Max Lucado Daily: THE KINDNESS OF JESUS - May 8, 2018
We are quick to think of Jesus’ power, his passion, and his devotion. But those near him knew and know God comes cloaked in kindness. “Love is kind” writes Paul. David agrees, “Your lovingkindness is better than life” (Psalm 63:3). But Jesus’ invitation offers the sweetest proof of the kindness of heaven: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
I wonder, how many burdens is Jesus carrying for us that we know nothing about? He carries our sin. He carries our shame. But how often do we thank him for his kindness? Hasn’t he helped you out of a few jams? And has there ever been a time when he was too busy to listen to your story? And since God has been so kind to you, can’t you be kind to others?
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Numbers 3
The Levites
3 This is the family tree of Aaron and Moses at the time God spoke with Moses on Mount Sinai.
2-4 The names of the sons of Aaron: Nadab the firstborn, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar—anointed priests ordained to serve as priests. But Nadab and Abihu fell dead in the presence of God when they offered unauthorized sacrifice to him in the Wilderness of Sinai. They left no sons, and so only Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests during the lifetime of their father, Aaron.
5-10 God spoke to Moses. He said, “Bring forward the tribe of Levi and present them to Aaron so they can help him. They shall work for him and the whole congregation at the Tent of Meeting by doing the work of The Dwelling. Their job is to be responsible for all the furnishings of The Dwelling, ministering to the affairs of The Dwelling as the People of Israel come to perform their duties. Turn the Levites over to Aaron and his sons; they are the ones assigned to work full time for him. Appoint Aaron and his sons to minister as priests; anyone else who tries to elbow his way in will be put to death.”
11-13 God spoke to Moses: “I have taken the Levites from among the People of Israel as a stand-in for every Israelite mother’s firstborn son. The Levites belong to me. All the firstborn are mine—when I killed all the firstborn in Egypt, I consecrated for my own use every firstborn in Israel, whether human or animal. They belong to me. I am God.”
14-16 God spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai: “Count the Levites by their ancestral families and clans. Count every male a month old and older.” Moses counted them just as he was instructed by the mouth of God.
17 These are the names of the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.
18 These are the names of the Gershonite clans: Libni and Shimei.
19 The sons of Kohath by clan: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel.
20 The sons of Merari by clan: Mahli and Mushi.
These are the clans of Levi, family by family.
21-26 Gershon was ancestor to the clans of the Libnites and Shimeites, known as the Gershonite clans. All the males who were one month and older numbered 7,500. The Gershonite clans camped on the west, behind The Dwelling, led by Eliasaph son of Lael. At the Tent of Meeting the Gershonites were in charge of maintaining The Dwelling and its tent, its coverings, the screen at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the hangings of the Courtyard, the screen at the entrance to the Courtyard that surrounded The Dwelling and Altar, and the cords—in short, everything having to do with these things.
27-32 Kohath was ancestor to the clans of the Amramites, Izharites, Hebronites, and Uzzielites. These were known as the Kohathite clans. All the males who were one month and older numbered 8,600. The Kohathites were in charge of the Sanctuary. The Kohathite clans camped on the south side of The Dwelling, led by Elizaphan son of Uzziel. They were in charge of caring for the Chest, the Table, the Lampstand, the Altars, the articles of the Sanctuary used in worship, and the screen—everything having to do with these things. Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, supervised the leaders of the Levites and those in charge of the Sanctuary.
33-37 Merari was ancestor to the clans of the Mahlites and the Mushites, known as the Merarite clans. The males who were one month and older numbered 6,200. They were led by Zuriel son of Abihail and camped on the north side of The Dwelling. The Merarites were in charge of the frames of The Dwelling, its crossbars, posts, bases, and all its equipment—everything having to do with these things, as well as the posts of the surrounding Courtyard with their bases, tent pegs, and cords.
38 Moses and Aaron and his sons camped to the east of The Dwelling, toward the rising sun, in front of the Tent of Meeting. They were in charge of maintaining the Sanctuary for the People of Israel and the rituals of worship. Anyone else who tried to perform these duties was to be put to death.
39 The sum total of Levites counted at God’s command by Moses and Aaron, clan by clan, all the males one month and older, numbered 22,000.
40-41 God spoke to Moses: “Count all the firstborn males of the People of Israel who are one month and older. List their names. Then set apart for me the Levites—remember, I am God—in place of all the firstborn among the People of Israel, also the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock. I am God.”
42-43 So, just as God commanded him, Moses counted all the firstborn of the People of Israel. The total of firstborn males one month and older, listed by name, numbered 22,273.
44-48 Again God spoke to Moses. He said, “Take the Levites in place of all the firstborn of Israel and the livestock of the Levites in place of their livestock. The Levites are mine, I am God. Redeem the 273 firstborn Israelites who exceed the number of Levites by collecting five shekels for each one, using the Sanctuary shekel (the shekel weighing twenty gerahs). Give that money to Aaron and his sons for the redemption of the excess number of Israelites.”
49-51 So Moses collected the redemption money from those who exceeded the number redeemed by the Levites. From the 273 firstborn Israelites he collected silver weighing 1,365 shekels according to the Sanctuary shekel. Moses turned over the redemption money to Aaron and his sons, as he was commanded by the word of God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
Read: Exodus 3:7–14
God said, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
9-10 “The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I’ve seen for myself how cruelly they’re being treated by the Egyptians. It’s time for you to go back: I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11 Moses answered God, “But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
12 “I’ll be with you,” God said. “And this will be the proof that I am the one who sent you: When you have brought my people out of Egypt, you will worship God right here at this very mountain.”
13 Then Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the People of Israel and I tell them, ‘The God of your fathers sent me to you’; and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What do I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I-AM-WHO-I-AM. Tell the People of Israel, ‘I-AM sent me to you.’”
INSIGHT
Do events from our past make it hard to go forward? The first time Moses tried to stand up for his people, he ended up killing an Egyptian slave master and had to run for his life (Exodus 2:11–15). That moment may have prepared him for what he was about to experience. He’d seen how badly he had messed up on his own. Now he was about to see what God could do.
What about us? Have we tripped over ourselves enough, even in trying to help others, that we’re ready to see what God can do through us as we respond to His lead? - Mart DeHaan
Responding to God’s Leading
By Julie Schwab
At once they left their nets and followed him. Matthew 4:20
In August 2015, when I was preparing to attend a university a couple of hours from home, I realized I probably wouldn’t move back home after graduation. My mind raced. How can I leave home? My family? My church? What if God later calls me to another state or country?
Like Moses, when God told him to go “to Pharaoh to bring [His] people the Israelites out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10), I was afraid. I didn’t want to leave my comfort zone. Yes, Moses obeyed and followed God, but not before questioning Him and requesting that someone else go instead (vv. 11–13; 4:13).
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
In Moses’s example, we can see what we shouldn’t do when we sense a clear calling. We can instead strive to be more like the disciples. When Jesus called them, they left everything and followed Him (Matthew 4:20–22; Luke 5:28). Fear is natural, but we can trust God’s plan.
Being so far from home is still difficult. But as I continually seek God, He opens doors for me that confirm I am where I’m supposed to be.
When we are led out of our comfort zone, we can either go reluctantly, like Moses, or willingly like the disciples—who followed Jesus wherever He led them. Sometimes this means leaving our comfortable life hundreds or even thousands of miles behind us. But no matter how difficult it may be, following Jesus is worth it.
Lord, help me to follow You wherever You lead.
We are not called to be comfortable.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
The Faith to Persevere
Because you have kept My command to persevere… —Revelation 3:10
Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him. Disaster occurs in your life when you lack the mental composure that comes from establishing yourself on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Faith is the supreme effort of your life— throwing yourself with abandon and total confidence upon God.
God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him. There are areas in our lives where that faith has not worked in us as yet— places still untouched by the life of God. There were none of those places in Jesus Christ’s life, and there are to be none in ours. Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You…” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We should always choose our books as God chooses our friends, just a bit beyond us, so that we have to do our level best to keep up with them. Shade of His Hand, 1216 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, May 08, 2018
The House We Didn't Finish - #8172
I've got to tell you, it was a nostalgic time when we drove away that last time from our home of 24 years. We left behind a lot of memories in the walls, and a couple in the tree in the far corner of the backyard. See, when the kids were little, Karen and I decided we wanted to build the kids a tree house. So we made a plan, got some lumber, and started our little project. We laid down a couple of boards between two branches – it was the beginning of a floor for the tree house. Then we took a break. And we kept taking a break, and we never went back. Oh, yes, we intended to finish that house – but right up until the day we moved, those boards were all that ever happened.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The House We Didn't Finish."
That's not the only house a parent intended to build and never got done. In fact, many of us Moms and Dads knew how we wanted our family to be – how we still want it to be – but somehow the home, the family we intended to build never got finished did it? Even as our children were leaving for college, Karen and I talked about how quickly the years had melted away and how we were feeling there was so much unfinished business in our kids' lives.
Maybe you're a Mom or Dad, and you can see in your relationship with your children a lot of things you wish you had done, or a lot of things you wish you hadn't done. Like us with our tree house...the intentions were good, but something happened along the way. Your children may still be fairly young, still at home, but already you have regrets about what has or hasn't happened in your relationship or in their lives.
But it isn't over yet. In fact, our word for today from the Word of God offers a blueprint for hope and for healing. If you can find the courage to activate this powerful step, you may still be able to take care of some of that unfinished business. God says in James 5:16, "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective."
Let's apply this to a broken or strained or a hurting family relationship – a part of your home that, let's say, never got finished. God is calling you to fervent prayer for that person that's on your heart. And He may be calling you to "confess sins to each other". In the case of your son or daughter, that might mean saying some of the hardest words in the English language for a parent to say, "I was wrong. Please forgive me."
For someone you love, just your recognition that you were wrong, that you missed it could start a healing process in both of you. Tell them you're sorry for any way that you have failed them; that you want the future to be different from the past. Give them the "I love you" that they may have been waiting for a very long time. Give them your blessing, give them your approval, give them your praise. They may have been starved for that for years. It's never too late to say, "I love you." It's never too late to say, "I'm sorry." It's never too late to say, "Let's make a new beginning."
Oh, it will take some humility, because it's pride that keeps walls from coming down. It will take God's courage, but it could heal so much in you and so much in that person you love. But the home, the family, the relationship you never finished can still be built if you can say three life-changing, life-giving words, "I was wrong".
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Monday, May 7, 2018
Mark 12:1-27, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: PATIENT PEOPLE - May 7, 2018
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. It produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, and patience! Have you asked God to give you some fruit? Well, I once did, but… But what? Did you, [h’mm…] grow impatient? He won’t grow impatient with your pleading, and you will receive patience in your praying.
And while you’re praying, ask for understanding. “Patient people have great understanding” (Proverbs 14:29). Could it be your impatience stems from a lack of understanding? Patience always hitches a ride with understanding. “A man of understanding holds his tongue” (Proverbs 11:12). Before you blow up, listen up. Before you strike out, tune in. Before anything else…love is patient!
God is being patient with you (2 Peter 3:9). And if God is being patient with you, can’t you pass on some patience to others? Of course you can! Because before love is anything else—love is patient!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Mark 12:1-27
The Story About a Vineyard
12 1-2 Then Jesus started telling them stories. “A man planted a vineyard. He fenced it, dug a winepress, erected a watchtower, turned it over to the farmhands, and went off on a trip. At the time for harvest, he sent a servant back to the farmhands to collect his profits.
3-5 “They grabbed him, beat him up, and sent him off empty-handed. So he sent another servant. That one they tarred and feathered. He sent another and that one they killed. And on and on, many others. Some they beat up, some they killed.
6 “Finally there was only one left: a beloved son. In a last-ditch effort, he sent him, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son.’
7-8 “But those farmhands saw their chance. They rubbed their hands together in greed and said, ‘This is the heir! Let’s kill him and have it all for ourselves.’ They grabbed him, killed him, and threw him over the fence.
9-11 “What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do? Right. He’ll come and clean house. Then he’ll assign the care of the vineyard to others. Read it for yourselves in Scripture:
That stone the masons threw out
is now the cornerstone!
This is God’s work;
we rub our eyes—we can hardly believe it!”
12 They wanted to lynch him then and there but, intimidated by public opinion, held back. They knew the story was about them. They got away from there as fast as they could.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
13-14 They sent some Pharisees and followers of Herod to bait him, hoping to catch him saying something incriminating. They came up and said, “Teacher, we know you have integrity, that you are indifferent to public opinion, don’t pander to your students, and teach the way of God accurately. Tell us: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
15-16 He knew it was a trick question, and said, “Why are you playing these games with me? Bring me a coin and let me look at it.” They handed him one.
“This engraving—who does it look like? And whose name is on it?”
“Caesar,” they said.
17 Jesus said, “Give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his.”
Their mouths hung open, speechless.
Our Intimacies Will Be with God
18-23 Some Sadducees, the party that denies any possibility of resurrection, came up and asked, “Teacher, Moses wrote that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to marry the widow and have children. Well, there once were seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless. The second married her. He died, and still no child. The same with the third. All seven took their turn, but no child. Finally the wife died. When they are raised at the resurrection, whose wife is she? All seven were her husband.”
24-27 Jesus said, “You’re way off base, and here’s why: One, you don’t know your Bibles; two, you don’t know how God works. After the dead are raised up, we’re past the marriage business. As it is with angels now, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God. And regarding the dead, whether or not they are raised, don’t you ever read the Bible? How God at the bush said to Moses, ‘I am—not was—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? The living God is God of the living, not the dead. You’re way, way off base.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 07, 2018
Read: Ephesians 2:1–10
He Tore Down the Wall
2 1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
INSIGHT
Genesis 1:26–27 says we were created in God’s image. Similarly, Genesis 5:1 and James 3:9 tell us we were made in His “likeness.” What does it mean to be made in God’s image? We were created with characteristics that set us apart from other creatures. We have the capacity to reason, to make moral choices, and to be in relationship with others. We also have the capacity to do good works, and Jesus set the precedent: He “went around doing good” (Acts 10:38). Ephesians 2:10 tells us we were not only created “to do good works” but “God prepared in advance” the good works we would do. Our task is to stay near to God (Hebrews 10:22), be alert for opportunities, and rely on the Spirit for strength and help. - Alyson Kieda
The Fingerprint of God
By Dennis Fisher
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
Lygon Stevens loved to climb mountains with her brother Nick. They were experienced climbers and both had summitted Mt. McKinley (Denali), the highest point in North America. Then, in January 2008, they were swept off a Colorado mountain by an avalanche, injuring Nick and killing twenty-year-old Lygon. When Nick later discovered his sister’s journal in one of her satchels, he was deeply comforted by its contents. It was filled with reflections, prayers, and praise to God as seen in this entry: “I am a work of art, signed by God. But He’s not done; in fact, He has just begun. . . . I have on me the fingerprint of God. Never will there ever be another person like me. . . . I have a job to do in this life that no other can do.”
Although Lygon is no longer physically present on earth, through the legacy of her life and her journal she inspires and challenges those she left behind.
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
LEARN MORE»
Because we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), each person is a “work of art, signed by God.” As the apostle Paul says, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).
Praise God that He uses each of us, in His own time and way, to help others.
How would You like to use me, Lord? I am open and willing.
Each person is a unique expression of God’s loving design.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 07, 2018
Building For Eternity
Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it… —Luke 14:28
Our Lord was not referring here to a cost which we have to count, but to a cost which He has already counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred, the unfathomable agony He experienced in Gethsemane, and the assault upon Him at Calvary— the central point upon which all of time and eternity turn. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. In the final analysis, people are not going to laugh at Him and say, “This man began to build and was not able to finish” (Luke 14:30).
The conditions of discipleship given to us by our Lord in verses 26, 27, and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple ” (Luke 14:26). This verse teaches us that the only men and women our Lord will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately, and with great devotion— those who have a love for Him that goes far beyond any of the closest relationships on earth. The conditions are strict, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. When God inspects us with His searching and refining fire, will He detect that we have built enterprises of our own on the foundation of Jesus? (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.… We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. My Utmost for His Highest, January 6, 736 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 07, 2018
When Everything Is Shaking - #8171
Seattle-Earthquake! As I watched those words appearing on CNN's Breaking News years ago, it really caught my attention in that airport. I expected to see the word "earthquake" associated with a place like California or other parts of the world, but that day it was Seattle-6.8 on the Richter scale. Now, thankfully, the damage was not nearly as great as it could have been, but the experience was a sobering reminder of how unstable the ground beneath them really is. During the quake, a camera was rolling during a meeting in a conference room, and the video showed the reactions as the realization dawned on each person that his world was suddenly shaking. One moment, it was business as usual. The next moment, man, everything was moving.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Everything Is Shaking."
That's the unsettling thing about living in a quake-prone area; suddenly you're reminded that your world can start shaking around you at anytime, and sometimes it makes dramatic changes...sometimes it leaves major damage. Actually, no matter where you live, there's a sense in which you and I live in a "quake zone."
I mean, all of us know the feeling. Your life is cruising along and it's "business as usual", then one of life's emotional "quakes" hits: an injury, an unsettling report from the doctor, the loss of someone you love, a breakup, sudden changes at work, or sudden changes at home. Quakes like these are just part of life, and it's very hard to prepare for them.
Maybe you've recently felt the ground around you shaking violently, and things around you just seem to be collapsing. It's an unmistakable reminder of something we usually tend to forget until there's a "quake." The most important things, the most important people in our lives are at best uncertain, and it's a reminder, too, that we need a life-anchor that's unmovable and unshakable.
It's in moments like these that the promise of our word for today from the Word of God becomes very personal and very powerful. In Hebrews 13:8, the Bible says, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." There's simply nothing earth can offer that is "the same yesterday, today, and forever." No relationship, no position, no financial security, not even your physical or mental health, but Jesus is the same "yesterday, today, and forever."
This promise of Jesus to be your life's "unshakable" is no idle promise. No, it's backed up with the death that He died on a cross for you. And with His resurrection from the dead that proved beyond all doubt, that He can conquer death; that He can conquer anything. Your "quakes" might be a message from God, reminding you that you were never meant to go it alone.
The Bible says "You are created by Him and for Him." (Colossians 1:16) But the Bible tells us we've all lived for ourselves instead, which puts you in that orbit called "sin" where you're away from the One you were created for. The loneliness, the pointlessness, the insecurity have basically been because the One who gave you your life is on the other side of a wall.
But that can all change today, because of what Jesus did when He died to pay for the sins that are keeping you from God's love. Today, in the middle of so much that's shaking and collapsing, Jesus is offering you an anchor relationship with Him. If you'd like to begin that relationship with Him, would you tell Him that right now? He will enter your life when you open the door and put your total trust in Him to be your rescuer from your sin.
If that's where you are, I want to invite you to come to our website. It's called ANewStory.com, because in reality, this could be page one of your new story; this beginning with Jesus. I want to help you be sure that you've begun a relationship with Him.
With so much shaking, you desperately need the only One who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever." Once you are in the arms of Jesus, you are, for the first time in your life, finally safe.
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit. It produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, and patience! Have you asked God to give you some fruit? Well, I once did, but… But what? Did you, [h’mm…] grow impatient? He won’t grow impatient with your pleading, and you will receive patience in your praying.
And while you’re praying, ask for understanding. “Patient people have great understanding” (Proverbs 14:29). Could it be your impatience stems from a lack of understanding? Patience always hitches a ride with understanding. “A man of understanding holds his tongue” (Proverbs 11:12). Before you blow up, listen up. Before you strike out, tune in. Before anything else…love is patient!
God is being patient with you (2 Peter 3:9). And if God is being patient with you, can’t you pass on some patience to others? Of course you can! Because before love is anything else—love is patient!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Mark 12:1-27
The Story About a Vineyard
12 1-2 Then Jesus started telling them stories. “A man planted a vineyard. He fenced it, dug a winepress, erected a watchtower, turned it over to the farmhands, and went off on a trip. At the time for harvest, he sent a servant back to the farmhands to collect his profits.
3-5 “They grabbed him, beat him up, and sent him off empty-handed. So he sent another servant. That one they tarred and feathered. He sent another and that one they killed. And on and on, many others. Some they beat up, some they killed.
6 “Finally there was only one left: a beloved son. In a last-ditch effort, he sent him, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son.’
7-8 “But those farmhands saw their chance. They rubbed their hands together in greed and said, ‘This is the heir! Let’s kill him and have it all for ourselves.’ They grabbed him, killed him, and threw him over the fence.
9-11 “What do you think the owner of the vineyard will do? Right. He’ll come and clean house. Then he’ll assign the care of the vineyard to others. Read it for yourselves in Scripture:
That stone the masons threw out
is now the cornerstone!
This is God’s work;
we rub our eyes—we can hardly believe it!”
12 They wanted to lynch him then and there but, intimidated by public opinion, held back. They knew the story was about them. They got away from there as fast as they could.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
13-14 They sent some Pharisees and followers of Herod to bait him, hoping to catch him saying something incriminating. They came up and said, “Teacher, we know you have integrity, that you are indifferent to public opinion, don’t pander to your students, and teach the way of God accurately. Tell us: Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
15-16 He knew it was a trick question, and said, “Why are you playing these games with me? Bring me a coin and let me look at it.” They handed him one.
“This engraving—who does it look like? And whose name is on it?”
“Caesar,” they said.
17 Jesus said, “Give Caesar what is his, and give God what is his.”
Their mouths hung open, speechless.
Our Intimacies Will Be with God
18-23 Some Sadducees, the party that denies any possibility of resurrection, came up and asked, “Teacher, Moses wrote that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to marry the widow and have children. Well, there once were seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless. The second married her. He died, and still no child. The same with the third. All seven took their turn, but no child. Finally the wife died. When they are raised at the resurrection, whose wife is she? All seven were her husband.”
24-27 Jesus said, “You’re way off base, and here’s why: One, you don’t know your Bibles; two, you don’t know how God works. After the dead are raised up, we’re past the marriage business. As it is with angels now, all our ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God. And regarding the dead, whether or not they are raised, don’t you ever read the Bible? How God at the bush said to Moses, ‘I am—not was—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? The living God is God of the living, not the dead. You’re way, way off base.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 07, 2018
Read: Ephesians 2:1–10
He Tore Down the Wall
2 1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
INSIGHT
Genesis 1:26–27 says we were created in God’s image. Similarly, Genesis 5:1 and James 3:9 tell us we were made in His “likeness.” What does it mean to be made in God’s image? We were created with characteristics that set us apart from other creatures. We have the capacity to reason, to make moral choices, and to be in relationship with others. We also have the capacity to do good works, and Jesus set the precedent: He “went around doing good” (Acts 10:38). Ephesians 2:10 tells us we were not only created “to do good works” but “God prepared in advance” the good works we would do. Our task is to stay near to God (Hebrews 10:22), be alert for opportunities, and rely on the Spirit for strength and help. - Alyson Kieda
The Fingerprint of God
By Dennis Fisher
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10
Lygon Stevens loved to climb mountains with her brother Nick. They were experienced climbers and both had summitted Mt. McKinley (Denali), the highest point in North America. Then, in January 2008, they were swept off a Colorado mountain by an avalanche, injuring Nick and killing twenty-year-old Lygon. When Nick later discovered his sister’s journal in one of her satchels, he was deeply comforted by its contents. It was filled with reflections, prayers, and praise to God as seen in this entry: “I am a work of art, signed by God. But He’s not done; in fact, He has just begun. . . . I have on me the fingerprint of God. Never will there ever be another person like me. . . . I have a job to do in this life that no other can do.”
Although Lygon is no longer physically present on earth, through the legacy of her life and her journal she inspires and challenges those she left behind.
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
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Because we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), each person is a “work of art, signed by God.” As the apostle Paul says, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).
Praise God that He uses each of us, in His own time and way, to help others.
How would You like to use me, Lord? I am open and willing.
Each person is a unique expression of God’s loving design.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 07, 2018
Building For Eternity
Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it… —Luke 14:28
Our Lord was not referring here to a cost which we have to count, but to a cost which He has already counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred, the unfathomable agony He experienced in Gethsemane, and the assault upon Him at Calvary— the central point upon which all of time and eternity turn. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. In the final analysis, people are not going to laugh at Him and say, “This man began to build and was not able to finish” (Luke 14:30).
The conditions of discipleship given to us by our Lord in verses 26, 27, and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple ” (Luke 14:26). This verse teaches us that the only men and women our Lord will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately, and with great devotion— those who have a love for Him that goes far beyond any of the closest relationships on earth. The conditions are strict, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. When God inspects us with His searching and refining fire, will He detect that we have built enterprises of our own on the foundation of Jesus? (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15). We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.… We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. My Utmost for His Highest, January 6, 736 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 07, 2018
When Everything Is Shaking - #8171
Seattle-Earthquake! As I watched those words appearing on CNN's Breaking News years ago, it really caught my attention in that airport. I expected to see the word "earthquake" associated with a place like California or other parts of the world, but that day it was Seattle-6.8 on the Richter scale. Now, thankfully, the damage was not nearly as great as it could have been, but the experience was a sobering reminder of how unstable the ground beneath them really is. During the quake, a camera was rolling during a meeting in a conference room, and the video showed the reactions as the realization dawned on each person that his world was suddenly shaking. One moment, it was business as usual. The next moment, man, everything was moving.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When Everything Is Shaking."
That's the unsettling thing about living in a quake-prone area; suddenly you're reminded that your world can start shaking around you at anytime, and sometimes it makes dramatic changes...sometimes it leaves major damage. Actually, no matter where you live, there's a sense in which you and I live in a "quake zone."
I mean, all of us know the feeling. Your life is cruising along and it's "business as usual", then one of life's emotional "quakes" hits: an injury, an unsettling report from the doctor, the loss of someone you love, a breakup, sudden changes at work, or sudden changes at home. Quakes like these are just part of life, and it's very hard to prepare for them.
Maybe you've recently felt the ground around you shaking violently, and things around you just seem to be collapsing. It's an unmistakable reminder of something we usually tend to forget until there's a "quake." The most important things, the most important people in our lives are at best uncertain, and it's a reminder, too, that we need a life-anchor that's unmovable and unshakable.
It's in moments like these that the promise of our word for today from the Word of God becomes very personal and very powerful. In Hebrews 13:8, the Bible says, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." There's simply nothing earth can offer that is "the same yesterday, today, and forever." No relationship, no position, no financial security, not even your physical or mental health, but Jesus is the same "yesterday, today, and forever."
This promise of Jesus to be your life's "unshakable" is no idle promise. No, it's backed up with the death that He died on a cross for you. And with His resurrection from the dead that proved beyond all doubt, that He can conquer death; that He can conquer anything. Your "quakes" might be a message from God, reminding you that you were never meant to go it alone.
The Bible says "You are created by Him and for Him." (Colossians 1:16) But the Bible tells us we've all lived for ourselves instead, which puts you in that orbit called "sin" where you're away from the One you were created for. The loneliness, the pointlessness, the insecurity have basically been because the One who gave you your life is on the other side of a wall.
But that can all change today, because of what Jesus did when He died to pay for the sins that are keeping you from God's love. Today, in the middle of so much that's shaking and collapsing, Jesus is offering you an anchor relationship with Him. If you'd like to begin that relationship with Him, would you tell Him that right now? He will enter your life when you open the door and put your total trust in Him to be your rescuer from your sin.
If that's where you are, I want to invite you to come to our website. It's called ANewStory.com, because in reality, this could be page one of your new story; this beginning with Jesus. I want to help you be sure that you've begun a relationship with Him.
With so much shaking, you desperately need the only One who is "the same yesterday, today, and forever." Once you are in the arms of Jesus, you are, for the first time in your life, finally safe.
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Numbers 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: The Lord is My Shepherd
We want to do things our way. Forget the easy way. Forget the best way. Forget God’s way. We want to do things our way. And according Isaiah 53:6, that’s precisely our problem. “We all have wandered away like sheep; each of us has gone his own way.”
Sheep are dumb. Ever see sheep tricks? Know anyone who has ever taught his sheep to roll over? No, sheep are just too dumb. Instead of “the Lord is my shepherd,” couldn’t David have thought of a better metaphor than sheep? How about “The Lord is my commander in chief, and I am his warrior!”
When David, who was a warrior, searched for an illustration of God, he remembered his days as a shepherd. He remembered how he lavished attention on the sheep day and night. David rejoiced to say, “The Lord is my shepherd.” And in so doing he proudly implied, “I am His sheep.”
From Traveling Light
Numbers 2
Marching Orders
1-2 God spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said, “The People of Israel are to set up camp circling the Tent of Meeting and facing it. Each company is to camp under its distinctive tribal flag.”
3-4 To the east toward the sunrise are the companies of the camp of Judah under its flag, led by Nahshon son of Amminadab. His troops number 74,600.
5-6 The tribe of Issachar will camp next to them, led by Nethanel son of Zuar. His troops number 54,400.
7-8 And the tribe of Zebulun is next to them, led by Eliab son of Helon. His troops number 57,400.
9 The total number of men assigned to Judah, troop by troop, is 186,400. They will lead the march.
10-11 To the south are the companies of the camp of Reuben under its flag, led by Elizur son of Shedeur. His troops number 46,500.
12-13 The tribe of Simeon will camp next to them, led by Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai. His troops number 59,300.
14-15 And the tribe of Gad is next to them, led by Eliasaph son of Deuel. His troops number 45,650.
16 The total number of men assigned to Reuben, troop by troop, is 151,450. They are second in the order of the march.
17 The Tent of Meeting with the camp of the Levites takes its place in the middle of the march. Each tribe will march in the same order in which they camped, each under its own flag.
18-19 To the west are the companies of the camp of Ephraim under its flag, led by Elishama son of Ammihud. His troops number 40,500.
20-21 The tribe of Manasseh will set up camp next to them, led by Gamaliel son of Pedahzur. His troops number 32,200.
22-23 And next to him is the camp of Benjamin, led by Abidan son of Gideoni. His troops number 35,400.
24 The total number of men assigned to the camp of Ephraim, troop by troop, is 108,100. They are third in the order of the march.
25-26 To the north are the companies of the camp of Dan under its flag, led by Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai. His troops number 62,700.
27-28 The tribe of Asher will camp next to them, led by Pagiel son of Ocran. His troops number 41,500.
29-30 And next to them is the tribe of Naphtali, led by Ahira son of Enan. His troops number 53,400.
31 The total number of men assigned to the camp of Dan number 157,600. They will set out, under their flags, last in the line of the march.
32-33 These are the People of Israel, counted according to their ancestral families. The total number in the camps, counted troop by troop, comes to 603,550. Following God’s command to Moses, the Levites were not counted in with the rest of Israel.
34 The People of Israel did everything the way God commanded Moses: They camped under their respective flags; they marched by tribe with their ancestral families.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, May 06, 2018
Read: John 15:5–8
“I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
INSIGHT
The context of abiding in the vine (John 15:1–8) is vital to understanding this passage, but it’s even more helpful to take a step back and look at the entire scene. It’s the night before Christ will be crucified. Judas has already gone to betray Jesus (John 13:30). Jesus and His disciples have just departed the upper room where they shared the Last Supper. As they walk, the Lord refers to two metaphorical groups: branches that bear fruit and those that don’t. The good branches abide in the vine and are pruned (disciplined). Unfruitful branches don’t abide and are cut off.
Bible scholar William Hendriksen points out the significance of Judas’s recent departure in light of Jesus’s words here. Judas did not abide in the vine. Jesus encouraged the remaining disciples to abide and “bear much fruit” (v. 8). Significantly, the eleven who remained were all persecuted for defending the faith. Ten of them died for it (tradition says John died peacefully in his old age after returning from Patmos). Yet God kept His promise to them. Although He did not deliver them from physical attacks, He gave them boldness to proclaim the truth.
We who “abide in the vine” will be “pruned.” What might that mean for us? - Tim Gustafson
Standing on the Promises
By David H. Roper
Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 15:7
My friend’s brother (when they were both children) assured his sister an umbrella had enough lift to hold her up if she would only “believe.” So “by faith” she jumped off a barn roof and knocked herself out, suffering a minor concussion.
What God has promised, He will do. But we must be sure we stand on God’s actual word when we claim a promise, for only then do we have the assurance that God will do or give what He’s promised. Faith has no power in itself. It only counts when it’s based on a clear and unambiguous promise from God. Anything else is just wishful thinking.
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
LEARN MORE»
Here’s a case in point: God has promised, “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit” (John 15:7–8). These verses are not a promise that God will answer every prayer we utter, but rather a promise that He will respond to every longing for personal righteousness, what Paul calls “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22–23). If we hunger and thirst for holiness and ask God for it, He will begin to satisfy us. It will take time; for spiritual growth, like human growth, is gradual. Don’t give up. Keep asking God to make you holy. In His time and at His pace “it will be done for you.” God doesn’t make promises He doesn’t keep.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your many promises to us in Your Word. And thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit who gives discernment.
Read about the promises of God at discoveryseries.org/q0105.
We have a promise-keeping God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, May 06, 2018
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free… —Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand— “Believe this and that”; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty— the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one true liberty— the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don’t get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you— with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, “Go…and make disciples…” (Matthew 28:19), not, “Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
We want to do things our way. Forget the easy way. Forget the best way. Forget God’s way. We want to do things our way. And according Isaiah 53:6, that’s precisely our problem. “We all have wandered away like sheep; each of us has gone his own way.”
Sheep are dumb. Ever see sheep tricks? Know anyone who has ever taught his sheep to roll over? No, sheep are just too dumb. Instead of “the Lord is my shepherd,” couldn’t David have thought of a better metaphor than sheep? How about “The Lord is my commander in chief, and I am his warrior!”
When David, who was a warrior, searched for an illustration of God, he remembered his days as a shepherd. He remembered how he lavished attention on the sheep day and night. David rejoiced to say, “The Lord is my shepherd.” And in so doing he proudly implied, “I am His sheep.”
From Traveling Light
Numbers 2
Marching Orders
1-2 God spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said, “The People of Israel are to set up camp circling the Tent of Meeting and facing it. Each company is to camp under its distinctive tribal flag.”
3-4 To the east toward the sunrise are the companies of the camp of Judah under its flag, led by Nahshon son of Amminadab. His troops number 74,600.
5-6 The tribe of Issachar will camp next to them, led by Nethanel son of Zuar. His troops number 54,400.
7-8 And the tribe of Zebulun is next to them, led by Eliab son of Helon. His troops number 57,400.
9 The total number of men assigned to Judah, troop by troop, is 186,400. They will lead the march.
10-11 To the south are the companies of the camp of Reuben under its flag, led by Elizur son of Shedeur. His troops number 46,500.
12-13 The tribe of Simeon will camp next to them, led by Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai. His troops number 59,300.
14-15 And the tribe of Gad is next to them, led by Eliasaph son of Deuel. His troops number 45,650.
16 The total number of men assigned to Reuben, troop by troop, is 151,450. They are second in the order of the march.
17 The Tent of Meeting with the camp of the Levites takes its place in the middle of the march. Each tribe will march in the same order in which they camped, each under its own flag.
18-19 To the west are the companies of the camp of Ephraim under its flag, led by Elishama son of Ammihud. His troops number 40,500.
20-21 The tribe of Manasseh will set up camp next to them, led by Gamaliel son of Pedahzur. His troops number 32,200.
22-23 And next to him is the camp of Benjamin, led by Abidan son of Gideoni. His troops number 35,400.
24 The total number of men assigned to the camp of Ephraim, troop by troop, is 108,100. They are third in the order of the march.
25-26 To the north are the companies of the camp of Dan under its flag, led by Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai. His troops number 62,700.
27-28 The tribe of Asher will camp next to them, led by Pagiel son of Ocran. His troops number 41,500.
29-30 And next to them is the tribe of Naphtali, led by Ahira son of Enan. His troops number 53,400.
31 The total number of men assigned to the camp of Dan number 157,600. They will set out, under their flags, last in the line of the march.
32-33 These are the People of Israel, counted according to their ancestral families. The total number in the camps, counted troop by troop, comes to 603,550. Following God’s command to Moses, the Levites were not counted in with the rest of Israel.
34 The People of Israel did everything the way God commanded Moses: They camped under their respective flags; they marched by tribe with their ancestral families.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, May 06, 2018
Read: John 15:5–8
“I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
INSIGHT
The context of abiding in the vine (John 15:1–8) is vital to understanding this passage, but it’s even more helpful to take a step back and look at the entire scene. It’s the night before Christ will be crucified. Judas has already gone to betray Jesus (John 13:30). Jesus and His disciples have just departed the upper room where they shared the Last Supper. As they walk, the Lord refers to two metaphorical groups: branches that bear fruit and those that don’t. The good branches abide in the vine and are pruned (disciplined). Unfruitful branches don’t abide and are cut off.
Bible scholar William Hendriksen points out the significance of Judas’s recent departure in light of Jesus’s words here. Judas did not abide in the vine. Jesus encouraged the remaining disciples to abide and “bear much fruit” (v. 8). Significantly, the eleven who remained were all persecuted for defending the faith. Ten of them died for it (tradition says John died peacefully in his old age after returning from Patmos). Yet God kept His promise to them. Although He did not deliver them from physical attacks, He gave them boldness to proclaim the truth.
We who “abide in the vine” will be “pruned.” What might that mean for us? - Tim Gustafson
Standing on the Promises
By David H. Roper
Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 15:7
My friend’s brother (when they were both children) assured his sister an umbrella had enough lift to hold her up if she would only “believe.” So “by faith” she jumped off a barn roof and knocked herself out, suffering a minor concussion.
What God has promised, He will do. But we must be sure we stand on God’s actual word when we claim a promise, for only then do we have the assurance that God will do or give what He’s promised. Faith has no power in itself. It only counts when it’s based on a clear and unambiguous promise from God. Anything else is just wishful thinking.
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
LEARN MORE»
Here’s a case in point: God has promised, “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit” (John 15:7–8). These verses are not a promise that God will answer every prayer we utter, but rather a promise that He will respond to every longing for personal righteousness, what Paul calls “the fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22–23). If we hunger and thirst for holiness and ask God for it, He will begin to satisfy us. It will take time; for spiritual growth, like human growth, is gradual. Don’t give up. Keep asking God to make you holy. In His time and at His pace “it will be done for you.” God doesn’t make promises He doesn’t keep.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your many promises to us in Your Word. And thank You for sending Your Holy Spirit who gives discernment.
Read about the promises of God at discoveryseries.org/q0105.
We have a promise-keeping God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, May 06, 2018
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free… —Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand— “Believe this and that”; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty— the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one true liberty— the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don’t get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you— with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, “Go…and make disciples…” (Matthew 28:19), not, “Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L
Saturday, May 5, 2018
Numbers 1, , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: God—Our Shepherd
God, our Shepherd, doesn’t check the weather—He makes it! He doesn’t defy gravity—He created it. Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” He has no limitations. Unchanging. Uncaused. Ungoverned. Don’t we need this kind of shepherd?
You don’t need to carry the burden of a lesser god. A god on a shelf, a god in a box, or a god in a bottle. No, you need a God who can place 100-billion stars in our galaxy, and 100-billion galaxies in the universe. A God who can shape two fists of flesh into 75 to 100 billion nerve cells, each with as many as 10,000 connections to other nerve cells, place it in a skull, and call it a brain. And you have one. He is your shepherd!
From Traveling Light
Numbers 1
Census in the Wilderness of Sinai
1-5 God spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai at the Tent of Meeting on the first day of the second month in the second year after they had left Egypt. He said, “Number the congregation of the People of Israel by clans and families, writing down the names of every male. You and Aaron are to register, company by company, every man who is twenty years and older who is able to fight in the army. Pick one man from each tribe who is head of his family to help you. These are the names of the men who will help you:
from Reuben: Elizur son of Shedeur
6 from Simeon: Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai
7 from Judah: Nahshon son of Amminadab
8 from Issachar: Nethanel son of Zuar
9 from Zebulun: Eliab son of Helon
10 from the sons of Joseph,
from Ephraim: Elishama son of Ammihud
from Manasseh: Gamaliel son of Pedahzur
11 from Benjamin: Abidan son of Gideoni
12 from Dan: Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai
13 from Asher: Pagiel son of Ocran
14 from Gad: Eliasaph son of Deuel
15 from Naphtali: Ahira son of Enan.”
16 These were the men chosen from the congregation, leaders of their ancestral tribes, heads of Israel’s military divisions.
17-19 Moses and Aaron took these men who had been named to help and gathered the whole congregation together on the first day of the second month. The people registered themselves in their tribes according to their ancestral families, putting down the names of those who were twenty years old and older, just as God commanded Moses. He numbered them in the Wilderness of Sinai.
20-21 The line of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by tribes according to their ancestral families. The tribe of Reuben numbered 46,500.
22-23 The line of Simeon: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Simeon numbered 59,300.
24-25 The line of Gad: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Gad numbered 45,650.
26-27 The line of Judah: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Judah numbered 74,600.
28-29 The line of Issachar: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Issachar numbered 54,400.
30-31 The line of Zebulun: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Zebulun numbered 57,400.
32-33 The line of Joseph: From son Ephraim the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Ephraim numbered 40,500.
34-35 And from son Manasseh the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Manasseh numbered 32,200.
36-37 The line of Benjamin: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Benjamin numbered 35,400.
38-39 The line of Dan: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Dan numbered 62,700.
40-41 The line of Asher: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Asher numbered 41,500.
42-43 The line of Naphtali: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Naphtali numbered 53,400.
44-46 These are the numbers of those registered by Moses and Aaron, registered with the help of the leaders of Israel, twelve men, each representing his ancestral family. The sum total of the People of Israel twenty years old and over who were able to fight in the army, counted by ancestral family, was 603,550.
47-51 The Levites, however, were not counted by their ancestral family along with the others. God had told Moses, “The tribe of Levi is an exception: Don’t register them. Don’t count the tribe of Levi; don’t include them in the general census of the People of Israel. Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of The Dwelling of The Testimony—over all its furnishings and everything connected with it. Their job is to carry The Dwelling and all its furnishings, maintain it, and camp around it. When it’s time to move The Dwelling, the Levites will take it down, and when it’s time to set it up, the Levites will do it. Anyone else who even goes near it will be put to death.
52-53 “The rest of the People of Israel will set up their tents in companies, every man in his own camp under its own flag. But the Levites will set up camp around The Dwelling of The Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the community of Israel. The Levites are responsible for the security of The Dwelling of The Testimony.”
54 The People of Israel did everything that God commanded Moses. They did it all.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, May 05, 2018
1-2 This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.
3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
4 Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
INSIGHT
Today’s reading contains the Shema—the centerpiece of Israel’s belief in one God. It’s based on the Hebrew word for hear: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Verses 6–9 emphasize how we are to make the Scriptures a vital part of our lives so they will affect what we do and what we think about. It’s the meditation of the mind and application of the heart that translates divine truth into transformed living. - Dennis Fisher
Keeping Close
By Amy Boucher Pye
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Deuteronomy 6:8
My mile-long walk home from dropping off my daughter at her school gives me the opportunity to memorize some verses from the Bible—if I’m intentional about doing so. When I take those minutes to turn over God’s Word in my mind, I often find them coming back to me later in the day, bringing me comfort and wisdom.
When Moses prepared the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, he urged them to hold close to God’s commands and decrees (Deuteronomy 6:1–2). Wanting them to flourish, he said they should turn these instructions over in their minds and discuss them with their children (vv. 6–7). He even said to tie them to their wrists and bind them to their foreheads (v. 8). He didn’t want them to forget God’s instructions to live as people who honored the Lord and enjoyed His blessings.
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
LEARN MORE»
How might you consider God’s words today? One idea is to write out a verse from Scripture, and every time you wash your hands or take a drink, read the words and turn them over in your mind. Or before you go to sleep, consider a short passage from the Bible as the last act of the day. Many are the ways of keeping God’s Word close to our hearts!
Lord God, thank You for giving us the Bible, which is a wellspring for life. Help us to read and digest it today.
Surround yourself with God’s Word.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, May 05, 2018
Judgment and the Love of God
The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God… —1 Peter 4:17
The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God’s idea, not man’s; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience— preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out— it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.
If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ. My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R
God, our Shepherd, doesn’t check the weather—He makes it! He doesn’t defy gravity—He created it. Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” He has no limitations. Unchanging. Uncaused. Ungoverned. Don’t we need this kind of shepherd?
You don’t need to carry the burden of a lesser god. A god on a shelf, a god in a box, or a god in a bottle. No, you need a God who can place 100-billion stars in our galaxy, and 100-billion galaxies in the universe. A God who can shape two fists of flesh into 75 to 100 billion nerve cells, each with as many as 10,000 connections to other nerve cells, place it in a skull, and call it a brain. And you have one. He is your shepherd!
From Traveling Light
Numbers 1
Census in the Wilderness of Sinai
1-5 God spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai at the Tent of Meeting on the first day of the second month in the second year after they had left Egypt. He said, “Number the congregation of the People of Israel by clans and families, writing down the names of every male. You and Aaron are to register, company by company, every man who is twenty years and older who is able to fight in the army. Pick one man from each tribe who is head of his family to help you. These are the names of the men who will help you:
from Reuben: Elizur son of Shedeur
6 from Simeon: Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai
7 from Judah: Nahshon son of Amminadab
8 from Issachar: Nethanel son of Zuar
9 from Zebulun: Eliab son of Helon
10 from the sons of Joseph,
from Ephraim: Elishama son of Ammihud
from Manasseh: Gamaliel son of Pedahzur
11 from Benjamin: Abidan son of Gideoni
12 from Dan: Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai
13 from Asher: Pagiel son of Ocran
14 from Gad: Eliasaph son of Deuel
15 from Naphtali: Ahira son of Enan.”
16 These were the men chosen from the congregation, leaders of their ancestral tribes, heads of Israel’s military divisions.
17-19 Moses and Aaron took these men who had been named to help and gathered the whole congregation together on the first day of the second month. The people registered themselves in their tribes according to their ancestral families, putting down the names of those who were twenty years old and older, just as God commanded Moses. He numbered them in the Wilderness of Sinai.
20-21 The line of Reuben, Israel’s firstborn: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by tribes according to their ancestral families. The tribe of Reuben numbered 46,500.
22-23 The line of Simeon: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Simeon numbered 59,300.
24-25 The line of Gad: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Gad numbered 45,650.
26-27 The line of Judah: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Judah numbered 74,600.
28-29 The line of Issachar: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Issachar numbered 54,400.
30-31 The line of Zebulun: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Zebulun numbered 57,400.
32-33 The line of Joseph: From son Ephraim the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Ephraim numbered 40,500.
34-35 And from son Manasseh the men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Manasseh numbered 32,200.
36-37 The line of Benjamin: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Benjamin numbered 35,400.
38-39 The line of Dan: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Dan numbered 62,700.
40-41 The line of Asher: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Asher numbered 41,500.
42-43 The line of Naphtali: The men were counted off head by head, every male twenty years and older who was able to fight in the army, registered by clans and families. The tribe of Naphtali numbered 53,400.
44-46 These are the numbers of those registered by Moses and Aaron, registered with the help of the leaders of Israel, twelve men, each representing his ancestral family. The sum total of the People of Israel twenty years old and over who were able to fight in the army, counted by ancestral family, was 603,550.
47-51 The Levites, however, were not counted by their ancestral family along with the others. God had told Moses, “The tribe of Levi is an exception: Don’t register them. Don’t count the tribe of Levi; don’t include them in the general census of the People of Israel. Instead, appoint the Levites to be in charge of The Dwelling of The Testimony—over all its furnishings and everything connected with it. Their job is to carry The Dwelling and all its furnishings, maintain it, and camp around it. When it’s time to move The Dwelling, the Levites will take it down, and when it’s time to set it up, the Levites will do it. Anyone else who even goes near it will be put to death.
52-53 “The rest of the People of Israel will set up their tents in companies, every man in his own camp under its own flag. But the Levites will set up camp around The Dwelling of The Testimony so that wrath will not fall on the community of Israel. The Levites are responsible for the security of The Dwelling of The Testimony.”
54 The People of Israel did everything that God commanded Moses. They did it all.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, May 05, 2018
1-2 This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives.
3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey.
4 Attention, Israel!
God, our God! God the one and only!
5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!
6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.
INSIGHT
Today’s reading contains the Shema—the centerpiece of Israel’s belief in one God. It’s based on the Hebrew word for hear: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Verses 6–9 emphasize how we are to make the Scriptures a vital part of our lives so they will affect what we do and what we think about. It’s the meditation of the mind and application of the heart that translates divine truth into transformed living. - Dennis Fisher
Keeping Close
By Amy Boucher Pye
Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Deuteronomy 6:8
My mile-long walk home from dropping off my daughter at her school gives me the opportunity to memorize some verses from the Bible—if I’m intentional about doing so. When I take those minutes to turn over God’s Word in my mind, I often find them coming back to me later in the day, bringing me comfort and wisdom.
When Moses prepared the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, he urged them to hold close to God’s commands and decrees (Deuteronomy 6:1–2). Wanting them to flourish, he said they should turn these instructions over in their minds and discuss them with their children (vv. 6–7). He even said to tie them to their wrists and bind them to their foreheads (v. 8). He didn’t want them to forget God’s instructions to live as people who honored the Lord and enjoyed His blessings.
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
LEARN MORE»
How might you consider God’s words today? One idea is to write out a verse from Scripture, and every time you wash your hands or take a drink, read the words and turn them over in your mind. Or before you go to sleep, consider a short passage from the Bible as the last act of the day. Many are the ways of keeping God’s Word close to our hearts!
Lord God, thank You for giving us the Bible, which is a wellspring for life. Help us to read and digest it today.
Surround yourself with God’s Word.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, May 05, 2018
Judgment and the Love of God
The time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God… —1 Peter 4:17
The Christian servant must never forget that salvation is God’s idea, not man’s; therefore, it has an unfathomable depth. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is simply the door through which salvation comes into the conscious level of our life so that we are aware of what has taken place on a much deeper level. Never preach the experience— preach the great thought of God behind the experience. When we preach, we are not simply proclaiming how people can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.
In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out— it is the sign of the love of God. Never sympathize with someone who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to figure out the reason for the difficulty, but only to present the truth of God so that the Spirit of God will reveal what is wrong. The greatest test of the quality of our preaching is whether or not it brings everyone to judgment. When the truth is preached, the Spirit of God brings each person face to face with God Himself.
If Jesus ever commanded us to do something that He was unable to equip us to accomplish, He would be a liar. And if we make our own inability a stumbling block or an excuse not to be obedient, it means that we are telling God that there is something which He has not yet taken into account. Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ. My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R
Friday, May 4, 2018
Leviticus 27, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LOVE IS PATIENT - May 4, 2018
Has anyone told you about God’s patience? His patience and willingness to put up with you! “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Psalm 103:8).
Paul presents patience as the premiere expression of love. Positioned at the head of the apostle’s Love Armada—a boat-length or two in front of kindness, courtesy, and forgiveness—is the flagship known as patience. 1 Corinthians 13:4 states, “Love is patient!” Patience waits. It listens. It’s slow to boil. This is how God treats us. And according to Jesus, this is how we should treat others. How infiltrated are you with God’s patience? You’ve heard about it. Read about it. But have you received it? The proof is in your patience. Patience deeply received results in patience freely offered!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Leviticus 27
Vows, Dedications, and Redemptions
1-8 God spoke to Moses: He said, “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, If anyone wants to vow the value of a person to the service of God, set the value of a man between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels of silver, according to the Sanctuary shekel. For a woman the valuation is thirty shekels. If the person is between the ages of five and twenty, set the value at twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. If the person is between one month and five years, set the value at five shekels of silver for a boy and three shekels of silver for a girl. If the person is over sixty, set the value at fifteen shekels for a man and ten shekels for a woman. If anyone is too poor to pay the stated amount, he is to present the person to the priest, who will then set the value for him according to what the person making the vow can afford.
9-13 “If he vowed an animal that is acceptable as an offering to God, the animal is given to God and becomes the property of the Sanctuary. He must not exchange or substitute a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one; if he should dishonestly substitute one animal for another, both the original and the substitute become property of the Sanctuary. If what he vowed is a ritually unclean animal, one that is not acceptable as an offering to God, the animal must be shown to the priest, who will set its value, either high or low. Whatever the priest sets will be its value. If the owner changes his mind and wants to redeem it, he must add twenty percent to its value.
14-15 “If a man dedicates his house to God, into the possession of the Sanctuary, the priest assesses its value, setting it either high or low. Whatever value the priest sets, that’s what it is. If the man wants to buy it back, he must add twenty percent to its price and then it’s his again.
16-21 “If a man dedicates to God part of his family land, its value is to be set according to the amount of seed that is needed for it at the rate of fifty shekels of silver to six bushels of barley seed. If he dedicates his field during the year of Jubilee, the set value stays. But if he dedicates it after the Jubilee, the priest will compute the value according to the years left until the next Jubilee, reducing the value proportionately. If the one dedicating it wants to buy it back, he must add twenty percent to its valuation, and then it’s his again. But if he doesn’t redeem it or sells the field to someone else, it can never be bought back. When the field is released in the Jubilee, it becomes holy to God, the possession of the Sanctuary, God’s field. It goes into the hands of the priests.
22-25 “If a man dedicates to God a field he has bought, a field which is not part of the family land, the priest will compute its proportionate value in relation to the next year of Jubilee. The man must pay its value on the spot as something that is now holy to God, belonging to the Sanctuary. In the year of Jubilee it goes back to its original owner, the man from whom he bought it. The valuations will be reckoned by the Sanctuary shekel, at twenty gerahs to the shekel.
26-27 “No one is allowed to dedicate the firstborn of an animal; the firstborn, as firstborn, already belongs to God. No matter if it’s cattle or sheep, it already belongs to God. If it’s one of the ritually unclean animals, he can buy it back at its assessed value by adding twenty percent to it. If he doesn’t redeem it, it is to be sold at its assessed value.
28 “But nothing that a man irrevocably devotes to God from what belongs to him, whether human or animal or family land, may be either sold or bought back. Everything devoted is holy to the highest degree; it’s God’s inalienable property.
29 “No human who has been devoted to destruction can be redeemed. He must be put to death.
30-33 “A tenth of the land’s produce, whether grain from the ground or fruit from the trees, is God’s. It is holy to God. If a man buys back any of the tenth he has given, he must add twenty percent to it. A tenth of the entire herd and flock, every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod, is holy to God. He is not permitted to pick out the good from the bad or make a substitution. If he dishonestly makes a substitution, both animals, the original and the substitute, become the possession of the Sanctuary and cannot be redeemed.”
34 These are the commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai for the People of Israel.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, May 04, 2018
Read: Matthew 3:13–17
13-14 Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him. John objected, “I’m the one who needs to be baptized, not you!”
15 But Jesus insisted. “Do it. God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.
16-17 The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God’s Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”
INSIGHT
Love has always defined God; it is at the core of everything He does, now and in eternity. But today’s text urges us to think about an aspect of God’s love we might not typically consider.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spend eternity in a perfect relationship—giving and receiving love. It’s important to remember that genuine love not only gives love but also receives it. It wouldn’t be loving of the Father not to accept the love of the Son and the Spirit. It’s easy to say we love someone and to show it with what we do for them, but part of loving them is receiving their expressions of love too. That takes humility and trust.
Do you need to receive the love of someone else today? Or do you need to receive the love of God again and remember the reason we love Him is because He first loved us. - J.R. Hudberg
Before the Beginning
By Amy Peterson
You loved me before the creation of the world. John 17:24
“But if God has no beginning and no end, and has always existed, what was He doing before He created us? How did He spend His time?” Some precocious Sunday school student always asks this question when we talk about God’s eternal nature. I used to respond that this was a bit of a mystery. But recently I learned that the Bible gives us an answer to this question.
When Jesus prays to His Father in John 17, He says “Father, . . . you loved me before the creation of the world” (v. 24). This is God as revealed to us by Jesus: Before the world was ever created, God was a trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)—all loving each other and being loved. When Jesus was baptized, God sent His Spirit in the form of a dove and said, “This is my Son, whom I love” (Matthew 3:17). The most foundational aspect of God’s identity is this outgoing, life-giving love.
Your gift can help bring people back to the Lord.
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What a lovely and encouraging truth this is about our God! The mutual, outgoing love expressed by each member of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is key to understanding the nature of God. What was God doing before the beginning of time? What He always does: He was loving because He is love (1 John 4:8).
God, thank You for Your overflowing, self-giving love.
We are created in the image of a God who is loving and relational.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 04, 2018
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 04, 2018
What the Master Craftsman Sees in You - #8170
Linda, one of the members of our ministry team, married a guy with an eye. I mean, an eye for artistic possibilities. Ted works on home improvement projects, and he actually helped to improve our home a little bit not long ago. For example, he created this beautiful shelf in our living room. It's made from wood that he scouted and found in the nearby forest. My wife said, "Hey, we're the only ones with a shelf just like that." Ted does originals. Recently, he took Linda out into the woods to see a tree that he thought had tremendous artistic possibilities. So, he envisioned out loud what he wanted to make of it. Linda's comment on this little field trip was slightly amusing: "Ted saw this beautiful work of art. All I saw was a tree."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What the Master Craftsman Sees in You."
I wonder what folks have seen when they looked at you over the years. Maybe "all they saw was a tree." They haven't seen your potential. They haven't seen your beauty as a person, your value, or your possibilities. Maybe you've gotten the feeling from people that, when they look at you, all they can see is someone who's a problem, or a failure, or ugly, or not worth much, or worse yet, virtually invisible. There may have been people who saw you as an easy target; people who saw you as someone to use or abuse, someone to walk on, or walk by, or walk over.
None of those people begin to understand who you really are and what you're really worth. But the Master Craftsman does, and He wants you to start to see yourself through His eyes. In our word for today from the Word of God in John 1:42, Jesus meets Simon the fisherman for the first time; the same Simon who would one day become the leader of Jesus' disciples, the great Simon Peter. But not this day. The Bible says, "Jesus looked at him and said, 'You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas,'" which, when translated, is "Peter."
Now, everybody looks at Simon and all they see is John's son. Jesus looks at him and sees Peter, which means "rock." Now Simon was more of a flake than a rock at this point. For the next three years as Jesus' disciple, Simon demonstrated his volatility, his unpredictability, his up-and-downness. But like my friend, Ted, looking at that tree and seeing so much more, Jesus looks at Simon and sees, not just the roller coaster man he is, but the rock he's going to become if he follows Jesus.
So, what does Jesus see when He looks at you? Not just who or what you are, but what He can make of you if you put your life in His hands, the makeover miracle described this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17 - "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" And when Jesus looks at you, He sees what you yourself may have never seen: He sees His handmade creation, designed to make a unique difference on this planet. In the words of Ephesians 2:10, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." And, most important, Jesus sees in you someone He thought was worth dying for. To pay for all the junk you've ever done against Him so you could be forgiven and so you could be allowed into His heaven. In a sense, when Jesus looks at you, He does see a tree - the cross where He poured out His life for someone He didn't want to lose.
But you'll never experience this great love He has for you; you'll never become the man or woman He made you to be, until you give your life to this Man who gave His life for you by saying, "Jesus, I have lived so long beneath what You made me for. I've sinned. I need a Savior, and I'm Yours."
Listen, I would love to help you begin this love relationship with Jesus today. And the way I can do that is if you'll come to our website ANewStory.com. There I think we can help you be sure you belong to Jesus.
Let this be the first day of a lifetime where you live like you were created to live by the One who made you - the One who, by the way, only makes masterpieces.
Has anyone told you about God’s patience? His patience and willingness to put up with you! “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Psalm 103:8).
Paul presents patience as the premiere expression of love. Positioned at the head of the apostle’s Love Armada—a boat-length or two in front of kindness, courtesy, and forgiveness—is the flagship known as patience. 1 Corinthians 13:4 states, “Love is patient!” Patience waits. It listens. It’s slow to boil. This is how God treats us. And according to Jesus, this is how we should treat others. How infiltrated are you with God’s patience? You’ve heard about it. Read about it. But have you received it? The proof is in your patience. Patience deeply received results in patience freely offered!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Leviticus 27
Vows, Dedications, and Redemptions
1-8 God spoke to Moses: He said, “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, If anyone wants to vow the value of a person to the service of God, set the value of a man between the ages of twenty and sixty at fifty shekels of silver, according to the Sanctuary shekel. For a woman the valuation is thirty shekels. If the person is between the ages of five and twenty, set the value at twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female. If the person is between one month and five years, set the value at five shekels of silver for a boy and three shekels of silver for a girl. If the person is over sixty, set the value at fifteen shekels for a man and ten shekels for a woman. If anyone is too poor to pay the stated amount, he is to present the person to the priest, who will then set the value for him according to what the person making the vow can afford.
9-13 “If he vowed an animal that is acceptable as an offering to God, the animal is given to God and becomes the property of the Sanctuary. He must not exchange or substitute a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one; if he should dishonestly substitute one animal for another, both the original and the substitute become property of the Sanctuary. If what he vowed is a ritually unclean animal, one that is not acceptable as an offering to God, the animal must be shown to the priest, who will set its value, either high or low. Whatever the priest sets will be its value. If the owner changes his mind and wants to redeem it, he must add twenty percent to its value.
14-15 “If a man dedicates his house to God, into the possession of the Sanctuary, the priest assesses its value, setting it either high or low. Whatever value the priest sets, that’s what it is. If the man wants to buy it back, he must add twenty percent to its price and then it’s his again.
16-21 “If a man dedicates to God part of his family land, its value is to be set according to the amount of seed that is needed for it at the rate of fifty shekels of silver to six bushels of barley seed. If he dedicates his field during the year of Jubilee, the set value stays. But if he dedicates it after the Jubilee, the priest will compute the value according to the years left until the next Jubilee, reducing the value proportionately. If the one dedicating it wants to buy it back, he must add twenty percent to its valuation, and then it’s his again. But if he doesn’t redeem it or sells the field to someone else, it can never be bought back. When the field is released in the Jubilee, it becomes holy to God, the possession of the Sanctuary, God’s field. It goes into the hands of the priests.
22-25 “If a man dedicates to God a field he has bought, a field which is not part of the family land, the priest will compute its proportionate value in relation to the next year of Jubilee. The man must pay its value on the spot as something that is now holy to God, belonging to the Sanctuary. In the year of Jubilee it goes back to its original owner, the man from whom he bought it. The valuations will be reckoned by the Sanctuary shekel, at twenty gerahs to the shekel.
26-27 “No one is allowed to dedicate the firstborn of an animal; the firstborn, as firstborn, already belongs to God. No matter if it’s cattle or sheep, it already belongs to God. If it’s one of the ritually unclean animals, he can buy it back at its assessed value by adding twenty percent to it. If he doesn’t redeem it, it is to be sold at its assessed value.
28 “But nothing that a man irrevocably devotes to God from what belongs to him, whether human or animal or family land, may be either sold or bought back. Everything devoted is holy to the highest degree; it’s God’s inalienable property.
29 “No human who has been devoted to destruction can be redeemed. He must be put to death.
30-33 “A tenth of the land’s produce, whether grain from the ground or fruit from the trees, is God’s. It is holy to God. If a man buys back any of the tenth he has given, he must add twenty percent to it. A tenth of the entire herd and flock, every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd’s rod, is holy to God. He is not permitted to pick out the good from the bad or make a substitution. If he dishonestly makes a substitution, both animals, the original and the substitute, become the possession of the Sanctuary and cannot be redeemed.”
34 These are the commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai for the People of Israel.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, May 04, 2018
Read: Matthew 3:13–17
13-14 Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him. John objected, “I’m the one who needs to be baptized, not you!”
15 But Jesus insisted. “Do it. God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.
16-17 The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God’s Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”
INSIGHT
Love has always defined God; it is at the core of everything He does, now and in eternity. But today’s text urges us to think about an aspect of God’s love we might not typically consider.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit spend eternity in a perfect relationship—giving and receiving love. It’s important to remember that genuine love not only gives love but also receives it. It wouldn’t be loving of the Father not to accept the love of the Son and the Spirit. It’s easy to say we love someone and to show it with what we do for them, but part of loving them is receiving their expressions of love too. That takes humility and trust.
Do you need to receive the love of someone else today? Or do you need to receive the love of God again and remember the reason we love Him is because He first loved us. - J.R. Hudberg
Before the Beginning
By Amy Peterson
You loved me before the creation of the world. John 17:24
“But if God has no beginning and no end, and has always existed, what was He doing before He created us? How did He spend His time?” Some precocious Sunday school student always asks this question when we talk about God’s eternal nature. I used to respond that this was a bit of a mystery. But recently I learned that the Bible gives us an answer to this question.
When Jesus prays to His Father in John 17, He says “Father, . . . you loved me before the creation of the world” (v. 24). This is God as revealed to us by Jesus: Before the world was ever created, God was a trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)—all loving each other and being loved. When Jesus was baptized, God sent His Spirit in the form of a dove and said, “This is my Son, whom I love” (Matthew 3:17). The most foundational aspect of God’s identity is this outgoing, life-giving love.
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What a lovely and encouraging truth this is about our God! The mutual, outgoing love expressed by each member of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is key to understanding the nature of God. What was God doing before the beginning of time? What He always does: He was loving because He is love (1 John 4:8).
God, thank You for Your overflowing, self-giving love.
We are created in the image of a God who is loving and relational.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 04, 2018
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment. The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 04, 2018
What the Master Craftsman Sees in You - #8170
Linda, one of the members of our ministry team, married a guy with an eye. I mean, an eye for artistic possibilities. Ted works on home improvement projects, and he actually helped to improve our home a little bit not long ago. For example, he created this beautiful shelf in our living room. It's made from wood that he scouted and found in the nearby forest. My wife said, "Hey, we're the only ones with a shelf just like that." Ted does originals. Recently, he took Linda out into the woods to see a tree that he thought had tremendous artistic possibilities. So, he envisioned out loud what he wanted to make of it. Linda's comment on this little field trip was slightly amusing: "Ted saw this beautiful work of art. All I saw was a tree."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "What the Master Craftsman Sees in You."
I wonder what folks have seen when they looked at you over the years. Maybe "all they saw was a tree." They haven't seen your potential. They haven't seen your beauty as a person, your value, or your possibilities. Maybe you've gotten the feeling from people that, when they look at you, all they can see is someone who's a problem, or a failure, or ugly, or not worth much, or worse yet, virtually invisible. There may have been people who saw you as an easy target; people who saw you as someone to use or abuse, someone to walk on, or walk by, or walk over.
None of those people begin to understand who you really are and what you're really worth. But the Master Craftsman does, and He wants you to start to see yourself through His eyes. In our word for today from the Word of God in John 1:42, Jesus meets Simon the fisherman for the first time; the same Simon who would one day become the leader of Jesus' disciples, the great Simon Peter. But not this day. The Bible says, "Jesus looked at him and said, 'You are Simon, son of John. You will be called Cephas,'" which, when translated, is "Peter."
Now, everybody looks at Simon and all they see is John's son. Jesus looks at him and sees Peter, which means "rock." Now Simon was more of a flake than a rock at this point. For the next three years as Jesus' disciple, Simon demonstrated his volatility, his unpredictability, his up-and-downness. But like my friend, Ted, looking at that tree and seeing so much more, Jesus looks at Simon and sees, not just the roller coaster man he is, but the rock he's going to become if he follows Jesus.
So, what does Jesus see when He looks at you? Not just who or what you are, but what He can make of you if you put your life in His hands, the makeover miracle described this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17 - "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" And when Jesus looks at you, He sees what you yourself may have never seen: He sees His handmade creation, designed to make a unique difference on this planet. In the words of Ephesians 2:10, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." And, most important, Jesus sees in you someone He thought was worth dying for. To pay for all the junk you've ever done against Him so you could be forgiven and so you could be allowed into His heaven. In a sense, when Jesus looks at you, He does see a tree - the cross where He poured out His life for someone He didn't want to lose.
But you'll never experience this great love He has for you; you'll never become the man or woman He made you to be, until you give your life to this Man who gave His life for you by saying, "Jesus, I have lived so long beneath what You made me for. I've sinned. I need a Savior, and I'm Yours."
Listen, I would love to help you begin this love relationship with Jesus today. And the way I can do that is if you'll come to our website ANewStory.com. There I think we can help you be sure you belong to Jesus.
Let this be the first day of a lifetime where you live like you were created to live by the One who made you - the One who, by the way, only makes masterpieces.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Leviticus 26 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER - May 3, 2018
On this National Day of Prayer let me ask the obvious. If Jesus, the Son of God, the sinless savior of humankind, thought it worthwhile to clear his calendar to pray, wouldn’t we be wise to do the same? You may not understand the mystery of prayer. You don’t need to. But this much is certain. Actions in heaven begin when someone prays on earth. What an amazing thought! When you speak, Jesus hears. And when Jesus hears, thunder falls. And when thunder falls, the world is changed. All because someone prayed.
Prayer does not change God’s nature; who he is will never be altered. Prayer does, however, impact the flow of history. God has wired his world for power, but he calls on us to flip the switch.
Read more Lucado Inspirational Reader
Leviticus 26
“Don’t make idols for yourselves; don’t set up an image or a sacred pillar for yourselves, and don’t place a carved stone in your land that you can bow down to in worship. I am God, your God.
2 “Keep my Sabbaths; treat my Sanctuary with reverence. I am God.
“If You Live by My Decrees . . .”
3-5 “If you live by my decrees and obediently keep my commandments, I will send the rains in their seasons, the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. You will thresh until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting time; you’ll have more than enough to eat and will live safe and secure in your land.
6-10 “I’ll make the country a place of peace—you’ll be able to go to sleep at night without fear; I’ll get rid of the wild beasts; I’ll eliminate war. You’ll chase out your enemies and defeat them: Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand and do away with them. I’ll give you my full attention: I’ll make sure you prosper, make sure you grow in numbers, and keep my covenant with you in good working order. You’ll still be eating from last year’s harvest when you have to clean out the barns to make room for the new crops.
11-13 “I’ll set up my residence in your neighborhood; I won’t avoid or shun you; I’ll stroll through your streets. I’ll be your God; you’ll be my people. I am God, your personal God who rescued you from Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I ripped off the harness of your slavery so that you can move about freely.
“But If You Refuse to Obey Me . . .”
14-17 “But if you refuse to obey me and won’t observe my commandments, despising my decrees and holding my laws in contempt by your disobedience, making a shambles of my covenant, I’ll step in and pour on the trouble: debilitating disease, high fevers, blindness, your life leaking out bit by bit. You’ll plant seed but your enemies will eat the crops. I’ll turn my back on you and stand by while your enemies defeat you. People who hate you will govern you. You’ll run scared even when there’s no one chasing you.
18-20 “And if none of this works in getting your attention, I’ll discipline you seven times over for your sins. I’ll break your strong pride: I’ll make the skies above you like a sheet of tin and the ground under you like cast iron. No matter how hard you work, nothing will come of it: No crops out of the ground, no fruit off the trees.
21-22 “If you defy me and refuse to listen, your punishment will be seven times more than your sins: I’ll set wild animals on you; they’ll rob you of your children, kill your cattle, and decimate your numbers until you’ll think you are living in a ghost town.
23-26 “And if even this doesn’t work and you refuse my discipline and continue your defiance, then it will be my turn to defy you. I, yes I, will punish you for your sins seven times over: I’ll let war loose on you, avenging your breaking of the covenant; when you huddle in your cities for protection, I’ll send a deadly epidemic on you and you’ll be helpless before your enemies; when I cut off your bread supply, ten women will bake bread in one oven and ration it out. You’ll eat, but barely—no one will get enough.
27-35 “And if this—even this!—doesn’t work and you still won’t listen, still defy me, I’ll have had enough and in hot anger will defy you, punishing you for your sins seven times over: famine will be so severe that you’ll end up cooking and eating your sons in stews and your daughters in barbecues; I’ll smash your sex-and-religion shrines and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, and then stack your corpses and the idol-corpses in the same piles—I’ll abhor you; I’ll turn your cities into rubble; I’ll clean out your sanctuaries; I’ll hold my nose at the “pleasing aroma” of your sacrifices. I’ll turn your land into a lifeless moonscape—your enemies who come in to take over will be shocked at what they see. I’ll scatter you all over the world and keep after you with the point of my sword in your backs. There’ll be nothing left in your land, nothing going on in your cities. With you gone and dispersed in the countries of your enemies, the land, empty of you, will finally get a break and enjoy its Sabbath years. All the time it’s left there empty, the land will get rest, the Sabbaths it never got when you lived there.
36-39 “As for those among you still alive, I’ll give them over to fearful timidity—even the rustle of a leaf will throw them into a panic. They’ll run here and there, back and forth, as if running for their lives even though no one is after them, tripping and falling over one another in total confusion. You won’t stand a chance against an enemy. You’ll perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will eat you up. Any who are left will slowly rot away in the enemy lands. Rot. And all because of their sins, their sins compounded by their ancestors’ sins.
“On the Other Hand, If They Confess . . .”
40-42 “On the other hand, if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, their treacherous betrayal, the defiance that set off my defiance that sent them off into enemy lands; if by some chance they soften their hard hearts and make amends for their sin, I’ll remember my covenant with Jacob, I’ll remember my covenant with Isaac, and, yes, I’ll remember my covenant with Abraham. And I’ll remember the land.
43-45 “The land will be empty of them and enjoy its Sabbaths while they’re gone. They’ll pay for their sins because they refused my laws and treated my decrees with contempt. But in spite of their behavior, while they are among their enemies I won’t reject or abhor or destroy them completely. I won’t break my covenant with them: I am God, their God. For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I, with all the nations watching, brought out of Egypt in order to be their God. I am God.”
46 These are the decrees, laws, and instructions that God established between himself and the People of Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, May 03, 2018
Read: Psalm 73:12–28
What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?
Nobody’s tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything;
they have it made, piling up riches.
I’ve been stupid to play by the rules;
what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that’s what—
a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.
15-20 If I’d have given in and talked like this,
I would have betrayed your dear children.
Still, when I tried to figure it out,
all I got was a splitting headache . . .
Until I entered the sanctuary of God.
Then I saw the whole picture:
The slippery road you’ve put them on,
with a final crash in a ditch of delusions.
In the blink of an eye, disaster!
A blind curve in the dark, and—nightmare!
We wake up and rub our eyes. . . . Nothing.
There’s nothing to them. And there never was.
21-24 When I was beleaguered and bitter,
totally consumed by envy,
I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox
in your very presence.
I’m still in your presence,
but you’ve taken my hand.
You wisely and tenderly lead me,
and then you bless me.
25-28 You’re all I want in heaven!
You’re all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look! Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserters, they’ll never be heard from again.
But I’m in the very presence of God—
oh, how refreshing it is!
I’ve made Lord God my home.
God, I’m telling the world what you do!
INSIGHT
In Psalm 37 David addresses the same perplexing issue Asaph writes about in Psalm 73—the wicked prosper while the godly suffer unjustly. David tells those who suffer unjustly not to fret or be envious, for God is just and will one day make all things right (Psalm 37:7–11, 35–38). Instead, those who fear the Lord are to rest fully in God and to continue to live holy lives (vv. 3–6). For the Lord “will not forsake his faithful ones” (v. 28).
Are you weighed down because of injustice? How can the hope expressed in these psalms encourage and strengthen you? - K. T. Sim
A Change in Perspective
By Kirsten Holmberg
It troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God. Psalm 73:16–17
My hometown had experienced its heaviest winter in thirty years. My muscles ached from hours of shoveling the unrelenting snow. When I stepped inside after what felt like a fruitless effort, weary as I kicked off my boots, I was greeted by the warmth of a fire and my children gathered around it. As I gazed out the window from the shelter of my home, my perspective of the weather shifted completely. Instead of seeing more work to do, I savored the beauty of frosted tree branches and the way the snow blanketed the colorless landscape of winter.
I see a similar, but much more poignant, shift in Asaph when I read his words in Psalm 73. In the beginning, he laments the way the world seems to work, how wrongs seem to be rewarded. He doubts the value of being different than the crowd and living for the good of others (v. 13). But when he enters the sanctuary of God, his outlook changes (vv. 16–17): he remembers that God will deal with the world and its troubles perfectly and, more importantly, that it is good to be with God (v. 28).
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When we’re chilled by the seemingly ceaseless problems in our world, we can enter God’s sanctuary in prayer and be warmed through by the life-altering, perspective-changing truth that His judgment is better than ours. Though our circumstances may not change, our perspective can.
Lord, I admit I quickly become frustrated with the way things appear. Help me to see the way You do.
God gives us the right perspective.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, May 03, 2018
Vital Intercession
…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit… —Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, “I will not allow that thing to happen.” And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own “sad and pitiful self.” You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
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
Thursday, May 03, 2018
When You're At The Edge - #8169
Our family has had the wonderful opportunity of visiting some of the most beautiful places in America, and taking in some incredible views. From the top of towering mountains, from the edge of the Grand Canyon, and in my wife's estimation, often too close to the edge. There's good news and bad news about getting real close to the edge. The bad news is. it is dangerous at the edge – you can fall off. But the good news is, the view from the edge is spectacular!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You're At The Edge."
For you, that could be right now. You're at one of those points we all reach several times in our life – sometimes several times in a year! You're at the edge financially, with a son or daughter you don't know what to do with, or maybe in your marriage. It could be you're at the edge emotionally; you're not sure how much more you can take, or maybe your responsibilities have gotten so heavy that they're taking you to the edge. We all get there.
Being close to the edge is dangerous, but it can also be an exciting place to be. Now, if you're not so sure about that "exciting" part, you need to spend a moment in our word for today from the Word of God in Exodus 14:9. If ever a group of God's people were at the edge, it's here. The ancient Jews have been delivered by God from their enslavement in Egypt and now they have made camp with the Red Sea in front of them. And the Bible says, "All Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen, and troops pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea." Oh, great! Red Sea in front of them...the most powerful army on earth behind them, in hot pursuit. We are at the edge, folks!
But remember – it was God who led them to the edge. It usually is. If you're in the middle of a Red Sea moment, it is most likely part of the great and loving plans of God for you. You know what happened when God's ancient people were at the edge. The Bible says, "The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right and on their left." Then when Moses stretched out his hand over the water, "the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea."
So why did God bring His people to this dangerous edge where there clearly seemed to be no solutions...no rescue? Well, for the same reason He has brought you to the edge – so you could see a more spectacular view of Him than you have ever seen before! Exodus actually says, "When the Israelites saw the great power of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in Him" (Ex. 14:31).
The Chinese have a word for "crisis". It's the word "wei chi". The word has two figures in it – the top one means "danger", the bottom figure means "opportunity". Now, in many ways, that's a Biblical view of a crisis moment that you or I face. Yes, there is real danger. But, even more, there is real opportunity; opportunity for God to do something that will bring Him great glory and allow you to see His power in amazing ways, and to tighten your grip on His hand as never before.
If God has led you to this edge, then you have every right to expect a miracle – which you would never need or never see if it weren't for this scary, overwhelming moment. In any Red Sea moment you will ultimately see God part it one way or another. And once He does, you won't remember the danger much. What you'll remember is that spectacular view of God, and you'd never see it if you didn't go to the edge! It will change your life forever!
On this National Day of Prayer let me ask the obvious. If Jesus, the Son of God, the sinless savior of humankind, thought it worthwhile to clear his calendar to pray, wouldn’t we be wise to do the same? You may not understand the mystery of prayer. You don’t need to. But this much is certain. Actions in heaven begin when someone prays on earth. What an amazing thought! When you speak, Jesus hears. And when Jesus hears, thunder falls. And when thunder falls, the world is changed. All because someone prayed.
Prayer does not change God’s nature; who he is will never be altered. Prayer does, however, impact the flow of history. God has wired his world for power, but he calls on us to flip the switch.
Read more Lucado Inspirational Reader
Leviticus 26
“Don’t make idols for yourselves; don’t set up an image or a sacred pillar for yourselves, and don’t place a carved stone in your land that you can bow down to in worship. I am God, your God.
2 “Keep my Sabbaths; treat my Sanctuary with reverence. I am God.
“If You Live by My Decrees . . .”
3-5 “If you live by my decrees and obediently keep my commandments, I will send the rains in their seasons, the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. You will thresh until the grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting time; you’ll have more than enough to eat and will live safe and secure in your land.
6-10 “I’ll make the country a place of peace—you’ll be able to go to sleep at night without fear; I’ll get rid of the wild beasts; I’ll eliminate war. You’ll chase out your enemies and defeat them: Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand and do away with them. I’ll give you my full attention: I’ll make sure you prosper, make sure you grow in numbers, and keep my covenant with you in good working order. You’ll still be eating from last year’s harvest when you have to clean out the barns to make room for the new crops.
11-13 “I’ll set up my residence in your neighborhood; I won’t avoid or shun you; I’ll stroll through your streets. I’ll be your God; you’ll be my people. I am God, your personal God who rescued you from Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I ripped off the harness of your slavery so that you can move about freely.
“But If You Refuse to Obey Me . . .”
14-17 “But if you refuse to obey me and won’t observe my commandments, despising my decrees and holding my laws in contempt by your disobedience, making a shambles of my covenant, I’ll step in and pour on the trouble: debilitating disease, high fevers, blindness, your life leaking out bit by bit. You’ll plant seed but your enemies will eat the crops. I’ll turn my back on you and stand by while your enemies defeat you. People who hate you will govern you. You’ll run scared even when there’s no one chasing you.
18-20 “And if none of this works in getting your attention, I’ll discipline you seven times over for your sins. I’ll break your strong pride: I’ll make the skies above you like a sheet of tin and the ground under you like cast iron. No matter how hard you work, nothing will come of it: No crops out of the ground, no fruit off the trees.
21-22 “If you defy me and refuse to listen, your punishment will be seven times more than your sins: I’ll set wild animals on you; they’ll rob you of your children, kill your cattle, and decimate your numbers until you’ll think you are living in a ghost town.
23-26 “And if even this doesn’t work and you refuse my discipline and continue your defiance, then it will be my turn to defy you. I, yes I, will punish you for your sins seven times over: I’ll let war loose on you, avenging your breaking of the covenant; when you huddle in your cities for protection, I’ll send a deadly epidemic on you and you’ll be helpless before your enemies; when I cut off your bread supply, ten women will bake bread in one oven and ration it out. You’ll eat, but barely—no one will get enough.
27-35 “And if this—even this!—doesn’t work and you still won’t listen, still defy me, I’ll have had enough and in hot anger will defy you, punishing you for your sins seven times over: famine will be so severe that you’ll end up cooking and eating your sons in stews and your daughters in barbecues; I’ll smash your sex-and-religion shrines and all the paraphernalia that goes with them, and then stack your corpses and the idol-corpses in the same piles—I’ll abhor you; I’ll turn your cities into rubble; I’ll clean out your sanctuaries; I’ll hold my nose at the “pleasing aroma” of your sacrifices. I’ll turn your land into a lifeless moonscape—your enemies who come in to take over will be shocked at what they see. I’ll scatter you all over the world and keep after you with the point of my sword in your backs. There’ll be nothing left in your land, nothing going on in your cities. With you gone and dispersed in the countries of your enemies, the land, empty of you, will finally get a break and enjoy its Sabbath years. All the time it’s left there empty, the land will get rest, the Sabbaths it never got when you lived there.
36-39 “As for those among you still alive, I’ll give them over to fearful timidity—even the rustle of a leaf will throw them into a panic. They’ll run here and there, back and forth, as if running for their lives even though no one is after them, tripping and falling over one another in total confusion. You won’t stand a chance against an enemy. You’ll perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will eat you up. Any who are left will slowly rot away in the enemy lands. Rot. And all because of their sins, their sins compounded by their ancestors’ sins.
“On the Other Hand, If They Confess . . .”
40-42 “On the other hand, if they confess their sins and the sins of their ancestors, their treacherous betrayal, the defiance that set off my defiance that sent them off into enemy lands; if by some chance they soften their hard hearts and make amends for their sin, I’ll remember my covenant with Jacob, I’ll remember my covenant with Isaac, and, yes, I’ll remember my covenant with Abraham. And I’ll remember the land.
43-45 “The land will be empty of them and enjoy its Sabbaths while they’re gone. They’ll pay for their sins because they refused my laws and treated my decrees with contempt. But in spite of their behavior, while they are among their enemies I won’t reject or abhor or destroy them completely. I won’t break my covenant with them: I am God, their God. For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I, with all the nations watching, brought out of Egypt in order to be their God. I am God.”
46 These are the decrees, laws, and instructions that God established between himself and the People of Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, May 03, 2018
Read: Psalm 73:12–28
What’s going on here? Is God out to lunch?
Nobody’s tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything;
they have it made, piling up riches.
I’ve been stupid to play by the rules;
what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that’s what—
a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.
15-20 If I’d have given in and talked like this,
I would have betrayed your dear children.
Still, when I tried to figure it out,
all I got was a splitting headache . . .
Until I entered the sanctuary of God.
Then I saw the whole picture:
The slippery road you’ve put them on,
with a final crash in a ditch of delusions.
In the blink of an eye, disaster!
A blind curve in the dark, and—nightmare!
We wake up and rub our eyes. . . . Nothing.
There’s nothing to them. And there never was.
21-24 When I was beleaguered and bitter,
totally consumed by envy,
I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox
in your very presence.
I’m still in your presence,
but you’ve taken my hand.
You wisely and tenderly lead me,
and then you bless me.
25-28 You’re all I want in heaven!
You’re all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,
God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look! Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserters, they’ll never be heard from again.
But I’m in the very presence of God—
oh, how refreshing it is!
I’ve made Lord God my home.
God, I’m telling the world what you do!
INSIGHT
In Psalm 37 David addresses the same perplexing issue Asaph writes about in Psalm 73—the wicked prosper while the godly suffer unjustly. David tells those who suffer unjustly not to fret or be envious, for God is just and will one day make all things right (Psalm 37:7–11, 35–38). Instead, those who fear the Lord are to rest fully in God and to continue to live holy lives (vv. 3–6). For the Lord “will not forsake his faithful ones” (v. 28).
Are you weighed down because of injustice? How can the hope expressed in these psalms encourage and strengthen you? - K. T. Sim
A Change in Perspective
By Kirsten Holmberg
It troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God. Psalm 73:16–17
My hometown had experienced its heaviest winter in thirty years. My muscles ached from hours of shoveling the unrelenting snow. When I stepped inside after what felt like a fruitless effort, weary as I kicked off my boots, I was greeted by the warmth of a fire and my children gathered around it. As I gazed out the window from the shelter of my home, my perspective of the weather shifted completely. Instead of seeing more work to do, I savored the beauty of frosted tree branches and the way the snow blanketed the colorless landscape of winter.
I see a similar, but much more poignant, shift in Asaph when I read his words in Psalm 73. In the beginning, he laments the way the world seems to work, how wrongs seem to be rewarded. He doubts the value of being different than the crowd and living for the good of others (v. 13). But when he enters the sanctuary of God, his outlook changes (vv. 16–17): he remembers that God will deal with the world and its troubles perfectly and, more importantly, that it is good to be with God (v. 28).
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When we’re chilled by the seemingly ceaseless problems in our world, we can enter God’s sanctuary in prayer and be warmed through by the life-altering, perspective-changing truth that His judgment is better than ours. Though our circumstances may not change, our perspective can.
Lord, I admit I quickly become frustrated with the way things appear. Help me to see the way You do.
God gives us the right perspective.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, May 03, 2018
Vital Intercession
…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit… —Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, “I will not allow that thing to happen.” And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own “sad and pitiful self.” You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
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
Thursday, May 03, 2018
When You're At The Edge - #8169
Our family has had the wonderful opportunity of visiting some of the most beautiful places in America, and taking in some incredible views. From the top of towering mountains, from the edge of the Grand Canyon, and in my wife's estimation, often too close to the edge. There's good news and bad news about getting real close to the edge. The bad news is. it is dangerous at the edge – you can fall off. But the good news is, the view from the edge is spectacular!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You're At The Edge."
For you, that could be right now. You're at one of those points we all reach several times in our life – sometimes several times in a year! You're at the edge financially, with a son or daughter you don't know what to do with, or maybe in your marriage. It could be you're at the edge emotionally; you're not sure how much more you can take, or maybe your responsibilities have gotten so heavy that they're taking you to the edge. We all get there.
Being close to the edge is dangerous, but it can also be an exciting place to be. Now, if you're not so sure about that "exciting" part, you need to spend a moment in our word for today from the Word of God in Exodus 14:9. If ever a group of God's people were at the edge, it's here. The ancient Jews have been delivered by God from their enslavement in Egypt and now they have made camp with the Red Sea in front of them. And the Bible says, "All Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen, and troops pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea." Oh, great! Red Sea in front of them...the most powerful army on earth behind them, in hot pursuit. We are at the edge, folks!
But remember – it was God who led them to the edge. It usually is. If you're in the middle of a Red Sea moment, it is most likely part of the great and loving plans of God for you. You know what happened when God's ancient people were at the edge. The Bible says, "The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground with a wall of water on their right and on their left." Then when Moses stretched out his hand over the water, "the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the Lord swept them into the sea."
So why did God bring His people to this dangerous edge where there clearly seemed to be no solutions...no rescue? Well, for the same reason He has brought you to the edge – so you could see a more spectacular view of Him than you have ever seen before! Exodus actually says, "When the Israelites saw the great power of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in Him" (Ex. 14:31).
The Chinese have a word for "crisis". It's the word "wei chi". The word has two figures in it – the top one means "danger", the bottom figure means "opportunity". Now, in many ways, that's a Biblical view of a crisis moment that you or I face. Yes, there is real danger. But, even more, there is real opportunity; opportunity for God to do something that will bring Him great glory and allow you to see His power in amazing ways, and to tighten your grip on His hand as never before.
If God has led you to this edge, then you have every right to expect a miracle – which you would never need or never see if it weren't for this scary, overwhelming moment. In any Red Sea moment you will ultimately see God part it one way or another. And once He does, you won't remember the danger much. What you'll remember is that spectacular view of God, and you'd never see it if you didn't go to the edge! It will change your life forever!
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
Mark 11:19-33, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LIVING LOVED - May 2, 2018
The secret to loving is living loved. It’s the forgotten first step in relationships. Remember Paul’s prayer? “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love” (Ephesians 3:17 NLT).
Many people tell us to love. Only God gives us the power to do so. We know what God wants us to do. “This is what God commands. . .that we love each other.” (1 John 3:23). But how can we? How can we be kind to those who are unkind to us? How can we love as God loves? By being loved. By following the principle: receive first and love second. God loves you personally…powerfully…passionately! He loves you with an unfailing love. Others have promised and failed. But God has promised and succeeded!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Mark 11:19-33
At evening, Jesus and his disciples left the city.
20-21 In the morning, walking along the road, they saw the fig tree, shriveled to a dry stick. Peter, remembering what had happened the previous day, said to him, “Rabbi, look—the fig tree you cursed is shriveled up!”
22-25 Jesus was matter-of-fact: “Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it, and nothing will be too much for you. This mountain, for instance: Just say, ‘Go jump in the lake’—no shuffling or shilly-shallying—and it’s as good as done. That’s why I urge you to pray for absolutely everything, ranging from small to large. Include everything as you embrace this God-life, and you’ll get God’s everything. And when you assume the posture of prayer, remember that it’s not all asking. If you have anything against someone, forgive—only then will your heavenly Father be inclined to also wipe your slate clean of sins.”
His Credentials
27-28 Then when they were back in Jerusalem once again, as they were walking through the Temple, the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders came up and demanded, “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?”
29-30 Jesus responded, “First let me ask you a question. Answer my question and then I’ll present my credentials. About the baptism of John—who authorized it: heaven or humans? Tell me.”
31-33 They were on the spot, and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, “If we say ‘heaven,’ he’ll ask us why we didn’t believe John; if we say ‘humans,’ we’ll be up against it with the people because they all hold John up as a prophet.” They decided to concede that round to Jesus. “We don’t know,” they said.
Jesus replied, “Then I won’t answer your question either.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, May 02, 2018
Read: 1 John 4:13–16
This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.
INSIGHT
Do you have a hard time relating to the love of God? Many of us think more with our heads than our hearts. John, a disciple of Jesus, is remembered as the apostle of love and referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23).
John wrote more on love than any New Testament writer. But he wasn’t always so inclined. The gospel writer Luke remembers the day John and his brother James wanted to see Jesus call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that had turned Jesus away (Luke 9:51–56). Jesus let the two brothers know that their lack of empathy didn’t reflect His heart. Yet Jesus probably wasn’t surprised. Early on, and maybe with a smile, He had affectionately called them “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17).
Yet John is the one who ends up being overwhelmed with the love of God and writes about the importance of loving others (1 John 3:16; 4:8, 16). What happened? Did he recognize the coldness of his own heart? Did he learn from Jesus that our ability to relate to the love of God may depend on our readiness to admit—and to be forgiven for—our lack of love? (John 3:16; Luke 7:37–50). - Mart DeHaan
Longing for God
By James Banks
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Psalm 84:2
One day my daughter was visiting with our one-year-old grandson. I was getting ready to leave the house on an errand, but as soon as I walked out of the room my grandson began to cry. It happened twice, and each time I went back and spent a moment with him. As I headed out the door the third time, his little lip began to quiver again. At that point my daughter said, “Dad, why don’t you just take him with you?”
Any grandparent could tell you what happened next. My grandson went along for the ride, just because I love him.
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How good it is to know that the longings of our hearts for God are also met with love. The Bible assures us that we can “know and rely on the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16). God doesn’t love us because of anything we have or haven’t done. His love isn’t based on our worthiness at all, but on His goodness and faithfulness. When the world around us is unloving and unkind, we can rely on God’s unchanging love as our source of hope and peace.
Our heavenly Father’s heart has gone out to us through the gift of His Son and His Spirit. How comforting is the assurance that God loves us with love that never ends!
Loving Lord, thank You for Your compassion for me, proven at the cross. Please help me to obey and love You today.
God longs for us to long for Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, May 02, 2018
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it… —Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. “…he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue— he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
“Though it tarries, wait for it….” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, “What shall I render to the Lord…? I will take up the cup of salvation…” (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, “Now I’ve got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure.” Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on…” (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
God created man to be master of the life in the earth and sea and sky, and the reason he is not is because he took the law into his own hands, and became master of himself, but of nothing else. The Shadow of an Agony, 1163 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, May 02, 2018
The Happiest and Saddest Lists Of All - #8168
For the most part, Spring is a season we really look forward to. I mean, everything's blooming, colorful. Unfortunately, though, Spring isn't just flowers-it's floods! Some folks who live by rivers and streams, well they hold their breath a little each Spring. Every year we see vivid pictures of whole areas submerged under floodwaters, and we hear interviews with victims who have lost a lot of their possessions. But invariably, you will hear those victims say, "But we're thankful that at least all of us are safe." You know it's true. I mean, things can be replaced...people can't. It was back in the spring of 1997; it was Kentucky's turn to get hit by major flooding. On the news they showed a list on the wall-a list that was pretty moving to see. At the top were these words: "Missing people," then the names of loved ones who were missing in the flood. But some of those names had a beautiful five-letter word scrawled over them: "Found."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Happiest and Saddest Lists Of All."
God may have a list like that-with the names of those who are lost, who are away from Him-who do not have a personal relationship with Him. It could be that your name is on that list. But look closely. God has written that other word over some of the names: "Found." That could be you.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 15:17-20. It's probably the most famous parable Jesus told. It's about a son who asks his dad for his share of the inheritance early. His dad agrees, and the son leaves his father, lives self-indulgently, blows everything he has, ends up broke and feeding pigs to stay alive. Back home, I wonder if his father had his son's name up on the wall with those words: "Missing Person."
The Bible says, "When he came to his senses, he said, 'I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." That would have been the day that the father stamped "found" over the name of his lost son.
For somebody listening right now, that's what God the Father wants to do for you today. This could be your "welcome home" day after being away from your Heavenly Father. You say, "After what I've done?" You're thinking about some of the things you've done or said or thought maybe while you've been away from God. We've all got things that we're not proud of, we're ashamed of, and that make us feel like that wandering son felt, "I'm no longer worthy."
But being forgiven and welcomed by your Heavenly Father is not about your worthiness. None of us is worthy of God's love or God's heaven. No, it's about God's love, God's unconditional love, vividly displayed when Jesus, His Son, took all your sin and all your hell when He died on that cross. If you're ready to "get up and go to your Father", let there be no question what God will do. "He ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him."
You've been one of the Father's "missing persons" long enough, haven't you? He's waiting to welcome you home-home where the love is, where the security is that you've never found away from Him. Tell Him right now that you're pinning all your hopes on Jesus and His death on your behalf-that you're coming home.
If you're tired of being away, if you're tired of being lost, I want to invite you to come to our website. It's called ANewStory.com, and it literally is there and planned and written for you; designed to be there for you at the point where you're ready to come home to Jesus. I think it will help you get the rest of the way there.
It's a joyful thing to see a name that was a "missing person" changed to "found." This very moment, God is ready, God is waiting to put "found" over your name.
The secret to loving is living loved. It’s the forgotten first step in relationships. Remember Paul’s prayer? “May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love” (Ephesians 3:17 NLT).
Many people tell us to love. Only God gives us the power to do so. We know what God wants us to do. “This is what God commands. . .that we love each other.” (1 John 3:23). But how can we? How can we be kind to those who are unkind to us? How can we love as God loves? By being loved. By following the principle: receive first and love second. God loves you personally…powerfully…passionately! He loves you with an unfailing love. Others have promised and failed. But God has promised and succeeded!
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Mark 11:19-33
At evening, Jesus and his disciples left the city.
20-21 In the morning, walking along the road, they saw the fig tree, shriveled to a dry stick. Peter, remembering what had happened the previous day, said to him, “Rabbi, look—the fig tree you cursed is shriveled up!”
22-25 Jesus was matter-of-fact: “Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it, and nothing will be too much for you. This mountain, for instance: Just say, ‘Go jump in the lake’—no shuffling or shilly-shallying—and it’s as good as done. That’s why I urge you to pray for absolutely everything, ranging from small to large. Include everything as you embrace this God-life, and you’ll get God’s everything. And when you assume the posture of prayer, remember that it’s not all asking. If you have anything against someone, forgive—only then will your heavenly Father be inclined to also wipe your slate clean of sins.”
His Credentials
27-28 Then when they were back in Jerusalem once again, as they were walking through the Temple, the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders came up and demanded, “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?”
29-30 Jesus responded, “First let me ask you a question. Answer my question and then I’ll present my credentials. About the baptism of John—who authorized it: heaven or humans? Tell me.”
31-33 They were on the spot, and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, “If we say ‘heaven,’ he’ll ask us why we didn’t believe John; if we say ‘humans,’ we’ll be up against it with the people because they all hold John up as a prophet.” They decided to concede that round to Jesus. “We don’t know,” they said.
Jesus replied, “Then I won’t answer your question either.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, May 02, 2018
Read: 1 John 4:13–16
This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.
INSIGHT
Do you have a hard time relating to the love of God? Many of us think more with our heads than our hearts. John, a disciple of Jesus, is remembered as the apostle of love and referred to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23).
John wrote more on love than any New Testament writer. But he wasn’t always so inclined. The gospel writer Luke remembers the day John and his brother James wanted to see Jesus call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that had turned Jesus away (Luke 9:51–56). Jesus let the two brothers know that their lack of empathy didn’t reflect His heart. Yet Jesus probably wasn’t surprised. Early on, and maybe with a smile, He had affectionately called them “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17).
Yet John is the one who ends up being overwhelmed with the love of God and writes about the importance of loving others (1 John 3:16; 4:8, 16). What happened? Did he recognize the coldness of his own heart? Did he learn from Jesus that our ability to relate to the love of God may depend on our readiness to admit—and to be forgiven for—our lack of love? (John 3:16; Luke 7:37–50). - Mart DeHaan
Longing for God
By James Banks
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Psalm 84:2
One day my daughter was visiting with our one-year-old grandson. I was getting ready to leave the house on an errand, but as soon as I walked out of the room my grandson began to cry. It happened twice, and each time I went back and spent a moment with him. As I headed out the door the third time, his little lip began to quiver again. At that point my daughter said, “Dad, why don’t you just take him with you?”
Any grandparent could tell you what happened next. My grandson went along for the ride, just because I love him.
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How good it is to know that the longings of our hearts for God are also met with love. The Bible assures us that we can “know and rely on the love God has for us” (1 John 4:16). God doesn’t love us because of anything we have or haven’t done. His love isn’t based on our worthiness at all, but on His goodness and faithfulness. When the world around us is unloving and unkind, we can rely on God’s unchanging love as our source of hope and peace.
Our heavenly Father’s heart has gone out to us through the gift of His Son and His Spirit. How comforting is the assurance that God loves us with love that never ends!
Loving Lord, thank You for Your compassion for me, proven at the cross. Please help me to obey and love You today.
God longs for us to long for Him.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, May 02, 2018
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it… —Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. “…he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue— he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
“Though it tarries, wait for it….” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, “What shall I render to the Lord…? I will take up the cup of salvation…” (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, “Now I’ve got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure.” Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on…” (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
God created man to be master of the life in the earth and sea and sky, and the reason he is not is because he took the law into his own hands, and became master of himself, but of nothing else. The Shadow of an Agony, 1163 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, May 02, 2018
The Happiest and Saddest Lists Of All - #8168
For the most part, Spring is a season we really look forward to. I mean, everything's blooming, colorful. Unfortunately, though, Spring isn't just flowers-it's floods! Some folks who live by rivers and streams, well they hold their breath a little each Spring. Every year we see vivid pictures of whole areas submerged under floodwaters, and we hear interviews with victims who have lost a lot of their possessions. But invariably, you will hear those victims say, "But we're thankful that at least all of us are safe." You know it's true. I mean, things can be replaced...people can't. It was back in the spring of 1997; it was Kentucky's turn to get hit by major flooding. On the news they showed a list on the wall-a list that was pretty moving to see. At the top were these words: "Missing people," then the names of loved ones who were missing in the flood. But some of those names had a beautiful five-letter word scrawled over them: "Found."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Happiest and Saddest Lists Of All."
God may have a list like that-with the names of those who are lost, who are away from Him-who do not have a personal relationship with Him. It could be that your name is on that list. But look closely. God has written that other word over some of the names: "Found." That could be you.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Luke 15:17-20. It's probably the most famous parable Jesus told. It's about a son who asks his dad for his share of the inheritance early. His dad agrees, and the son leaves his father, lives self-indulgently, blows everything he has, ends up broke and feeding pigs to stay alive. Back home, I wonder if his father had his son's name up on the wall with those words: "Missing Person."
The Bible says, "When he came to his senses, he said, 'I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." That would have been the day that the father stamped "found" over the name of his lost son.
For somebody listening right now, that's what God the Father wants to do for you today. This could be your "welcome home" day after being away from your Heavenly Father. You say, "After what I've done?" You're thinking about some of the things you've done or said or thought maybe while you've been away from God. We've all got things that we're not proud of, we're ashamed of, and that make us feel like that wandering son felt, "I'm no longer worthy."
But being forgiven and welcomed by your Heavenly Father is not about your worthiness. None of us is worthy of God's love or God's heaven. No, it's about God's love, God's unconditional love, vividly displayed when Jesus, His Son, took all your sin and all your hell when He died on that cross. If you're ready to "get up and go to your Father", let there be no question what God will do. "He ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him."
You've been one of the Father's "missing persons" long enough, haven't you? He's waiting to welcome you home-home where the love is, where the security is that you've never found away from Him. Tell Him right now that you're pinning all your hopes on Jesus and His death on your behalf-that you're coming home.
If you're tired of being away, if you're tired of being lost, I want to invite you to come to our website. It's called ANewStory.com, and it literally is there and planned and written for you; designed to be there for you at the point where you're ready to come home to Jesus. I think it will help you get the rest of the way there.
It's a joyful thing to see a name that was a "missing person" changed to "found." This very moment, God is ready, God is waiting to put "found" over your name.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Mark 11:1-18 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S LOVE IS UNFAILING - May 1, 2018
God loves you. Personally. Powerfully. Passionately! God loves you with an unfailing love. And his love—if you let it—can fill you and leave you with a love worth giving!
Could it be that the first step of love is not toward them but toward him? Could it be that the secret to loving is receiving? You give love by first receiving it. “We love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NASB). Long to be more loving? Begin by accepting your place as a dearly loved child. “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us” (Ephesians 5:1-2 NIV).
We need help from an outside source. A transfusion. Would we love as God loves? Then we start by receiving God’s love.
Read more A Love Worth Giving
Mark 11:1-18
Entering Jerusalem on a Colt
11 1-3 When they were nearing Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany on Mount Olives, he sent off two of the disciples with instructions: “Go to the village across from you. As soon as you enter, you’ll find a colt tethered, one that has never yet been ridden. Untie it and bring it. If anyone asks, ‘What are you doing?’ say, ‘The Master needs him, and will return him right away.’”
4-7 They went and found a colt tied to a door at the street corner and untied it. Some of those standing there said, “What are you doing untying that colt?” The disciples replied exactly as Jesus had instructed them, and the people let them alone. They brought the colt to Jesus, spread their coats on it, and he mounted.
8-10 The people gave him a wonderful welcome, some throwing their coats on the street, others spreading out rushes they had cut in the fields. Running ahead and following after, they were calling out,
Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in God’s name!
Blessed the coming kingdom of our father David!
Hosanna in highest heaven!
11 He entered Jerusalem, then entered the Temple. He looked around, taking it all in. But by now it was late, so he went back to Bethany with the Twelve.
The Cursed Fig Tree
12-14 As they left Bethany the next day, he was hungry. Off in the distance he saw a fig tree in full leaf. He came up to it expecting to find something for breakfast, but found nothing but fig leaves. (It wasn’t yet the season for figs.) He addressed the tree: “No one is going to eat fruit from you again—ever!” And his disciples overheard him.
15-17 They arrived at Jerusalem. Immediately on entering the Temple Jesus started throwing out everyone who had set up shop there, buying and selling. He kicked over the tables of the bankers and the stalls of the pigeon merchants. He didn’t let anyone even carry a basket through the Temple. And then he taught them, quoting this text:
My house was designated a house of prayer for the nations;
You’ve turned it into a hangout for thieves.
18 The high priests and religion scholars heard what was going on and plotted how they might get rid of him. They panicked, for the entire crowd was carried away by his teaching.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, May 01, 2018
Read: Psalm 130:1–6
A song of ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord;
2 Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.
3 If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.
5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
6 I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
INSIGHT
In Psalm 130:5–6 the word wait(s) appears five times. In the Lord’s development of our personal faith, He often delays an answer to prayer to deepen our trust in Him. At times this can be perplexing. Asking for His intervention for a wayward child or for healing of a painful illness often carries a sense of urgency. We pray, “Lord, I need your help now!” But “waiting on the Lord” takes discipline and develops a perseverance in our faith that only steadfastness can yield. Abram waited years for Isaac, the child of promise, to finally be given to him. And this was through Sarah’s unlikely conception when she was advanced in years and beyond the age of childbearing. Yet God’s sovereign hand was orchestrating these events. Abram waited on God in prayer, and eventually God granted him offspring too numerous to count (Genesis 12; 16:10; 17:1–19).
What prayers are you waiting for God to answer? In what ways might your heavenly Father be developing your faith as you wait? - Dennis Fisher
Waiting in Anticipation
By Lisa Samra
I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Psalm 130:6
Every May Day (May 1) in Oxford, England, an early morning crowd gathers to welcome spring. At 6:00, the Magdalen College Choir sings from the top of Magdalen Tower. Thousands wait in anticipation for the dark night to be broken by song and the ringing of bells.
Like the revelers, I often wait. I wait for answers to prayers or guidance from the Lord. Although I don’t know the exact time my wait will end, I’m learning to wait expectantly. In Psalm 130 the psalmist writes of being in deep distress facing a situation that feels like the blackest of nights. In the midst of his troubles, he chooses to trust God and stay alert like a guard on duty charged with announcing daybreak. “I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning” (v. 6).
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The anticipation of God’s faithfulness breaking through the darkness gives the psalmist hope to endure even in the midst of his suffering. Based on the promises of God found throughout Scripture, that hope allows him to keep waiting even though he has not yet seen the first rays of light.
Be encouraged if you are in the middle of a dark night. The dawn is coming—either in this life or in heaven! In the meantime, don’t give up hope but keep watching for the deliverance of the Lord. He will be faithful.
Please bring light to my darkness. Open my eyes to see You at work and to trust You. I’m grateful that You are faithful, Father.
God can be trusted in the light and in the dark.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, May 01, 2018
Faith— Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight. —2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God’s concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, “I cannot do anything else until God appears to me”? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, “Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!” Never live for those exceptional moments— they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life— our work is our standard.
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
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, May 01, 2018
Back to Where It All Began - #8167
We were with our Native American team to Alaska, and I probably ate more salmon and learned more about salmon than I had all the rest of my life. We were in the Kodiak area one day, and our host took us to this neat little swimming area with a charming little waterfall. And I watched this salmon trying to jump up the waterfall to the stream above it. And he made it! I thought, "Man, that's the gutsiest fish I've ever seen!" Our host explained to us that the salmon was actually heading home - back to where he came from originally. Apparently, after a salmon is spawned, he heads downstream and ultimately out to sea where he spends a lot of his life. But eventually he seems to hear the call to go back to where he came from, even though it means a rugged upstream swim. Something summons him to fight his way back to where he began.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Back to Where It All Began."
I believe that the same Creator who summons salmon back to where they began does the same thing in His children. In fact, He may be issuing that call in your heart lately. It's something Jesus had in mind for His first followers as He prepared them for His return to heaven.
You find it in our word for today from the Word of God, Matthew 28:10. Jesus has just won His awesome victory over death and now He meets the devoted women who came to the tomb that first Easter. As the women fall down in worship and amazement at their risen Savior, He says, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell My brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see Me." Jesus' message for His disciples: go back to Galilee. Verse 16 tells us their response. "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go." And there those original followers of our Lord received their Great Commission to take His message to a dying world.
When Jesus sent that "meet Me in Galilee" message, they were in Jerusalem. That's some 90 miles from Galilee. So why Galilee? Well, that's where they had first met Jesus, where they were called into His service, where they first experienced His love, His power, and His miracles. So Jesus is actually summoning them back to where it all began so they can experience Him as they've never experienced Him before.
Jesus is still calling His followers back to their Galilee. Like a salmon returning to where his life began, maybe it's time for you to get back to where your life in Christ began - that first love, that first passion, that first excitement. Since those early days in your relationship with Jesus, you've covered a lot of miles, maybe even swum in the big ocean out there. But what was once so warm; maybe it's become cool. What was once so simple has become so complicated with layers of activity and even theology. There was once a time when you had a lot of Christ, but not much Christianity. Maybe now you've got a lot of Christianity, but not a lot of Christ.
So, after all the experiences and knowledge and scars you've accumulated in that big ocean out there, Jesus is summoning you back to the simplicity of where you started. Because then it was all about Jesus; it was all about a relationship. So, you just talked openly with Jesus in simple, childlike faith that He'd meet your needs, He'd heal your hurts, and He'd move your mountains. He wants you back there again.
At the source, you were hungry to be with Him by being in His Word. You just naturally wanted the people around you to know this One who had brought you the greatest love in your life. You were eager to do anything for Him because you were responding to that love. Jesus wants you to have that again - to have that passionate "first love" relationship that is, no matter how many miles you've journeyed, what this whole Jesus-thing is all about. But that simplicity is easy to lose.
So listen to that pull in your heart right now, that homing instinct from your Creator. He is summoning you back to where you began. Even if you have to swim upstream to get there, it's the only place that your heart can really call home.
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