Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 7
When Solomon finished praying, a bolt of lightning out of heaven struck the Whole-Burnt-Offering and sacrifices and the Glory of God filled The Temple. The Glory was so dense that the priests couldn’t get in—God so filled The Temple that there was no room for the priests! When all Israel saw the fire fall from heaven and the Glory of God fill The Temple, they fell on their knees, bowed their heads, and worshiped, thanking God:
Yes! God is good!
His love never quits!
4-6 Then the king and all Israel worshiped, offering sacrifices to God. King Solomon worshiped by sacrificing 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep at the dedication of The Temple. The priests were all on duty; the choir and orchestra of Levites that David had provided for singing and playing anthems to the praise and love of God were all there; across the courtyard the priests blew trumpets. All Israelites were on their feet.
7-10 Solomon set apart the central area of the courtyard in front of God’s Temple for sacred use and there sacrificed the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, and fat from the Peace-Offerings—the Bronze Altar was too small to handle all these offerings. This is how Solomon kept the great autumn Feast of Booths. For seven days there were people there all the way from the far northeast (the Entrance to Hamath) to the far southwest (the Brook of Egypt)—a huge congregation. They started out celebrating for seven days, and then did it for another seven days, a week for dedicating the Altar and another for the Feast itself—two solid weeks of celebration! On the twenty-third day of the seventh month Solomon dismissed his congregation. They left rejoicing, exuberant over all the good God had done for David and Solomon and his people Israel.
11 Solomon completed building The Temple of God and the royal palace—the projects he had set his heart on doing. Everything was done—success! Satisfaction!
12-18 God appeared to Solomon that very night and said, “I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship. If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health. From now on I’m alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place. Believe me, I’ve chosen and sanctified this Temple that you have built: My Name is stamped on it forever; my eyes are on it and my heart in it always. As for you, if you live in my presence as your father David lived, pure in heart and action, living the life I’ve set out for you, attentively obedient to my guidance and judgments, then I’ll back your kingly rule over Israel—make it a sure thing on a sure foundation. The same covenant guarantee I gave to David your father I’m giving to you, namely, ‘You can count on always having a descendant on Israel’s throne.’
19-22 “But if you or your sons betray me, ignoring my guidance and judgments, taking up with alien gods by serving and worshiping them, then the guarantee is off: I’ll wipe Israel right off the map and repudiate this Temple I’ve just sanctified to honor my Name. And Israel will be nothing but a bad joke among the peoples of the world. And this Temple, splendid as it now is, will become an object of contempt; tourists will shake their heads, saying, ‘What happened here? What’s the story behind these ruins?’ Then they’ll be told, ‘The people who used to live here betrayed their God, the very God who rescued their ancestors from Egypt; they took up with alien gods, worshiping and serving them. That’s what’s behind this God-visited devastation.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Lamentations 2:10–13, 18–19
The elders of Daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence;h
they have sprinkled dusti on their headsj
and put on sackcloth.k
The young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.l
11 My eyes fail from weeping,m
I am in torment withinn;
my hearto is poured outp on the ground
because my people are destroyed,q
because children and infants faintr
in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”s
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their lives ebb awayt
in their mothers’ arms.u
13 What can I say for you?v
With what can I compare you,
Daughterw Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you,
that I may comfort you,
Virgin Daughter Zion?x
Your wound is as deep as the sea.y
Who can heal you?
The hearts of the people
cry out to the Lord.r
You walls of Daughter Zion,s
let your tearst flow like a river
day and night;u
give yourself no relief,
your eyes no rest.v
19 Arise, cry out in the night,
as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heartw like water
in the presence of the Lord.x
Lift up your handsy to him
for the lives of your children,
who faintz from hunger
at every street corner.
Insight
Jeremiah, known as the “weeping prophet,” is traditionally believed to be the author of Lamentations. The book contains five poems. The first four are written as acrostics using the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet to mark the individual stanzas. The book mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 587 bc when Babylon defeated the nation of Judah and took its people captive. Commentator R. K. Harrison in Jeremiah and Lamentations writes: “[The poems] make it clear that the real tragedy inherent in the destruction of Judah lies in the fact that it could almost certainly have been avoided. The actual causes of the calamity were the people themselves.” Despite the repeated warnings of God’s prophets, they chose idolatry over following the one true God.
By: Alyson Kieda
Mercy’s Lament
My heart is poured out on the ground . . . because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
Lamentations 2:11
Her father blamed his illness on witchcraft. It was AIDS. When he died, his daughter, ten-year-old Mercy, grew even closer to her mother. But her mother was sick too, and three years later she died. From then on, Mercy’s sister raised the five siblings. That’s when Mercy began to keep a journal of her deep pain.
The prophet Jeremiah kept a record of his pain too. In the grim book of Lamentations, he wrote of atrocities done to Judah by the Babylonian army. Jeremiah’s heart was especially grieved for the youngest victims. “My heart is poured out on the ground,” he cried, “because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city” (2:11). The people of Judah had a history of ignoring God, but their children were paying the price too. “Their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms,” wrote Jeremiah (v. 12).
We might have expected Jeremiah to reject God in the face of such suffering. Instead, he urged the survivors, “Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children” (v. 19).
It’s good, as Mercy and Jeremiah did, to pour out our hearts to God. Lament is a crucial part of being human. Even when God permits such pain, He grieves with us. Made as we are in His image, He must lament too!
By: Tim Gustafson
Reflect & Pray
How do you handle the painful situations in your life? How might it help you to write it down and share your journal with a friend?
Dear God, I’m hurting because of ____________________. You see my grief. Please show Your strength in my life today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (2)
I am already being poured out as a drink offering… —2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don’t deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
“Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents— burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose— the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don’t eliminate it, God does. You “bind the sacrifice…to the horns of the altar” and see to it that you don’t wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him. So Send I You, 1301 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Your Personal Life Support System - #8629
You know, we celebrated not too long ago the wonderful first guys to land on the moon and walk on the moon. Neil Armstrong, of course. But, you know, when he first stepped onto the surface of the moon for his "one small step for man," he really didn't look like himself. No, he was totally wrapped up in that modern-day armor we call a space suit. Well, there is a reason of course. The moon is an environment hostile to humans. An unequipped, unprotected astronaut would have died in an instant of lunar exposure. Why? No oxygen. That big pack on his back - that was the margin of survival.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Personal Life Support System."
Now if the Apollo astronauts had depended on their surroundings for their lives, they would have died on the moon. Instead, they depended on the life-support system that they carried with them!
Actually, you don't have to go to the moon to find a hostile atmosphere to survive in. We've got that right here. Spiritually speaking, we live in an environment where the air is often pretty polluted with temptation, with totally un-God ways of thinking, with stress, with negativity. When that's pretty much what your soul breathes all day long, you end up gasping for air and sometimes going under.
What we need is something like the Apollo astronauts had; we need a life-support system that will sustain us through the bombardment of the day. But it needs to be something totally dependable and highly mobile - a life-pack that you can have with you everywhere you go. And there is one. Our word for today from the Word of God, Psalm 119:11, says, "I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You." David says, "I have planted God's words in my heart to answer the sinful pressures that are coming against me."
So what's your personal life-support system in a spiritually and emotionally hostile environment: the words of God, committed to memory, so you'll always have them when you need them. You can't always carry a Bible around with you, and if you do, you wouldn't usually have time to start looking up verses in the middle of your situation. In fact, you'd probably have to carry a concordance, too, so you'd know where to look in the Bible!
But you can always carry Scripture that you have "hidden in your heart." During the Vietnam War, and you may have heard this, there were American pilots imprisoned for years in a prison they call the "Hanoi Hilton." And they tried to piece together as much of the Bible as they could from memory. I wonder how much of a Bible you'd have if all you had was what you've memorized? In a sense, that is all you have when you're in the middle of a real life situation.
So, maybe it's time for you to get serious about a regular program of committing Bible verses to memory. What you're doing is you're actually planting the responses of God in your personality so you can respond to what's happening with a heaven-answer, not an earth-answer. How many times have I been sustained by saying Deuteronomy 33:25 aloud, "Your strength will equal your days, Ron" ... or Isaiah 40:31, "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." How many times have I been helped by the battle cry of 2 Corinthians 10:5, "We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Man, I'll tell you, the list of times I've been rescued by a verse that I've made my own is endless.
D.L. Moody said, "When you're thinking sin, think Scripture." You can't think Scripture if you don't know any Scripture. Our minds are cluttered with tons of earth-trivia. We need more of heaven in our heart, don't we? So, load up on heaven's oxygen - God's own words - and you'll be breathing better air all day long from that life-support system that you carry in your heart.
According to Peter, God’s promises aren’t just great, they are very great. They aren’t just valuable, they are precious! (2 Peter 1:4).
It is God’s great and precious promises that lead us into a new reality, a holy environment. They are direction signs intended to guide us away from the toxic swampland and into the clean air of heaven. They are strong boulders that form the bridge over which we walk from our sin to salvation.
Promises are the stitching in the spine of the Bible. Receive them. Allow them to soak you like a spring shower. Let’s be what we were intended to be —people of the Promise. Fill your heart with hope, and let the devil himself hear you declare your belief in God’s goodness! Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 7
When Solomon finished praying, a bolt of lightning out of heaven struck the Whole-Burnt-Offering and sacrifices and the Glory of God filled The Temple. The Glory was so dense that the priests couldn’t get in—God so filled The Temple that there was no room for the priests! When all Israel saw the fire fall from heaven and the Glory of God fill The Temple, they fell on their knees, bowed their heads, and worshiped, thanking God:
Yes! God is good!
His love never quits!
4-6 Then the king and all Israel worshiped, offering sacrifices to God. King Solomon worshiped by sacrificing 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep at the dedication of The Temple. The priests were all on duty; the choir and orchestra of Levites that David had provided for singing and playing anthems to the praise and love of God were all there; across the courtyard the priests blew trumpets. All Israelites were on their feet.
7-10 Solomon set apart the central area of the courtyard in front of God’s Temple for sacred use and there sacrificed the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, and fat from the Peace-Offerings—the Bronze Altar was too small to handle all these offerings. This is how Solomon kept the great autumn Feast of Booths. For seven days there were people there all the way from the far northeast (the Entrance to Hamath) to the far southwest (the Brook of Egypt)—a huge congregation. They started out celebrating for seven days, and then did it for another seven days, a week for dedicating the Altar and another for the Feast itself—two solid weeks of celebration! On the twenty-third day of the seventh month Solomon dismissed his congregation. They left rejoicing, exuberant over all the good God had done for David and Solomon and his people Israel.
11 Solomon completed building The Temple of God and the royal palace—the projects he had set his heart on doing. Everything was done—success! Satisfaction!
12-18 God appeared to Solomon that very night and said, “I accept your prayer; yes, I have chosen this place as a temple for sacrifice, a house of worship. If I ever shut off the supply of rain from the skies or order the locusts to eat the crops or send a plague on my people, and my people, my God-defined people, respond by humbling themselves, praying, seeking my presence, and turning their backs on their wicked lives, I’ll be there ready for you: I’ll listen from heaven, forgive their sins, and restore their land to health. From now on I’m alert day and night to the prayers offered at this place. Believe me, I’ve chosen and sanctified this Temple that you have built: My Name is stamped on it forever; my eyes are on it and my heart in it always. As for you, if you live in my presence as your father David lived, pure in heart and action, living the life I’ve set out for you, attentively obedient to my guidance and judgments, then I’ll back your kingly rule over Israel—make it a sure thing on a sure foundation. The same covenant guarantee I gave to David your father I’m giving to you, namely, ‘You can count on always having a descendant on Israel’s throne.’
19-22 “But if you or your sons betray me, ignoring my guidance and judgments, taking up with alien gods by serving and worshiping them, then the guarantee is off: I’ll wipe Israel right off the map and repudiate this Temple I’ve just sanctified to honor my Name. And Israel will be nothing but a bad joke among the peoples of the world. And this Temple, splendid as it now is, will become an object of contempt; tourists will shake their heads, saying, ‘What happened here? What’s the story behind these ruins?’ Then they’ll be told, ‘The people who used to live here betrayed their God, the very God who rescued their ancestors from Egypt; they took up with alien gods, worshiping and serving them. That’s what’s behind this God-visited devastation.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Lamentations 2:10–13, 18–19
The elders of Daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence;h
they have sprinkled dusti on their headsj
and put on sackcloth.k
The young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.l
11 My eyes fail from weeping,m
I am in torment withinn;
my hearto is poured outp on the ground
because my people are destroyed,q
because children and infants faintr
in the streets of the city.
12 They say to their mothers,
“Where is bread and wine?”s
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their lives ebb awayt
in their mothers’ arms.u
13 What can I say for you?v
With what can I compare you,
Daughterw Jerusalem?
To what can I liken you,
that I may comfort you,
Virgin Daughter Zion?x
Your wound is as deep as the sea.y
Who can heal you?
The hearts of the people
cry out to the Lord.r
You walls of Daughter Zion,s
let your tearst flow like a river
day and night;u
give yourself no relief,
your eyes no rest.v
19 Arise, cry out in the night,
as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heartw like water
in the presence of the Lord.x
Lift up your handsy to him
for the lives of your children,
who faintz from hunger
at every street corner.
Insight
Jeremiah, known as the “weeping prophet,” is traditionally believed to be the author of Lamentations. The book contains five poems. The first four are written as acrostics using the twenty-two consonants of the Hebrew alphabet to mark the individual stanzas. The book mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 587 bc when Babylon defeated the nation of Judah and took its people captive. Commentator R. K. Harrison in Jeremiah and Lamentations writes: “[The poems] make it clear that the real tragedy inherent in the destruction of Judah lies in the fact that it could almost certainly have been avoided. The actual causes of the calamity were the people themselves.” Despite the repeated warnings of God’s prophets, they chose idolatry over following the one true God.
By: Alyson Kieda
Mercy’s Lament
My heart is poured out on the ground . . . because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
Lamentations 2:11
Her father blamed his illness on witchcraft. It was AIDS. When he died, his daughter, ten-year-old Mercy, grew even closer to her mother. But her mother was sick too, and three years later she died. From then on, Mercy’s sister raised the five siblings. That’s when Mercy began to keep a journal of her deep pain.
The prophet Jeremiah kept a record of his pain too. In the grim book of Lamentations, he wrote of atrocities done to Judah by the Babylonian army. Jeremiah’s heart was especially grieved for the youngest victims. “My heart is poured out on the ground,” he cried, “because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city” (2:11). The people of Judah had a history of ignoring God, but their children were paying the price too. “Their lives ebb away in their mothers’ arms,” wrote Jeremiah (v. 12).
We might have expected Jeremiah to reject God in the face of such suffering. Instead, he urged the survivors, “Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children” (v. 19).
It’s good, as Mercy and Jeremiah did, to pour out our hearts to God. Lament is a crucial part of being human. Even when God permits such pain, He grieves with us. Made as we are in His image, He must lament too!
By: Tim Gustafson
Reflect & Pray
How do you handle the painful situations in your life? How might it help you to write it down and share your journal with a friend?
Dear God, I’m hurting because of ____________________. You see my grief. Please show Your strength in my life today.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (2)
I am already being poured out as a drink offering… —2 Timothy 4:6
Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way. God sends you through a crisis in private, where no other person can help you. From the outside your life may appear to be the same, but the difference is taking place in your will. Once you have experienced the crisis in your will, you will take no thought of the cost when it begins to affect you externally. If you don’t deal with God on the level of your will first, the result will be only to arouse sympathy for yourself.
“Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar” (Psalm 118:27). You must be willing to be placed on the altar and go through the fire; willing to experience what the altar represents— burning, purification, and separation for only one purpose— the elimination of every desire and affection not grounded in or directed toward God. But you don’t eliminate it, God does. You “bind the sacrifice…to the horns of the altar” and see to it that you don’t wallow in self-pity once the fire begins. After you have gone through the fire, there will be nothing that will be able to trouble or depress you. When another crisis arises, you will realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What fire lies ahead in your life?
Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him. So Send I You, 1301 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 06, 2020
Your Personal Life Support System - #8629
You know, we celebrated not too long ago the wonderful first guys to land on the moon and walk on the moon. Neil Armstrong, of course. But, you know, when he first stepped onto the surface of the moon for his "one small step for man," he really didn't look like himself. No, he was totally wrapped up in that modern-day armor we call a space suit. Well, there is a reason of course. The moon is an environment hostile to humans. An unequipped, unprotected astronaut would have died in an instant of lunar exposure. Why? No oxygen. That big pack on his back - that was the margin of survival.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Personal Life Support System."
Now if the Apollo astronauts had depended on their surroundings for their lives, they would have died on the moon. Instead, they depended on the life-support system that they carried with them!
Actually, you don't have to go to the moon to find a hostile atmosphere to survive in. We've got that right here. Spiritually speaking, we live in an environment where the air is often pretty polluted with temptation, with totally un-God ways of thinking, with stress, with negativity. When that's pretty much what your soul breathes all day long, you end up gasping for air and sometimes going under.
What we need is something like the Apollo astronauts had; we need a life-support system that will sustain us through the bombardment of the day. But it needs to be something totally dependable and highly mobile - a life-pack that you can have with you everywhere you go. And there is one. Our word for today from the Word of God, Psalm 119:11, says, "I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You." David says, "I have planted God's words in my heart to answer the sinful pressures that are coming against me."
So what's your personal life-support system in a spiritually and emotionally hostile environment: the words of God, committed to memory, so you'll always have them when you need them. You can't always carry a Bible around with you, and if you do, you wouldn't usually have time to start looking up verses in the middle of your situation. In fact, you'd probably have to carry a concordance, too, so you'd know where to look in the Bible!
But you can always carry Scripture that you have "hidden in your heart." During the Vietnam War, and you may have heard this, there were American pilots imprisoned for years in a prison they call the "Hanoi Hilton." And they tried to piece together as much of the Bible as they could from memory. I wonder how much of a Bible you'd have if all you had was what you've memorized? In a sense, that is all you have when you're in the middle of a real life situation.
So, maybe it's time for you to get serious about a regular program of committing Bible verses to memory. What you're doing is you're actually planting the responses of God in your personality so you can respond to what's happening with a heaven-answer, not an earth-answer. How many times have I been sustained by saying Deuteronomy 33:25 aloud, "Your strength will equal your days, Ron" ... or Isaiah 40:31, "Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." How many times have I been helped by the battle cry of 2 Corinthians 10:5, "We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." Man, I'll tell you, the list of times I've been rescued by a verse that I've made my own is endless.
D.L. Moody said, "When you're thinking sin, think Scripture." You can't think Scripture if you don't know any Scripture. Our minds are cluttered with tons of earth-trivia. We need more of heaven in our heart, don't we? So, load up on heaven's oxygen - God's own words - and you'll be breathing better air all day long from that life-support system that you carry in your heart.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
2 Corinthians 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: IT’S A SHAKY WORLD
It’s a shaky world out there. Could you use some unshakable hope? We live in a day of despair. The suicide rate in America has increased 24 percent since 1999. How do we explain the increase? We’ve never been more educated. We’re saturated with entertainment and recreation. Yet more people than ever are orchestrating their own deaths. How could this be?
Among the answers must be that people are dying for lack of hope. Secularism reduces the world to a few decades between birth and hearse. Many believe this world is as good as it gets. But people of the promise have an advantage. They are like Abraham who didn’t ask skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong. (Romans 4:20 MSG) Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Corinthians 1
I, Paul, have been sent on a special mission by the Messiah, Jesus, planned by God himself. I write this to God’s congregation in Corinth, and to believers all over Achaia province. May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours! Timothy, someone you know and trust, joins me in this greeting.
3-5 All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.
6-7 When we suffer for Jesus, it works out for your healing and salvation. If we are treated well, given a helping hand and encouraging word, that also works to your benefit, spurring you on, face forward, unflinching. Your hard times are also our hard times. When we see that you’re just as willing to endure the hard times as to enjoy the good times, we know you’re going to make it, no doubt about it.
8-11 We don’t want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like we’d been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation—I don’t want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God’s deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part.
12-14 Now that the worst is over, we’re pleased we can report that we’ve come out of this with conscience and faith intact, and can face the world—and even more importantly, face you with our heads held high. But it wasn’t by any fancy footwork on our part. It was God who kept us focused on him, uncompromised. Don’t try to read between the lines or look for hidden meanings in this letter. We’re writing plain, unembellished truth, hoping that you’ll now see the whole picture as well as you’ve seen some of the details. We want you to be as proud of us as we are of you when we stand together before our Master Jesus.
15-16 Confident of your welcome, I had originally planned two great visits with you—coming by on my way to Macedonia province, and then again on my return trip. Then we could have had a bon-voyage party as you sent me off to Judea. That was the plan.
17-19 Are you now going to accuse me of being flip with my promises because it didn’t work out? Do you think I talk out of both sides of my mouth—a glib yes one moment, a glib no the next? Well, you’re wrong. I try to be as true to my word as God is to his. Our word to you wasn’t a careless yes canceled by an indifferent no. How could it be? When Silas and Timothy and I proclaimed the Son of God among you, did you pick up on any yes-and-no, on-again, off-again waffling? Wasn’t it a clean, strong Yes?
20-22 Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.
23 Now, are you ready for the real reason I didn’t visit you in Corinth? As God is my witness, the only reason I didn’t come was to spare you pain. I was being considerate of you, not indifferent, not manipulative.
24 We’re not in charge of how you live out the faith, looking over your shoulders, suspiciously critical. We’re partners, working alongside you, joyfully expectant. I know that you stand by your own faith, not by ours.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 John 2:18–27
Warnings Against Denying the Son
Dear children, this is the last hour;o and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming,p even now many antichrists have come.q This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us,r but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.s
20 But you have an anointingt from the Holy One,u and all of you know the truth.e v 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know itw and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.x 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.y
24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginningz remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.a 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.b
26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.c 27 As for you, the anointingd you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all thingse and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.f
Insight
John was one of Christ’s first disciples (along with Andrew; see John 1:35–40). Scholars believe he was the only one of Christ’s faithful eleven disciples who wasn’t martyred for his faith. It’s also largely agreed that his writing ministry (the gospel of John; 1, 2, and 3 John; and Revelation) came late in life—perhaps in ad 80–90. John never names himself in his own gospel, but usually describes himself as “one of them” (John 13:23) or “one of His disciples” (esv), “another disciple” (18:15), or “the other disciple” (20:2, 4). Most often, however, he refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7; 21:20). By: Bill Crowder
How to Stay on Track
The Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. 1 John 2:27 nlt
As the world’s fastest blind runner, David Brown of the U.S. Paralympic Team credits his wins to God, his mother’s early advice (“no sitting around”), and his running guide—veteran sprinter Jerome Avery. Tethered to Brown by a string tied to their fingers, Avery guides Brown’s winning races with words and touches.
“It’s all about listening to his cues,” says Brown, who says he could “swing out wide” on 200-meter races where the track curves. “Day in and day out, we’re going over race strategies,” Brown says, “communicating with each other—not only verbal cues, but physical cues.”
In our own life’s race, we’re blessed with a Divine Guide. Our Helper, the Holy Spirit, leads our steps when we follow Him. “I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray,” wrote John (1 John 2:26). “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know” (v. 27 nlt).
John stressed this wisdom to the believers of his day who faced “antichrists” who denied the Father and that Jesus is the Messiah (v. 22). We face such deniers today as well. But the Holy Spirit, our Guide, leads us in following Jesus. We can trust His guidance to touch us with truth, keeping us on track. By: Patricia Raybon
Reflect & Pray
How attuned are you to the Holy Spirit’s guidance? How can you listen better when He guides, warns, and directs?
Dear God, attune our hearts to Your Holy Spirit’s guidance so we’ll run to Your truth and not to lies.
Read about the filling of the Spirit at discoveryseries.org/q0301.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (1)
If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. —Philippians 2:17
Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer—to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, “I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don’t want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, ‘Well done.’ ”
It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a “doormat” under other people’s feet. God’s purpose may be to teach you to say, “I know how to be abased…” (Philippians 4:12). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket— to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted— not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Catching the Golden Moment - #8628
My wife was a really gifted photographer. Actually, she missed some memorable photographs because of her husband. See, I was in too much of a hurry to stop. Here's how the scenario went, "Honey, look at that picture!" Well, I don't see what she sees. But there is one there, and it's usually some beautiful scene somewhere we were driving. And on several occasions I would say, "Hey, you know we'll be back this way a little later. Why don't we get it then?" Somehow the same picture isn't there later. The same objects are usually there, but the lighting, the shadows, the mood; the magic moment has changed. I remember one time we were driving along in New England, and there was this cabin nestled back in the woods in this little valley, and a beautiful rainbow over that. And I said...Now, here was a really smart guy, "Honey, listen, we'll be back in just a few minutes." Well, now, you know that picture wasn't there a few minutes later. Duh! It's amazing how there's this brief...I guess you'd call it a window during which you can capture the scene, and then it's gone. It might be the same players and the same setting, but the golden moment is gone.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Catching the Golden Moment."
Our word for today from the Word of God is in John 9:4. And Jesus here is in contact with a man who's been blind from birth. He's discussing how this man's blindness is going to provide an opportunity for the power of God to be displayed. And then Jesus says in these well-known words, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
Jesus is describing here what I like to call the work of God window. It's a brief opening during which you can accomplish a spiritual objective. And then just like those photo opportunities that we've missed, the golden moment passes...maybe forever. Jesus refers to it as the time during which it is day, before the night comes.
There's a special timing in God's work, and we need to be able to see it. We need to be able to tell what time it is in our lives and other people's lives and God's timetable in some person's life. When the window opens to get a job done for Him, you drop everything and you work like mad. Now the work of God window might be a teachable moment that suddenly arises in the life of one of your children, or a friend, or a family member. Jump on that moment. It won't be there long.
Or, we usually want to teach them when we want to teach them, when it's convenient. But the wise believer waits for that opening that comes in their life through some circumstances - some incident. And you say, "Whoa! This is the time to talk about it, isn't it?" Someone who's been closed perhaps to the message of Christ is suddenly needing what you can give. So you drop your scheduled agenda and seize that moment.
These ministry windows come in the lives of individuals that we know, they come in churches, they come in Christian ministries, and they come in the lives of our children. Suddenly there's this unexpected season of opportunity. Jesus said, "Grab it while it's there; while it's day." A circle of friends might be, for just a short time, suddenly open to hearing God's perspective. Or maybe a team you're on, or a workplace you're in, or maybe in a dorm. It could be God is moving in your life and getting you to a place of greater usefulness for Him. Take that opportunity right now. Maybe that door will never be open like this again.
Our mission is to wake up in the morning and begin looking for the window that day may hold. And it might be a surprise! When spiritual opportunity opens up, respond even if it means you have to drop your plans or change your plans. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you that nudge and listen to those Spirit promptings. Like a farmer r
acing the harvest, work hard till it's dark...till the window closes. The picture may never look like this again, and it won't look like this for long. So, hey, grab this golden moment.
It’s a shaky world out there. Could you use some unshakable hope? We live in a day of despair. The suicide rate in America has increased 24 percent since 1999. How do we explain the increase? We’ve never been more educated. We’re saturated with entertainment and recreation. Yet more people than ever are orchestrating their own deaths. How could this be?
Among the answers must be that people are dying for lack of hope. Secularism reduces the world to a few decades between birth and hearse. Many believe this world is as good as it gets. But people of the promise have an advantage. They are like Abraham who didn’t ask skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong. (Romans 4:20 MSG) Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Corinthians 1
I, Paul, have been sent on a special mission by the Messiah, Jesus, planned by God himself. I write this to God’s congregation in Corinth, and to believers all over Achaia province. May all the gifts and benefits that come from God our Father and the Master, Jesus Christ, be yours! Timothy, someone you know and trust, joins me in this greeting.
3-5 All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.
6-7 When we suffer for Jesus, it works out for your healing and salvation. If we are treated well, given a helping hand and encouraging word, that also works to your benefit, spurring you on, face forward, unflinching. Your hard times are also our hard times. When we see that you’re just as willing to endure the hard times as to enjoy the good times, we know you’re going to make it, no doubt about it.
8-11 We don’t want you in the dark, friends, about how hard it was when all this came down on us in Asia province. It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like we’d been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally—not a bad idea since he’s the God who raises the dead! And he did it, rescued us from certain doom. And he’ll do it again, rescuing us as many times as we need rescuing. You and your prayers are part of the rescue operation—I don’t want you in the dark about that either. I can see your faces even now, lifted in praise for God’s deliverance of us, a rescue in which your prayers played such a crucial part.
12-14 Now that the worst is over, we’re pleased we can report that we’ve come out of this with conscience and faith intact, and can face the world—and even more importantly, face you with our heads held high. But it wasn’t by any fancy footwork on our part. It was God who kept us focused on him, uncompromised. Don’t try to read between the lines or look for hidden meanings in this letter. We’re writing plain, unembellished truth, hoping that you’ll now see the whole picture as well as you’ve seen some of the details. We want you to be as proud of us as we are of you when we stand together before our Master Jesus.
15-16 Confident of your welcome, I had originally planned two great visits with you—coming by on my way to Macedonia province, and then again on my return trip. Then we could have had a bon-voyage party as you sent me off to Judea. That was the plan.
17-19 Are you now going to accuse me of being flip with my promises because it didn’t work out? Do you think I talk out of both sides of my mouth—a glib yes one moment, a glib no the next? Well, you’re wrong. I try to be as true to my word as God is to his. Our word to you wasn’t a careless yes canceled by an indifferent no. How could it be? When Silas and Timothy and I proclaimed the Son of God among you, did you pick up on any yes-and-no, on-again, off-again waffling? Wasn’t it a clean, strong Yes?
20-22 Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.
23 Now, are you ready for the real reason I didn’t visit you in Corinth? As God is my witness, the only reason I didn’t come was to spare you pain. I was being considerate of you, not indifferent, not manipulative.
24 We’re not in charge of how you live out the faith, looking over your shoulders, suspiciously critical. We’re partners, working alongside you, joyfully expectant. I know that you stand by your own faith, not by ours.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 John 2:18–27
Warnings Against Denying the Son
Dear children, this is the last hour;o and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming,p even now many antichrists have come.q This is how we know it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us,r but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.s
20 But you have an anointingt from the Holy One,u and all of you know the truth.e v 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know itw and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.x 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.y
24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginningz remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.a 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.b
26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.c 27 As for you, the anointingd you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all thingse and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.f
Insight
John was one of Christ’s first disciples (along with Andrew; see John 1:35–40). Scholars believe he was the only one of Christ’s faithful eleven disciples who wasn’t martyred for his faith. It’s also largely agreed that his writing ministry (the gospel of John; 1, 2, and 3 John; and Revelation) came late in life—perhaps in ad 80–90. John never names himself in his own gospel, but usually describes himself as “one of them” (John 13:23) or “one of His disciples” (esv), “another disciple” (18:15), or “the other disciple” (20:2, 4). Most often, however, he refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7; 21:20). By: Bill Crowder
How to Stay on Track
The Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. 1 John 2:27 nlt
As the world’s fastest blind runner, David Brown of the U.S. Paralympic Team credits his wins to God, his mother’s early advice (“no sitting around”), and his running guide—veteran sprinter Jerome Avery. Tethered to Brown by a string tied to their fingers, Avery guides Brown’s winning races with words and touches.
“It’s all about listening to his cues,” says Brown, who says he could “swing out wide” on 200-meter races where the track curves. “Day in and day out, we’re going over race strategies,” Brown says, “communicating with each other—not only verbal cues, but physical cues.”
In our own life’s race, we’re blessed with a Divine Guide. Our Helper, the Holy Spirit, leads our steps when we follow Him. “I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray,” wrote John (1 John 2:26). “But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true. For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know” (v. 27 nlt).
John stressed this wisdom to the believers of his day who faced “antichrists” who denied the Father and that Jesus is the Messiah (v. 22). We face such deniers today as well. But the Holy Spirit, our Guide, leads us in following Jesus. We can trust His guidance to touch us with truth, keeping us on track. By: Patricia Raybon
Reflect & Pray
How attuned are you to the Holy Spirit’s guidance? How can you listen better when He guides, warns, and directs?
Dear God, attune our hearts to Your Holy Spirit’s guidance so we’ll run to Your truth and not to lies.
Read about the filling of the Spirit at discoveryseries.org/q0301.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Are You Ready To Be Poured Out As an Offering? (1)
If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. —Philippians 2:17
Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer—to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, “I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don’t want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to have certain people watching me and saying, ‘Well done.’ ”
It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God requires becoming a “doormat” under other people’s feet. God’s purpose may be to teach you to say, “I know how to be abased…” (Philippians 4:12). Are you ready to be sacrificed like that? Are you ready to be less than a mere drop in the bucket— to be so totally insignificant that no one remembers you even if they think of those you served? Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted— not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude, because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Catching the Golden Moment - #8628
My wife was a really gifted photographer. Actually, she missed some memorable photographs because of her husband. See, I was in too much of a hurry to stop. Here's how the scenario went, "Honey, look at that picture!" Well, I don't see what she sees. But there is one there, and it's usually some beautiful scene somewhere we were driving. And on several occasions I would say, "Hey, you know we'll be back this way a little later. Why don't we get it then?" Somehow the same picture isn't there later. The same objects are usually there, but the lighting, the shadows, the mood; the magic moment has changed. I remember one time we were driving along in New England, and there was this cabin nestled back in the woods in this little valley, and a beautiful rainbow over that. And I said...Now, here was a really smart guy, "Honey, listen, we'll be back in just a few minutes." Well, now, you know that picture wasn't there a few minutes later. Duh! It's amazing how there's this brief...I guess you'd call it a window during which you can capture the scene, and then it's gone. It might be the same players and the same setting, but the golden moment is gone.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Catching the Golden Moment."
Our word for today from the Word of God is in John 9:4. And Jesus here is in contact with a man who's been blind from birth. He's discussing how this man's blindness is going to provide an opportunity for the power of God to be displayed. And then Jesus says in these well-known words, "As long as it is day, we must do the work of Him who sent Me. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
Jesus is describing here what I like to call the work of God window. It's a brief opening during which you can accomplish a spiritual objective. And then just like those photo opportunities that we've missed, the golden moment passes...maybe forever. Jesus refers to it as the time during which it is day, before the night comes.
There's a special timing in God's work, and we need to be able to see it. We need to be able to tell what time it is in our lives and other people's lives and God's timetable in some person's life. When the window opens to get a job done for Him, you drop everything and you work like mad. Now the work of God window might be a teachable moment that suddenly arises in the life of one of your children, or a friend, or a family member. Jump on that moment. It won't be there long.
Or, we usually want to teach them when we want to teach them, when it's convenient. But the wise believer waits for that opening that comes in their life through some circumstances - some incident. And you say, "Whoa! This is the time to talk about it, isn't it?" Someone who's been closed perhaps to the message of Christ is suddenly needing what you can give. So you drop your scheduled agenda and seize that moment.
These ministry windows come in the lives of individuals that we know, they come in churches, they come in Christian ministries, and they come in the lives of our children. Suddenly there's this unexpected season of opportunity. Jesus said, "Grab it while it's there; while it's day." A circle of friends might be, for just a short time, suddenly open to hearing God's perspective. Or maybe a team you're on, or a workplace you're in, or maybe in a dorm. It could be God is moving in your life and getting you to a place of greater usefulness for Him. Take that opportunity right now. Maybe that door will never be open like this again.
Our mission is to wake up in the morning and begin looking for the window that day may hold. And it might be a surprise! When spiritual opportunity opens up, respond even if it means you have to drop your plans or change your plans. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you that nudge and listen to those Spirit promptings. Like a farmer r
acing the harvest, work hard till it's dark...till the window closes. The picture may never look like this again, and it won't look like this for long. So, hey, grab this golden moment.
Tuesday, February 4, 2020
2 Chronicles 6 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: OUR DEPENDABLE GOD
From the first chapter of Scripture, the Bible makes a case for the dependability of God. Without exception when God spoke, something wonderful happened. By divine fiat there was light, land, beaches, and creatures. God consulted no advisers. He needed no assistance. “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:9).
The same power is seen in Jesus. He is unchanging. He’s never caught off guard by the unexpected. “God never changes or casts a shifting shadow” (James 1:17). God is strong. He does not overpromise and under deliver. “God is able to do whatever he promises” (Romans 4:21).
“It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18). God will keep his promises! It must happen because of who God is! And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 6
Then Solomon said,
God said he would dwell in a cloud,
But I’ve built a temple most splendid,
A place for you to live in forever.
3 The king then turned to face the congregation that had come together and blessed them:
4-6 “Blessed be God, the God of Israel, who spoke personally to my father David. Now he has done what he promised when he said, ‘From the day I brought my people Israel up from Egypt, I haven’t set apart one city among the tribes of Israel in which to build a temple to honor my Name, or chosen one person to be the leader. But now I have chosen both a city and a person: Jerusalem for honoring my Name and David to lead my people Israel.’
7-9 “My father David very much wanted to build a temple honoring the Name of God, the God of Israel, but God told him, ‘It was good that you wanted to build a temple in my honor—most commendable! But you are not the one to do it. Your son, who will carry on your dynasty, will build it for my Name.’
10-11 “And now you see the promise completed. God has done what he said he would do; I have succeeded David my father and now rule Israel; and I have built a temple to honor God, the God of Israel, and have secured a place for the Chest that holds the Covenant of God, the covenant he made with the people of Israel.”
12-16 Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took his position at the Altar of God and stretched out his hands. Solomon had made a bronze dais seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high and placed it inside the court; that’s where he now stood. Then he knelt in full view of the whole congregation, stretched his hands to heaven, and prayed:
God, O God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below, who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and unfailingly loves them while they sincerely live in obedience to your way. You kept your word to David my father, your promise. You did exactly what you promised—every detail. The proof is before us today!
Keep it up, God, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, “You’ll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel’s throne, on the one condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have.”
17 O God, God of Israel, let this all happen—
confirm and establish it!
18-21 Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn’t large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I’ve built. Even so, I’m bold to ask: Pay attention to these my prayers, both intercessory and personal, O God, my God. Listen to my prayers, energetic and devout, that I’m setting before you right now. Keep your eyes open to this Temple day and night, this place you promised to dignify with your Name. And listen to the prayers that I pray in this place. And listen to your people Israel when they pray at this place.
Listen from your home in heaven
and when you hear, forgive.
22 When someone hurts a neighbor and promises to make things right, and then comes and repeats the promise before your Altar in this Temple,
23 Listen from heaven and act;
judge your servants, making the offender pay for the offense
And set the offended free,
dismissing all charges.
24-25 When your people Israel are beaten by an enemy because they’ve sinned against you, but then turn to you and acknowledge your rule in prayers desperate and devout in this Temple,
Listen from your home in heaven;
forgive the sin of your people Israel,
return them to the land you gave to them and their ancestors.
26-27 When the skies shrivel up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, but then they pray at this place, acknowledging your rule and quit their sins because you have scourged them,
Listen from your home in heaven,
forgive the sins of your servants, your people Israel.
Then start over with them;
train them to live right and well;
Send rain on the land
you gave as inheritance to your people.
28-31 When disasters strike, famine or catastrophe, crop failure or disease, locust or beetle, or when an enemy attacks their defenses—calamity of any sort—any prayer that’s prayed from anyone at all among your people Israel, their hearts penetrated by disaster, hands and arms thrown out for help to this Temple,
Listen from your home in heaven, forgive and reward us:
reward each life and circumstance,
For you know each life from the inside,
(you’re the only one with such inside knowledge!),
So they’ll live before you in lifelong reverence and believing
obedience on this land you gave our ancestors.
32 And don’t forget the foreigner who is not a member of your people Israel but has come from a far country because of your reputation—people are going to be attracted here by your great reputation, your wonderworking power—and who come to pray to this Temple.
33 Listen from your home in heaven
and honor the prayers of the foreigner,
So that people all over the world
will know who you are and what you’re like,
And live in reverent obedience before you,
just as your own people Israel do,
So they’ll know that you personally
make this Temple that I’ve built what it is.
34-35 When your people go to war against their enemies at the time and place you send them and they pray to God toward the city you chose and The Temple I’ve built to honor your Name,
Listen from heaven to what they pray and ask for
and do what is right for them.
36-39 When they sin against you—and they certainly will; there’s no one without sin!—and in anger you turn them over to the enemy and they are taken captive to the enemy’s land, whether far or near, but repent in the country of their captivity and pray with changed hearts in their exile, “We’ve sinned; we’ve done wrong; we’ve been most wicked,” and turn back to you heart and soul in the land of the enemy who conquered them, and pray to you toward their homeland, the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you chose, and this Temple I have built to the honor of your Name,
Listen from your home in heaven
to their prayers desperate and devout;
Do what is best for them.
Forgive your people who have sinned against you.
40 And now, dear God, be alert and attentive to prayer, all prayer, offered in this place.
41-42 Up, God, enjoy your new place of quiet repose,
you and your mighty covenant Chest;
Dress your priests up in salvation clothes,
let your holy people celebrate goodness.
And don’t, God, back out on your anointed ones,
keep in mind the love promised to David your servant.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 5:43–48
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbori z and hate your enemy.’a 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,b 45 that you may be childrenc of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.d 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?e Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.f
Insight
One of Israel’s earliest national laws commanded them to treat their enemies with benevolence and respect (Exodus 23:4–5). In Matthew 5:43–48, Jesus clarified why this was commanded. In loving our enemies, we’re emulating the generosity and kindness that God our Father has shown to all men, including the wicked (v. 45). Paul similarly called us not to “repay anyone evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). Instead, we’re to “overcome evil with good” (v. 21). We can do this because we can trust God to administer justice (v. 19).
God-Sized Love
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Matthew 5:46
I once visited an impoverished neighborhood of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Homes were made of corrugated iron, with electrical wires dangling live above them. There I had the privilege of interviewing families and hearing how churches were helping to combat unemployment, drug use, and crime.
In one alleyway I climbed a rickety ladder to a small room to interview a mother and her son. But just a moment later someone rushed up, saying, “We must leave now.” A machete-wielding gang leader was apparently gathering a mob to ambush us.
We visited a second neighborhood, but there we had no problem. Later I discovered why. As I visited each home, a gang leader stood outside guarding us. It turned out his daughter was being fed and educated by the church, and because believers were standing by her, he stood by us.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents a standard of love that’s beyond comparison. This kind of love embraces not just the “worthy” but the undeserving (Matthew 5:43–45), reaching beyond family and friends to touch those who can’t or won’t love us back (vv. 46–47). This is God-sized love (v. 48)—the kind that blesses everyone.
As believers in Santo Domingo live out this love, neighborhoods are starting to change. Tough hearts are warming to their cause. That’s what happens when God-sized love comes to town. By: Sheridan Voysey
Reflect & Pray
How would you describe the difference between human love and godly love? Who can you bless today who can’t repay you?
Jesus, pour Your love into me so I may pour it out to others—even to those who can’t repay the favor.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
The Compelling Majesty of His Power
The love of Christ compels us… —2 Corinthians 5:14
Paul said that he was overpowered, subdued, and held as in a vise by “the love of Christ.” Very few of us really know what it means to be held in the grip of the love of God. We tend so often to be controlled simply by our own experience. The one thing that gripped and held Paul, to the exclusion of everything else, was the love of God. “The love of Christ compels us….” When you hear that coming from the life of a man or woman it is unmistakable. You will know that the Spirit of God is completely unhindered in that person’s life.
When we are born again by the Spirit of God, our testimony is based solely on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But that will change and be removed forever once you “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8). Only then will you begin to realize what Jesus meant when He went on to say, “…you shall be witnesses to Me….” Not witnesses to what Jesus can do— that is basic and understood— but “witnesses to Me….” We will accept everything that happens as if it were happening to Him, whether we receive praise or blame, persecution or reward. No one is able to take this stand for Jesus Christ who is not totally compelled by the majesty of His power. It is the only thing that matters, and yet it is strange that it’s the last thing we as Christian workers realize. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane— he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for— to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of “the love of Christ.” This total surrender to “the love of Christ” is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God’s holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. Not Knowing Whither, 903 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
So Beautiful, So Dead - #8627
Flowers are always special. They just seem kind of more special in the winter. There was a lady who worked in our ministry offices and she had some flowers on her desk. I stopped by to pick up some work, and there I saw these beautiful flowers in a vase. That's pretty significant. I mean, after all, how many times do the words "man" and "notice" ever go together in the same sentence, right? Actually, I noticed a few more times as I hustled down the hall past her door. Then I actually put on the brakes for a moment and I stuck my head in to smell the flowers on her desk. It wasn't worth the stop. There was no smell. They're fake!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "So Beautiful, So Dead."
Those flowers can sure fool you. They look so real, but they have no life. Just like so many folks who look like they really belong to Jesus Christ, but there's no life there. Jesus warned us about this fatal difference in His story about God's Kingdom being like a wheat field where wheat grows right next to another grass that looks just like wheat. Jesus said no man can tell which is the real wheat until harvest time, or Judgment Day. Then the "wheat" will be gathered into heaven and the wheat lookalike will be burned.
In another place, Jesus describes people who will come before Him on Judgment Day, talking all the right Christian words and beliefs and activities. They've got the resume, but He'll tell them, "I never knew you." That's frightening stuff. You can see why the Bible said in 2 Corinthians 13:5, which is our word for today from the Word of God, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?" The time to realize that you know about Jesus but you don't know Him is now, not when you're standing before Him, because then it's too late.
Just like those artificial flowers that are so beautiful but so dead. It's so easy to look like someone who belongs to Jesus but not really know Him. Especially if you've been around Jesus most of your life. You know the words. You believe the beliefs. You try to do the right things. You go to the right meetings. You give to the right things. And, quite possibly, everyone around you assumes you belong to Him except Jesus. And He's the only one who matters.
That "examine yourself" verse says to make sure "Christ Jesus is in you." A lot of people have Jesus around them, but not in them because there's never been a time when they consciously, personally really opened up their life to Him. He can be in your head, but not in your heart. Which means you will miss heaven by eighteen inches. That's how far it is from your head to your heart. And God says, "It is with the heart man believes and is saved" (Romans 10:9).
One night I went into a church not married. The woman I wanted to marry came down the aisle. We stood in front of the minister. We walked out together, but I left still not married. It was the rehearsal. The next night, same woman, same man, s
ame minister, same aisle, but this time I walked out married. The first night I was just going through the motions. The second night I committed my life to her. Maybe you've been going through all the motions of knowing Jesus. But somewhere, you've missed the step of saying, "Jesus, I know what you did on that cross was for me. And you're my only hope. Beginning right here, beginning right now, I'm Yours!" That's when you give yourself to Him.
If you know you've done that, you really do belong to Him. If you don't know you've done that, you probably haven't. But that could change today. And what a relief, what a difference there's going to be when you're His for real.
Let me encourage you to say today, "Jesus, I'm yours." And to go to our website. Right there I think I can help walk you through the beginning of a relationship with Jesus Christ so you can be sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com. I hope you'll get there today.
There's no more going through the motions. No, make this the real deal. Let this be your personal Jesus-day!
From the first chapter of Scripture, the Bible makes a case for the dependability of God. Without exception when God spoke, something wonderful happened. By divine fiat there was light, land, beaches, and creatures. God consulted no advisers. He needed no assistance. “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm 33:9).
The same power is seen in Jesus. He is unchanging. He’s never caught off guard by the unexpected. “God never changes or casts a shifting shadow” (James 1:17). God is strong. He does not overpromise and under deliver. “God is able to do whatever he promises” (Romans 4:21).
“It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18). God will keep his promises! It must happen because of who God is! And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 6
Then Solomon said,
God said he would dwell in a cloud,
But I’ve built a temple most splendid,
A place for you to live in forever.
3 The king then turned to face the congregation that had come together and blessed them:
4-6 “Blessed be God, the God of Israel, who spoke personally to my father David. Now he has done what he promised when he said, ‘From the day I brought my people Israel up from Egypt, I haven’t set apart one city among the tribes of Israel in which to build a temple to honor my Name, or chosen one person to be the leader. But now I have chosen both a city and a person: Jerusalem for honoring my Name and David to lead my people Israel.’
7-9 “My father David very much wanted to build a temple honoring the Name of God, the God of Israel, but God told him, ‘It was good that you wanted to build a temple in my honor—most commendable! But you are not the one to do it. Your son, who will carry on your dynasty, will build it for my Name.’
10-11 “And now you see the promise completed. God has done what he said he would do; I have succeeded David my father and now rule Israel; and I have built a temple to honor God, the God of Israel, and have secured a place for the Chest that holds the Covenant of God, the covenant he made with the people of Israel.”
12-16 Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took his position at the Altar of God and stretched out his hands. Solomon had made a bronze dais seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high and placed it inside the court; that’s where he now stood. Then he knelt in full view of the whole congregation, stretched his hands to heaven, and prayed:
God, O God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below, who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and unfailingly loves them while they sincerely live in obedience to your way. You kept your word to David my father, your promise. You did exactly what you promised—every detail. The proof is before us today!
Keep it up, God, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, “You’ll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel’s throne, on the one condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have.”
17 O God, God of Israel, let this all happen—
confirm and establish it!
18-21 Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn’t large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I’ve built. Even so, I’m bold to ask: Pay attention to these my prayers, both intercessory and personal, O God, my God. Listen to my prayers, energetic and devout, that I’m setting before you right now. Keep your eyes open to this Temple day and night, this place you promised to dignify with your Name. And listen to the prayers that I pray in this place. And listen to your people Israel when they pray at this place.
Listen from your home in heaven
and when you hear, forgive.
22 When someone hurts a neighbor and promises to make things right, and then comes and repeats the promise before your Altar in this Temple,
23 Listen from heaven and act;
judge your servants, making the offender pay for the offense
And set the offended free,
dismissing all charges.
24-25 When your people Israel are beaten by an enemy because they’ve sinned against you, but then turn to you and acknowledge your rule in prayers desperate and devout in this Temple,
Listen from your home in heaven;
forgive the sin of your people Israel,
return them to the land you gave to them and their ancestors.
26-27 When the skies shrivel up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, but then they pray at this place, acknowledging your rule and quit their sins because you have scourged them,
Listen from your home in heaven,
forgive the sins of your servants, your people Israel.
Then start over with them;
train them to live right and well;
Send rain on the land
you gave as inheritance to your people.
28-31 When disasters strike, famine or catastrophe, crop failure or disease, locust or beetle, or when an enemy attacks their defenses—calamity of any sort—any prayer that’s prayed from anyone at all among your people Israel, their hearts penetrated by disaster, hands and arms thrown out for help to this Temple,
Listen from your home in heaven, forgive and reward us:
reward each life and circumstance,
For you know each life from the inside,
(you’re the only one with such inside knowledge!),
So they’ll live before you in lifelong reverence and believing
obedience on this land you gave our ancestors.
32 And don’t forget the foreigner who is not a member of your people Israel but has come from a far country because of your reputation—people are going to be attracted here by your great reputation, your wonderworking power—and who come to pray to this Temple.
33 Listen from your home in heaven
and honor the prayers of the foreigner,
So that people all over the world
will know who you are and what you’re like,
And live in reverent obedience before you,
just as your own people Israel do,
So they’ll know that you personally
make this Temple that I’ve built what it is.
34-35 When your people go to war against their enemies at the time and place you send them and they pray to God toward the city you chose and The Temple I’ve built to honor your Name,
Listen from heaven to what they pray and ask for
and do what is right for them.
36-39 When they sin against you—and they certainly will; there’s no one without sin!—and in anger you turn them over to the enemy and they are taken captive to the enemy’s land, whether far or near, but repent in the country of their captivity and pray with changed hearts in their exile, “We’ve sinned; we’ve done wrong; we’ve been most wicked,” and turn back to you heart and soul in the land of the enemy who conquered them, and pray to you toward their homeland, the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you chose, and this Temple I have built to the honor of your Name,
Listen from your home in heaven
to their prayers desperate and devout;
Do what is best for them.
Forgive your people who have sinned against you.
40 And now, dear God, be alert and attentive to prayer, all prayer, offered in this place.
41-42 Up, God, enjoy your new place of quiet repose,
you and your mighty covenant Chest;
Dress your priests up in salvation clothes,
let your holy people celebrate goodness.
And don’t, God, back out on your anointed ones,
keep in mind the love promised to David your servant.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 5:43–48
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbori z and hate your enemy.’a 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,b 45 that you may be childrenc of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.d 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?e Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.f
Insight
One of Israel’s earliest national laws commanded them to treat their enemies with benevolence and respect (Exodus 23:4–5). In Matthew 5:43–48, Jesus clarified why this was commanded. In loving our enemies, we’re emulating the generosity and kindness that God our Father has shown to all men, including the wicked (v. 45). Paul similarly called us not to “repay anyone evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). Instead, we’re to “overcome evil with good” (v. 21). We can do this because we can trust God to administer justice (v. 19).
God-Sized Love
If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Matthew 5:46
I once visited an impoverished neighborhood of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Homes were made of corrugated iron, with electrical wires dangling live above them. There I had the privilege of interviewing families and hearing how churches were helping to combat unemployment, drug use, and crime.
In one alleyway I climbed a rickety ladder to a small room to interview a mother and her son. But just a moment later someone rushed up, saying, “We must leave now.” A machete-wielding gang leader was apparently gathering a mob to ambush us.
We visited a second neighborhood, but there we had no problem. Later I discovered why. As I visited each home, a gang leader stood outside guarding us. It turned out his daughter was being fed and educated by the church, and because believers were standing by her, he stood by us.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus presents a standard of love that’s beyond comparison. This kind of love embraces not just the “worthy” but the undeserving (Matthew 5:43–45), reaching beyond family and friends to touch those who can’t or won’t love us back (vv. 46–47). This is God-sized love (v. 48)—the kind that blesses everyone.
As believers in Santo Domingo live out this love, neighborhoods are starting to change. Tough hearts are warming to their cause. That’s what happens when God-sized love comes to town. By: Sheridan Voysey
Reflect & Pray
How would you describe the difference between human love and godly love? Who can you bless today who can’t repay you?
Jesus, pour Your love into me so I may pour it out to others—even to those who can’t repay the favor.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
The Compelling Majesty of His Power
The love of Christ compels us… —2 Corinthians 5:14
Paul said that he was overpowered, subdued, and held as in a vise by “the love of Christ.” Very few of us really know what it means to be held in the grip of the love of God. We tend so often to be controlled simply by our own experience. The one thing that gripped and held Paul, to the exclusion of everything else, was the love of God. “The love of Christ compels us….” When you hear that coming from the life of a man or woman it is unmistakable. You will know that the Spirit of God is completely unhindered in that person’s life.
When we are born again by the Spirit of God, our testimony is based solely on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But that will change and be removed forever once you “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8). Only then will you begin to realize what Jesus meant when He went on to say, “…you shall be witnesses to Me….” Not witnesses to what Jesus can do— that is basic and understood— but “witnesses to Me….” We will accept everything that happens as if it were happening to Him, whether we receive praise or blame, persecution or reward. No one is able to take this stand for Jesus Christ who is not totally compelled by the majesty of His power. It is the only thing that matters, and yet it is strange that it’s the last thing we as Christian workers realize. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane— he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for— to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of “the love of Christ.” This total surrender to “the love of Christ” is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God’s holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. Not Knowing Whither, 903 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 04, 2020
So Beautiful, So Dead - #8627
Flowers are always special. They just seem kind of more special in the winter. There was a lady who worked in our ministry offices and she had some flowers on her desk. I stopped by to pick up some work, and there I saw these beautiful flowers in a vase. That's pretty significant. I mean, after all, how many times do the words "man" and "notice" ever go together in the same sentence, right? Actually, I noticed a few more times as I hustled down the hall past her door. Then I actually put on the brakes for a moment and I stuck my head in to smell the flowers on her desk. It wasn't worth the stop. There was no smell. They're fake!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "So Beautiful, So Dead."
Those flowers can sure fool you. They look so real, but they have no life. Just like so many folks who look like they really belong to Jesus Christ, but there's no life there. Jesus warned us about this fatal difference in His story about God's Kingdom being like a wheat field where wheat grows right next to another grass that looks just like wheat. Jesus said no man can tell which is the real wheat until harvest time, or Judgment Day. Then the "wheat" will be gathered into heaven and the wheat lookalike will be burned.
In another place, Jesus describes people who will come before Him on Judgment Day, talking all the right Christian words and beliefs and activities. They've got the resume, but He'll tell them, "I never knew you." That's frightening stuff. You can see why the Bible said in 2 Corinthians 13:5, which is our word for today from the Word of God, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you - unless, of course, you fail the test?" The time to realize that you know about Jesus but you don't know Him is now, not when you're standing before Him, because then it's too late.
Just like those artificial flowers that are so beautiful but so dead. It's so easy to look like someone who belongs to Jesus but not really know Him. Especially if you've been around Jesus most of your life. You know the words. You believe the beliefs. You try to do the right things. You go to the right meetings. You give to the right things. And, quite possibly, everyone around you assumes you belong to Him except Jesus. And He's the only one who matters.
That "examine yourself" verse says to make sure "Christ Jesus is in you." A lot of people have Jesus around them, but not in them because there's never been a time when they consciously, personally really opened up their life to Him. He can be in your head, but not in your heart. Which means you will miss heaven by eighteen inches. That's how far it is from your head to your heart. And God says, "It is with the heart man believes and is saved" (Romans 10:9).
One night I went into a church not married. The woman I wanted to marry came down the aisle. We stood in front of the minister. We walked out together, but I left still not married. It was the rehearsal. The next night, same woman, same man, s
ame minister, same aisle, but this time I walked out married. The first night I was just going through the motions. The second night I committed my life to her. Maybe you've been going through all the motions of knowing Jesus. But somewhere, you've missed the step of saying, "Jesus, I know what you did on that cross was for me. And you're my only hope. Beginning right here, beginning right now, I'm Yours!" That's when you give yourself to Him.
If you know you've done that, you really do belong to Him. If you don't know you've done that, you probably haven't. But that could change today. And what a relief, what a difference there's going to be when you're His for real.
Let me encourage you to say today, "Jesus, I'm yours." And to go to our website. Right there I think I can help walk you through the beginning of a relationship with Jesus Christ so you can be sure you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com. I hope you'll get there today.
There's no more going through the motions. No, make this the real deal. Let this be your personal Jesus-day!
Monday, February 3, 2020
2 Chronicles 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: HEIRS OF GOD’S PROMISE
Heroes in the Bible came from all walks of life—rulers, servants, teachers, and doctors—male, female, single, and married. Yet one common denominator united them: they built their lives on the promises of God. Noah believed in rain before rain was a word. Joshua led two million people into enemy territory. One writer went so far as to call such saints “heirs of the promise” in Hebrews 6:17.
As God prepared the Israelites to face a new land, he made a promise to them. “Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you” (Exodus 34:10). God’s promises are unbreakable; our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 5
That completed the work King Solomon did on The Temple of God. He then brought in the holy offerings of his father David, the silver and the gold and the artifacts. He placed them all in the treasury of God’s Temple.
2-3 Bringing all this to a climax, Solomon got all the leaders together in Jerusalem—all the chiefs of tribes and the family patriarchs—to move the Chest of the Covenant of God from Zion and install it in The Temple. All the men of Israel assembled before the king on the feast day of the seventh month, the Feast of Booths.
4-6 When all the leaders of Israel were ready, the Levites took up the Chest. They carried the Chest, the Tent of Meeting, and all the sacred things in the Tent used in worship. The priests, all Levites, carried them. King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel were there before the Chest, worshiping and sacrificing huge numbers of sheep and cattle—so many that no one could keep track.
7-10 The priests brought the Chest of the Covenant of God to its place in the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim. The outspread wings of the cherubim formed a canopy over the Chest and its poles. The ends of the poles were so long that they stuck out from the entrance of the Inner Sanctuary, but were not noticeable further out—they’re still there today. There was nothing in the Chest itself but the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb where God made a covenant with Israel after bringing them up from Egypt.
11-13 The priests then left the Holy Place. All the priests there were consecrated, regardless of rank or assignment; and all the Levites who were musicians were there—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their families, dressed in their worship robes; the choir and orchestra assembled on the east side of the Altar and were joined by 120 priests blowing trumpets. The choir and trumpets made one voice of praise and thanks to God—orchestra and choir in perfect harmony singing and playing praise to God:
Yes! God is good!
His loyal love goes on forever!
13-14 Then a billowing cloud filled The Temple of God. The priests couldn’t even carry out their duties because of the cloud—the glory of God!—that filled The Temple of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, February 03, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 3:15–18
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if Johny might possibly be the Messiah.z 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you withb water.a But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you withc the Holy Spirit and fire.b 17 His winnowing forkc is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”d 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
Insight
Fire shows up in the Bible in literal and figurative ways. As a common source of light and heat, it’s a word picture for both the danger and consequences of sin (Proverbs 6:27–28; Isaiah 9:18) and for God (Deuteronomy 4:24). He speaks to Moses from within a burning bush that wasn’t consumed (Exodus 3:2) while describing Himself as a consuming fire that rages against evil and refines what He wants to preserve (Deuteronomy 4:24–26; 1 Peter 1:7). God is with His people through the literal fires of human persecution (Daniel 3:19–22) as well as in the figurative fires of cleansing judgment (1 Corinthians 3:11–15). By: Mart DeHaan
A Fire Called Holy
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Luke 3:16
After several years of drought, the wildfires of Southern California left some residents thinking of them as acts of God. This disturbing impression was reinforced when news sources began referring to one as the Holy Fire. Many unfamiliar with the area didn’t realize it was a reference to the Holy Jim Canyon region. But who was Holy Jim? According to local history, he was a nineteenth-century beekeeper so irreligious and cantankerous that neighbors tagged him with that ironic nickname.
John the Baptist’s reference to a baptism of “the Holy Spirit and fire” also came with its own story and explanation (Luke 3:16). Looking back, he was likely thinking of the kind of Messiah and refining fire foreseen by the prophet Malachi (3:1–3; 4:1). But only after the Spirit of God came like wind and fire on the followers of Jesus did the words of Malachi and John come into focus (Acts 2:1–4).
The fire John predicted wasn’t what was expected. As a true act of God, it came with boldness to proclaim a different kind of Messiah and holy flame. In the Spirit of Jesus, it exposed and consumed our futile human efforts—while making room for the love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control of the Holy Spirit (see Galatians 5:22–23). Those are the acts of God that He would like to work in us. By: Mart DeHaan
Reflect & Pray
How has your life been affected by the work of the Holy Spirit? What does it mean for you to pursue a holy—set apart—life before God?
Father in heaven, please replace our fear of Your Holy Spirit with a love, joy, and peace that is as priceless as our stubborn ways are worthless.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, February 03, 2020
Becoming the “Filth of the World”
We have been made as the filth of the world… —1 Corinthians 4:13
These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or “filth of the world.” “Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ…” (Colossians 1:24) is not the result of the holiness of sanctification, but the evidence of consecration— being “separated to the gospel of God…” (Romans 1:1).
“Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you…” (1 Peter 4:12). If we do think the things we encounter are strange, it is because we are fearful and cowardly. We pay such close attention to our own interests and desires that we stay out of the mire and say, “I won’t submit; I won’t bow or bend.” And you don’t have to— you can be saved by the “skin of your teeth” if you like. You can refuse to let God count you as one who is “separated to the gospel….” Or you can say, “I don’t care if I am treated like ‘the filth of the world’ as long as the gospel is proclaimed.” A true servant of Jesus Christ is one who is willing to experience martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but “to reveal His Son in me…” (Galatians 1:16).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.
Biblical Psychology
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, February 03, 2020
Your Proven Provider - #8626
Helen Roseveare was a veteran missionary, and I heard a true story from her life and it really touched me. And it reminded me of why I can face some huge needs with perfect peace. I thought it would be an encouragement to you today, too. Maybe you need this. Helen was a medical missionary in Zaire, and she told about the night she had tried to save a mother in the labor ward. And those efforts did not succeed. The mother died, left the missionaries with a crying two-year-old daughter and this tiny, premature baby. Now, they didn't have an incubator. They didn't have electricity to run an incubator, and they didn't have any special feeding facilities. And even though they lived on the equator where the nights got pretty chilly. So they wrapped the baby in cotton wool, put him in a box then, and they stoked up a fire. What they really needed was a good, old fashioned hot water bottle for the tiny newborn, but they discovered that the last one they had was burst and there was no way to get one. So they put the baby as near the fire as they could safely and they hoped it would be enough. But it was a touch-and-go fight for that little life. And then came the little girl's prayer.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Proven Provider."
The next day, the missionary, Helen, had prayers with the orphanage children. She explained the problem of keeping the baby warm enough; mentioning the need for a hot water bottle. She also told the children about the two-year-old sister who was crying because her mother died. And that's when ten-year-old Ruth started talking to God.
Here's what she prayed, "Please, God, send us a water bottle. It'll be no good tomorrow, God, because the baby will be dead. So please send it this afternoon. And while you're at it, would you please send me a dolly for the little girl so she'll know you really love her?"
Well, of course, Inwardly the missionary was struggling even to honestly say "amen" to that prayer. I mean, after all, the only way God could answer such a pointed prayer would be by sending her a parcel from her homeland in England. And she had been in Africa for almost four years, and she'd never gotten a parcel from home! Besides, who would send a hot water bottle to someone living on the equator!
Well, that afternoon, a large 22-pound parcel arrived on Helen's doorstep, and tears came to her eyes. She asked the orphanage children to help her unwrap and unpack that package. And there were 30 or 40 pairs of eyes focused on this large cardboard box. The missionary lifted out some brightly colored jerseys, which she gave out to the excited children. Then the kids looked a little bored as she pulled out the knitted bandages for the leprosy patient. Then came a box of raisins. Then, as Helen put her hand in again, she felt...well, she had to pull it out to believe it. Yep. it was a brand new (you guessed it) hot water bottle! Helen later said, "I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed He could."
Ruth, the little African girl with the bold prayer, rushed forward and she said, "Well, if God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!" And He did. At the bottom of the box was a beautifully dressed dolly. The parcel had been on the way for five months! It had been packed by Helen's former Sunday School class, whose leader just obeyed a prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. Oh, yes, and a dolly. Five months before, God had provided the answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old girl to bring it in that afternoon.
Whatever you're facing right now, that's the God you belong to. That's the God who provides every need for you in the most amazing ways! So, would you relax in His proven provision and finally - our word for today from the Word of God. The promise that I saved until the end. Isaiah 65:24 - "Before they call, I will answer."
Heroes in the Bible came from all walks of life—rulers, servants, teachers, and doctors—male, female, single, and married. Yet one common denominator united them: they built their lives on the promises of God. Noah believed in rain before rain was a word. Joshua led two million people into enemy territory. One writer went so far as to call such saints “heirs of the promise” in Hebrews 6:17.
As God prepared the Israelites to face a new land, he made a promise to them. “Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you” (Exodus 34:10). God’s promises are unbreakable; our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 5
That completed the work King Solomon did on The Temple of God. He then brought in the holy offerings of his father David, the silver and the gold and the artifacts. He placed them all in the treasury of God’s Temple.
2-3 Bringing all this to a climax, Solomon got all the leaders together in Jerusalem—all the chiefs of tribes and the family patriarchs—to move the Chest of the Covenant of God from Zion and install it in The Temple. All the men of Israel assembled before the king on the feast day of the seventh month, the Feast of Booths.
4-6 When all the leaders of Israel were ready, the Levites took up the Chest. They carried the Chest, the Tent of Meeting, and all the sacred things in the Tent used in worship. The priests, all Levites, carried them. King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel were there before the Chest, worshiping and sacrificing huge numbers of sheep and cattle—so many that no one could keep track.
7-10 The priests brought the Chest of the Covenant of God to its place in the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim. The outspread wings of the cherubim formed a canopy over the Chest and its poles. The ends of the poles were so long that they stuck out from the entrance of the Inner Sanctuary, but were not noticeable further out—they’re still there today. There was nothing in the Chest itself but the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb where God made a covenant with Israel after bringing them up from Egypt.
11-13 The priests then left the Holy Place. All the priests there were consecrated, regardless of rank or assignment; and all the Levites who were musicians were there—Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their families, dressed in their worship robes; the choir and orchestra assembled on the east side of the Altar and were joined by 120 priests blowing trumpets. The choir and trumpets made one voice of praise and thanks to God—orchestra and choir in perfect harmony singing and playing praise to God:
Yes! God is good!
His loyal love goes on forever!
13-14 Then a billowing cloud filled The Temple of God. The priests couldn’t even carry out their duties because of the cloud—the glory of God!—that filled The Temple of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, February 03, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 3:15–18
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if Johny might possibly be the Messiah.z 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you withb water.a But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you withc the Holy Spirit and fire.b 17 His winnowing forkc is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”d 18 And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
Insight
Fire shows up in the Bible in literal and figurative ways. As a common source of light and heat, it’s a word picture for both the danger and consequences of sin (Proverbs 6:27–28; Isaiah 9:18) and for God (Deuteronomy 4:24). He speaks to Moses from within a burning bush that wasn’t consumed (Exodus 3:2) while describing Himself as a consuming fire that rages against evil and refines what He wants to preserve (Deuteronomy 4:24–26; 1 Peter 1:7). God is with His people through the literal fires of human persecution (Daniel 3:19–22) as well as in the figurative fires of cleansing judgment (1 Corinthians 3:11–15). By: Mart DeHaan
A Fire Called Holy
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Luke 3:16
After several years of drought, the wildfires of Southern California left some residents thinking of them as acts of God. This disturbing impression was reinforced when news sources began referring to one as the Holy Fire. Many unfamiliar with the area didn’t realize it was a reference to the Holy Jim Canyon region. But who was Holy Jim? According to local history, he was a nineteenth-century beekeeper so irreligious and cantankerous that neighbors tagged him with that ironic nickname.
John the Baptist’s reference to a baptism of “the Holy Spirit and fire” also came with its own story and explanation (Luke 3:16). Looking back, he was likely thinking of the kind of Messiah and refining fire foreseen by the prophet Malachi (3:1–3; 4:1). But only after the Spirit of God came like wind and fire on the followers of Jesus did the words of Malachi and John come into focus (Acts 2:1–4).
The fire John predicted wasn’t what was expected. As a true act of God, it came with boldness to proclaim a different kind of Messiah and holy flame. In the Spirit of Jesus, it exposed and consumed our futile human efforts—while making room for the love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control of the Holy Spirit (see Galatians 5:22–23). Those are the acts of God that He would like to work in us. By: Mart DeHaan
Reflect & Pray
How has your life been affected by the work of the Holy Spirit? What does it mean for you to pursue a holy—set apart—life before God?
Father in heaven, please replace our fear of Your Holy Spirit with a love, joy, and peace that is as priceless as our stubborn ways are worthless.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, February 03, 2020
Becoming the “Filth of the World”
We have been made as the filth of the world… —1 Corinthians 4:13
These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or “filth of the world.” “Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ…” (Colossians 1:24) is not the result of the holiness of sanctification, but the evidence of consecration— being “separated to the gospel of God…” (Romans 1:1).
“Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you…” (1 Peter 4:12). If we do think the things we encounter are strange, it is because we are fearful and cowardly. We pay such close attention to our own interests and desires that we stay out of the mire and say, “I won’t submit; I won’t bow or bend.” And you don’t have to— you can be saved by the “skin of your teeth” if you like. You can refuse to let God count you as one who is “separated to the gospel….” Or you can say, “I don’t care if I am treated like ‘the filth of the world’ as long as the gospel is proclaimed.” A true servant of Jesus Christ is one who is willing to experience martyrdom for the reality of the gospel of God. When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but “to reveal His Son in me…” (Galatians 1:16).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.
Biblical Psychology
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, February 03, 2020
Your Proven Provider - #8626
Helen Roseveare was a veteran missionary, and I heard a true story from her life and it really touched me. And it reminded me of why I can face some huge needs with perfect peace. I thought it would be an encouragement to you today, too. Maybe you need this. Helen was a medical missionary in Zaire, and she told about the night she had tried to save a mother in the labor ward. And those efforts did not succeed. The mother died, left the missionaries with a crying two-year-old daughter and this tiny, premature baby. Now, they didn't have an incubator. They didn't have electricity to run an incubator, and they didn't have any special feeding facilities. And even though they lived on the equator where the nights got pretty chilly. So they wrapped the baby in cotton wool, put him in a box then, and they stoked up a fire. What they really needed was a good, old fashioned hot water bottle for the tiny newborn, but they discovered that the last one they had was burst and there was no way to get one. So they put the baby as near the fire as they could safely and they hoped it would be enough. But it was a touch-and-go fight for that little life. And then came the little girl's prayer.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Proven Provider."
The next day, the missionary, Helen, had prayers with the orphanage children. She explained the problem of keeping the baby warm enough; mentioning the need for a hot water bottle. She also told the children about the two-year-old sister who was crying because her mother died. And that's when ten-year-old Ruth started talking to God.
Here's what she prayed, "Please, God, send us a water bottle. It'll be no good tomorrow, God, because the baby will be dead. So please send it this afternoon. And while you're at it, would you please send me a dolly for the little girl so she'll know you really love her?"
Well, of course, Inwardly the missionary was struggling even to honestly say "amen" to that prayer. I mean, after all, the only way God could answer such a pointed prayer would be by sending her a parcel from her homeland in England. And she had been in Africa for almost four years, and she'd never gotten a parcel from home! Besides, who would send a hot water bottle to someone living on the equator!
Well, that afternoon, a large 22-pound parcel arrived on Helen's doorstep, and tears came to her eyes. She asked the orphanage children to help her unwrap and unpack that package. And there were 30 or 40 pairs of eyes focused on this large cardboard box. The missionary lifted out some brightly colored jerseys, which she gave out to the excited children. Then the kids looked a little bored as she pulled out the knitted bandages for the leprosy patient. Then came a box of raisins. Then, as Helen put her hand in again, she felt...well, she had to pull it out to believe it. Yep. it was a brand new (you guessed it) hot water bottle! Helen later said, "I had not asked God to send it; I had not truly believed He could."
Ruth, the little African girl with the bold prayer, rushed forward and she said, "Well, if God has sent the bottle, He must have sent the dolly, too!" And He did. At the bottom of the box was a beautifully dressed dolly. The parcel had been on the way for five months! It had been packed by Helen's former Sunday School class, whose leader just obeyed a prompting to send a hot water bottle, even to the equator. Oh, yes, and a dolly. Five months before, God had provided the answer to the believing prayer of a ten-year-old girl to bring it in that afternoon.
Whatever you're facing right now, that's the God you belong to. That's the God who provides every need for you in the most amazing ways! So, would you relax in His proven provision and finally - our word for today from the Word of God. The promise that I saved until the end. Isaiah 65:24 - "Before they call, I will answer."
Sunday, February 2, 2020
2 Chronicles 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Appeal to the Heart
Remember the church at Corinth? A problem on every pew? Territorially selfish. Morally shameless. Theologically reckless. How do you help a congregation like that? You can correct them. Paul did. You can instruct them, which Paul did. You can reason with them; Paul did. But at some point you stop talking to the head and start appealing to the heart. And Paul did that.
I Corinthians 13:4-7 says, "Love. . .bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
He saw only one solution-love! Don't we need the same prescription today? Someday there will be a community where everyone behaves and no one complains. But it won't be this side of heaven. So what do we do? We reason. We confront. We teach. But most of all, we love.
From Max on Life
2 Chronicles 4
He made the Bronze Altar thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and ten feet high.
2-5 He made a Sea—an immense round basin of cast metal fifteen feet in diameter, seven and a half feet high, and forty-five feet in circumference. Just under the rim, there were two parallel bands of something like bulls, ten to each foot and a half. The figures were cast in one piece with the Sea. The Sea was set on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. All the bulls faced outward and supported the Sea on their hindquarters. The Sea was three inches thick and flared at the rim like a cup, or a lily. It held about 18,000 gallons.
6 He made ten Washbasins, five set on the right and five on the left, for rinsing the things used for the Whole-Burnt-Offerings. The priests washed themselves in the Sea.
7 He made ten gold Lampstands, following the specified pattern, and placed five on the right and five on the left.
8 He made ten tables and set five on the right and five on the left. He also made a hundred gold bowls.
9 He built a Courtyard especially for the priests and then the great court and doors for the court. The doors were covered with bronze.
10 He placed the Sea on the right side of The Temple at the southeast corner.
11-16 He also made ash buckets, shovels, and bowls.
And that about wrapped it up: Huram completed the work he had contracted to do for King Solomon:
two pillars;
two bowl-shaped capitals for the tops of the pillars;
two decorative filigrees for the capitals;
four hundred pomegranates for the filigrees (a double row of pomegranates for each filigree);
ten washstands with their basins;
one Sea and the twelve bulls under it;
miscellaneous buckets, forks, shovels, and bowls.
16-18 All these artifacts that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for The Temple of God were made of burnished bronze. The king had them cast in clay in a foundry on the Jordan plain between Succoth and Zarethan. These artifacts were never weighed—there were far too many! Nobody has any idea how much bronze was used.
19-22 Solomon was also responsible for the furniture and accessories in The Temple of God:
the gold Altar;
the tables that held the Bread of the Presence;
the Lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to be lighted
before the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies;
the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs (all solid gold);
the gold wick trimmers, bowls, ladles, and censers;
the gold doors of The Temple, doors to the Holy of Holies, and the doors to the main sanctuary.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Isaiah 61:1–7
The Year of the Lord’s Favor
61 The Spirite of the Sovereign Lordf is on me,
because the Lord has anointedg me
to proclaim good newsh to the poor.i
He has sent me to bind upj the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedomk for the captivesl
and release from darkness for the prisoners,a
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favorm
and the day of vengeancen of our God,
to comforto all who mourn,p
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crownq of beauty
instead of ashes,r
the oils of joy
instead of mourning,t
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a plantingu of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.v
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruinsw
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
5 Strangersx will shepherd your flocks;
foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priestsy of the Lord,
you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealthz of nations,
and in their riches you will boast.
7 Instead of your shamea
you will receive a doubleb portion,
and instead of disgrace
you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inheritc a double portion in your land,
and everlasting joyd will be yours.
Insight
More than seven centuries after the book of Isaiah was written, Luke recorded that when Jesus stood up to read in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him” (Luke 4:17). Standing to read (v. 16) was a common synagogue practice in that day (as was sitting to teach, v. 20). When Jesus read what we know as Isaiah 61:1–2, He didn’t include the second half of verse 2—“and the day of vengeance of our God.” Presumably He stopped where He did because the focus of His ministry wasn’t the punishment of Israel or her enemies. He’d come to save; His focus was rescue as seen through His liberating works and His death and resurrection (see Luke 19:10). By: Arthur Jackson
A Time for Beauty
A crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning. Isaiah 61:3
One January morning I woke expecting to see the same dreary midwinter landscape that had greeted me for several weeks: beige grass poking through patches of snow, gray skies, and skeletal trees. Something unusual had happened overnight, though. A frost had coated everything with ice crystals. The lifeless and depressing landscape had become a beautiful scene that glistened in the sun and dazzled me.
Sometimes we view problems without the imagination it takes to have faith. We expect pain, fear, and despair to greet us every morning, but overlook the possibility of something different ever happening. We don’t expect recovery, growth, or victory through God’s power. Yet the Bible says God is the one who helps us through difficult times. He repairs broken hearts and liberates people in bondage. He comforts the grieving with “a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:3).
It isn’t that God just wants to cheer us up when we have problems. It’s that He Himself is our hope during trials. Even if we have to wait for heaven to find ultimate relief, God is present with us, encouraging us and often giving us glimpses of Himself. In our journey through life, may we come to understand St. Augustine’s words: “In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.” By: Jennifer Benson Schuldt
Reflect & Pray
How can you turn to God when you’re in trouble? What rewards can come from this practice?
Faithful God, give me the faith I need to make it through today and help me to see You at work as I face adversity.
To learn more about helping people, visit christianuniversity.org/CC205.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 02, 2020
The Compelling Force of the Call
Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! —1 Corinthians 9:16
Beware of refusing to hear the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact of his salvation. That, however, is not the same as the call to preach, but is merely an illustration which can be used in preaching. In this verse, Paul was referring to the stinging pains produced in him by the compelling force of the call to preach the gospel. Never try to apply what Paul said regarding the call to preach to those souls who are being called to God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved, because it is solely God’s sovereign work— “Look to Me, and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:22). Our Lord never requires the same conditions for discipleship that he requires for salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Christ. But discipleship has an option with it— “If anyone…” (Luke 14:26).
Paul’s words have to do with our being made servants of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us as broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be “separated to the gospel” means being able to hear the call of God (Romans 1:1). Once someone begins to hear that call, a suffering worthy of the name of Christ is produced. Suddenly, every ambition, every desire of life, and every outlook is completely blotted out and extinguished. Only one thing remains— “…separated to the gospel…” Woe be to the soul who tries to head in any other direction once that call has come to him. The Bible Training College exists so that each of you may know whether or not God has a man or woman here who truly cares about proclaiming His gospel and to see if God grips you for this purpose. Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John 14:6). The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 L
Remember the church at Corinth? A problem on every pew? Territorially selfish. Morally shameless. Theologically reckless. How do you help a congregation like that? You can correct them. Paul did. You can instruct them, which Paul did. You can reason with them; Paul did. But at some point you stop talking to the head and start appealing to the heart. And Paul did that.
I Corinthians 13:4-7 says, "Love. . .bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
He saw only one solution-love! Don't we need the same prescription today? Someday there will be a community where everyone behaves and no one complains. But it won't be this side of heaven. So what do we do? We reason. We confront. We teach. But most of all, we love.
From Max on Life
2 Chronicles 4
He made the Bronze Altar thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and ten feet high.
2-5 He made a Sea—an immense round basin of cast metal fifteen feet in diameter, seven and a half feet high, and forty-five feet in circumference. Just under the rim, there were two parallel bands of something like bulls, ten to each foot and a half. The figures were cast in one piece with the Sea. The Sea was set on twelve bulls, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. All the bulls faced outward and supported the Sea on their hindquarters. The Sea was three inches thick and flared at the rim like a cup, or a lily. It held about 18,000 gallons.
6 He made ten Washbasins, five set on the right and five on the left, for rinsing the things used for the Whole-Burnt-Offerings. The priests washed themselves in the Sea.
7 He made ten gold Lampstands, following the specified pattern, and placed five on the right and five on the left.
8 He made ten tables and set five on the right and five on the left. He also made a hundred gold bowls.
9 He built a Courtyard especially for the priests and then the great court and doors for the court. The doors were covered with bronze.
10 He placed the Sea on the right side of The Temple at the southeast corner.
11-16 He also made ash buckets, shovels, and bowls.
And that about wrapped it up: Huram completed the work he had contracted to do for King Solomon:
two pillars;
two bowl-shaped capitals for the tops of the pillars;
two decorative filigrees for the capitals;
four hundred pomegranates for the filigrees (a double row of pomegranates for each filigree);
ten washstands with their basins;
one Sea and the twelve bulls under it;
miscellaneous buckets, forks, shovels, and bowls.
16-18 All these artifacts that Huram-Abi made for King Solomon for The Temple of God were made of burnished bronze. The king had them cast in clay in a foundry on the Jordan plain between Succoth and Zarethan. These artifacts were never weighed—there were far too many! Nobody has any idea how much bronze was used.
19-22 Solomon was also responsible for the furniture and accessories in The Temple of God:
the gold Altar;
the tables that held the Bread of the Presence;
the Lampstands of pure gold with their lamps, to be lighted
before the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies;
the gold flowers, lamps, and tongs (all solid gold);
the gold wick trimmers, bowls, ladles, and censers;
the gold doors of The Temple, doors to the Holy of Holies, and the doors to the main sanctuary.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, February 02, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Isaiah 61:1–7
The Year of the Lord’s Favor
61 The Spirite of the Sovereign Lordf is on me,
because the Lord has anointedg me
to proclaim good newsh to the poor.i
He has sent me to bind upj the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedomk for the captivesl
and release from darkness for the prisoners,a
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favorm
and the day of vengeancen of our God,
to comforto all who mourn,p
3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crownq of beauty
instead of ashes,r
the oils of joy
instead of mourning,t
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a plantingu of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.v
4 They will rebuild the ancient ruinsw
and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
that have been devastated for generations.
5 Strangersx will shepherd your flocks;
foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
6 And you will be called priestsy of the Lord,
you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealthz of nations,
and in their riches you will boast.
7 Instead of your shamea
you will receive a doubleb portion,
and instead of disgrace
you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inheritc a double portion in your land,
and everlasting joyd will be yours.
Insight
More than seven centuries after the book of Isaiah was written, Luke recorded that when Jesus stood up to read in the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth “the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him” (Luke 4:17). Standing to read (v. 16) was a common synagogue practice in that day (as was sitting to teach, v. 20). When Jesus read what we know as Isaiah 61:1–2, He didn’t include the second half of verse 2—“and the day of vengeance of our God.” Presumably He stopped where He did because the focus of His ministry wasn’t the punishment of Israel or her enemies. He’d come to save; His focus was rescue as seen through His liberating works and His death and resurrection (see Luke 19:10). By: Arthur Jackson
A Time for Beauty
A crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning. Isaiah 61:3
One January morning I woke expecting to see the same dreary midwinter landscape that had greeted me for several weeks: beige grass poking through patches of snow, gray skies, and skeletal trees. Something unusual had happened overnight, though. A frost had coated everything with ice crystals. The lifeless and depressing landscape had become a beautiful scene that glistened in the sun and dazzled me.
Sometimes we view problems without the imagination it takes to have faith. We expect pain, fear, and despair to greet us every morning, but overlook the possibility of something different ever happening. We don’t expect recovery, growth, or victory through God’s power. Yet the Bible says God is the one who helps us through difficult times. He repairs broken hearts and liberates people in bondage. He comforts the grieving with “a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (Isaiah 61:3).
It isn’t that God just wants to cheer us up when we have problems. It’s that He Himself is our hope during trials. Even if we have to wait for heaven to find ultimate relief, God is present with us, encouraging us and often giving us glimpses of Himself. In our journey through life, may we come to understand St. Augustine’s words: “In my deepest wound I saw your glory, and it dazzled me.” By: Jennifer Benson Schuldt
Reflect & Pray
How can you turn to God when you’re in trouble? What rewards can come from this practice?
Faithful God, give me the faith I need to make it through today and help me to see You at work as I face adversity.
To learn more about helping people, visit christianuniversity.org/CC205.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 02, 2020
The Compelling Force of the Call
Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! —1 Corinthians 9:16
Beware of refusing to hear the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact of his salvation. That, however, is not the same as the call to preach, but is merely an illustration which can be used in preaching. In this verse, Paul was referring to the stinging pains produced in him by the compelling force of the call to preach the gospel. Never try to apply what Paul said regarding the call to preach to those souls who are being called to God for salvation. There is nothing easier than getting saved, because it is solely God’s sovereign work— “Look to Me, and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:22). Our Lord never requires the same conditions for discipleship that he requires for salvation. We are condemned to salvation through the Cross of Christ. But discipleship has an option with it— “If anyone…” (Luke 14:26).
Paul’s words have to do with our being made servants of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us as broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be “separated to the gospel” means being able to hear the call of God (Romans 1:1). Once someone begins to hear that call, a suffering worthy of the name of Christ is produced. Suddenly, every ambition, every desire of life, and every outlook is completely blotted out and extinguished. Only one thing remains— “…separated to the gospel…” Woe be to the soul who tries to head in any other direction once that call has come to him. The Bible Training College exists so that each of you may know whether or not God has a man or woman here who truly cares about proclaiming His gospel and to see if God grips you for this purpose. Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John 14:6). The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 L
Saturday, February 1, 2020
1 Corinthians 16, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Max Lucado Daily: Just Like Jesus
When they were young, my daughters loved playing “dress-up.” They’d put on their mom’s shoes, fill up a grown-up purse with crayons and pretend grown-up scenarios. For the moment, they wanted to be just like mom.
Don’t we do the same? We look at ourselves, with our immaturity, our sinfulness, and we want to clothe ourselves in something better. We want to be just like Jesus. This seems like an impossible goal until we accept one simple truth: God will help us. He loves us. Not only does God love each of us exactly as we are, but he wants us, little by little, to become like him. Why? Because he wants us to have a heart like his.
Need to hear that message a few more times? Don’t we all? God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way! He wants you to be just like Jesus!
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26).
From Just Like Jesus
1 Corinthians 16
Regarding the relief offering for poor Christians that is being collected, you get the same instructions I gave the churches in Galatia. Every Sunday each of you make an offering and put it in safekeeping. Be as generous as you can. When I get there you’ll have it ready, and I won’t have to make a special appeal. Then after I arrive, I’ll write letters authorizing whomever you delegate, and send them off to Jerusalem to deliver your gift. If you think it best that I go along, I’ll be glad to travel with them.
5-9 I plan to visit you after passing through northern Greece. I won’t be staying long there, but maybe I can stay awhile with you—maybe even spend the winter? Then you could give me a good send-off, wherever I may be headed next. I don’t want to just drop by in between other “primary” destinations. I want a good, long, leisurely visit. If the Master agrees, we’ll have it! For the present, I’m staying right here in Ephesus. A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here. (There is also mushrooming opposition.)
10-11 If Timothy shows up, take good care of him. Make him feel completely at home among you. He works so hard for the Master, just as I do. Don’t let anyone disparage him. After a while, send him on to me with your blessing. Tell him I’m expecting him, and any friends he has with him.
12 About our friend Apollos, I’ve done my best to get him to pay you a visit, but haven’t talked him into it yet. He doesn’t think this is the right time. But there will be a “right time.”
13-14 Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.
15-16 Would you do me a favor, friends, and give special recognition to the family of Stephanas? You know, they were among the first converts in Greece, and they’ve put themselves out, serving Christians ever since then. I want you to honor and look up to people like that: companions and workers who show us how to do it, giving us something to aspire to.
17-18 I want you to know how delighted I am to have Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus here with me. They partially make up for your absence! They’ve refreshed me by keeping me in touch with you. Be proud that you have people like this among you.
19 The churches here in western Asia send greetings.
Aquila, Priscilla, and the church that meets in their house say hello.
20 All the friends here say hello.
Pass the greetings around with holy embraces!
21 And I, Paul—in my own handwriting!—send you my regards.
22 If anyone won’t love the Master, throw him out. Make room for the Master!
23 Our Master Jesus has his arms wide open for you.
24 And I love all of you in the Messiah, in Jesus.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 01, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Thessalonians 5:12–28
Final Instructions
12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hardd among you, who care for you in the Lorde and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.f 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idleg and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak,h be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong,i but always strive to do what is good for each otherj and for everyone else.
16 Rejoice always,k 17 pray continually,l 18 give thanks in all circumstances;m for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit.n 20 Do not treat prophecieso with contempt 21 but test them all;p hold on to what is good,q 22 reject every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace,r sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, souls and body be kept blamelesst at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.u 24 The one who callsv you is faithful,w and he will do it.x
25 Brothers and sisters, pray for us.y 26 Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.z 27 I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.a
28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.b
Insight
Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is one of his most personal and warm epistles—and that’s not surprising. He personally planted the church at Thessalonica and knew the people there well. Paul’s introduction to this Greek city came during his second missionary journey, between his stops in Philippi and Athens (see Acts 17:1–9). Although he spent a relatively short period in Thessalonica (v. 2), it was a challenging time filled with controversy. An uproar resulted in an attack upon a man named Jason (apparently a new believer), and Paul and Silas being sent away to Berea. Undoubtedly, these shared experiences of hardship bonded their hearts together—explaining perhaps why this letter reveals such a closely held relationship. By: Bill Crowder
Full Attention
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18
Technology today seems to demand our constant attention. The modern “miracle” of the internet gives us the amazing capacity to access humanity’s collective learning in the palm of our hand. But for many, such constant access can come at a cost.
Writer Linda Stone has coined the phrase “continual partial attention” to describe the modern impulse to always need to know what’s happening “out there,” to make sure we’re not missing anything. If that sounds like it could produce chronic anxiety, you’re right!
Although the apostle Paul struggled with different reasons for anxiety, he knew our souls are wired to find peace in God. Which is why, in a letter to new believers who’d endured persecution (1 Thessalonians 2:14), Paul concluded by urging the believers to “rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances” (5:16–18).
Praying “continually” might seem pretty daunting. But then, how often do we check our phones? What if we instead let that urge be a prompt to talk to God?
More important, what if we learned to exchange a need to always be in “the know” for continual, prayerful rest in God’s presence? Through relying on Christ’s Spirit, we can learn to give our heavenly Father our continual full attention as we make our way through each day. By: Adam R. Holz
Reflect & Pray
How would you say technology impacts your faith, both negatively and positively? What might help you grow in undivided focus on God?
Father, thank You for inviting us into a relationship with You, one in which You long to hear from us continually.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 01, 2020
The Call of God
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel… —1 Corinthians 1:17
Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by “the gospel,” namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification— we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (see John 12:32). It is an injustice to say that Jesus Christ labored in redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ labored in redemption to redeem the whole world and to place it perfectly whole and restored before the throne of God. The fact that we can experience redemption illustrates the power of its reality, but that experience is a byproduct and not the goal of redemption. If God were human, how sick and tired He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation and for our sanctification. We burden His energies from morning till night asking for things for ourselves or for something from which we want to be delivered! When we finally touch the underlying foundation of the reality of the gospel of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.
The one passion of Paul’s life was to proclaim the gospel of God. He welcomed heartbreak, disillusionment, and tribulation for only one reason— these things kept him unmovable in his devotion to the gospel of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L
When they were young, my daughters loved playing “dress-up.” They’d put on their mom’s shoes, fill up a grown-up purse with crayons and pretend grown-up scenarios. For the moment, they wanted to be just like mom.
Don’t we do the same? We look at ourselves, with our immaturity, our sinfulness, and we want to clothe ourselves in something better. We want to be just like Jesus. This seems like an impossible goal until we accept one simple truth: God will help us. He loves us. Not only does God love each of us exactly as we are, but he wants us, little by little, to become like him. Why? Because he wants us to have a heart like his.
Need to hear that message a few more times? Don’t we all? God loves you just the way you are, but he refuses to leave you that way! He wants you to be just like Jesus!
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26).
From Just Like Jesus
1 Corinthians 16
Regarding the relief offering for poor Christians that is being collected, you get the same instructions I gave the churches in Galatia. Every Sunday each of you make an offering and put it in safekeeping. Be as generous as you can. When I get there you’ll have it ready, and I won’t have to make a special appeal. Then after I arrive, I’ll write letters authorizing whomever you delegate, and send them off to Jerusalem to deliver your gift. If you think it best that I go along, I’ll be glad to travel with them.
5-9 I plan to visit you after passing through northern Greece. I won’t be staying long there, but maybe I can stay awhile with you—maybe even spend the winter? Then you could give me a good send-off, wherever I may be headed next. I don’t want to just drop by in between other “primary” destinations. I want a good, long, leisurely visit. If the Master agrees, we’ll have it! For the present, I’m staying right here in Ephesus. A huge door of opportunity for good work has opened up here. (There is also mushrooming opposition.)
10-11 If Timothy shows up, take good care of him. Make him feel completely at home among you. He works so hard for the Master, just as I do. Don’t let anyone disparage him. After a while, send him on to me with your blessing. Tell him I’m expecting him, and any friends he has with him.
12 About our friend Apollos, I’ve done my best to get him to pay you a visit, but haven’t talked him into it yet. He doesn’t think this is the right time. But there will be a “right time.”
13-14 Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you’ve got, be resolute, and love without stopping.
15-16 Would you do me a favor, friends, and give special recognition to the family of Stephanas? You know, they were among the first converts in Greece, and they’ve put themselves out, serving Christians ever since then. I want you to honor and look up to people like that: companions and workers who show us how to do it, giving us something to aspire to.
17-18 I want you to know how delighted I am to have Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus here with me. They partially make up for your absence! They’ve refreshed me by keeping me in touch with you. Be proud that you have people like this among you.
19 The churches here in western Asia send greetings.
Aquila, Priscilla, and the church that meets in their house say hello.
20 All the friends here say hello.
Pass the greetings around with holy embraces!
21 And I, Paul—in my own handwriting!—send you my regards.
22 If anyone won’t love the Master, throw him out. Make room for the Master!
23 Our Master Jesus has his arms wide open for you.
24 And I love all of you in the Messiah, in Jesus.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 01, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Thessalonians 5:12–28
Final Instructions
12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hardd among you, who care for you in the Lorde and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.f 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idleg and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak,h be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong,i but always strive to do what is good for each otherj and for everyone else.
16 Rejoice always,k 17 pray continually,l 18 give thanks in all circumstances;m for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit.n 20 Do not treat prophecieso with contempt 21 but test them all;p hold on to what is good,q 22 reject every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace,r sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, souls and body be kept blamelesst at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.u 24 The one who callsv you is faithful,w and he will do it.x
25 Brothers and sisters, pray for us.y 26 Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss.z 27 I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.a
28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.b
Insight
Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians is one of his most personal and warm epistles—and that’s not surprising. He personally planted the church at Thessalonica and knew the people there well. Paul’s introduction to this Greek city came during his second missionary journey, between his stops in Philippi and Athens (see Acts 17:1–9). Although he spent a relatively short period in Thessalonica (v. 2), it was a challenging time filled with controversy. An uproar resulted in an attack upon a man named Jason (apparently a new believer), and Paul and Silas being sent away to Berea. Undoubtedly, these shared experiences of hardship bonded their hearts together—explaining perhaps why this letter reveals such a closely held relationship. By: Bill Crowder
Full Attention
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18
Technology today seems to demand our constant attention. The modern “miracle” of the internet gives us the amazing capacity to access humanity’s collective learning in the palm of our hand. But for many, such constant access can come at a cost.
Writer Linda Stone has coined the phrase “continual partial attention” to describe the modern impulse to always need to know what’s happening “out there,” to make sure we’re not missing anything. If that sounds like it could produce chronic anxiety, you’re right!
Although the apostle Paul struggled with different reasons for anxiety, he knew our souls are wired to find peace in God. Which is why, in a letter to new believers who’d endured persecution (1 Thessalonians 2:14), Paul concluded by urging the believers to “rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances” (5:16–18).
Praying “continually” might seem pretty daunting. But then, how often do we check our phones? What if we instead let that urge be a prompt to talk to God?
More important, what if we learned to exchange a need to always be in “the know” for continual, prayerful rest in God’s presence? Through relying on Christ’s Spirit, we can learn to give our heavenly Father our continual full attention as we make our way through each day. By: Adam R. Holz
Reflect & Pray
How would you say technology impacts your faith, both negatively and positively? What might help you grow in undivided focus on God?
Father, thank You for inviting us into a relationship with You, one in which You long to hear from us continually.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 01, 2020
The Call of God
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel… —1 Corinthians 1:17
Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by “the gospel,” namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification— we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (see John 12:32). It is an injustice to say that Jesus Christ labored in redemption to make me a saint. Jesus Christ labored in redemption to redeem the whole world and to place it perfectly whole and restored before the throne of God. The fact that we can experience redemption illustrates the power of its reality, but that experience is a byproduct and not the goal of redemption. If God were human, how sick and tired He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation and for our sanctification. We burden His energies from morning till night asking for things for ourselves or for something from which we want to be delivered! When we finally touch the underlying foundation of the reality of the gospel of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.
The one passion of Paul’s life was to proclaim the gospel of God. He welcomed heartbreak, disillusionment, and tribulation for only one reason— these things kept him unmovable in his devotion to the gospel of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L
Friday, January 31, 2020
2 Chronicles 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: STEPHEN REMEMBERED
The greatest example of humility is none other than Jesus Christ. Who had more reason to boast than he? Yet he never did. He was utterly reliant upon the Father and the Holy Spirit.
What gift are you giving that he did not first give? You love. But who loved you first? You serve. But who served the most? What are you doing for God that he could not do alone? How kind of him to use us. How wise of us to remember.
Stephen remembered. As Stephen’s accusers reached for their rocks, he looked toward Christ. “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God; he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Acts 7:55). Stephen stood on behalf of Christ, and in the end, Christ returned the favor.
2 Chronicles 3
So Solomon broke ground, launched construction of the house of God in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, the place where God had appeared to his father David. The precise site, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, had been designated by David. He broke ground on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his rule. These are the dimensions that Solomon set for the construction of the house of God: ninety feet long and thirty feet wide. The porch in front stretched the width of the building, that is, thirty feet; and it was thirty feet high.
4-7 The interior was gold-plated. He paneled the main hall with cypress and veneered it with fine gold engraved with palm tree and chain designs. He decorated the building with precious stones and gold from Parvaim. Everything was coated with gold veneer: rafters, doorframes, walls, and doors. Cherubim were engraved on the walls.
8-9 He made the Holy of Holies a cube, thirty feet wide, long, and high. It was veneered with six hundred talents (something over twenty-two tons) of gold. The gold nails weighed fifty shekels (a little over a pound). The upper rooms were also veneered in gold.
10-13 He made two sculptures of cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, for the Holy of Holies, both veneered with gold. The combined wingspread of the side-by-side cherubim (each wing measuring seven and a half feet) stretched from wall to wall, thirty feet. They stood erect facing the main hall.
14 He fashioned the curtain of violet, purple, and crimson fabric and worked a cherub design into it.
15-17 He made two huge free-standing pillars, each fifty-two feet tall, their capitals extending another seven and a half feet. The top of each pillar was set off with an elaborate filigree of chains, like necklaces, from which hung a hundred pomegranates. He placed the pillars in front of The Temple, one on the right, and the other on the left. The right pillar he named Jakin (Security) and the left pillar he named Boaz (Stability).
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, January 31, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Proverbs 23:1–5
Saying 7
23 When you sit to dine with a ruler,
note well whata is before you,
2 and put a knife to your throat
if you are given to gluttony.
3 Do not crave his delicacies,w
for that food is deceptive.
Saying 8
4 Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
do not trust your own cleverness.
5 Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,x
for they will surely sprout wings
and fly off to the sky like an eagle.y
Insight
Proverbs 22:17–24:22 is marked out as a separate section with the prologue, “Thirty Sayings of the Wise.” Some scholars have argued that Solomon “borrowed” some of these proverbs from an ancient Egyptian wisdom work “The Instruction of Amenemope,” which has thirty chapters. Regardless of its source, we believe that these “Thirty Sayings” are “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
The seventh saying (Proverbs 23:1–3) paints the picture of being invited to dinner by a powerful host, and warns of being enamored by the appearance of social prestige. Instead, we’re to be vigilant and restrained at a time when it’s easy to indulge. The eighth saying (vv. 4–5) warns of the danger of greed, of being consumed by money and materialism, of trusting in riches. Since wealth is fleeting (27:24), it’s foolish to trust in it (Ecclesiastes 5:13–15; Matthew 6:19; 1 Timothy 6:6–10; James 5:1–6).
Going, Going, Gone
Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone. Proverbs 23:5
The mischievous artist Banksy pulled off another practical joke. His painting Girl with Balloon sold for one million pounds at Sotheby’s auction house in London. Moments after the auctioneer yelled “Sold,” an alarm sounded and the painting slipped halfway through a shredder mounted inside the bottom of the frame. Banksy tweeted a picture of bidders gasping at his ruined masterpiece, with the caption, “Going, going, gone.”
Banksy relished pulling one over on the wealthy, but he need not have bothered. Wealth itself has plenty of pranks up its sleeve. God says, “Do not wear yourself out to get rich . . . . Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle” (Proverbs 23:4–5).
Few things are less secure than money. We work hard to earn it, yet there are many ways to lose it. Investments go sour, inflation erodes, bills come, thieves steal, and fire and flood destroy. Even if we manage to keep our money, the time we have to spend it continually flies. Blink, and your life is going, going, gone.
What to do? God tells us a few verses later: “always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off” (vv. 17–18). Invest your life in Jesus; He alone will keep you forever. By: Mike Wittmer
Reflect & Pray
Where does your life feel insecure? How might that lead you to Jesus?
God, help me to give my insecurities to You and to trust in Your goodness and faithfulness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, January 31, 2020
Do You See Your Calling?
…separated to the gospel of God… —Romans 1:1
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell— it is redemption. The need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker today. As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holiness is an effect of redemption, not the cause of it. If we place our faith in human goodness we will go under when testing comes.
Paul did not say that he separated himself, but “when it pleased God, who separated me…” (Galatians 1:15). Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. “Don’t ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes.” To talk that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of God has not begun to touch me. There is no reckless abandon to God in that. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul was not conscious of himself. He was recklessly abandoned, totally surrendered, and separated by God for one purpose— to proclaim the gospel of God (see Romans 9:3).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, January 31, 2020
One of Us - #8625
I guess every generation has its surprising music hits. Like a song by a Mississippi truck driver about a hound dog - Elvis something - or a song by some longhaired British quartet about wanting to hold your hand. I think they were called The Beatles. Now, in more recent years, there was a very surprising song that skyrocketed to number one for several weeks and to a Grammy nomination. It's been a while, but it was a pretty provocative song. The singer was not well known, but the song asked some questions that I never thought I'd hear in a popular song. It had a haunting melody that was pretty hard to forget. Years ago, as I played a portion of that song for 11,000 teenagers I was speaking to, virtually everyone in the room sang the lyrics. "What if God was one of us, what would His name be? If God was one of us, what would His face look like?" You know what? The questions were provocative. The answers are shocking!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "One of Us."
Actually, God became one of us. John 1:14, our word for today from the Word of God says, "The Word," speaking of Jesus Christ, "became flesh and lived among us and we beheld His glory." Earlier in that chapter it says He was there from the beginning. He created everything there is, and now He became one of us.
The song asked what would His name be? That would be Jesus. Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." When God was one of us, what was He like? Well, He was poor by choice; born in a stable. His family turned on Him - maybe like yours has. He was tempted like you are, except He was tempted by Satan himself. He grieved over the death of people He loved - perhaps as you have.
When God was one of us, He knew what it was like to be lonely, to be betrayed, to be physically abused, to die. When God was one of us, He forgave a sinful woman everyone else was ready to stone. He's ready to forgive you. He loved the children. Even His own disciples thought they were unimportant. He still loves those that others think are unimportant - maybe like you. When God was one of us, He walked right past the cheering crowds to seek out one hurting person in need just as He's seeking you today.
And when God was one of us, what did his face look like? The prophet Isaiah says His face was disfigured beyond that of any man and His form was marred beyond human likeness. Why would God become one of us and submit Himself to this humiliating, dehumanizing torture? His answer is in His own words, Mark 10:45. "For even the Son of Man came...to give His life as a ransom for many." And we know what a ransom is. It's the price you pay to get someone back. And Jesus said that's what I've come to do - I came to pay the price to bring you back...terminally away from God because of our sin. But through Jesus' brutal death He became the substitute - God's own Son - to take our hell and to pay our penalty.
Nobody has ever loved you like Jesus. And now He's close to you; He's right where you are. He's made His move all the way from heaven's glory to become one of us because only one of us could pay the penalty for us. And now He's come to where you are to offer you this opportunity to begin that relationship for which He spent His life - and it's your move now.
Jesus walked out of his grave after his death three days later, conquering death. And He's ready to walk into your life today upon your invitation. His love b
ecomes yours when you say something like this, "Lord, I've been doing my life my way. I've sinned. My only hope of being forgiven - of knowing God - of ever getting to heaven, is You. I'm putting all my trust in You, Lord Jesus, beginning right now."
There's more about this at our website that will help you get this settled. Go to ANewStory.com.
Jesus has gone the distance from heaven to the cross to where you are right now, to reach out to you with His incredible love. Please don't make life's biggest mistake. Don't miss Jesus.
The greatest example of humility is none other than Jesus Christ. Who had more reason to boast than he? Yet he never did. He was utterly reliant upon the Father and the Holy Spirit.
What gift are you giving that he did not first give? You love. But who loved you first? You serve. But who served the most? What are you doing for God that he could not do alone? How kind of him to use us. How wise of us to remember.
Stephen remembered. As Stephen’s accusers reached for their rocks, he looked toward Christ. “Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God; he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand” (Acts 7:55). Stephen stood on behalf of Christ, and in the end, Christ returned the favor.
2 Chronicles 3
So Solomon broke ground, launched construction of the house of God in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, the place where God had appeared to his father David. The precise site, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, had been designated by David. He broke ground on the second day in the second month of the fourth year of his rule. These are the dimensions that Solomon set for the construction of the house of God: ninety feet long and thirty feet wide. The porch in front stretched the width of the building, that is, thirty feet; and it was thirty feet high.
4-7 The interior was gold-plated. He paneled the main hall with cypress and veneered it with fine gold engraved with palm tree and chain designs. He decorated the building with precious stones and gold from Parvaim. Everything was coated with gold veneer: rafters, doorframes, walls, and doors. Cherubim were engraved on the walls.
8-9 He made the Holy of Holies a cube, thirty feet wide, long, and high. It was veneered with six hundred talents (something over twenty-two tons) of gold. The gold nails weighed fifty shekels (a little over a pound). The upper rooms were also veneered in gold.
10-13 He made two sculptures of cherubim, gigantic angel-like figures, for the Holy of Holies, both veneered with gold. The combined wingspread of the side-by-side cherubim (each wing measuring seven and a half feet) stretched from wall to wall, thirty feet. They stood erect facing the main hall.
14 He fashioned the curtain of violet, purple, and crimson fabric and worked a cherub design into it.
15-17 He made two huge free-standing pillars, each fifty-two feet tall, their capitals extending another seven and a half feet. The top of each pillar was set off with an elaborate filigree of chains, like necklaces, from which hung a hundred pomegranates. He placed the pillars in front of The Temple, one on the right, and the other on the left. The right pillar he named Jakin (Security) and the left pillar he named Boaz (Stability).
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, January 31, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Proverbs 23:1–5
Saying 7
23 When you sit to dine with a ruler,
note well whata is before you,
2 and put a knife to your throat
if you are given to gluttony.
3 Do not crave his delicacies,w
for that food is deceptive.
Saying 8
4 Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
do not trust your own cleverness.
5 Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,x
for they will surely sprout wings
and fly off to the sky like an eagle.y
Insight
Proverbs 22:17–24:22 is marked out as a separate section with the prologue, “Thirty Sayings of the Wise.” Some scholars have argued that Solomon “borrowed” some of these proverbs from an ancient Egyptian wisdom work “The Instruction of Amenemope,” which has thirty chapters. Regardless of its source, we believe that these “Thirty Sayings” are “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
The seventh saying (Proverbs 23:1–3) paints the picture of being invited to dinner by a powerful host, and warns of being enamored by the appearance of social prestige. Instead, we’re to be vigilant and restrained at a time when it’s easy to indulge. The eighth saying (vv. 4–5) warns of the danger of greed, of being consumed by money and materialism, of trusting in riches. Since wealth is fleeting (27:24), it’s foolish to trust in it (Ecclesiastes 5:13–15; Matthew 6:19; 1 Timothy 6:6–10; James 5:1–6).
Going, Going, Gone
Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone. Proverbs 23:5
The mischievous artist Banksy pulled off another practical joke. His painting Girl with Balloon sold for one million pounds at Sotheby’s auction house in London. Moments after the auctioneer yelled “Sold,” an alarm sounded and the painting slipped halfway through a shredder mounted inside the bottom of the frame. Banksy tweeted a picture of bidders gasping at his ruined masterpiece, with the caption, “Going, going, gone.”
Banksy relished pulling one over on the wealthy, but he need not have bothered. Wealth itself has plenty of pranks up its sleeve. God says, “Do not wear yourself out to get rich . . . . Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle” (Proverbs 23:4–5).
Few things are less secure than money. We work hard to earn it, yet there are many ways to lose it. Investments go sour, inflation erodes, bills come, thieves steal, and fire and flood destroy. Even if we manage to keep our money, the time we have to spend it continually flies. Blink, and your life is going, going, gone.
What to do? God tells us a few verses later: “always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off” (vv. 17–18). Invest your life in Jesus; He alone will keep you forever. By: Mike Wittmer
Reflect & Pray
Where does your life feel insecure? How might that lead you to Jesus?
God, help me to give my insecurities to You and to trust in Your goodness and faithfulness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, January 31, 2020
Do You See Your Calling?
…separated to the gospel of God… —Romans 1:1
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the gospel of God should be recognized as the abiding reality. Reality is not human goodness, or holiness, or heaven, or hell— it is redemption. The need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker today. As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that redemption is the only reality. Personal holiness is an effect of redemption, not the cause of it. If we place our faith in human goodness we will go under when testing comes.
Paul did not say that he separated himself, but “when it pleased God, who separated me…” (Galatians 1:15). Paul was not overly interested in his own character. And as long as our eyes are focused on our own personal holiness, we will never even get close to the full reality of redemption. Christian workers fail because they place their desire for their own holiness above their desire to know God. “Don’t ask me to be confronted with the strong reality of redemption on behalf of the filth of human life surrounding me today; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes.” To talk that way is a sign that the reality of the gospel of God has not begun to touch me. There is no reckless abandon to God in that. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul was not conscious of himself. He was recklessly abandoned, totally surrendered, and separated by God for one purpose— to proclaim the gospel of God (see Romans 9:3).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, January 31, 2020
One of Us - #8625
I guess every generation has its surprising music hits. Like a song by a Mississippi truck driver about a hound dog - Elvis something - or a song by some longhaired British quartet about wanting to hold your hand. I think they were called The Beatles. Now, in more recent years, there was a very surprising song that skyrocketed to number one for several weeks and to a Grammy nomination. It's been a while, but it was a pretty provocative song. The singer was not well known, but the song asked some questions that I never thought I'd hear in a popular song. It had a haunting melody that was pretty hard to forget. Years ago, as I played a portion of that song for 11,000 teenagers I was speaking to, virtually everyone in the room sang the lyrics. "What if God was one of us, what would His name be? If God was one of us, what would His face look like?" You know what? The questions were provocative. The answers are shocking!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "One of Us."
Actually, God became one of us. John 1:14, our word for today from the Word of God says, "The Word," speaking of Jesus Christ, "became flesh and lived among us and we beheld His glory." Earlier in that chapter it says He was there from the beginning. He created everything there is, and now He became one of us.
The song asked what would His name be? That would be Jesus. Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." When God was one of us, what was He like? Well, He was poor by choice; born in a stable. His family turned on Him - maybe like yours has. He was tempted like you are, except He was tempted by Satan himself. He grieved over the death of people He loved - perhaps as you have.
When God was one of us, He knew what it was like to be lonely, to be betrayed, to be physically abused, to die. When God was one of us, He forgave a sinful woman everyone else was ready to stone. He's ready to forgive you. He loved the children. Even His own disciples thought they were unimportant. He still loves those that others think are unimportant - maybe like you. When God was one of us, He walked right past the cheering crowds to seek out one hurting person in need just as He's seeking you today.
And when God was one of us, what did his face look like? The prophet Isaiah says His face was disfigured beyond that of any man and His form was marred beyond human likeness. Why would God become one of us and submit Himself to this humiliating, dehumanizing torture? His answer is in His own words, Mark 10:45. "For even the Son of Man came...to give His life as a ransom for many." And we know what a ransom is. It's the price you pay to get someone back. And Jesus said that's what I've come to do - I came to pay the price to bring you back...terminally away from God because of our sin. But through Jesus' brutal death He became the substitute - God's own Son - to take our hell and to pay our penalty.
Nobody has ever loved you like Jesus. And now He's close to you; He's right where you are. He's made His move all the way from heaven's glory to become one of us because only one of us could pay the penalty for us. And now He's come to where you are to offer you this opportunity to begin that relationship for which He spent His life - and it's your move now.
Jesus walked out of his grave after his death three days later, conquering death. And He's ready to walk into your life today upon your invitation. His love b
ecomes yours when you say something like this, "Lord, I've been doing my life my way. I've sinned. My only hope of being forgiven - of knowing God - of ever getting to heaven, is You. I'm putting all my trust in You, Lord Jesus, beginning right now."
There's more about this at our website that will help you get this settled. Go to ANewStory.com.
Jesus has gone the distance from heaven to the cross to where you are right now, to reach out to you with His incredible love. Please don't make life's biggest mistake. Don't miss Jesus.
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