Nehemiah 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: WHERE IS PARADISE? - January 3, 2025

Where is Paradise? Well the Bible refers to three kinds of heaven. There is an atmospheric heaven—the sky, the breathable atmosphere that blankets the earth. There is a planetary heaven that encompasses our mighty and majestic universe.

And then there is the third heaven: Paradise. It exists outside our physical universe. Paul was privileged to have a peek into this realm. What he experienced was so otherworldly that he was prohibited to share the details. Paradise is not the domain of the dead but the land of superabundant life. It is almost heaven, but not quite. It is grand, but temporary lodging. A universe forever purged of sin and populated by lovers of God.

What Happens Next

Nehemiah 7

The Wall Rebuilt: Names and Numbers

1–2  7 After the wall was rebuilt and I had installed the doors, and the security guards, the singers, and the Levites were appointed, I put my brother Hanani, along with Hananiah the captain of the citadel, in charge of Jerusalem because he was an honest man and feared God more than most men.

3  I gave them this order: “Don’t open the gates of Jerusalem until the sun is up. And shut and bar the gates while the guards are still on duty. Appoint the guards from the citizens of Jerusalem and assign them to posts in front of their own homes.”

4  The city was large and spacious with only a few people in it and the houses not yet rebuilt.

5  God put it in my heart to gather the nobles, the officials, and the people in general to be registered. I found the genealogical record of those who were in the first return from exile. This is the record I found:

6–60  These are the people of the province who returned from the captivity of the Exile, the ones Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried off captive; they came back to Jerusalem and Judah, each going to his own town. They came back in the company of Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, and Baanah.

The numbers of the men of the People of Israel by families of origin:

Parosh, 2,172

Shephatiah, 372

Arah, 652

Pahath-Moab (sons of Jeshua and Joab), 2,818

Elam, 1,254

Zattu, 845

Zaccai, 760

Binnui, 648

Bebai, 628

Azgad, 2,322

Adonikam, 667

Bigvai, 2,067

Adin, 655

Ater (sons of Hezekiah), 98

Hashum, 328

Bezai, 324

Hariph, 112

Gibeon, 95.

Israelites identified by place of origin:

Bethlehem and Netophah, 188

Anathoth, 128

Beth Azmaveth, 42

Kiriath Jearim, Kephirah, and Beeroth, 743

Ramah and Geba, 621

Micmash, 122

Bethel and Ai, 123

Nebo (the other one), 52

Elam (the other one), 1,254

Harim, 320

Jericho, 345

Lod, Hadid, and Ono, 721

Senaah, 3,930.

Priestly families:

Jedaiah (sons of Jeshua), 973

Immer, 1,052

Pashhur, 1,247

Harim, 1,017.

Levitical families:

Jeshua (sons of Kadmiel and of Hodaviah), 74.

Singers:

Asaph’s family line, 148.

Security guard families:

Shallum, Ater, Talmon, Akkub, Hatita, and Shobai, 138.

Families of support staff:

Ziha, Hasupha, Tabbaoth,

Keros, Sia, Padon,

Lebana, Hagaba, Shalmai,

Hanan, Giddel, Gahar,

Reaiah, Rezin, Nekoda,

Gazzam, Uzza, Paseah,

Besai, Meunim, Nephussim,

Bakbuk, Hakupha, Harhur,

Bazluth, Mehida, Harsha,

Barkos, Sisera, Temah,

Neziah, and Hatipha.

Families of Solomon’s servants:

Sotai, Sophereth, Perida,

Jaala, Darkon, Giddel,

Shephatiah, Hattil, Pokereth-Hazzebaim, and Amon.

The Temple support staff and Solomon’s servants added up to 392.

61–63  These are those who came from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Kerub, Addon, and Immer. They weren’t able to prove their ancestry, whether they were true Israelites or not:

The sons of Delaiah, Tobiah, and Nekoda, 642.

Likewise with these priestly families:

The sons of Hobaiah, Hakkoz, and Barzillai, who had married a daughter of Barzillai the Gileadite and took that name.

64–65  They looked high and low for their family records but couldn’t find them. And so they were barred from priestly work as ritually unclean. The governor ruled that they could not eat from the holy food until a priest could determine their status by using the Urim and Thummim.

66–69  The total count for the congregation was 42,360. That did not include the male and female slaves who numbered 7,337. There were also 245 male and female singers. And there were 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.

70–72  Some of the heads of families made voluntary offerings for the work. The governor made a gift to the treasury of 1,000 drachmas of gold (about nineteen pounds), 50 bowls, and 530 garments for the priests. Some of the heads of the families made gifts to the treasury for the work; it came to 20,000 drachmas of gold and 2,200 minas of silver (about one and a third tons). Gifts from the rest of the people totaled 20,000 drachmas of gold (about 375 pounds), 2,000 minas of silver, and 67 garments for the priests.

73  The priests, Levites, security guards, singers, and Temple support staff, along with some others, and the rest of the People of Israel, all found a place to live in their own towns.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Friday, January 03, 2025

by Karen Huang

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

John 16:31-33

Jesus answered them, “Do you finally believe? In fact, you’re about to make a run for it—saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I’m not abandoned. The Father is with me. I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.”

Today's Insights

In John 16, as Jesus addressed His disciples’ fears and the grief and suffering that would come during and after His death, it’s noteworthy that nowhere did He suggest they’d be rescued from experiencing fear and pain. As Christ faced death, they’d abandon Him in terror—“leave [Him] all alone” (John 16:32). The grief they’d experience from His death was unavoidable—they’d “weep and mourn while the world [rejoiced]” (v. 20).

Instead of a comfort based on escaping suffering, however, Jesus offered His disciples hope rooted in His resurrection (16:22). They couldn’t avoid the pain they’d experience, but because Christ has “overcome the world” (16:33), their suffering would be like that of childbirth—the pain wouldn’t be purposeless but would “turn to joy” (v. 20)—tremendous joy that “no one will take away” (v. 22).

Fear of the Unknown

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33

Fear woke me at 3 a.m. on the first day of the new year. The year ahead weighed heavily on me, overwhelming me with dread. Illness in the family had long wearied me, and now, thoughts of the future made me afraid. Will more bad things happen? I wondered.

Jesus’ disciples understood the fear of bad things happening. Even though their Master had prepared and reassured them the day before He died, they were still afraid. They fled when He was arrested (Matthew 26:56); Peter denied Him (John 18:15-17, 25-27), and they went into hiding (20:19). Their fear during the upheaval of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion, as well as of persecution, led them to act contrary to His command to “take heart” and His promise, “I have overcome the world” (16:33).

But Christ’s death and resurrection proved His authority and power over life and death. He has the ultimate victory. Even though the sinful state of our world makes suffering a certainty, we can rest in the truth that all things are subject to the authority of our wise and loving God. Jesus’ presence is with us (16:32-33), just as it was with His disciples, who later confidently went on to share the gospel to the world. May God’s promise that He’s in control strengthen our hearts to trust Him in this new year and be courageous even when we don’t know what the future will bring.

Reflect & Pray

What’s your response to difficulty, suffering, and trials? What would “taking heart” look like for you?

Thank You, Jesus, for helping me with my fears and for showing me how to live courageously.

Visit ODBU.org/OT315 for further study on suffering and trials from the book of Job.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Friday, January 03, 2025

The Grace of God’s Forgetting

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. —Ephesians 2:8

No one can be saved by their own efforts. We have the sneaking idea that we can earn God’s favor by praying or by believing, by obeying or by repenting. But the only way we get into his favor is by the free gift of his almighty grace.

It takes some of us a long time to understand that we don’t deserve to be saved, and that nothing we do can make us deserving. We say to God, “I really am sorry for what I’ve done. I really am sick of myself.” If only this were true! We have to become sick to death of ourselves, even to the point of despair, even to the point where we can do nothing. Then we will be in the exact right state for receiving his overflowing grace. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

Think of what God’s forgiveness means: it means he forgets away all our sins. Forgetting, in the human mind, may be a defect; in the divine mind it is an attribute. God illustrates it through vibrant images drawn from his creation: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist” (Isaiah 44:22).

When we think of forgetting in human terms, we place limits on God’s grace that don’t exist. His overflowing grace never ends. When God forgets our sins, he forgets them completely: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). This is the grace of God’s forgetting.

Genesis 7–9; Matthew 3

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

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, 199 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Friday, January 03, 2025

THE RIGHT WORD FOR SEX - #9910

It's amazing how creative parents can become when it's time to explain the facts of life to a child, and they really get creative when it comes to the vocabulary they choose. Now, we tell our kids that an ear is an ear, a leg is a leg, an elbow is an elbow and so on. But when it comes time to explain the more private parts of the body and the facts-of-life talk, we have a hard time using the right words. Frankly, I've heard some pretty weird names for human anatomy. Words invented, I guess, by a red-faced parent, but not recognized by any doctor on the planet. You know, it's good to use the right words when it comes to sex, especially the one that really counts - the Bible does.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Right Word For Sex."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from the very beginning of man and woman, Genesis 4:1. It says, "Adam knew his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain." Now, the word "knew" obviously is referring to their sexual relationship - sexual intercourse between a man and a woman - Adam and Eve. We are looking in the book of Genesis at sex before it got spoiled, and ruined, and devalued; sex as it was meant to be, still unspoiled, still the best. And the word that's used for a sexual relationship between a man and woman is the word "know"... "Adam knew Eve."

When two people join themselves together physically, it's designed by God to be the ultimate "knowing" of two people. And when two people have sex that isn't based on a deep, intimate friendship and commitment, they don't go all the way. They don't go one-eighth of the way, because they don't have a lifetime of knowing each other that they're expressing through this awesome language of love. The Hebrew word is "yadah." It speaks of an intimacy of two people who know each other as they really are; a deep, personal, intimate, experiential knowledge of another person. That's why God designed sex for a lifetime commitment. He put a fence around sex called marriage.

And ironically, when you take sex out of marriage, outside the fence, it actually slows down or even eliminates the "knowing" process. It keeps you from getting to know a person, because the physical just takes over. The relationship becomes more self-centered. Couples stop talking, and often they end up marrying a stranger, because they've never really had a friend of the opposite sex. It's not knowing, it's using. The result is lonely relationships and even lonely marriages; people who have never had a friendship with the opposite sex and maybe never will.

And when the physical starts to be strong in a relationship, it will often mask the weaknesses in that relationship. Many people have married the wrong person because their passion blinded them. They were kept from really ever knowing the other person, and they made a life-long mistake. Remember, the Inventor always knows best, and the Inventor of sex knows best: two people in a lifetime committed knowing experience.

Anything less is a cheap, twisted, disappointing counterfeit. The Bible says to know someone as your best friend forever... now, that's the right word for sex.

Revelation 17, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE PORCH OF HEAVEN - January 2, 2025

THE PORCH OF HEAVEN - January 2, 2025

Paradise: the next stop on our journey. That is the term Jesus used with the dying thief on the cross. Is Paradise the same as heaven? Sort of. John Wesley called Paradise “only the porch of Heaven.” It is simply the gathering place of the saved until Christ comes for his children.

The Greek word for paradise refers to a walled park or garden. Early readers of Jesus’ promise to the thief would have thought of Eden’s garden—a tangible, touchable location. Why would we think heaven’s Paradise is any different? God’s garden occupies the center of Paradise. What a joy it will be to see it!

What Happens Next

Revelation 17

Great Babylon, Mother of Whores

1–2  17 One of the Seven Angels who carried the seven bowls came and invited me, “Come, I’ll show you the judgment of the great Whore who sits enthroned over many waters, the Whore with whom the kings of the earth have gone whoring, show you the judgment on earth dwellers drunk on her whorish lust.”

3–6  In the Spirit he carried me out in the desert. I saw a woman mounted on a Scarlet Beast. Stuffed with blasphemies, the Beast had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, festooned with gold and gems and pearls. She held a gold chalice in her hand, brimming with defiling obscenities, her foul fornications. A riddle-name was branded on her forehead: great babylon, mother of whores and abominations of the earth. I could see that the woman was drunk, drunk on the blood of God’s holy people, drunk on the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.

6–8  Astonished, I rubbed my eyes. I shook my head in wonder. The Angel said, “Does this surprise you? Let me tell you the riddle of the woman and the Beast she rides, the Beast with seven heads and ten horns. The Beast you saw once was, is no longer, and is about to ascend from the Abyss and head straight for Hell. Earth dwellers whose names weren’t written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will be dazzled when they see the Beast that once was, is no longer, and is to come.

9–11  “But don’t drop your guard. Use your head. The seven heads are seven hills; they are where the woman sits. They are also seven kings: five dead, one living, the other not yet here—and when he does come his time will be brief. The Beast that once was and is no longer is both an eighth and one of the seven—and headed for Hell.

12–14  “The ten horns you saw are ten kings, but they’re not yet in power. They will come to power with the Scarlet Beast, but won’t last long—a very brief reign. These kings will agree to turn over their power and authority to the Beast. They will go to war against the Lamb but the Lamb will defeat them, proof that he is Lord over all lords, King over all kings, and those with him will be the called, chosen, and faithful.”

15–18  The Angel continued, “The waters you saw on which the Whore was enthroned are peoples and crowds, nations and languages. And the ten horns you saw, together with the Beast, will turn on the Whore—they’ll hate her, violate her, strip her naked, rip her apart with their teeth, then set fire to her. It was God who put the idea in their heads to turn over their rule to the Beast until the words of God are completed. The woman you saw is the great city, tyrannizing the kings of the earth.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Thursday, January 02, 2025

by Winn Collier

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Isaiah 51:1-6

Committed to Seeking God

1–3  51 “Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living

and committed to seeking God.

Ponder the rock from which you were cut,

the quarry from which you were dug.

Yes, ponder Abraham, your father,

and Sarah, who bore you.

Think of it! One solitary man when I called him,

but once I blessed him, he multiplied.

Likewise I, God, will comfort Zion,

comfort all her mounds of ruins.

I’ll transform her dead ground into Eden,

her moonscape into the garden of God,

A place filled with exuberance and laughter,

thankful voices and melodic songs.

4–6  “Pay attention, my people.

Listen to me, nations.

Revelation flows from me.

My decisions light up the world.

My deliverance arrives on the run,

my salvation right on time.

I’ll bring justice to the peoples.

Even faraway islands will look to me

and take hope in my saving power.

Look up at the skies,

ponder the earth under your feet.

The skies will fade out like smoke,

the earth will wear out like work pants,

and the people will die off like flies.

But my salvation will last forever,

my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.

Today's Insights

What does Isaiah 51:1 mean? “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut.” God is challenging His exiled people to “look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth” (v. 2). The people were trying to gain righteousness by keeping the law. What they needed was the faith of their spiritual father Abraham. The apostle Paul wrote, “It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith” (Romans 4:13).

God’s Promise Beyond the Ruins

The heavens will vanish like smoke . . . . But my salvation will last forever. Isaiah 51:6

As Hurricane Laura raged through the Gulf of Mexico toward the US coastline of Louisiana, the warnings were dire. One sheriff, noting the 150-mile-per-hour winds, issued this jolting message: “Please evacuate. But if you choose to stay and we can't get to you, write your name, address, social security number, and next of kin and put it in a Ziploc bag in your pocket. Praying that it does not come to this.” Rescue crews knew that once Laura hit land, they could only watch the storm’s destructive path—helpless in its wake.

Whenever God’s people in the Old Testament faced natural or spiritual calamity, His words were far more certain and hopeful, promising His presence despite destruction. He said that He would “look with compassion on all her ruins; [and would] make her wastelands . . . like the garden of the Lord” (Isaiah 51:3). And more, God always assured His people of the rescue and healing that would certainly follow if they would only trust Him. Even though “the heavens [would] vanish like smoke,” God said, His “salvation [would] last forever” (v. 6). Whatever the damage, His ultimate goodness toward them wouldn’t be thwarted, ever.

God doesn’t safeguard us from hardship, but He does promise that His restorative healing extends far beyond the ruin.

Reflect & Pray

Where are you facing calamity and ruin? How do you hear God’s promise to be with you, to heal and rebuild after the ruins?

Dear God, the ruins are so devastating. I’m not sure I can believe that You have a promise big enough for this. But I choose to believe.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Thursday, January 02, 2025

The Unplanned Journey

By faith Abraham . . . obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. —Hebrews 11:8

Have you ever set off on an unplanned journey, taking, as Christ instructed, no thought for your life, no thought for what you would eat or drink or wear (Matthew 6:25)?

“Where are you going, and what will you do?” If you begin to live for God, people will ask you this all the time. But if you are living in the way Christ wants, you won’t have a logical answer: there is none. You can’t know what you’re going to do; you can’t know what God is going to do. All you can know is that God knows. This is what it means to trust entirely in him.

Have you been begging God to tell you his plans? He never will. God doesn’t tell us what he’s going to do; he reveals to us who he is. It is through taking action, through stepping out in faith, that we receive this revelation. Ask yourself: Do I believe in a miracle-working God, and will I step out in surrender to him until I am not surprised one iota at anything he does? To step out in this way is to journey beyond your convictions and creeds and past experiences, until, as far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing at all between yourself and God.

Imagine, for a moment, that God really is who he says he is: the God of your days and your nights, of your future and your past; the God of all. What an impertinence worry is! Set aside your worries, and let your attitude be one of eager adventure.

Genesis 4–6; Matthew 2

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Thursday, January 02, 2025

God's Got No Grandchildren! - #9909

There's no greater gift our daughter and son-in-law could have given us than the little guy that was our first grandchild and the ones that have come since. From the night he was born, our hearts were all wrapped around that precious new life and they still are for all our grandchildren even though they're grown up. We would jump at the chance to babysit, and believe me; our rates were well below the market. But eventually, we took him home, and it was our turn to relax. That's the cycle of life. I had my chance to be the father of a child when my children were born. A grandchild is grand, but he's really not your child.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "God's Got No Grandchildren!"

Now, I love being a grandfather. God doesn't. Well, He loves being a Father, but the Bible reveals the startling, unsettling truth that God has no grandchildren. Lots of children, but no grandchildren.

There really is no more critical, life-or-death issue in our lives than whether or not we belong to God. Not whether we believe in Him; whether we belong to Him; whether or not we have a personal relationship with Him. So much in this life and everything after this life depends on whether we are in God's family.

Our word for today from the Word of God can really help us determine if we are or we're not. It's found in John 1:12. God says, speaking of Jesus, "To all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God." Now, notice we're not automatically born a child of God. We're all His creation, but we're not all His children. There's got to be a spiritual birth for that to take place. And apparently a lot of people who know a lot about Jesus, who have been around Jesus a lot, who are in a religion about Jesus can miss Jesus. These verses tell us that Jesus "came to that which was His own, but His own did not recognize Him."

God makes it clear that you don't belong to Him unless you have personally been born into a relationship with Him as His child. He has no second-generation people in His family. You won't go to heaven because your mom or dad belongs to Jesus, or because your son or daughter does or your husband or wife. You're not God's child just because you've been around God's children your whole life, even if you've been acting like one of God's children.

My daughter is my daughter by one simple fact: there was a day she was born into my family. Without that birth, there's no relationship. Without a personal spiritual rebirth, there is no relationship between you and God, no forgiveness, no heaven. And God tells us exactly how and when you can be spiritually born. His children are those who it says, "received Him (Jesus)...those who believed." That means the day you reach out to Jesus in total trust and say, "Lord, You are my only hope of having my sins forgiven, of belonging to God, because You are the only One who died to pay for my sins, to pay the awful death penalty; to take my hell to go to Your heaven." In short, "Jesus, I'm Yours."

You may be surrounded by Christianity, but missing Christ. Well, today could be your day to change that. It could be your spiritual birthday forever. If you want to begin this incredible relationship with Jesus Christ and know that you have, then let's have a definite beginning. Let Him know that. Tell Him that right now, "Jesus, knowing about You is not enough for me. I want to know You. Having a religion about You is not enough. I know that it will never be enough to get me into heaven or You would have never died on that cross. But, Jesus, I see now how personal that was and I embrace You, I grab You like a drowning person grabbing a lifeguard. You are my only hope, Jesus. And beginning today, I'm yours."

To help you know you belong to Him, would you please go to our website today? You'll find some things there that will really help you be sure. That website is ANewStory.com.

All these years beneath all the Christian words and Christian activities and maybe masks you've known in your heart that someone was missing, and it's been Jesus all along. But that's about to end if you'll give yourself to Him. Then when God opens His family album on Judgment Day - the one with no grandchildren - there you'll be: a child of God, born this very day.

Nehemiah 6, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: HOPE-FILLED GRIEF - January 1, 2025

In heaven’s diagram death is but the beginning—the first letter of the first sentence in the first paragraph of the first chapter of the great story that God is writing with your life. Life is not the beginning and ending, but solely the ending of the beginning. Consider this assurance from the apostle Paul: “We want you to be quite certain, brothers, about those who have died, to make sure that you do not grieve about them, like the other people who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13 JB).

God transforms our hopeless grief into hope-filled grief. If a Christian perishes before the rapture, that person’s spirit immediately enters the presence of God, and that person enjoys conscious fellowship with the Father and with those who have gone before.

What Happens Next

Nehemiah 6

“I’m Doing a Great Work; I Can’t Come Down”

1–2  6 When Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and the rest of our enemies heard that I had rebuilt the wall and that there were no more breaks in it—even though I hadn’t yet installed the gates—Sanballat and Geshem sent this message: “Come and meet with us at Kephirim in the valley of Ono.”

2–3  I knew they were scheming to hurt me so I sent messengers back with this: “I’m doing a great work; I can’t come down. Why should the work come to a standstill just so I can come down to see you?”

4  Four times they sent this message and four times I gave them my answer.

5–6  The fifth time—same messenger, same message—Sanballat sent an unsealed letter with this message:

6–7  “The word is out among the nations—and Geshem says it’s true—that you and the Jews are planning to rebel. That’s why you are rebuilding the wall. The word is that you want to be king and that you have appointed prophets to announce in Jerusalem, ‘There’s a king in Judah!’ The king is going to be told all this—don’t you think we should sit down and have a talk?”

8  I sent him back this: “There’s nothing to what you’re saying. You’ve made it all up.”

9  They were trying to intimidate us into quitting. They thought, “They’ll give up; they’ll never finish it.”

I prayed, “Give me strength.”

10  Then I met secretly with Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, at his house. He said:

Let’s meet at the house of God,

inside The Temple;

Let’s find safety behind locked doors

because they’re coming to kill you,

Yes, coming by night to kill you.

11  I said, “Why would a man like me run for cover? And why would a man like me use The Temple as a hideout? I won’t do it.”

12–13  I sensed that God hadn’t sent this man. The so-called prophecy he spoke to me was the work of Tobiah and Sanballat; they had hired him. He had been hired to scare me off—trick me—a layman, into desecrating The Temple and ruining my good reputation so they could accuse me.

14  “O my God, don’t let Tobiah and Sanballat get by with all the mischief they’ve done. And the same goes for the prophetess Noadiah and the other prophets who have been trying to undermine my confidence.”

15–16  The wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of Elul. It had taken fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard the news and all the surrounding nations saw it, our enemies totally lost their nerve. They knew that God was behind this work.

17–19  All during this time letters were going back and forth constantly between the nobles of Judah and Tobiah. Many of the nobles had ties to him because he was son-in-law to Shecaniah son of Arah and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berekiah. They kept telling me all the good things he did and then would report back to him anything I would say. And then Tobiah would send letters to intimidate me.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

by Kenneth Petersen

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

1 John 1:1-5

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.

3–4  We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!

Walk in the Light

5  This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.

Today's Insights

Many scholars believe that the apostle John, the author of the gospel of John, also wrote the three letters that bear his name. He wrote 1 John to refute false teachers who taught that Jesus is neither God nor human and points to His incarnation to show His humanity: “[Jesus] was with the Father and has appeared to us” (1:2). John had personally heard, seen, and touched the man Jesus (vv. 1-3), demonstrating that Christ is a real human person.

To prove that Jesus is the preexistent creator God, John begins his letter with the words “that which was from the beginning” (v. 1), echoing Genesis 1:1 (“in the beginning God”) and John 1:1 (“in the beginning was the Word”). Jesus is “the Word of life” (1 John 1:1), who “spoke” life into every living thing (Genesis 1; John 1:1-2). He’s “the eternal life, which was with the Father” and He’s “[God’s] Son, Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:2-3), the promised Messiah.

The Jesus Story

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it. 1 John 1:2

Most people have never heard of Kate Hankey, but she was a remarkable woman. A teacher, evangelist, school organizer, missionary, and poet, she faithfully served Jesus in 1800s England. In 1867, Kate contracted a serious illness. During her recovery, she penned a lengthy poem in two parts: “The Story Wanted” and “The Story Told.” The poem expresses in a very personal way her relationship with Jesus and the events of His life.

All Scripture points to Jesus and tells His story. John begins his epistle reminding readers how they had personally experienced Jesus: “That which . . . we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim” (1 John 1:1). Because of our experience of Him, the apostle writes, we’re telling the Jesus story: “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it” (v. 2). Later, John makes the fascinating comment, “The word of God lives in you” (2:14). In other words, the Jesus story is our story too. We’re called to tell the story of Christ in light of our own experience with Him. 

This is what Kate Hankey did in her poem. Eventually, the two parts of her poem became these beloved hymns: “I Love to Tell the Story” and “Tell Me the Old, Old Story.” Perhaps we might, like Kate, find our own words and share our Jesus story with others—the unique way in which He loved us, came to us, and rescued us.

Reflect & Pray

What is your story with Jesus? How did He come to you and rescue you?

Dear Jesus, thank You for rescuing me and doing Your loving work in my life.

For further study, read Jesus Is in the Room.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Let Us Keep To The Point

I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. —Philippians 1:20

My utmost for his highest. To be all for God; to act with boldness, expressing Christ in every word and deed. This, Paul says, is how to walk through life unashamed.

The journey isn’t a journey of reason or debate. We can’t think or argue our way through it. It is a journey of surrender, of abandoning ourselves to God, absolutely and forever.

There will always be good reasons not to. We debate with God, telling him that we are concerned for others, that if we start on the journey, our loved ones will suffer. Really, we are worried for ourselves, for our own comfort and safety. We tell God he doesn’t know what he’s asking.

Keep to the point: he does know. Shut out your worries and stand before God with one thing only in your heart: my utmost for his highest. Determine to be absolutely and entirely for him and him alone.

My best for his glory. At first, the call comes gently. Then it grows louder, until finally God produces a crisis in our lives that demands we make a choice. For or against; yes or no; stay or go.

Has the crisis come to you? If it has, go. Paul, like Christ, would let nothing deter him, whether it meant life or death. As a new year dawns, let us embrace this same spirit, surrendering all with boldness and with joy.

Genesis 1–3; Matthew 1

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Much of the misery in our Christian life comes not because the devil tackles us, but because we have never understood the simple laws of our make-up. We have to treat the body as the servant of Jesus Christ: when the body says “Sit,” and He says “Go,” go! When the body says “Eat,” and He says “Fast,” fast! When the body says “Yawn,” and He says “Pray,” pray!

Biblical Ethics, 107 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Prescription For a Weary Worker - #9908

When Walt Disney animated the story of Snow White, he created seven memorable, even if short characters - the seven dwarfs. I'm not one of them! Now, I'm not going to ask you to name them; we'll save that for a game of Trivial Pursuit or something. But I always loved that little song they sang on the way to work.

And well, they didn't exactly work in an environmentally controlled office building. They worked in a mine all day. Not the greatest place to work! But each day they would merrily march off to work singing, (I won't sing it for you, but here we go.) "Hi-ho, Hi-ho, it's off to work we go." Well, what a great way to approach your responsibilities. I'll tell you, anyone who does that is a giant.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about a "Prescription For a Weary Worker."

Now, I attended a meeting of people who are very busy in Christian ministry, and one woman expressed a feeling that, as it turned out, everybody in the room agreed with. She said, "You know, people are working for the Lord around here, and they get very discouraged or they quit because of one word - weariness." And I watched a lot of heads nodding in that room.

Now, there are a lot of men and women who have spiritual responsibility and they struggle with a deep weariness, and it's far beyond physical. They're just tired of pushing, and of being sometimes the one of the few who care. They're tired of little results for a lot of work, and maybe not being appreciated. Some of you might say, "Well, how did you know?" Because there are a lot of us that serve the Lord that start to feel that way sometime or another.

Okay, our word for today from the Word of God, Hebrews 12:2-4 - "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning it's shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men..." And then notice this, "...so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

And then the writer goes on to say, In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." Okay, there's this weariness that we talked about that some people who are listening can identify with; that deep, emotional kind that saps your physical strength too. And there's discouragement; the kind that results in a mechanical kind of service - just kind of crank it out. And honestly, more and more frequent thoughts of quitting.

Weariness, according to Hebrews 12, seems to result from taking your eyes off Jesus. Maybe you're weary because you've been doing God's work in your strength. You know better, but you've gone from God working through you to the crank-it-out weariness of you suddenly working for God. Oh, you're doing the same things, but it's not Him through you. It's you for Him. Or it could be that you've been looking at the results you're getting instead of the Savior you're serving. He gives the results, He gives the rewards - people don't.

Is it time to get your eyes back on the Jesus whose love compelled you to serve in the first place?

You know, when Jacob had to work seven years to earn the right to marry Rachel, I love what the Bible says, "They seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her." See, love makes the difference. Then you'll be able to join that saint who served the Lord for 70 years and who sang that song, "Since I started for the kingdom, since my life He controls, since I gave my life to Jesus, the longer I serve Him, the sweeter He grows."

Nehemiah 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: RELIEF WILL COME - December 31, 2024

Despair can be a dangerous season. But it can also be a developing time—a time in which we learn to trust God, to lean into his Word, to rely on his ways. The choice is ours.

To help us choose the wise path, God gave the story of Esther. For fear of the death of his people, Mordecai cries out to Esther to intervene. He said, “If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place…who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14 NKJV).

Relief will come! This is God’s message for you. Feeling undone by the struggle? Then let God unleash the power within you to face it. Shift your focus away from the challenges. Ponder the power of your almighty God.

You Were Made for This Moment

Nehemiah 5

The “Great Protest”

1–2  5 A great protest was mounted by the people, including the wives, against their fellow Jews. Some said, “We have big families, and we need food just to survive.”

3  Others said, “We’re having to mortgage our fields and vineyards and homes to get enough grain to keep from starving.”

4–5  And others said, “We’re having to borrow money to pay the royal tax on our fields and vineyards. Look: We’re the same flesh and blood as our brothers here; our children are just as good as theirs. Yet here we are having to sell our children off as slaves—some of our daughters have already been sold—and we can’t do anything about it because our fields and vineyards are owned by somebody else.”

6–7  I got really angry when I heard their protest and complaints. After thinking it over, I called the nobles and officials on the carpet. I said, “Each one of you is gouging his brother.”

7–8  Then I called a big meeting to deal with them. I told them, “We did everything we could to buy back our Jewish brothers who had to sell themselves as slaves to foreigners. And now you’re selling these same brothers back into debt slavery! Does that mean that we have to buy them back again?”

They said nothing. What could they say?

9  “What you’re doing is wrong. Is there no fear of God left in you? Don’t you care what the nations around here, our enemies, think of you?

10–11  “I and my brothers and the people working for me have also loaned them money. But this gouging them with interest has to stop. Give them back their foreclosed fields, vineyards, olive groves, and homes right now. And forgive your claims on their money, grain, new wine, and olive oil.”

12–13  They said, “We’ll give it all back. We won’t make any more demands on them. We’ll do everything you say.”

Then I called the priests together and made them promise to keep their word. Then I emptied my pockets, turning them inside out, and said, “So may God empty the pockets and house of everyone who doesn’t keep this promise—turned inside out and emptied.”

Everyone gave a wholehearted “Yes, we’ll do it!” and praised God. And the people did what they promised.

“Remember in My Favor, O My God”

14–16  From the time King Artaxerxes appointed me as their governor in the land of Judah—from the twentieth to the thirty-second year of his reign, twelve years—neither I nor my brothers used the governor’s food allowance. Governors who had preceded me had oppressed the people by taxing them forty shekels of silver (about a pound) a day for food and wine while their underlings bullied the people unmercifully. But out of fear of God I did none of that. I had work to do; I worked on this wall. All my men were on the job to do the work. We didn’t have time to line our own pockets.

17–18  I fed 150 Jews and officials at my table in addition to those who showed up from the surrounding nations. One ox, six choice sheep, and some chickens were prepared for me daily, and every ten days a large supply of wine was delivered. Even so, I didn’t use the food allowance provided for the governor—the people had it hard enough as it was.

19  Remember in my favor, O my God,

Everything I’ve done for these people.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

by 

Amy Boucher Pye

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Isaiah 48:12-19

“Listen, Jacob. Listen, Israel—

I’m the One who named you!

I’m the One.

I got things started and, yes, I’ll wrap them up.

Earth is my work, hand-made.

And the skies—I made them, too, horizon to horizon.

When I speak, they’re on their feet, at attention.

14–16  “Come everybody, gather around, listen:

Who among the gods has delivered the news?

I, God, love this man Cyrus, and I’m using him

to do what I want with Babylon.

I, yes I, have spoken. I’ve called him.

I’ve brought him here. He’ll be successful.

Come close, listen carefully:

I’ve never kept secrets from you.

I’ve always been present with you.”

Your Progeny, Like Grains of Sand

16–19  And now, the Master, God, sends me and his Spirit

with this Message from God,

your Redeemer, The Holy of Israel:

“I am God, your God,

who teaches you how to live right and well.

I show you what to do, where to go.

If you had listened all along to what I told you,

your life would have flowed full like a river,

blessings rolling in like waves from the sea.

Children and grandchildren are like sand,

your progeny like grains of sand.

There would be no end of them,

no danger of losing touch with me.”

Today's Insights

Isaiah warned that God would discipline the Israelites for their idolatrous unfaithfulness. He prophesied about one hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem, their temple, and their seventy-year exile in Babylon (Isaiah 39:6-7; see Jeremiah 25:11-12). Isaiah also prophesied that God would bring His people back, restore them, and bless them (chs. 40-66). In Isaiah 48, the prophet affirmed that whatever God had purposed for His people, He would bring to pass. For He’s the only true, everlasting God—the almighty Creator who chose them to be His people (vv. 12-15). He’s also the “Redeemer” (v. 17) who will teach and guide them (vv. 18-19).

The Hand of God

My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens. Isaiah 48:13

In 1939, with the recent outbreak of war for Britain, King George VI sought in his Christmas Day radio broadcast to encourage citizens of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth to put their trust in God. Quoting a poem that his mother found precious, he said: “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. / That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.” He didn’t know what the new year would bring, but he trusted God to “guide and uphold” them in the anxious days ahead.

The image of God’s hand appears in many places in the Bible, including in the book of Isaiah. Through this prophet, God called His people to trust that He as their Creator, “the first and . . . the last” (Isaiah 48:12), would remain involved with them. As He says, “My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens” (v. 13). They should put their trust in Him and not look to those less powerful. After all, He’s their “Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel” (v. 17).

Whatever we face as we look toward the new year, we can follow the encouragement of King George and the prophet Isaiah and place our hope and trust in God. Then, for us too, our peace will be like the river, our “well-being like the waves of the sea” (v. 18).

Reflect & Pray

As you consider the new year, what situations or relationships could you entrust to God? How does the image of His hand speak to you?

All-powerful God, You created the heavens and the earth and yet You cherish me. I place my trust in You.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Yesterday

But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard. — Isaiah 52:12

Security from yesterday. “God requireth that which is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15 kjv). At the end of the year, we turn with eagerness to all that God has planned for our future. And yet anxiety is likely to arise from remembering our past. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace is likely to be tempered by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays. He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry for the future. He reminds us of the past so that we won’t put our trust in the shallow security of the present.

Security for tomorrow. “For the Lord will go before you.” It’s a gracious revelation that God will go where we have failed to go. He will watch out for us, so that the things that tripped us up before won’t trip us up again. If he weren’t our rear guard, this is surely what would happen. God’s hand reaches back to the past and makes way for conscience.

Security for today. “You will not leave in haste.” As we set out into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor in impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return. But God can transform destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep in Christ. Leave the irreparable past in his hands and step into the irresistible future with him.

Malachi 1-4; Revelation 22

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word.

Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

So What Are You Building? - #9907

This is going to come as a surprise to my friends who know my handyman abilities or my lack of handyman abilities, but my sons and I have built several houses together. Uh-huh! Yeah. Now, don't expect to see a pickup truck around town that says Hutchcraft & Sons on the side; that's not going to happen. See, our houses... Well, they haven't done too well.

It wasn't because we didn't work hard. We did. And it wasn't because they didn't look good; they looked great. It wasn't because they weren't big; we built them pretty big. But they literally collapsed within hours of the time we finished building them. It might have had something to do with the fact that we built those houses out of sand on a beach near the ocean.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "So What Are You Building?"

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 16. I'm going to begin reading at verse 16. "Simon Peter said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus replied, 'Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by My Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." Did you get that? "And on this rock I will build My church."

That's what Jesus is building, and the tide is not going to affect it, the gates of hell He says will not overcome it. Now, there's no doubt about what Jesus is building. He's building His church. Are you? What are you building? We're all working on some structure; some kingdom of some kind. It's that in which you are putting your dreams, quite a bit of your money, the best of your time, a lot of your daily conversation revolves around whatever kingdom you are working on.

Maybe you're building a reputation for yourself. Maybe you're building a romantic relationship, and that relationship is actually getting most of your best. Maybe you're building a business; I will build my business. I will build my income. I will build my personal dream. I will build my retirement. I will build my own little kingdom, maybe even within Christ's church. It's all sand castles; it's all going to collapse. And our master said, "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33).

Jesus is calling us to focus what we have on building His church. Do you know what that means today? It's not building a building. It means reaching the lost and building up believers. So, is that where your best is going? Someone has said in order for us to pray, "Thy kingdom come" we first have to pray, "My kingdom go." All these other things are all right if they're around the periphery, if they're the planets revolving around the sun of Christ's agenda. If Christ is at the center and calling the shots in all of them.

In the Old Testament the Jews were supposed to be rebuilding God's temple in the book of Haggai and God asks this penetrating question: "Why is it that you are rebuilding your own house while My house remains a ruin?" Once again, neglecting God's agenda and marginalizing it for our own.

I wonder if you'd stand back and take a candid look at your motives, at what is really your great passion right now, your great focus, your great obsession. Where are your energies going? Is it getting people to your Jesus? Or has Jesus' building program taken a back seat to something you're building; something out of sand; something a strong tide is going to wash away.

Jesus said, "The gates of hell will not wash away what He is building." Don't waste your few years on earth on a building that's not going to last. Jesus is building His church. What are you building?

Nehemiah 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S GOOD PLAN - December 30, 2024

Satan’s scheme to kill the Son of God was defeated on the cross he designed for Christ. Had Satan known that the death of the Messiah would mean death for him and life for us, he never would have crucified the King. He never saw it coming.

So that we would never forget this moment, Jesus gave us our own celebration. “He took bread, gave thanks and broke it… saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you;’ …He also took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you’” (Luke 22:19-20 NKJV).

A broken body? Spilled blood? Can good come from this? Communion says, “Yes.” You have a good God, who has a good plan, and that plan is revealed in his good book. Today’s confusion and crisis will be tomorrow’s conquest.

You Were Made for This Moment

Nehemiah 4

“I Stationed Armed Guards”

1–2  4 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall he exploded in anger, vilifying the Jews. In the company of his Samaritan cronies and military he let loose: “What are these miserable Jews doing? Do they think they can get everything back to normal overnight? Make building stones out of make-believe?”

3  At his side, Tobiah the Ammonite jumped in and said, “That’s right! What do they think they’re building? Why, if a fox climbed that wall, it would fall to pieces under his weight.”

4–5  Nehemiah prayed, “Oh listen to us, dear God. We’re so despised: Boomerang their ridicule on their heads; have their enemies cart them off as war trophies to a land of no return; don’t forgive their iniquity, don’t wipe away their sin—they’ve insulted the builders!”

6  We kept at it, repairing and rebuilding the wall. The whole wall was soon joined together and halfway to its intended height because the people had a heart for the work.

7–9  When Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites heard that the repairs of the walls of Jerusalem were going so well—that the breaks in the wall were being fixed—they were absolutely furious. They put their heads together and decided to fight against Jerusalem and create as much trouble as they could. We countered with prayer to our God and set a round-the-clock guard against them.

10  But soon word was going around in Judah,

The builders are pooped,

the rubbish piles up;

We’re in over our heads,

we can’t build this wall.

11–12  And all this time our enemies were saying, “They won’t know what hit them. Before they know it we’ll be at their throats, killing them right and left. That will put a stop to the work!” The Jews who were their neighbors kept reporting, “They have us surrounded; they’re going to attack!” If we heard it once, we heard it ten times.

13–14  So I stationed armed guards at the most vulnerable places of the wall and assigned people by families with their swords, lances, and bows. After looking things over I stood up and spoke to the nobles, officials, and everyone else: “Don’t be afraid of them. Put your minds on the Master, great and awesome, and then fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”

15–18  Our enemies learned that we knew all about their plan and that God had frustrated it. And we went back to the wall and went to work. From then on half of my young men worked while the other half stood guard with lances, shields, bows, and mail armor. Military officers served as backup for everyone in Judah who was at work rebuilding the wall. The common laborers held a tool in one hand and a spear in the other. Each of the builders had a sword strapped to his side as he worked. I kept the trumpeter at my side to sound the alert.

19–20  Then I spoke to the nobles and officials and everyone else: “There’s a lot of work going on and we are spread out all along the wall, separated from each other. When you hear the trumpet call, join us there; our God will fight for us.”

21  And so we kept working, from first light until the stars came out, half of us holding lances.

22  I also instructed the people, “Each person and his helper is to stay inside Jerusalem—guards by night and workmen by day.”

23  We all slept in our clothes—I, my brothers, my workmen, and the guards backing me up. And each one kept his spear in his hand, even when getting water.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Monday, December 30, 2024

by Poh Fang Chia

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Psalm 13

A David Psalm

Long enough, God—

you’ve ignored me long enough.

I’ve looked at the back of your head

long enough. Long enough

I’ve carried this ton of trouble,

lived with a stomach full of pain.

Long enough my arrogant enemies

have looked down their noses at me.

3–4  Take a good look at me, God, my God;

I want to look life in the eye,

So no enemy can get the best of me

or laugh when I fall on my face.

5–6  I’ve thrown myself headlong into your arms—

I’m celebrating your rescue.

I’m singing at the top of my lungs,

I’m so full of answered prayers.

Today's Insights

Psalm 13 is an urgent prayer for God’s aid (vv. 3-4) as well as a lament of the psalmist’s long period of suffering, which is experienced as if God is absent and hiding His face (v. 1). When the psalm asks, “How long?” (vv. 1-2), the point isn’t asking for a specific end date but lamenting how long something has been endured and urging God to end the long wait—to act and make things right. Yet despite Psalm 13’s intense desperation, it’s also a psalm of deep trust (vv. 5-6). Through our bond with a God who we know to be good and faithful, we have the confidence and trust to honestly voice our lament. The reformer Martin Luther called prayer like that expressed in Psalm 13 the “state in which hope despairs, and yet despair hopes at the same time.”

Why Me, God?

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? Psalm 13:1

Jim has been battling a motor neuron disease for more than a year. The neurons in his muscles are breaking down, and his muscles are wasting away. He’s lost his fine-motor skills and is losing his ability to control his limbs. He can no longer button his shirt or tie his shoelaces, and using a pair of chopsticks has become impossible. Jim struggles with his situation and asks, Why is God allowing this to happen? Why me?

He’s in good company with many other believers in Jesus who have brought their questions to God. In Psalm 13, David cries out, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?” (vv. 1-2).

We too can take our confusion and questions to God. He understands when we cry out “How long?” and “Why?” His ultimate answer is given to us in Jesus and His triumph over sin and death.

As we look at the cross and the empty tomb, we gain confidence to trust in God’s “unfailing love” (v. 5) and rejoice in His salvation. Even in the darkest nights, we can “sing the Lord’s praise, for he has been good to [us]” (v. 6). Through our faith in Christ, He’s forgiven our sins, adopted us as His children, and is accomplishing His eternal good purpose in our lives.

Reflect & Pray

What questions do you need to bring to God? How has He shown His goodness to you, even in your darkest night?

Loving Father, thank You that You care for me. Please help me to trust that You’re making something beautiful of my life.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Monday, December 30, 2024

Every Virtue We Possess

All my fountains are in you. — Psalm 87:7

When God remakes us in spiritual rebirth, he doesn’t simply patch up our natural virtues. He remakes the whole person on the inside: “Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). See that your natural human life puts on the clothing that is in keeping with the new life God has planted in you.

The life God plants in us develops its own virtues—not the virtues of Adam but the virtues of Jesus Christ. Watch how, after sanctification, God will wither up your confidence in your natural virtues, in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. If you are going through a drying–up experience just now, give thanks to God.

The sign that God is at work in us is that he corrupts our confidence in our natural virtues, showing us that they are merely remnants, leftovers of what he originally created humans to be. They aren’t promises of what we are going to be. Still, we cling to the natural virtues, even as God is trying all the time to get us into contact with a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues—the life of Jesus Christ. It’s the saddest thing to see people who, though they are in the service of God, are still depending on that which his grace never gave them, on virtues they possess merely by the accident of heredity.

God doesn’t build up our natural virtues and transfigure them, because our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to his demands. But as we bring every part of our bodily life into harmony with the new life God has put into us, he will exhibit through us the virtues that are characteristic of Jesus.

“All my fountains are in you”: every virtue we possess is his alone.

Zechariah 13-14; Revelation 21

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus. 

Facing Reality, 34 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Monday, December 30, 2024

Why We Keep Hurting People We Love - #9906

I was sitting in the van we drove back then, idling at a red light, when suddenly this cloud of dark, acrid smoke starts belching out of my exhaust pipe. It was disgusting! Apparently, the motorists behind me felt the same way because they started honking at me! That helped a lot! I just wish honking would have solved the problem. It didn't. One mechanic told me, "I wouldn't leave town with that van if I were you." And he was right. Guess what? The smoke wasn't the problem. The problem was the engine, and it didn't need to be fixed. It was too far gone for that. It had to be replaced!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why We Keep Hurting People We Love."

The van I drove away from that garage looked like the same van I drove into that garage. But that was not true! It was new on the inside, and as a result it was no longer leaving an ugly trail. Actually, a lot of us have some emissions coming out of our lives that aren't too pleasant either. Maybe you know some of those feelings, and too often there's anger spewing out. There's self-pity because you feel like a victim, or just critical attitudes, negative attitudes. You later regret what you said. You do something that you regret later. Maybe you're hooked on what you wish you could stop and wish you'd never started. We leave a trail behind us of people who have choked on the smoke and the pollution we put out.

And it's not that we haven't tried to fix it - New Years resolutions, religion, self-improvement. We've tried to stop polluting our own lives and the lives of those around us, but there's a problem inside. And God diagnoses that problem in His Book in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" The engine is shot and it can't be fixed. It has to be replaced.

Which leads us to God's tremendous offer, our word for today from the Word of God. This is great! Ezekiel 36:26 - "I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit in you. I will remove from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit in you." God says our heart is too darkened and hardened by sin to ever quit putting out pollution.

We can certainly never get into His totally unpolluted heaven with this polluted heart. We all have it. Our only hope for this life and for eternal life is a new heart. And we can't perform heart surgery on ourselves. Only the Divine Surgeon can do that, and He stands ready to take that heart of yours that's been hardened by all the hurt, the anger, the sin, and He will replace it with a heart that is clean, and sensitive and new. He'll put His Holy Spirit in you to make you the person you've wanted to be but never could be.

But the operation had to be paid for; just as the engine replacement on my van had to be paid for. And, you know, I didn't have the money to pay. But to my amazement, some of God's people quietly got together and actually paid the bill for that replacement. That's what Jesus was doing for you when He was agonizing on the cross. He was paying the bill for your sins that you could never pay so you could be forgiven.

Are you ready for a new heart? Well, then, it's time to open your heart to Jesus Christ. I would love to help you be sure that you have been forgiven, that you are free, and that you have begun this transforming, personal love relationship with Jesus. That's why our website is there. Would you check it out today? It's ANewStory.com .

All our lives we try to stop the ugly stuff that comes out of us, but it just doesn't come until we get a new engine - a new heart. Jesus is waiting for you right now to tell Him that you want it.

Luke 2 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: God’s Never Failing Love

God will not let you go. The big news of the Bible is not that you love God but that God loves you! He tattooed your name on the palm of his hand. His thoughts of you outnumber the sand on the shore. You never leave his mind, escape his sight, flee his thoughts. You need not win his love. You already have it. He sees the worst of you and loves you still. Your sins of tomorrow and failings of the future will not surprise him; he sees them now. Every day and deed of your life has passed before his eyes and been calculated in his decision.

He knows you better than you know you and has reached this verdict: he loves you still! No discovery will disillusion him. No rebellion will dissuade him. He loves you with an everlasting love. God’s love– never failing, never ending.

From Lucado Inspirational Reader

Luke 2

The Birth of Jesus

1–5  2 About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.

6–7  While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel.

An Event for Everyone

8–12  There were sheepherders camping in the neighborhood. They had set night watches over their sheep. Suddenly, God’s angel stood among them and God’s glory blazed around them. They were terrified. The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.”

13–14  At once the angel was joined by a huge angelic choir singing God’s praises:

Glory to God in the heavenly heights,

Peace to all men and women on earth who please him.

15–18  As the angel choir withdrew into heaven, the sheepherders talked it over. “Let’s get over to Bethlehem as fast as we can and see for ourselves what God has revealed to us.” They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.

19–20  Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they’d been told!

Blessings

21  When the eighth day arrived, the day of circumcision, the child was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.

22–24  Then when the days stipulated by Moses for purification were complete, they took him up to Jerusalem to offer him to God as commanded in God’s Law: “Every male who opens the womb shall be a holy offering to God,” and also to sacrifice the “pair of doves or two young pigeons” prescribed in God’s Law.

25–32  In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a good man, a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel. And the Holy Spirit was on him. The Holy Spirit had shown him that he would see the Messiah of God before he died. Led by the Spirit, he entered the Temple. As the parents of the child Jesus brought him in to carry out the rituals of the Law, Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God:

God, you can now release your servant;

release me in peace as you promised.

With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation;

it’s now out in the open for everyone to see:

A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations,

and of glory for your people Israel.

33–35  Jesus’ father and mother were speechless with surprise at these words. Simeon went on to bless them, and said to Mary his mother,

This child marks both the failure and

the recovery of many in Israel,

A figure misunderstood and contradicted—

the pain of a sword-thrust through you—

But the rejection will force honesty,

as God reveals who they really are.

36–38  Anna the prophetess was also there, a daughter of Phanuel from the tribe of Asher. She was by now a very old woman. She had been married seven years and a widow for eighty-four. She never left the Temple area, worshiping night and day with her fastings and prayers. At the very time Simeon was praying, she showed up, broke into an anthem of praise to God, and talked about the child to all who were waiting expectantly for the freeing of Jerusalem.

39–40  When they finished everything required by God in the Law, they returned to Galilee and their own town, Nazareth. There the child grew strong in body and wise in spirit. And the grace of God was on him.

They Found Him in the Temple

41–45  Every year Jesus’ parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up as they always did for the Feast. When it was over and they left for home, the child Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents didn’t know it. Thinking he was somewhere in the company of pilgrims, they journeyed for a whole day and then began looking for him among relatives and neighbors. When they didn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem looking for him.

46–48  The next day they found him in the Temple seated among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. The teachers were all quite taken with him, impressed with the sharpness of his answers. But his parents were not impressed; they were upset and hurt.

His mother said, “Young man, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been half out of our minds looking for you.”

49–50  He said, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?” But they had no idea what he was talking about.

51–52  So he went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them. His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself. And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Sunday, December 29, 2024

by Matt Lucas

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Genesis 11:1-8

“God Turned Their Language into ‘Babble’ ”

1–2  11 At one time, the whole Earth spoke the same language. It so happened that as they moved out of the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled down.

3  They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and fire them well.” They used brick for stone and tar for mortar.

4  Then they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”

5  God came down to look over the city and the tower those people had built.

6–9  God took one look and said, “One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they’ll come up with next—they’ll stop at nothing! Come, we’ll go down and garble their speech so they won’t understand each other.” Then God scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city.

Today's Insights

The Hebrew word rendered “build/building” in Genesis 11 is banah (vv. 4, 5, 8). This term can refer to a physical building—whether rebuilding or establishing something—and metaphorically to building a family. Both usages occur in 2 Samuel 7 (see vv. 5, 7, 13, 27). Psalm 127:1 includes the word twice: “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” Daniel 4:30 includes the Aramaic counterpart to banah from Nebuchadnezzar: “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?” In the New Testament “to build” is a metaphor for the work of Christ in establishing His church (see Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 2:19-22). Building plans that fail to consider Jesus as the master builder (see Hebrews 3:4) are subject to fail.

Building What Lasts

They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, . . . so that we may make a name for ourselves.” Genesis 11:4

When I was a young boy in Ohio, we lived near several construction sites. Inspired by them, my friends and I gathered leftover scraps to build a fort. Borrowing tools from our parents, we hauled wood and spent days trying to make our material serve our purposes. It was fun, but our attempts were poor reflections of the well-constructed buildings around us. They didn’t last long.

In Genesis 11, we encounter a major building construction project. “Let us build ourselves a city,” said the people, “with a tower that reaches to the heavens” (v. 4). A big problem with this effort was that the people did it to “make a name for ourselves” (v. 4).

This has been a recurring issue for humans; we build monuments to ourselves and our achievements. Later in the biblical narrative, this story is contrasted with Solomon’s motivation for building God’s temple: “I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the Lord my God” (1 Kings 5:5).

Solomon understood that what he built needed to point to God and not himself. This was such an important lesson that he even wrote a psalm about it. Psalm 127 opens with “unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain” (v. 1). Like my childhood fort-building, what we build will not last, but God’s name and what we do for Him has lasting significance. 

Reflect & Pray

What are you building with your life? How is your life bringing honor to God?

Father, please forgive me for the times I’ve focused on myself and not on what You’re doing in the world. 

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Sunday, December 29, 2024

Deserter or Disciple?

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. — John 6:66

When God gives you a vision of what he wants, speaking to you by his Spirit through his word, and your mind and soul thrill to that vision, you must walk in the light of what you’ve seen. If you don’t, you will sink into servitude to a point of view our Lord never had. Disobedience to a heavenly vision will make you a slave to points of view that are alien to Jesus Christ. Don’t look at someone else and say, “If they can have those views and prosper, why can’t I?” You have to walk in the light of the vision that has been given to you, not compare yourself to others or judge them. How others think and behave is between them and God.

When you find that a point of view in which you’ve been delighting clashes with a heavenly vision, put it away at once. Debating with God will only develop certain mindsets in you: a sense of property, a sense of personal rights—things in which Jesus Christ put absolutely no stock. He was always against any sense of personal entitlement, considering it the root of everything alien to himself. “Watch out!” he told his disciples. “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions” (Luke 12:15). If we don’t recognize this, we’re ignoring the undercurrent of our Lord’s teaching.

We have the tendency to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experiences we’ve had. If there’s any standard in the New Testament revealed by the light of God that you don’t meet—that you don’t even feel inclined to meet—that is the beginning of backsliding, because it means your conscience isn’t answering to the truth. You can never be the same after God unveils a truth to you. That moment marks a turning point: either you go on as an ever truer disciple of Jesus Christ, or you turn back as a deserter.

Zechariah 9-12; Revelation 20

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

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

Matthew 1 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado: Jesus is the Gift

Little Carol with the pigtails, freckles, and shiny back shoes. Don’t let her sweet description fool you.  She broke my heart!  On the day of the great gift exchange in my fourth-grade class, I ripped the wrapping paper off the box to find—stationery.  Stationery!  Brown envelopes and folded note cards with a picture of a cowboy lassoing a horse.  What ten-year-old boy uses stationery?  There’s a term for this kind of gift:  obligatory!

I know we shouldn’t complain, but don’t you detect a lack of originality? And when a person gives a genuine gift, don’t you cherish the presence of a gift just for you?  Have you ever received such a gift?  Yes, you have.  You’ve been given a perfect personal gift.  One just for you. God says to anyone who’ll listen:  ”There has been born for you…a Savior…. ”  Jesus is the gift!

 “There has been born for you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11”

From GRACE

Matthew 1

The family tree of Jesus Christ, David’s son, Abraham’s son:

2–6  Abraham had Isaac,

Isaac had Jacob,

Jacob had Judah and his brothers,

Judah had Perez and Zerah (the mother was Tamar),

Perez had Hezron,

Hezron had Aram,

Aram had Amminadab,

Amminadab had Nahshon,

Nahshon had Salmon,

Salmon had Boaz (his mother was Rahab),

Boaz had Obed (Ruth was the mother),

Obed had Jesse,

Jesse had David,

and David became king.

6–11  David had Solomon (Uriah’s wife was the mother),

Solomon had Rehoboam,

Rehoboam had Abijah,

Abijah had Asa,

Asa had Jehoshaphat,

Jehoshaphat had Joram,

Joram had Uzziah,

Uzziah had Jotham,

Jotham had Ahaz,

Ahaz had Hezekiah,

Hezekiah had Manasseh,

Manasseh had Amon,

Amon had Josiah,

Josiah had Jehoiachin and his brothers,

and then the people were taken into the Babylonian exile.

12–16  When the Babylonian exile ended,

Jeconiah had Shealtiel,

Shealtiel had Zerubbabel,

Zerubbabel had Abiud,

Abiud had Eliakim,

Eliakim had Azor,

Azor had Zadok,

Zadok had Achim,

Achim had Eliud,

Eliud had Eleazar,

Eleazar had Matthan,

Matthan had Jacob,

Jacob had Joseph, Mary’s husband,

the Mary who gave birth to Jesus,

the Jesus who was called Christ.

17  There were fourteen generations from Abraham to David,

another fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile,

and yet another fourteen from the Babylonian exile to Christ.

The Birth of Jesus

18–19  The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.

20–23  While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: “Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—‘God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” This would bring the prophet’s embryonic sermon to full term:

Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;

They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).

24–25  Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Saturday, December 28, 2024

by Karen Pimpo

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Exodus 2:1-10

Moses

1–3  2 A man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and had a son. She saw there was something special about him and hid him. She hid him for three months. When she couldn’t hide him any longer she got a little basket-boat made of papyrus, waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and placed the child in it. Then she set it afloat in the reeds at the edge of the Nile.

4–6  The baby’s older sister found herself a vantage point a little way off and watched to see what would happen to him. Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it. She opened it and saw the child—a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, “This must be one of the Hebrew babies.”

7  Then his sister was before her: “Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?”

8  Pharaoh’s daughter said, “Yes. Go.” The girl went and called the child’s mother.

9  Pharaoh’s daughter told her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me. I’ll pay you.” The woman took the child and nursed him.

10  After the child was weaned, she presented him to Pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses (Pulled-Out), saying, “I pulled him out of the water.”

Today's Insights

Scripture offers two reasons why Moses’ parents, Amram and Jochebed (Numbers 26:59), protected Moses. First, Jochebed saw that “he was a fine child” (Exodus 2:2); she saw something special in him. He’s described as “no ordinary child” (Acts 7:20; Hebrews 11:23). A second reason is that his parents “were not afraid of the king’s edict” (Hebrews 11:23). Like the two Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah (Exodus 1:15, 17), his parents feared God more than they feared Pharaoh. Hebrews 11:23 commends Amram and Jochebed as people of great faith.

Step in Faith

By faith Moses’ parents hid him . . . and they were not afraid. Hebrews 11:23

John was devastated when he lost his job. Closer to the end of his career than the beginning, he knew it would be hard to start over somewhere new. He started praying for the right job. Then John updated his resume, read interview tips, and made a lot of phone calls. After weeks of applying, he accepted a new position with a great schedule and an easy commute. His faithful obedience and God’s provision had met at the perfect intersection.

A more dramatic instance of this occurred with Jochebed (Exodus 6:20) and her family during the time of Israel’s enslavement in Egypt. When Pharaoh decreed that all newborn Hebrew sons must be cast into the Nile (1:22), Jochebed must have been terrified. She couldn’t change the law, but there were some steps she could take to obey God and try to save her son. In faith, she hid him from the Egyptians. She made a little, watertight papyrus basket and “put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile” (2:3). God stepped in to miraculously preserve his life (vv. 5-10) and later used him to deliver all of Israel from slavery (3:10).

John and Jochebed took very different steps, but both stories are marked by faith-filled action. Fear can paralyze us. Even if the result isn’t what we expected or hoped for, faith empowers us to keep trusting in God’s goodness regardless of the outcome.

Reflect & Pray

When do you find yourself frozen in fear or worry? How can you faithfully take the next God-honoring step?

Dear God, please help me faithfully take each step on the path You have for me.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Continuous Conversion

Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 18:3

Our Lord is speaking here of the change that marks our initial conversion. But this isn’t a change we make just once at the start of our walk with him. We have to be continuously converted all the days of our lives, to continually turn to God as little children.

If we trust in our intelligence instead of in God, we’ll produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. Whenever our bodies are brought into new conditions by his providence, we have to see that our natural life obeys the dictates of his Spirit. Just because we’ve done it once is no proof that we’ll do it again. The relation of the natural to the spiritual has to be one of continuous conversion. And yet continually converting our natural impulses into spiritual obedience is the one thing we object to.

In every new setting in which God places us, his Spirit remains unchanged and his salvation unaltered. But we have to “put on the new self” (Ephesians 4:24) by undergoing another conversion. God holds us responsible every time we refuse to convert ourselves, because he knows that our reason for refusing is natural willfulness.

Our natural impulses must not rule; God must. The obstacle in our spiritual life is that we have great wedges of obstinacy inside us, places where pride spits at the throne of God and says, “I won’t.” We refuse to be continually converted, deifying independence and willfulness and calling them by the wrong name. We call them “strength,” while God sees them as obstinate weakness. There are whole regions of our lives that we haven’t yet brought into subjection to him. The only way we can make them submit is by continuous conversion. Slowly but surely, we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.

Zechariah 5-8; Revelation 19

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. 

Not Knowing Whither, 903 R