Max Lucado Daily: DO YOU CHOOSE INHERITANCE OR CIRCUMSTANCES?
One of the most famous stories in the Bible has to do with inheritance. The Hebrews had just been delivered from Egyptian captivity. God led them and Moses to the edge of the promised land and made this offer: “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders” (Numbers 13:1-2).
God didn’t tell the Israelites to conquer, invade, or secure the land. No, He told them he was giving it to them. Their choice was clear– promises or circumstances? The circumstances said, “No way…stay out….there are giants in the land!” God’s promise said, “The land is yours. The victory is yours…take it.”
Circumstances say, cower to your fears. Your inheritance says otherwise: You are a child of the King. And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
Unshakable Hope
2 Chronicles 18
But even though Jehoshaphat was very rich and much honored, he made a marriage alliance with Ahab of Israel. Some time later he paid a visit to Ahab at Samaria. Ahab celebrated his visit with a feast—a huge barbecue with all the lamb and beef you could eat. But Ahab had a hidden agenda; he wanted Jehoshaphat’s support in attacking Ramoth Gilead. Then Ahab brought it into the open: “Will you join me in attacking Ramoth Gilead?” Jehoshaphat said, “You bet. I’m with you all the way; you can count on me and my troops.”
4 Then Jehoshaphat said, “But before you do anything, ask God for guidance.”
5 The king of Israel got the prophets together—all four hundred of them—and put the question to them: “Should I attack Ramoth Gilead or should I hold back?”
“Go for it,” they said. “God will hand it over to the king.”
6 But Jehoshaphat dragged his feet, “Is there another prophet of God around here we can consult? Let’s get a second opinion.”
7 The king of Israel told Jehoshaphat, “As a matter of fact, there is another. But I hate him. He never preaches anything good to me, only doom, doom, doom—Micaiah son of Imlah.”
“The king shouldn’t talk about a prophet like that!” said Jehoshaphat.
8 So the king of Israel ordered one of his men, “Quickly, get Micaiah son of Imlah.”
9-11 Meanwhile, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat were seated on their thrones, dressed in their royal robes, resplendent in front of the Samaria city gates. All the prophets were staging a prophecy-performance for their benefit. Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had even made a set of iron horns, and brandishing them, called out, “God’s word! With these horns you’ll gore Aram until there’s nothing left of them!” All the prophets chimed in, “Yes! Go for Ramoth Gilead! An easy victory! God’s gift to the king!”
12 The messenger who went to get Micaiah told him, “The prophets have all said Yes to the king. Make it unanimous—vote Yes!”
13 But Micaiah said, “As sure as God lives, what God says, I’ll say.”
14 With Micaiah before him, the king asked him, “So, Micaiah—do we attack Ramoth Gilead? Or do we hold back?”
“Go ahead,” he said, “an easy victory! God’s gift to the king.”
15 “Not so fast,” said the king. “How many times have I made you promise under oath to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth?”
16 “All right,” said Micaiah, “since you insist . . .
I saw all of Israel scattered over the hills,
sheep with no shepherd.
Then God spoke, ‘These poor people
have no one to tell them what to do.
Let them go home and do
the best they can for themselves.’”
17 The king of Israel turned to Jehoshaphat, “See! What did I tell you? He never has a good word for me from God, only doom.”
18-21 Micaiah kept on, “I’m not done yet; listen to God’s word:
I saw God enthroned,
and all the Angel Armies of heaven
standing at attention,
ranged on his right and his left.
And God said, “How can we seduce Ahab
into attacking Ramoth Gilead?”
Some said this,
and some said that.
Then a bold angel stepped out,
stood before God, and said,
“I’ll seduce him.”
“And how will you do it?” said God.
“Easy,” said the angel,
“I’ll get all the prophets to lie.”
“That should do it,” said God;
“On your way—seduce him!”
22 “And that’s what has happened. God filled the mouths of your puppet prophets with seductive lies. God has pronounced your doom.”
23 Just then Zedekiah son of Kenaanah came up and slapped Micaiah in the face, saying, “Since when did the Spirit of God leave me and take up with you?”
24 Micaiah said, “You’ll know soon enough; you’ll know it when you’re frantically and futilely looking for a place to hide.”
25-26 The king of Israel had heard enough: “Get Micaiah out of here! Turn him over to Amon the city magistrate and to Joash the king’s son with this message: ‘King’s orders! Lock him up in jail; keep him on bread and water until I’m back in one piece.’”
27 Micaiah said,
If you ever get back in one piece,
I’m no prophet of God.
He added,
When it happens, O people,
remember where you heard it!
28-29 So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat king of Judah went ahead and attacked Ramoth Gilead. The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “Wear my kingly robe; I’m going into battle disguised.” So the king of Israel entered the battle in disguise.
30 Meanwhile, the king of Aram had ordered his chariot commanders (there were thirty-two of them), “Don’t bother with anyone whether small or great; go after the king of Israel and him only.”
31-32 When the chariot commanders saw Jehoshaphat, they said, “There he is! The king of Israel!” and took after him. Jehoshaphat yelled out, and the chariot commanders realized they had the wrong man—it wasn’t the king of Israel after all. God intervened and they let him go.
33 Just then someone, without aiming, shot an arrow into the crowd and hit the king of Israel in the chink of his armor. The king told his charioteer, “Turn back! Get me out of here—I’m wounded.”
34 All day the fighting continued, hot and heavy. Propped up in his chariot, the king watched from the sidelines. He died that evening.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 21, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 3:14–21
A Prayer for the Ephesians
14 For this reason I kneeld before the Father, 15 from whom every familya in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious richese he may strengthen you with powerf through his Spirit in your inner being,g 17 so that Christ may dwell in your heartsh through faith. And I pray that you, being rootedi and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people,j to grasp how wide and long and high and deepk is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledgel—that you may be filledm to the measure of all the fullness of God.n
20 Now to him who is ableo to do immeasurably more than all we askp or imagine, according to his powerq that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.r
Insight
Because Paul led the Ephesian believers to faith (Acts 19:1–10), he considers them his spiritual children and is unwaveringly committed to pray fervently for their spiritual growth (see Philippians 1:3–6; 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12). Ephesians 3:14–21 is one of the few recorded prayers of Paul in the New Testament (see also Philippians 1:9–11; Colossians 1:9–12), and is the second of two prayers in Ephesians (also Ephesians 1:15–23). In these prayers, Paul doesn’t pray for their material well-being but focuses on their spiritual development and maturity.
In the first prayer, which emphasizes knowledge, Paul prays they’ll have “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” so that they may “know the hope to which [God] has called [them]” (1:17–18). In his second prayer (3:14–21), he focuses on love and prays that having been “rooted and established in love” they’ll “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (vv. 17–18).
A Place of Belonging
So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Ephesians 3:17
Some years after the tragic loss of their first spouses, Robbie and Sabrina fell in love, married, and combined their two families. They built a new home and named it Havilah (a Hebrew word meaning “writhing in pain” and “to bring forth”). It signifies the making of something beautiful through pain. The couple says they didn’t build the home to forget their past but “to bring life from the ashes, to celebrate hope.” For them, “it is a place of belonging, a place to celebrate life and where we all cling to the promise of a future.”
That’s a beautiful picture of our life in Jesus. He pulls our lives from the ashes and becomes for us a place of belonging. When we receive Him, He makes His home in our hearts (Ephesians 3:17). God adopts us into His family through Jesus so that we belong to Him (1:5–6). Although we’ll go through painful times, He can use even those to bring good purposes in our lives.
Daily we have opportunity to grow in our understanding of God as we enjoy His love and celebrate what He’s given us. In Him, there’s a fullness to life that we couldn’t have without Him (3:19). And we have the promise that this relationship will last forever. Jesus is our place of belonging, our reason to celebrate life, and our hope now and forever. By: Anne Cetas
Reflect & Pray
In what ways has Jesus changed your life? What does it mean for you to belong to Jesus?
I’m grateful that I belong to You, Jesus. Thank You for a life of hope for now and forever.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 21, 2020
Do You Really Love Him?
She has done a good work for Me. —Mark 14:6
If what we call love doesn’t take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love. If we have the idea that love is characterized as cautious, wise, sensible, shrewd, and never taken to extremes, we have missed the true meaning. This may describe affection and it may bring us a warm feeling, but it is not a true and accurate description of love.
Have you ever been driven to do something for God not because you felt that it was useful or your duty to do so, or that there was anything in it for you, but simply because you love Him? Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I’m not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things— things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him. Have you ever created what Mary of Bethany created in the heart of the Lord Jesus? “She has done a good work for Me.”
There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God. “…but perfect love casts out fear…” once we are surrendered to God (1 John 4:18). We should quit asking ourselves, “Am I of any use?” and accept the truth that we really are not of much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work through us all the time.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance. Notes on Isaiah, 1376 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 21, 2020
Genealogies, Graveyards, and Grandkids - #8640
There's been a run on graveyards these past years. Not because more people are dying, but because more people are connecting the dots in their family tree. There were some TV programs that show famous people pursuing the story of their family's past, and those have fueled an explosion of interest in genealogy research. Just ask the librarians who are welcoming visitors from all over to their newly-enhanced genealogy resources.
How do I know? Oh, my wife and I were in some of those libraries, courthouses and graveyards. Not because of a recent fad, but because of a longtime interest in the roots and the heritage of our family. Apparently, God has some interest in it. Just look at all those genealogy lists in the Bible! Apparently, it matters where you come from.
I've been blessed to discover faith in my family tree. Not in every branch, but at the root. Recently, I held in my hand the 240-year-old will of the first Hutchcraft in America. I've got to confess my eyes filled with tears when I read what he wrote about where he had placed his hopes for eternity. Old Thomas said, "in the pardon for my sin through the merits of my Blessed Savior Jesus Christ." It looks like great-great-great-great-great-great Granddad and I are going to be spending some time together in Heaven.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Genealogies, Graveyards and Grandkids."
Lights have gone on in my soul as I've stood back from the daily drama of my life and I've looked at the bigger panorama that's represented by my family tree. And I've seen that God is working on something so much bigger than the limited landscape I can see from where I stand. And some things that have loomed too large suddenly look smaller against that huge divine tapestry.
I see the exciting prospect of how a seed of faith planted in one generation can blossom for generations I'll never see - or imagine. Apparently, that seed in our family may have gone dormant at some points, but has always germinated again. As it did on the day my daddy found Jesus. When I did. When my children did. When my grandchildren did - or will.
These centuries of God-sightings were what the psalmist envisioned when he said: "Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord" (Psalm 102:18). I was that "people not yet created" when my six-great grandfather wrote about his blessed Savior. I'm thinking, "What more could I be doing to actively sow Jesus in the hearts of my children and my grandchildren?" And even if it's hard to find love for Jesus in your family history, isn't it amazing to think that you can plant His seed in your generation - and help change your family forever, for generations?
Learning about those who've gone before me has made me start asking, "Could it be that I am living the answers to the prayers of those who came before me?" And could it be that my grandchildren, who I love more than I can say, are - and will be - living the answers to my prayers if I rise to the challenge to faithfully intercede for them in the Throne Room of the God who is faithful to all generations?
I've also found myself adoring my God as the One who has been "our dwelling place throughout all generations" (Psalm 90:1). He is the glue, the continuity, the Sovereign Lord who is, in these seemingly "random" events of my life, putting together something beyond my imagination. Infusing my everyday with ete
rnity.
One day I was about to spend some time climbing the family tree, my Bible study time led me to this amazing affirmation. It's our word for today from the Word of God in Isaiah 41:4, "Who has done this and carried through, calling forth the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord - with the first of them and with the last - I am He." Wow!
"O, Lord, help me to play my position in a way that will bless You and those generations yet to come. And may those who come behind me find me faithful."
Friday, February 21, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
2 Chronicles 17, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: LIVE ADVENTUROUSLY EXPECTANT
As a child of God, this resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike, ‘What’s next, Papa?’ God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get an unbelievable inheritance!” (Romans 8:15-17 MSG).
God says, “Hey, Lucado. You are an heir to the joy of Christ. Why not ask Jesus to help you?” “And you, Mr. Without-a-Clue, aren’t you an heir to God’s storehouse of wisdom? “Mrs. Worrywart, why do you let fears steal your sleep? Are you not a beneficiary of God’s trust fund?”
Approach God’s throne not as an interloper but as a child of the living and loving God. Because His promises are unbreakable, our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 17
Asa’s son Jehoshaphat was the next king; he started out by working on his defense system against Israel. He put troops in all the fortress cities of Judah and deployed garrisons throughout Judah and in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured. God was on Jehoshaphat’s side because he stuck to the ways of his father Asa’s early years. He didn’t fool around with the popular Baal religion—he was a seeker and follower of the God of his father and was obedient to him; he wasn’t like Israel. And God secured the kingdom under his rule, gave him a firm grip on it. And everyone in Judah showed their appreciation by bringing gifts. Jehoshaphat ended up very rich and much honored. He was single-minded in following God; and he got rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines.
7-9 In the third year of his reign he sent his officials—excellent men, every one of them—Ben-Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah on a teaching mission to the cities of Judah. They were accompanied by Levites—Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah, and Tob-Adonijah; the priests Elishama and Jehoram were also in the company. They made a circuit of the towns of Judah, teaching the people and using the Book of The Revelation of God as their text.
10-12 There was a strong sense of the fear of God in all the kingdoms around Judah—they didn’t dare go to war against Jehoshaphat. Some Philistines even brought gifts and a load of silver to Jehoshaphat, and the desert bedouin brought flocks—7,700 rams and 7,700 goats. So Jehoshaphat became stronger by the day, and constructed more and more forts and store-cities—an age of prosperity for Judah!
13-19 He also had excellent fighting men stationed in Jerusalem. The captains of the military units of Judah, classified according to families, were: Captain Adnah with 300,000 soldiers; his associate Captain Jehohanan with 280,000; his associate Amasiah son of Zicri, a volunteer for God, with 200,000. Officer Eliada represented Benjamin with 200,000 fully equipped with bow and shield; and his associate was Jehozabad with 180,000 armed and ready for battle. These were under the direct command of the king; in addition there were the troops assigned to the fortress cities spread all over Judah.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Genesis 41:46–52
Joseph was thirty years olds when he entered the servicet of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from Pharaoh’s presence and traveled throughout Egypt. 47 During the seven years of abundanceu the land produced plentifully. 48 Joseph collected all the food produced in those seven years of abundance in Egypt and stored it in the cities.v In each city he put the food grown in the fields surrounding it. 49 Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea;w it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure.
50 Before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On.x 51 Joseph named his firstborny Manassehe z and said, “It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” 52 The second son he named Ephraimf a and said, “It is because God has made me fruitfulb in the land of my suffering.”
Insight
Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers at age seventeen (Genesis 37:2, 27–28) and was later imprisoned after being wrongly accused of trying to sleep with his master’s wife (39:1–20). Thirteen years passed from when he first became a slave to when he entered Pharaoh’s service (41:46). God was with Joseph when he was a slave (39:2–6) and while he was in prison (vv. 20–23), and He later used him to prepare the land for famine. This allowed him to save his family, God’s people, from starvation and bring them to Egypt (see chs. 41–47). If Joseph hadn’t been sold into slavery, he wouldn't have been in a position to get his family to Egypt to survive the famine. If they’d died, then Jesus, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would not have come from that line. Ultimately, God used Joseph’s life to set His plan of redemption into motion. By: Julie Schwab
The Hardest Places
Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea. Genesis 41:49
Geoff is a youth pastor today in the same city where he once abused heroin. God transformed both his heart and his circumstances in a breathtaking way. “I want to keep kids from making the same mistakes and suffering the pain I went through,” Geoff said. “And Jesus will help them.” Over time, God set him free from the slavery of addiction and has given him a vital ministry in spite of his past.
God has ways of bringing unexpected good out of situations where hope seems lost. Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt and falsely accused and sent to prison, where he was forgotten for years. But God restored him and placed him in a position of authority directly under Pharaoh, where he was able to save many lives—including the lives of his brothers who’d abandoned him. There in Egypt Joseph married and had children. He named the second Ephraim (drawn from the Hebrew term for “twice fruitful”), and gave this reason: “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering” (Genesis 41:52).
Geoff’s and Joseph’s stories, while separated by three to four thousand years, point to the same unchanging truth: even the hardest places in our lives can become fertile ground for God to help and bless many. Our Savior’s love and power never change, and He’s always faithful to those who trust in Him. By: James Banks
Reflect & Pray
When have you seen God bring something good out of difficulty in your life? How can you use your past problems to encourage others today?
All-powerful Father, I praise You that nothing is too hard for You! Thank You for Your perfect faithfulness, today and forever.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here. —John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: “Don’t sit or stand there, just go!”
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, “Come aside by yourselves…” then that is meditation before Him to seek His will (Mark 6:31). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don’t sit and daydream about that person all the time— you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1459 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 20, 2020
The Fatal Flipside - #8639
Nutmeg was a beautiful young horse with this white blaze on her nose and what looked like white boots on her feet. Her owners learned that her grandmother had actually been a prize-winning jumper. Apparently, Nutmeg had her grandmother's blood; she just kept jumping every fence her owners ever used to try to restrain her. One day, trying to get out of another fence, she broke her leg. The veterinarian told the owners it was the worst break he had ever seen in a horse, and there was no way to save her. She was a horse with such great potential and a very sad ending.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Fatal Flipside."
That horse's great strength was her instinct and ability to jump, but it also ended up killing her. Her strength, uncontrolled, untamed, became her fatal weakness. Not unlike a lot of us. So often, our greatest weakness is the flipside of our greatest strength. Right? And untamed, uncontrolled, it will eventually bring us, and others, great injury and great pain.
Think about Samson, for example. He was Israel's conqueror, conquering every Philistine in sight. But he ended up conquering every woman he was attracted to, as well, until one named Delilah conquered him and brought him to destruction. It's really important that we look with brutal honesty at the downside of our strengths and confront the weaknesses that go with them before they do any more damage.
Hebrews 12:1-2, our word for today from the Word of God, and it says, "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus..." Identify, this says, what trips you up and what slows you down, and "throw it off." And don't be surprised if it's the other side of a strength you have.
You may be a strong, goal-oriented person with a lot of drive who, on the other hand, may drive right over people or cut corners with what's right to get to your goal. Maybe God has given you the ability to communicate well - you're a good talker, but sometimes those people can use that ability to deceive or to manipulate. Then there's the person who's very determined and hard to derail, but who may, on the other side, be stubborn and even disobedient when God's way differs from their way.
You may be known to those around you as a gentle, loving, encouraging person, and boy that's good. But because you don't want to hurt anyone and you like being liked, you won't confront people, you won't confront situations that need confronting, thus, setting the stage for some terrible explosions. Then there's the person who prides himself on always being honest about how they feel, not realizing or not caring how much their "honesty" is hurting people...crushing people. You can be a logical person. You're so logical you box out God's miracles, a disciplined person who is also rigid and inflexible, or a spontaneous person who is also lazy and undisciplined.
Thank God for the strengths that He has given you. But turn to God to help you see, and repent of, and conquer the fatal side of your strengths. Often, those weaknesses are the last ones for us to see and repent of. They're strongholds to the Lordship of Christ in our life.
This Biblical prayer, prayed often and with an open heart, can save you so much
grief: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way" (Psalm 139:23-24, NASB).
As a child of God, this resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike, ‘What’s next, Papa?’ God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get an unbelievable inheritance!” (Romans 8:15-17 MSG).
God says, “Hey, Lucado. You are an heir to the joy of Christ. Why not ask Jesus to help you?” “And you, Mr. Without-a-Clue, aren’t you an heir to God’s storehouse of wisdom? “Mrs. Worrywart, why do you let fears steal your sleep? Are you not a beneficiary of God’s trust fund?”
Approach God’s throne not as an interloper but as a child of the living and loving God. Because His promises are unbreakable, our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 17
Asa’s son Jehoshaphat was the next king; he started out by working on his defense system against Israel. He put troops in all the fortress cities of Judah and deployed garrisons throughout Judah and in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured. God was on Jehoshaphat’s side because he stuck to the ways of his father Asa’s early years. He didn’t fool around with the popular Baal religion—he was a seeker and follower of the God of his father and was obedient to him; he wasn’t like Israel. And God secured the kingdom under his rule, gave him a firm grip on it. And everyone in Judah showed their appreciation by bringing gifts. Jehoshaphat ended up very rich and much honored. He was single-minded in following God; and he got rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines.
7-9 In the third year of his reign he sent his officials—excellent men, every one of them—Ben-Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah on a teaching mission to the cities of Judah. They were accompanied by Levites—Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah, and Tob-Adonijah; the priests Elishama and Jehoram were also in the company. They made a circuit of the towns of Judah, teaching the people and using the Book of The Revelation of God as their text.
10-12 There was a strong sense of the fear of God in all the kingdoms around Judah—they didn’t dare go to war against Jehoshaphat. Some Philistines even brought gifts and a load of silver to Jehoshaphat, and the desert bedouin brought flocks—7,700 rams and 7,700 goats. So Jehoshaphat became stronger by the day, and constructed more and more forts and store-cities—an age of prosperity for Judah!
13-19 He also had excellent fighting men stationed in Jerusalem. The captains of the military units of Judah, classified according to families, were: Captain Adnah with 300,000 soldiers; his associate Captain Jehohanan with 280,000; his associate Amasiah son of Zicri, a volunteer for God, with 200,000. Officer Eliada represented Benjamin with 200,000 fully equipped with bow and shield; and his associate was Jehozabad with 180,000 armed and ready for battle. These were under the direct command of the king; in addition there were the troops assigned to the fortress cities spread all over Judah.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Genesis 41:46–52
Joseph was thirty years olds when he entered the servicet of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from Pharaoh’s presence and traveled throughout Egypt. 47 During the seven years of abundanceu the land produced plentifully. 48 Joseph collected all the food produced in those seven years of abundance in Egypt and stored it in the cities.v In each city he put the food grown in the fields surrounding it. 49 Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea;w it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure.
50 Before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On.x 51 Joseph named his firstborny Manassehe z and said, “It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” 52 The second son he named Ephraimf a and said, “It is because God has made me fruitfulb in the land of my suffering.”
Insight
Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers at age seventeen (Genesis 37:2, 27–28) and was later imprisoned after being wrongly accused of trying to sleep with his master’s wife (39:1–20). Thirteen years passed from when he first became a slave to when he entered Pharaoh’s service (41:46). God was with Joseph when he was a slave (39:2–6) and while he was in prison (vv. 20–23), and He later used him to prepare the land for famine. This allowed him to save his family, God’s people, from starvation and bring them to Egypt (see chs. 41–47). If Joseph hadn’t been sold into slavery, he wouldn't have been in a position to get his family to Egypt to survive the famine. If they’d died, then Jesus, a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would not have come from that line. Ultimately, God used Joseph’s life to set His plan of redemption into motion. By: Julie Schwab
The Hardest Places
Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea. Genesis 41:49
Geoff is a youth pastor today in the same city where he once abused heroin. God transformed both his heart and his circumstances in a breathtaking way. “I want to keep kids from making the same mistakes and suffering the pain I went through,” Geoff said. “And Jesus will help them.” Over time, God set him free from the slavery of addiction and has given him a vital ministry in spite of his past.
God has ways of bringing unexpected good out of situations where hope seems lost. Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt and falsely accused and sent to prison, where he was forgotten for years. But God restored him and placed him in a position of authority directly under Pharaoh, where he was able to save many lives—including the lives of his brothers who’d abandoned him. There in Egypt Joseph married and had children. He named the second Ephraim (drawn from the Hebrew term for “twice fruitful”), and gave this reason: “It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering” (Genesis 41:52).
Geoff’s and Joseph’s stories, while separated by three to four thousand years, point to the same unchanging truth: even the hardest places in our lives can become fertile ground for God to help and bless many. Our Savior’s love and power never change, and He’s always faithful to those who trust in Him. By: James Banks
Reflect & Pray
When have you seen God bring something good out of difficulty in your life? How can you use your past problems to encourage others today?
All-powerful Father, I praise You that nothing is too hard for You! Thank You for Your perfect faithfulness, today and forever.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Daydreaming
Arise, let us go from here. —John 14:31
Daydreaming about something in order to do it properly is right, but daydreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. In this passage, after having said these wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected our Lord to tell them to go away and meditate over them all. But Jesus never allowed idle daydreaming. When our purpose is to seek God and to discover His will for us, daydreaming is right and acceptable. But when our inclination is to spend time daydreaming over what we have already been told to do, it is unacceptable and God’s blessing is never on it. God will take the initiative against this kind of daydreaming by prodding us to action. His instructions to us will be along the lines of this: “Don’t sit or stand there, just go!”
If we are quietly waiting before God after He has said to us, “Come aside by yourselves…” then that is meditation before Him to seek His will (Mark 6:31). Beware, however, of giving in to mere daydreaming once God has spoken. Allow Him to be the source of all your dreams, joys, and delights, and be careful to go and obey what He has said. If you are in love with someone, you don’t sit and daydream about that person all the time— you go and do something for him. That is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Daydreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1459 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 20, 2020
The Fatal Flipside - #8639
Nutmeg was a beautiful young horse with this white blaze on her nose and what looked like white boots on her feet. Her owners learned that her grandmother had actually been a prize-winning jumper. Apparently, Nutmeg had her grandmother's blood; she just kept jumping every fence her owners ever used to try to restrain her. One day, trying to get out of another fence, she broke her leg. The veterinarian told the owners it was the worst break he had ever seen in a horse, and there was no way to save her. She was a horse with such great potential and a very sad ending.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Fatal Flipside."
That horse's great strength was her instinct and ability to jump, but it also ended up killing her. Her strength, uncontrolled, untamed, became her fatal weakness. Not unlike a lot of us. So often, our greatest weakness is the flipside of our greatest strength. Right? And untamed, uncontrolled, it will eventually bring us, and others, great injury and great pain.
Think about Samson, for example. He was Israel's conqueror, conquering every Philistine in sight. But he ended up conquering every woman he was attracted to, as well, until one named Delilah conquered him and brought him to destruction. It's really important that we look with brutal honesty at the downside of our strengths and confront the weaknesses that go with them before they do any more damage.
Hebrews 12:1-2, our word for today from the Word of God, and it says, "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus..." Identify, this says, what trips you up and what slows you down, and "throw it off." And don't be surprised if it's the other side of a strength you have.
You may be a strong, goal-oriented person with a lot of drive who, on the other hand, may drive right over people or cut corners with what's right to get to your goal. Maybe God has given you the ability to communicate well - you're a good talker, but sometimes those people can use that ability to deceive or to manipulate. Then there's the person who's very determined and hard to derail, but who may, on the other side, be stubborn and even disobedient when God's way differs from their way.
You may be known to those around you as a gentle, loving, encouraging person, and boy that's good. But because you don't want to hurt anyone and you like being liked, you won't confront people, you won't confront situations that need confronting, thus, setting the stage for some terrible explosions. Then there's the person who prides himself on always being honest about how they feel, not realizing or not caring how much their "honesty" is hurting people...crushing people. You can be a logical person. You're so logical you box out God's miracles, a disciplined person who is also rigid and inflexible, or a spontaneous person who is also lazy and undisciplined.
Thank God for the strengths that He has given you. But turn to God to help you see, and repent of, and conquer the fatal side of your strengths. Often, those weaknesses are the last ones for us to see and repent of. They're strongholds to the Lordship of Christ in our life.
This Biblical prayer, prayed often and with an open heart, can save you so much
grief: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way" (Psalm 139:23-24, NASB).
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
2 Corinthians 5 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: HEIRS OF GOD AND CO-HEIRS WITH CHRIST
After spending the better part of an hour reciting the woes of my life to my wife, Denalyn interrupted me with a question. “Is God in this anywhere?” I hate it when she does that. What had happened to me? I was focusing on my resources. I wasn’t consulting God. I’d limited my world to my strength, my wisdom, and my power. No wonder I was in a tailspin! For such moments God gives this promise: “We are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).
The cronies of dismay, gloom and rejection have no answer for the promise of inheritance. Tell them, the gauge may be bouncing on empty, but I will not run out of fuel. I’m a child of the living and loving God, and he will help me!” And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Corinthians 5
For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.
6-8 That’s why we live with such good cheer. You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don’t get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.
9-10 But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that’s what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions. Sooner or later we’ll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. We will appear before Christ and take what’s coming to us as a result of our actions, either good or bad.
11-14 That keeps us vigilant, you can be sure. It’s no light thing to know that we’ll all one day stand in that place of Judgment. That’s why we work urgently with everyone we meet to get them ready to face God. God alone knows how well we do this, but I hope you realize how much and deeply we care. We’re not saying this to make ourselves look good to you. We just thought it would make you feel good, proud even, that we’re on your side and not just nice to your face as so many people are. If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.
14-15 Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.
16-20 Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.
21 How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
2 Kings 6:8–17
Elisha Traps Blinded Arameans
8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”
9 The man of God sent word to the kingn of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” 10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warnedo the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.
11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”
12 “None of us, my lord the kingp,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”
13 “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.”q 14 Then he sentr horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.
15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.
16 “Don’t be afraid,”s the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are moret than those who are with them.”
17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariotsu of fire all around Elisha.
Insight
Although the two Old Testament prophets Elijah (whose name means “Yahweh is God”) and Elisha (whose name means “God is salvation”) had similar names and missions—to serve God and the people of Israel—they are two different people. Their prophetic exploits are found in 1 Kings 17 through 2 Kings 13. Elijah departed this earth dramatically—caught up in a whirlwind into heaven (2 Kings 2:11); Elisha succumbed to sickness and died (13:14). By: Arthur Jackson
The Reality of God
The Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he [saw] chariots of fire all around Elisha. 2 Kings 6:17
In C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, all of Narnia is thrilled when the mighty lion Aslan reappears after a long absence. Their joy turns to sorrow, however, when Aslan concedes to a demand made by the evil White Witch. Faced with Aslan’s apparent defeat, the Narnians experience his power when he emits an earsplitting roar that causes the witch to flee in terror. Although all seems to have been lost, Aslan ultimately proves to be greater than the villainous witch.
Like Aslan’s followers in Lewis’ allegory, Elisha’s servant despaired when he got up one morning to see himself and Elisha surrounded by an enemy army. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” he exclaimed (2 Kings 6:15). The prophet’s response was calm: “Don’t be afraid . . . . Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (v. 16). Elisha then prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see” (v. 17). So, “the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (v. 17). Although things at first seemed bleak to the servant’s eye, God’s power ultimately proved greater than the enemy horde.
Our difficult circumstances may lead us to believe all is lost, but God desires to open our eyes and reveal that He is greater. By: Remi Oyedele
Reflect & Pray
What difficult times are you facing? How have you experienced that God is greater than any evil you face?
Thank You, God, for Your faithfulness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine… —Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us— He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue— a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery— washing fishermen’s feet. He then says to them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer’s body has become “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves. The Place of Help, 1051 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In - #8637
Americans kind of are trial junkies. I mean, there's like whole TV channels, you know, devoted to watching trials. Many of us are fascinated with high-profile trials that will sometimes headline our news. Legal proceedings seem to grind on for months, if not years, and then there are weeks of hotly contested testimony. Then suddenly it's in the hands of the jury. I've certainly checked the news to see if the verdict was in on some prominent trials. Then, after all those months, it's suddenly over. In a moment, the verdict is in. When the verdict is guilty, there is one more decision to be announced - the penalty. In some terrible cases, the penalty has been death.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In."
There's one verdict, and one sentence we don't have to wait for - yours and mine. The verdict and the penalty are already in. Not from a jury, but from the Judge. The Judge we all face - God Himself. Deep down inside, I think we know that on the other side of our last heartbeat, which God decides by the way, we'll face our Creator. The Bible gives us a sobering warning about that. It says, "Prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12). And the Bible tells you how to do that.
But first you have to understand the verdict and the sentence we all face; church folks and unchurched folks, nice folks and nasty folks, rich and poor, folks from every religion. In God's own words, "we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). In other words, no one is good enough to measure up to God's holiness. No one's good enough to go to heaven. So the verdict is in - guilty; guilty of breaking the laws of God, guilty of defying God by running a life that He was supposed to run.
The penalty is in, too. God wastes no words. He leaves no loopholes when He announces in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." Spiritually speaking, every one of us deserves to be on Death Row. The death the Bible talks about is not something about your body. It's about your soul. It's about being separated from God throughout your life on earth and then horribly separated from Him forever, because He's a holy God and I'm anything but holy.
You already know what living away from Him on earth is like. You're missing the love that you were made for, you've got a soul that's always restless and never satisfied, a life that may be full but it's not fulfilling, and there's incurable emptiness deep down inside. But eternity without Him, well that's so much worse. It is, in fact, hell.
But John 3:16-18, our word for today from the Word of God, reveal the greatest news you could ever hear. You ready? "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Why? Because Jesus did all the dying for all the sinning you and I have ever done! Then the Bible says that you and I are in one of two groups: "Whoever believes in Jesus," the Bible says, "is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
There it is: condemned or pardoned, guilty or forgiven, heaven or hell. You choose by whether or not you pin all your hopes on Jesus as the only One who can save you, because He's the only One who died to save you from God's death penalty.
If you've never given yourself to Him, please, would you do it today. Don't wait to accept God's pardon. Some people have waited too long. Every day you put this off, you risk going into eternity unforgiven and lost. Let this be the day you tell
Jesus, "I'm pinning all my hopes on what You did when You died for my sins and walked out of your grave under your own power."
And if you'll get to our website, you will have there right in front of you the steps to beginning this relationship with God. It's ANewStory.com. This could be the day your hell is cancelled and your heaven is guaranteed.
After spending the better part of an hour reciting the woes of my life to my wife, Denalyn interrupted me with a question. “Is God in this anywhere?” I hate it when she does that. What had happened to me? I was focusing on my resources. I wasn’t consulting God. I’d limited my world to my strength, my wisdom, and my power. No wonder I was in a tailspin! For such moments God gives this promise: “We are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17).
The cronies of dismay, gloom and rejection have no answer for the promise of inheritance. Tell them, the gauge may be bouncing on empty, but I will not run out of fuel. I’m a child of the living and loving God, and he will help me!” And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Corinthians 5
For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we’ll never have to relocate our “tents” again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what’s ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we’ll never settle for less.
6-8 That’s why we live with such good cheer. You won’t see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don’t get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It’s what we trust in but don’t yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we’ll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.
9-10 But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that’s what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions. Sooner or later we’ll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. We will appear before Christ and take what’s coming to us as a result of our actions, either good or bad.
11-14 That keeps us vigilant, you can be sure. It’s no light thing to know that we’ll all one day stand in that place of Judgment. That’s why we work urgently with everyone we meet to get them ready to face God. God alone knows how well we do this, but I hope you realize how much and deeply we care. We’re not saying this to make ourselves look good to you. We just thought it would make you feel good, proud even, that we’re on your side and not just nice to your face as so many people are. If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.
14-15 Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.
16-20 Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.
21 How? you ask. In Christ. God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
2 Kings 6:8–17
Elisha Traps Blinded Arameans
8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”
9 The man of God sent word to the kingn of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” 10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warnedo the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.
11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”
12 “None of us, my lord the kingp,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”
13 “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.”q 14 Then he sentr horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.
15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.
16 “Don’t be afraid,”s the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are moret than those who are with them.”
17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariotsu of fire all around Elisha.
Insight
Although the two Old Testament prophets Elijah (whose name means “Yahweh is God”) and Elisha (whose name means “God is salvation”) had similar names and missions—to serve God and the people of Israel—they are two different people. Their prophetic exploits are found in 1 Kings 17 through 2 Kings 13. Elijah departed this earth dramatically—caught up in a whirlwind into heaven (2 Kings 2:11); Elisha succumbed to sickness and died (13:14). By: Arthur Jackson
The Reality of God
The Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he [saw] chariots of fire all around Elisha. 2 Kings 6:17
In C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, all of Narnia is thrilled when the mighty lion Aslan reappears after a long absence. Their joy turns to sorrow, however, when Aslan concedes to a demand made by the evil White Witch. Faced with Aslan’s apparent defeat, the Narnians experience his power when he emits an earsplitting roar that causes the witch to flee in terror. Although all seems to have been lost, Aslan ultimately proves to be greater than the villainous witch.
Like Aslan’s followers in Lewis’ allegory, Elisha’s servant despaired when he got up one morning to see himself and Elisha surrounded by an enemy army. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” he exclaimed (2 Kings 6:15). The prophet’s response was calm: “Don’t be afraid . . . . Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (v. 16). Elisha then prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see” (v. 17). So, “the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (v. 17). Although things at first seemed bleak to the servant’s eye, God’s power ultimately proved greater than the enemy horde.
Our difficult circumstances may lead us to believe all is lost, but God desires to open our eyes and reveal that He is greater. By: Remi Oyedele
Reflect & Pray
What difficult times are you facing? How have you experienced that God is greater than any evil you face?
Thank You, God, for Your faithfulness.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Drudgery
Arise, shine… —Isaiah 60:1
When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us— He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue— a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.
Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery— washing fishermen’s feet. He then says to them, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believer’s body has become “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves. The Place of Help, 1051 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, February 19, 2020
The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In - #8637
Americans kind of are trial junkies. I mean, there's like whole TV channels, you know, devoted to watching trials. Many of us are fascinated with high-profile trials that will sometimes headline our news. Legal proceedings seem to grind on for months, if not years, and then there are weeks of hotly contested testimony. Then suddenly it's in the hands of the jury. I've certainly checked the news to see if the verdict was in on some prominent trials. Then, after all those months, it's suddenly over. In a moment, the verdict is in. When the verdict is guilty, there is one more decision to be announced - the penalty. In some terrible cases, the penalty has been death.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In."
There's one verdict, and one sentence we don't have to wait for - yours and mine. The verdict and the penalty are already in. Not from a jury, but from the Judge. The Judge we all face - God Himself. Deep down inside, I think we know that on the other side of our last heartbeat, which God decides by the way, we'll face our Creator. The Bible gives us a sobering warning about that. It says, "Prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12). And the Bible tells you how to do that.
But first you have to understand the verdict and the sentence we all face; church folks and unchurched folks, nice folks and nasty folks, rich and poor, folks from every religion. In God's own words, "we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). In other words, no one is good enough to measure up to God's holiness. No one's good enough to go to heaven. So the verdict is in - guilty; guilty of breaking the laws of God, guilty of defying God by running a life that He was supposed to run.
The penalty is in, too. God wastes no words. He leaves no loopholes when He announces in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." Spiritually speaking, every one of us deserves to be on Death Row. The death the Bible talks about is not something about your body. It's about your soul. It's about being separated from God throughout your life on earth and then horribly separated from Him forever, because He's a holy God and I'm anything but holy.
You already know what living away from Him on earth is like. You're missing the love that you were made for, you've got a soul that's always restless and never satisfied, a life that may be full but it's not fulfilling, and there's incurable emptiness deep down inside. But eternity without Him, well that's so much worse. It is, in fact, hell.
But John 3:16-18, our word for today from the Word of God, reveal the greatest news you could ever hear. You ready? "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Why? Because Jesus did all the dying for all the sinning you and I have ever done! Then the Bible says that you and I are in one of two groups: "Whoever believes in Jesus," the Bible says, "is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
There it is: condemned or pardoned, guilty or forgiven, heaven or hell. You choose by whether or not you pin all your hopes on Jesus as the only One who can save you, because He's the only One who died to save you from God's death penalty.
If you've never given yourself to Him, please, would you do it today. Don't wait to accept God's pardon. Some people have waited too long. Every day you put this off, you risk going into eternity unforgiven and lost. Let this be the day you tell
Jesus, "I'm pinning all my hopes on what You did when You died for my sins and walked out of your grave under your own power."
And if you'll get to our website, you will have there right in front of you the steps to beginning this relationship with God. It's ANewStory.com. This could be the day your hell is cancelled and your heaven is guaranteed.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
2 Chronicles 16, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: YOU HAVE A SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE
Let’s talk about your inheritance! As a child of God, you have one, you know. You aren’t merely a slave, servant, or saint of God. No, you have legal right to the family business and fortune of heaven. The will has been executed. The courts have been satisfied. Your spiritual account has been funded. He “has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3).
Need more patience? It’s yours. Need more joy? Request it. Running low on wisdom? God has plenty. You will never exhaust his resources. At no time does he wave away your prayer with I’m tired, or weary, or depleted. God is wealthy in love and hope, overflowing in wisdom.
“No one has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 16
But in the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign, Baasha king of Israel attacked. He started it by building a fort at Ramah and closing the border between Israel and Judah to keep Asa king of Judah from leaving or entering.
2-3 Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of The Temple of God and the royal palace and sent it to Ben-Hadad, king of Aram who lived in Damascus, with this message: “Let’s make a treaty like the one between our fathers. I’m showing my good faith with this gift of silver and gold. Break your deal with Baasha king of Israel so he’ll quit fighting against me.”
4-5 Ben-Hadad went along with King Asa and sent his troops against the towns of Israel. They sacked Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and all the store-cities of Naphtali. When Baasha got the report, he quit fortifying Ramah.
6 Then King Asa issued orders to his people in Judah to haul away the logs and stones Baasha had used in the fortification of Ramah and used them himself to fortify Geba and Mizpah.
7-9 Just after that, Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said, “Because you went for help to the king of Aram and didn’t ask God for help, you’ve lost a victory over the army of the king of Aram. Didn’t the Ethiopians and Libyans come against you with superior forces, completely outclassing you with their chariots and cavalry? But you asked God for help and he gave you the victory. God is always on the alert, constantly on the lookout for people who are totally committed to him. You were foolish to go for human help when you could have had God’s help. Now you’re in trouble—one round of war after another.”
10 At that, Asa lost his temper. Angry, he put Hanani in the stocks. At the same time Asa started abusing some of the people.
11-14 A full account of Asa is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa came down with a severe case of foot infection. He didn’t ask God for help, but went instead to the doctors. Then Asa died; he died in the forty-first year of his reign. They buried him in a mausoleum that he had built for himself in the City of David. They laid him in a crypt full of aromatic oils and spices. Then they had a huge bonfire in his memory.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd,t I lack nothing.u
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,v
3 he refreshes my soul.w
He guides mex along the right pathsy
for his name’s sake.z
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,a a
I will fear no evil,b
for you are with me;c
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a tabled before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;e
my cupf overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and loveg will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
Insight
David isn’t the first to use the shepherd-sheep metaphor. Hundreds of years before, Jacob referred to God as his shepherd (Genesis 48:15). Later, the prophets too used this metaphor (Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:12, 31).
Psalm 23 is undeniably the best-known psalm. We traditionally view it with the assuring and comforting picture of the Lord as the Shepherd-Pastor. But in the ancient Near East, the shepherd metaphor is also used to denote the Shepherd–King who provides for (vv. 1–3) and protects His people (vv. 4–6). Other psalms also speak of God as a shepherd leading His people (28:9; 78:52–53; 79:13; 80:1; 95:7; 100:3).
In the New Testament, Jesus is called our Good Shepherd (John 10:11), the Great Shepherd (Hebrews 13:20), and the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4).
Unimaginable
Though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Psalm 23:4
art Millard penned a megahit in 2001 when he wrote, “I Can Only Imagine.” The song pictures how amazing it will be to be in Christ’s presence. Millard’s lyrics offered comfort to our family that next year when our seventeen-year-old daughter, Melissa, died in a car accident and we imagined what it was like for her to be in God’s presence.
But imagine spoke to me in a different way in the days following Mell’s death. As fathers of Melissa’s friends approached me, full of concern and pain, they said, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
Their expressions were helpful, showing that they were grappling with our loss in an empathetic way—finding it unimaginable.
David pinpointed the depth of great loss when he described walking through “the darkest valley” (Psalm 23:4). The death of a loved one certainly is that, and we sometimes have no idea how we’re going to navigate the darkness. We can’t imagine ever being able to come out on the other side.
But as God promised to be with us in our darkest valley now, He also provides great hope for the future by assuring us that beyond the valley we’ll be in His presence. For the believer, to be “away from the body” means being present with Him (2 Corinthians 5:8). That can help us navigate the unimaginable as we imagine our future reunion with Him and others. By: Dave Branon
Reflect & Pray
What’s the best thing you can say to friends who’ve suffered the loss of someone they loved? How can you prepare for those times?
Thank You, God, for being with us even in the darkest valley as we imagine the glories of heaven.
For hope, read Life After Loss at discoveryseries.org/cb131.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Rise, let us be going. —Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, “Well, it’s all over and ruined now; what’s the point in trying anymore.” If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, “Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and let’s go on to the next thing.” In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing— they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, “Get up, and do the next thing.” If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance. Notes on Isaiah, 1376 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In - #8637
Americans kind of are trial junkies. I mean, there's like whole TV channels, you know, devoted to watching trials. Many of us are fascinated with high-profile trials that will sometimes headline our news. Legal proceedings seem to grind on for months, if not years, and then there are weeks of hotly contested testimony. Then suddenly it's in the hands of the jury. I've certainly checked the news to see if the verdict was in on some prominent trials. Then, after all those months, it's suddenly over. In a moment, the verdict is in. When the verdict is guilty, there is one more decision to be announced - the penalty. In some terrible cases, the penalty has been death.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In."
There's one verdict, and one sentence we don't have to wait for - yours and mine. The verdict and the penalty are already in. Not from a jury, but from the Judge. The Judge we all face - God Himself. Deep down inside, I think we know that on the other side of our last heartbeat, which God decides by the way, we'll face our Creator. The Bible gives us a sobering warning about that. It says, "Prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12). And the Bible tells you how to do that.
But first you have to understand the verdict and the sentence we all face; church folks and unchurched folks, nice folks and nasty folks, rich and poor, folks from every religion. In God's own words, "we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). In other words, no one is good enough to measure up to God's holiness. No one's good enough to go to heaven. So the verdict is in - guilty; guilty of breaking the laws of God, guilty of defying God by running a life that He was supposed to run.
The penalty is in, too. God wastes no words. He leaves no loopholes when He announces in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." Spiritually speaking, every one of us deserves to be on Death Row. The death the Bible talks about is not something about your body. It's about your soul. It's about being separated from God throughout your life on earth and then horribly separated from Him forever, because He's a holy God and I'm anything but holy.
You already know what living away from Him on earth is like. You're missing the love that you were made for, you've got a soul that's always restless and never satisfied, a life that may be full but it's not fulfilling, and there's incurable emptiness deep down inside. But eternity without Him, well that's so much worse. It is, in fact, hell.
But John 3:16-18, our word for today from the Word of God, reveal the greatest news you could ever hear. You ready? "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Why? Because Jesus did all the dying for all the sinning you and I have ever done! Then the Bible says that you and I are in one of two groups: "Whoever believes in Jesus," the Bible says, "is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
There it is: condemned or pardoned, guilty or forgiven, heaven or hell. You choose by whether or not you pin all your hopes on Jesus as the only One who can save you, because He's the only One who died to save you from God's death penalty.
If you've never given yourself to Him, please, would you do it today. Don't wait to accept God's pardon. Some people have waited too long. Every day you put this off, you risk going into eternity unforgiven and lost. Let this be the day you tell Jesus, "I'm pinning all my hopes on what You did when You died for my sins and walked out of your grave under your own power."
And if you'll get to our website, you will have there right in front of you the steps to beginning this relationship with God. It's ANewStory.com. This could be the day your hell is cancelled and your heaven is guaranteed.
Let’s talk about your inheritance! As a child of God, you have one, you know. You aren’t merely a slave, servant, or saint of God. No, you have legal right to the family business and fortune of heaven. The will has been executed. The courts have been satisfied. Your spiritual account has been funded. He “has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3).
Need more patience? It’s yours. Need more joy? Request it. Running low on wisdom? God has plenty. You will never exhaust his resources. At no time does he wave away your prayer with I’m tired, or weary, or depleted. God is wealthy in love and hope, overflowing in wisdom.
“No one has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him!” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 16
But in the thirty-sixth year of Asa’s reign, Baasha king of Israel attacked. He started it by building a fort at Ramah and closing the border between Israel and Judah to keep Asa king of Judah from leaving or entering.
2-3 Asa took silver and gold from the treasuries of The Temple of God and the royal palace and sent it to Ben-Hadad, king of Aram who lived in Damascus, with this message: “Let’s make a treaty like the one between our fathers. I’m showing my good faith with this gift of silver and gold. Break your deal with Baasha king of Israel so he’ll quit fighting against me.”
4-5 Ben-Hadad went along with King Asa and sent his troops against the towns of Israel. They sacked Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and all the store-cities of Naphtali. When Baasha got the report, he quit fortifying Ramah.
6 Then King Asa issued orders to his people in Judah to haul away the logs and stones Baasha had used in the fortification of Ramah and used them himself to fortify Geba and Mizpah.
7-9 Just after that, Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah and said, “Because you went for help to the king of Aram and didn’t ask God for help, you’ve lost a victory over the army of the king of Aram. Didn’t the Ethiopians and Libyans come against you with superior forces, completely outclassing you with their chariots and cavalry? But you asked God for help and he gave you the victory. God is always on the alert, constantly on the lookout for people who are totally committed to him. You were foolish to go for human help when you could have had God’s help. Now you’re in trouble—one round of war after another.”
10 At that, Asa lost his temper. Angry, he put Hanani in the stocks. At the same time Asa started abusing some of the people.
11-14 A full account of Asa is written in The Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. In the thirty-ninth year of his reign Asa came down with a severe case of foot infection. He didn’t ask God for help, but went instead to the doctors. Then Asa died; he died in the forty-first year of his reign. They buried him in a mausoleum that he had built for himself in the City of David. They laid him in a crypt full of aromatic oils and spices. Then they had a huge bonfire in his memory.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd,t I lack nothing.u
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,v
3 he refreshes my soul.w
He guides mex along the right pathsy
for his name’s sake.z
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,a a
I will fear no evil,b
for you are with me;c
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a tabled before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;e
my cupf overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and loveg will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
Insight
David isn’t the first to use the shepherd-sheep metaphor. Hundreds of years before, Jacob referred to God as his shepherd (Genesis 48:15). Later, the prophets too used this metaphor (Isaiah 40:11; Ezekiel 34:12, 31).
Psalm 23 is undeniably the best-known psalm. We traditionally view it with the assuring and comforting picture of the Lord as the Shepherd-Pastor. But in the ancient Near East, the shepherd metaphor is also used to denote the Shepherd–King who provides for (vv. 1–3) and protects His people (vv. 4–6). Other psalms also speak of God as a shepherd leading His people (28:9; 78:52–53; 79:13; 80:1; 95:7; 100:3).
In the New Testament, Jesus is called our Good Shepherd (John 10:11), the Great Shepherd (Hebrews 13:20), and the Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4).
Unimaginable
Though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Psalm 23:4
art Millard penned a megahit in 2001 when he wrote, “I Can Only Imagine.” The song pictures how amazing it will be to be in Christ’s presence. Millard’s lyrics offered comfort to our family that next year when our seventeen-year-old daughter, Melissa, died in a car accident and we imagined what it was like for her to be in God’s presence.
But imagine spoke to me in a different way in the days following Mell’s death. As fathers of Melissa’s friends approached me, full of concern and pain, they said, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through.”
Their expressions were helpful, showing that they were grappling with our loss in an empathetic way—finding it unimaginable.
David pinpointed the depth of great loss when he described walking through “the darkest valley” (Psalm 23:4). The death of a loved one certainly is that, and we sometimes have no idea how we’re going to navigate the darkness. We can’t imagine ever being able to come out on the other side.
But as God promised to be with us in our darkest valley now, He also provides great hope for the future by assuring us that beyond the valley we’ll be in His presence. For the believer, to be “away from the body” means being present with Him (2 Corinthians 5:8). That can help us navigate the unimaginable as we imagine our future reunion with Him and others. By: Dave Branon
Reflect & Pray
What’s the best thing you can say to friends who’ve suffered the loss of someone they loved? How can you prepare for those times?
Thank You, God, for being with us even in the darkest valley as we imagine the glories of heaven.
For hope, read Life After Loss at discoveryseries.org/cb131.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Despair
Rise, let us be going. —Matthew 26:46
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, “Well, it’s all over and ruined now; what’s the point in trying anymore.” If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, “Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and let’s go on to the next thing.” In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing— they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, “Get up, and do the next thing.” If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance. Notes on Isaiah, 1376 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In - #8637
Americans kind of are trial junkies. I mean, there's like whole TV channels, you know, devoted to watching trials. Many of us are fascinated with high-profile trials that will sometimes headline our news. Legal proceedings seem to grind on for months, if not years, and then there are weeks of hotly contested testimony. Then suddenly it's in the hands of the jury. I've certainly checked the news to see if the verdict was in on some prominent trials. Then, after all those months, it's suddenly over. In a moment, the verdict is in. When the verdict is guilty, there is one more decision to be announced - the penalty. In some terrible cases, the penalty has been death.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Verdict and the Penalty Are Already In."
There's one verdict, and one sentence we don't have to wait for - yours and mine. The verdict and the penalty are already in. Not from a jury, but from the Judge. The Judge we all face - God Himself. Deep down inside, I think we know that on the other side of our last heartbeat, which God decides by the way, we'll face our Creator. The Bible gives us a sobering warning about that. It says, "Prepare to meet your God" (Amos 4:12). And the Bible tells you how to do that.
But first you have to understand the verdict and the sentence we all face; church folks and unchurched folks, nice folks and nasty folks, rich and poor, folks from every religion. In God's own words, "we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). In other words, no one is good enough to measure up to God's holiness. No one's good enough to go to heaven. So the verdict is in - guilty; guilty of breaking the laws of God, guilty of defying God by running a life that He was supposed to run.
The penalty is in, too. God wastes no words. He leaves no loopholes when He announces in Romans 6:23, "The wages of sin is death." Spiritually speaking, every one of us deserves to be on Death Row. The death the Bible talks about is not something about your body. It's about your soul. It's about being separated from God throughout your life on earth and then horribly separated from Him forever, because He's a holy God and I'm anything but holy.
You already know what living away from Him on earth is like. You're missing the love that you were made for, you've got a soul that's always restless and never satisfied, a life that may be full but it's not fulfilling, and there's incurable emptiness deep down inside. But eternity without Him, well that's so much worse. It is, in fact, hell.
But John 3:16-18, our word for today from the Word of God, reveal the greatest news you could ever hear. You ready? "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Why? Because Jesus did all the dying for all the sinning you and I have ever done! Then the Bible says that you and I are in one of two groups: "Whoever believes in Jesus," the Bible says, "is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
There it is: condemned or pardoned, guilty or forgiven, heaven or hell. You choose by whether or not you pin all your hopes on Jesus as the only One who can save you, because He's the only One who died to save you from God's death penalty.
If you've never given yourself to Him, please, would you do it today. Don't wait to accept God's pardon. Some people have waited too long. Every day you put this off, you risk going into eternity unforgiven and lost. Let this be the day you tell Jesus, "I'm pinning all my hopes on what You did when You died for my sins and walked out of your grave under your own power."
And if you'll get to our website, you will have there right in front of you the steps to beginning this relationship with God. It's ANewStory.com. This could be the day your hell is cancelled and your heaven is guaranteed.
Monday, February 17, 2020
2 Chronicles 15, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: OUR CONFLICT IS WITH SATAN
Make no mistake… the devil is a real devil! Every conflict is a contest with Satan and his forces. For that reason, the Bible says, “though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).
What are these weapons? Prayer, worship, and Scripture. When we pray, we engage the power of God against the devil. When we worship, we do what Satan did not do. We place God on the throne. When we pick up the sword of Scripture, we do what Jesus did in the wilderness. He responded to Satan by proclaiming truth. And since Satan has a severe allergy to truth, he left Jesus alone. Satan will not linger long where God is praised and prayers are offered. And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 15
Then Azariah son of Obed, moved by the Spirit of God, went out to meet Asa. He said, “Listen carefully, Asa, and listen Judah and Benjamin: God will stick with you as long as you stick with him. If you look for him he will let himself be found; but if you leave him he’ll leave you. For a long time Israel didn’t have the real God, nor did they have the help of priest or teacher or book. But when they were in trouble and got serious, and decided to seek God, the God of Israel, God let himself be found. At that time it was a dog-eat-dog world; life was constantly up for grabs—no one, regardless of country, knew what the next day might bring. Nation battered nation, city pummeled city. God let loose every kind of trouble among them.
7 “But it’s different with you: Be strong. Take heart. Payday is coming!”
8-9 Asa heard the prophecy of Azariah son of Obed, took a deep breath, then rolled up his sleeves, and went to work: He cleaned out the obscene and polluting sacred shrines from the whole country of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim. He spruced up the Altar of God that was in front of The Temple porch. Then he called an assembly for all Judah and Benjamin, including those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were living there at the time (for many from Israel had left their homes and joined forces with Asa when they saw that God was on his side).
10-15 They all arrived in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign for a great assembly of worship. From their earlier plunder they offered sacrifices of seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep for the worship. Then they bound themselves in a covenant to seek God, the God of their fathers, wholeheartedly, holding nothing back. And they agreed that anyone who refused to seek God, the God of Israel, should be killed, no matter who it was, young or old, man or woman. They shouted out their promise to God, a joyful sound accompanied with blasts from trumpets and rams’ horns. The whole country felt good about the covenant promise—they had given their promise joyfully from the heart. Anticipating the best, they had sought God—and he showed up, ready to be found. God gave them peace within and without—a most peaceable kingdom!
16-19 In his cleanup of the country, Asa went so far as to remove his mother, Queen Maacah, from her throne because she had built a shockingly obscene image of the sex goddess Asherah. Asa tore it down, smashed it, and burned it up in the Kidron Valley. Unfortunately he didn’t get rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines. But he was well-intentioned—his heart was in the right place, loyal to God. All the gold and silver vessels and artifacts that he and his father had consecrated for holy use he installed in The Temple of God. There wasn’t a trace of war up to the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, February 17, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 28:16–20
The Great Commission
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.d 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.e 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,f baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,g 20 and teachingh them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with youi always, to the very end of the age.”
Insight
The events in our passage from the final chapter of Matthew take place soon after Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. At dawn “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” had gone to “look at [Jesus’] tomb” (Matthew 28:1). Mary Magdalene was the woman from Magdala who’d been healed of seven evil spirits and was one of the women who helped support Jesus and His disciples (Luke 8:1–3). But who was this “other Mary”? Many believe she was “Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25). Others say she was Mary the mother of James and Joseph (Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40; Luke 24:10). And others declare she was both the wife of Clopas and the mother of James and Joseph. No matter her identity, she and Mary Magdalene expected to see a closed tomb and instead met the risen Christ Himself (Matthew 28:1–9). By: Alyson Kieda
Ever-Present Presence
Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:20
During the 2018 World Cup, Colombian forward Radamel Falcao scored in the seventieth minute against Poland, securing a victory. The dramatic goal was Falcao’s thirtieth in international play, earning him the distinction of scoring the most goals by a Colombian player in international competition.
Falcao has often used his success on the soccer pitch to share his faith, frequently lifting his jersey after a score to reveal a shirt with the words, Con Jesus nunca estara solo: “With Jesus you’ll never be alone.”
Falcao’s statement points us to the reassuring promise from Jesus, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Knowing He was about to return to heaven, Jesus comforted His disciples by assuring them He’d always be with them, through the presence of His Spirit (v. 20; John 14:16–18). Christ’s Spirit would comfort, guide, protect, and empower them as they took the message of Jesus to cities both near and far. And when they experienced periods of intense loneliness in unfamiliar places, Christ’s words would likely echo in their ears, a reminder of His presence with them.
No matter where we go, whether close to home or faraway, as we follow Jesus into the unknown we too can cling to this same promise. Even when we experience feelings of loneliness, as we reach out in prayer to Jesus, we can receive comfort knowing He’s with us. By: Lisa M. Samra
Reflect & Pray
How does the assurance that Jesus is always with you provide comfort? How has He comforted you when you felt alone?
Jesus, thank You that I’m never alone because You’re with me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, February 17, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat. —1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive— only material things don’t suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God’s creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things— things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
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
Monday, February 17, 2020
Life-Changing Leadership - #8636
Both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush called him one of the American Presidents that they revered the most, and he's right up there with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore - Theodore Roosevelt. He became a national hero, and soon President of the United States after his heroic leadership in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The objective of his unit was to take this strategic Kettle Hill and then San Juan Hill. Ultimately, his troops would have to advance uphill in the face of withering enemy fire. And his soldiers would long remember the order he gave to launch what turned out to be an historic advance. Unlike many military leaders, Teddy Roosevelt did not say, "Charge!" Instead, he shouted, "Follow me!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Life-Changing Leadership."
What an exciting example of real leadership. Not just pointing people in the way you want them to go, but taking them there! It is, in fact, the leadership style of Jesus. In 1 Peter 2:21, our word for today from the Word of God, He says, "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps." That word "example" in the Greek, literally refers to the letters that were at the top of a school child's slate in those days. That was the model that you copied in order to get it right. For us, that's Jesus.
He didn't just point in a direction and say, "Go for it!" His recurring invitation was, "Follow Me." That kind of leadership demands a life that measures up to your words. If you're in a position right now where you're trying to move people in the right direction - whether it's your children, your church, your class, your co-workers, your Bible study, your youth group, your employees - it's important to remember how to get folks charging ahead, even if it's uphill, even if you're drawing fire. You've got to present to them such a compelling model; such an inspiring "follow me" that it's going to be contagious.
For months, Jesus' disciples saw Him slip off every morning to spend time talking to His Heavenly Father. He never announced He was holding a seminar on prayer for them. But eventually, as recorded in Luke 11:1, the disciples came to Him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray." He didn't nag them to that point, He led them to that point by showing them what praying looked like; by showing them how much He valued it.
Paul demonstrated that kind of lifestyle leadership when he said, "When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly...I urge you to imitate me...my way of life in Christ Jesus...agrees with what I teach everywhere" (1 Corinthians 4:12, 16-17). And then he would say in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ."
Ultimately, it's not your position or your title that gives you leadership. It's the way you live your life. It's the consistency of your convictions. It's the way you treat people. It's the kind of person you are more than the kind of position you hold that makes you a leader. If you wish that things and people around you were different in some way, start being that way yourself!
A leader's number one responsibility is to set the climate where they are. Ultimately, it won't be preaching that gets those folks moving, or nagging, or criticizing, or demanding. It will be giving them an example to follow. Remember, it's not "Charge!" but "Follow me!" that gives life-changing leadership!
Make no mistake… the devil is a real devil! Every conflict is a contest with Satan and his forces. For that reason, the Bible says, “though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).
What are these weapons? Prayer, worship, and Scripture. When we pray, we engage the power of God against the devil. When we worship, we do what Satan did not do. We place God on the throne. When we pick up the sword of Scripture, we do what Jesus did in the wilderness. He responded to Satan by proclaiming truth. And since Satan has a severe allergy to truth, he left Jesus alone. Satan will not linger long where God is praised and prayers are offered. And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 15
Then Azariah son of Obed, moved by the Spirit of God, went out to meet Asa. He said, “Listen carefully, Asa, and listen Judah and Benjamin: God will stick with you as long as you stick with him. If you look for him he will let himself be found; but if you leave him he’ll leave you. For a long time Israel didn’t have the real God, nor did they have the help of priest or teacher or book. But when they were in trouble and got serious, and decided to seek God, the God of Israel, God let himself be found. At that time it was a dog-eat-dog world; life was constantly up for grabs—no one, regardless of country, knew what the next day might bring. Nation battered nation, city pummeled city. God let loose every kind of trouble among them.
7 “But it’s different with you: Be strong. Take heart. Payday is coming!”
8-9 Asa heard the prophecy of Azariah son of Obed, took a deep breath, then rolled up his sleeves, and went to work: He cleaned out the obscene and polluting sacred shrines from the whole country of Judah and Benjamin and from the towns he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim. He spruced up the Altar of God that was in front of The Temple porch. Then he called an assembly for all Judah and Benjamin, including those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were living there at the time (for many from Israel had left their homes and joined forces with Asa when they saw that God was on his side).
10-15 They all arrived in Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of Asa’s reign for a great assembly of worship. From their earlier plunder they offered sacrifices of seven hundred oxen and seven thousand sheep for the worship. Then they bound themselves in a covenant to seek God, the God of their fathers, wholeheartedly, holding nothing back. And they agreed that anyone who refused to seek God, the God of Israel, should be killed, no matter who it was, young or old, man or woman. They shouted out their promise to God, a joyful sound accompanied with blasts from trumpets and rams’ horns. The whole country felt good about the covenant promise—they had given their promise joyfully from the heart. Anticipating the best, they had sought God—and he showed up, ready to be found. God gave them peace within and without—a most peaceable kingdom!
16-19 In his cleanup of the country, Asa went so far as to remove his mother, Queen Maacah, from her throne because she had built a shockingly obscene image of the sex goddess Asherah. Asa tore it down, smashed it, and burned it up in the Kidron Valley. Unfortunately he didn’t get rid of the local sex-and-religion shrines. But he was well-intentioned—his heart was in the right place, loyal to God. All the gold and silver vessels and artifacts that he and his father had consecrated for holy use he installed in The Temple of God. There wasn’t a trace of war up to the thirty-fifth year of Asa’s reign.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, February 17, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Matthew 28:16–20
The Great Commission
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.d 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.e 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,f baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,g 20 and teachingh them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with youi always, to the very end of the age.”
Insight
The events in our passage from the final chapter of Matthew take place soon after Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. At dawn “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” had gone to “look at [Jesus’] tomb” (Matthew 28:1). Mary Magdalene was the woman from Magdala who’d been healed of seven evil spirits and was one of the women who helped support Jesus and His disciples (Luke 8:1–3). But who was this “other Mary”? Many believe she was “Mary the wife of Clopas” (John 19:25). Others say she was Mary the mother of James and Joseph (Matthew 27:56; Mark 15:40; Luke 24:10). And others declare she was both the wife of Clopas and the mother of James and Joseph. No matter her identity, she and Mary Magdalene expected to see a closed tomb and instead met the risen Christ Himself (Matthew 28:1–9). By: Alyson Kieda
Ever-Present Presence
Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:20
During the 2018 World Cup, Colombian forward Radamel Falcao scored in the seventieth minute against Poland, securing a victory. The dramatic goal was Falcao’s thirtieth in international play, earning him the distinction of scoring the most goals by a Colombian player in international competition.
Falcao has often used his success on the soccer pitch to share his faith, frequently lifting his jersey after a score to reveal a shirt with the words, Con Jesus nunca estara solo: “With Jesus you’ll never be alone.”
Falcao’s statement points us to the reassuring promise from Jesus, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Knowing He was about to return to heaven, Jesus comforted His disciples by assuring them He’d always be with them, through the presence of His Spirit (v. 20; John 14:16–18). Christ’s Spirit would comfort, guide, protect, and empower them as they took the message of Jesus to cities both near and far. And when they experienced periods of intense loneliness in unfamiliar places, Christ’s words would likely echo in their ears, a reminder of His presence with them.
No matter where we go, whether close to home or faraway, as we follow Jesus into the unknown we too can cling to this same promise. Even when we experience feelings of loneliness, as we reach out in prayer to Jesus, we can receive comfort knowing He’s with us. By: Lisa M. Samra
Reflect & Pray
How does the assurance that Jesus is always with you provide comfort? How has He comforted you when you felt alone?
Jesus, thank You that I’m never alone because You’re with me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, February 17, 2020
Taking the Initiative Against Depression
Arise and eat. —1 Kings 19:5
The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply told Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive— only material things don’t suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.
When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God’s creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things— things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simply to overcome our depression, we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the moment we do it the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.
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
Monday, February 17, 2020
Life-Changing Leadership - #8636
Both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush called him one of the American Presidents that they revered the most, and he's right up there with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore - Theodore Roosevelt. He became a national hero, and soon President of the United States after his heroic leadership in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The objective of his unit was to take this strategic Kettle Hill and then San Juan Hill. Ultimately, his troops would have to advance uphill in the face of withering enemy fire. And his soldiers would long remember the order he gave to launch what turned out to be an historic advance. Unlike many military leaders, Teddy Roosevelt did not say, "Charge!" Instead, he shouted, "Follow me!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Life-Changing Leadership."
What an exciting example of real leadership. Not just pointing people in the way you want them to go, but taking them there! It is, in fact, the leadership style of Jesus. In 1 Peter 2:21, our word for today from the Word of God, He says, "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps." That word "example" in the Greek, literally refers to the letters that were at the top of a school child's slate in those days. That was the model that you copied in order to get it right. For us, that's Jesus.
He didn't just point in a direction and say, "Go for it!" His recurring invitation was, "Follow Me." That kind of leadership demands a life that measures up to your words. If you're in a position right now where you're trying to move people in the right direction - whether it's your children, your church, your class, your co-workers, your Bible study, your youth group, your employees - it's important to remember how to get folks charging ahead, even if it's uphill, even if you're drawing fire. You've got to present to them such a compelling model; such an inspiring "follow me" that it's going to be contagious.
For months, Jesus' disciples saw Him slip off every morning to spend time talking to His Heavenly Father. He never announced He was holding a seminar on prayer for them. But eventually, as recorded in Luke 11:1, the disciples came to Him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray." He didn't nag them to that point, He led them to that point by showing them what praying looked like; by showing them how much He valued it.
Paul demonstrated that kind of lifestyle leadership when he said, "When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly...I urge you to imitate me...my way of life in Christ Jesus...agrees with what I teach everywhere" (1 Corinthians 4:12, 16-17). And then he would say in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ."
Ultimately, it's not your position or your title that gives you leadership. It's the way you live your life. It's the consistency of your convictions. It's the way you treat people. It's the kind of person you are more than the kind of position you hold that makes you a leader. If you wish that things and people around you were different in some way, start being that way yourself!
A leader's number one responsibility is to set the climate where they are. Ultimately, it won't be preaching that gets those folks moving, or nagging, or criticizing, or demanding. It will be giving them an example to follow. Remember, it's not "Charge!" but "Follow me!" that gives life-changing leadership!
Sunday, February 16, 2020
2 Corinthians 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: God’s Masterpiece
If you pass your days mumbling, “I’ll never make a difference; I’m not worth anything,” guess what? You’ll be sentencing yourself to a life of gloom without parole! When you do that, you’re questioning God’s judgment, second-guessing his taste.
Psalm 139:14 says you were “fearfully and wonderfully made.” He can’t stop thinking about you. Psalm 139:18 confirms it. If he could count his thoughts of you, “they would be more in number than the sand.”
Why does he love you so much? The same reason the artist loves his paintings or the boat builder loves his vessels. You are God’s idea. And he has only good ideas. Paul said in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” You matter to God!
From Fearless
2 Corinthians 4
Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.
3-4 If our Message is obscure to anyone, it’s not because we’re holding back in any way. No, it’s because these other people are looking or going the wrong way and refuse to give it serious attention. All they have eyes for is the fashionable god of darkness. They think he can give them what they want, and that they won’t have to bother believing a Truth they can’t see. They’re stone-blind to the dayspring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.
5-6 Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.
7-12 If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!
13-15 We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe. And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive. Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!
16-18 So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:2–6
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one anotherv in love.w 3 Make every effort to keep the unityx of the Spirit through the bond of peace.y 4 There is one bodyz and one Spirit,a just as you were called to one hope when you were calledb; 5 one Lord,c one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all,d who is over all and through all and in all.
Insight
When Paul urges his readers to be gentle and patient with one another, he describes what real strength looks like. Earlier in the same letter he repeatedly expresses his prayer that his readers would join him in understanding the ability of God to strengthen them in their inner being with the love of Christ (Ephesians 1:19; 3:16–18). He prays they will be given the power to understand the heart of God who wants to do for them more than they could ever ask or think (3:20).
The old Paul wouldn’t have written this. Before meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, he was doing everything he could to bully and terrorize those with whom he disagreed. It’s a dramatically changed Paul who calls for the strength of a humility, patience, and kindness that brings out the best in us rather than the worst. By: Mart DeHaan
Divided in Love
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 4:2
When public debate erupted over a controversial Singapore law, it divided believers with differing views. Some called others “narrow-minded” or accused them of compromising their faith.
Controversies can cause sharp divisions among God’s family, bringing much hurt and discouraging people. I’ve been made to feel small over personal convictions on how I apply the Bible’s teachings to my life. And I’m sure I’ve been equally guilty of criticizing others I disagree with.
I wonder if the problem lies not in what or even in how we express our views, but in the attitudes of our hearts when we do so. Are we just disagreeing with views or seeking to tear down the people behind them?
Yet there are times when we need to address false teaching or explain our stand. Ephesians 4:2–6 reminds us to do so with humility, gentleness, patience, and love. And, above all else, to make every effort “to keep the unity of the Spirit” (v. 3).
Some controversies will remain unresolved. God’s Word, however, reminds us that our goal should always be to build up people’s faith, not tear them down (v. 29). Are we putting others down to win an argument? Or are we allowing God to help us understand His truths in His time and His way, remembering that we share one faith in one Lord? (vv. 4–6). By: Leslie Koh
Reflect & Pray
How can you explain your stand on sensitive issues humbly, gently, and lovingly? What will you pray for those who seem to disagree?
God, guide me as I speak the truth so that I do so out of love and seek only to build up, not to tear down.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 16, 2020
The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative
Arise from the dead… —Ephesians 5:14
Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, “Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard— just do what needs to be done!” That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, “Get up and get going,” suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, “Arise from the dead….” When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to “arise from the dead” and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we “get up and get going.” God does not give us overcoming life— He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, “Arise from the dead…,” we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
If you pass your days mumbling, “I’ll never make a difference; I’m not worth anything,” guess what? You’ll be sentencing yourself to a life of gloom without parole! When you do that, you’re questioning God’s judgment, second-guessing his taste.
Psalm 139:14 says you were “fearfully and wonderfully made.” He can’t stop thinking about you. Psalm 139:18 confirms it. If he could count his thoughts of you, “they would be more in number than the sand.”
Why does he love you so much? The same reason the artist loves his paintings or the boat builder loves his vessels. You are God’s idea. And he has only good ideas. Paul said in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” You matter to God!
From Fearless
2 Corinthians 4
Since God has so generously let us in on what he is doing, we’re not about to throw up our hands and walk off the job just because we run into occasional hard times. We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.
3-4 If our Message is obscure to anyone, it’s not because we’re holding back in any way. No, it’s because these other people are looking or going the wrong way and refuse to give it serious attention. All they have eyes for is the fashionable god of darkness. They think he can give them what they want, and that they won’t have to bother believing a Truth they can’t see. They’re stone-blind to the dayspring brightness of the Message that shines with Christ, who gives us the best picture of God we’ll ever get.
5-6 Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, “Light up the darkness!” and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful.
7-12 If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!
13-15 We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe. And what we believe is that the One who raised up the Master Jesus will just as certainly raise us up with you, alive. Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise!
16-18 So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, February 16, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:2–6
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one anotherv in love.w 3 Make every effort to keep the unityx of the Spirit through the bond of peace.y 4 There is one bodyz and one Spirit,a just as you were called to one hope when you were calledb; 5 one Lord,c one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all,d who is over all and through all and in all.
Insight
When Paul urges his readers to be gentle and patient with one another, he describes what real strength looks like. Earlier in the same letter he repeatedly expresses his prayer that his readers would join him in understanding the ability of God to strengthen them in their inner being with the love of Christ (Ephesians 1:19; 3:16–18). He prays they will be given the power to understand the heart of God who wants to do for them more than they could ever ask or think (3:20).
The old Paul wouldn’t have written this. Before meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, he was doing everything he could to bully and terrorize those with whom he disagreed. It’s a dramatically changed Paul who calls for the strength of a humility, patience, and kindness that brings out the best in us rather than the worst. By: Mart DeHaan
Divided in Love
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 4:2
When public debate erupted over a controversial Singapore law, it divided believers with differing views. Some called others “narrow-minded” or accused them of compromising their faith.
Controversies can cause sharp divisions among God’s family, bringing much hurt and discouraging people. I’ve been made to feel small over personal convictions on how I apply the Bible’s teachings to my life. And I’m sure I’ve been equally guilty of criticizing others I disagree with.
I wonder if the problem lies not in what or even in how we express our views, but in the attitudes of our hearts when we do so. Are we just disagreeing with views or seeking to tear down the people behind them?
Yet there are times when we need to address false teaching or explain our stand. Ephesians 4:2–6 reminds us to do so with humility, gentleness, patience, and love. And, above all else, to make every effort “to keep the unity of the Spirit” (v. 3).
Some controversies will remain unresolved. God’s Word, however, reminds us that our goal should always be to build up people’s faith, not tear them down (v. 29). Are we putting others down to win an argument? Or are we allowing God to help us understand His truths in His time and His way, remembering that we share one faith in one Lord? (vv. 4–6). By: Leslie Koh
Reflect & Pray
How can you explain your stand on sensitive issues humbly, gently, and lovingly? What will you pray for those who seem to disagree?
God, guide me as I speak the truth so that I do so out of love and seek only to build up, not to tear down.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 16, 2020
The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative
Arise from the dead… —Ephesians 5:14
Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, “Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard— just do what needs to be done!” That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, “Get up and get going,” suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.
We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, “Arise from the dead….” When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to “arise from the dead” and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we “get up and get going.” God does not give us overcoming life— He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, “Arise from the dead…,” we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Saturday, February 15, 2020
2 Chronicles 14, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A Little Over a Lifetime
Will I learn what God intends? If I listen, I will. A little girl returned from her first day at school. Her mom asked, "Did you learn anything?" "I guess not," the girl responded. "I have to go back tomorrow and the next day and the next day. . ."
Such is the case with learning. And such is the case with Bible study.
Understanding comes a little at a time over a lifetime. James said: "The man who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and makes a habit of doing so is not the man who hears and forgets. He puts that law into practice and wins true happiness." (James 1:25).
The Bible is not a newspaper to be skimmed but rather a mine to be quarried. Proverbs 2:4 says to "search for it like silver, and hunt for it like hidden treasure."
And we need to do it today, and the next day, and the next….
From Just Like Jesus
2 Chronicles 14
Abijah died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His son Asa became the next king.
For ten years into Asa’s reign the country was at peace.
2-6 Asa was a good king. He did things right in God’s eyes. He cleaned house: got rid of the pagan altars and shrines, smashed the sacred stone pillars, and chopped down the sex-and-religion groves (Asherim). He told Judah to center their lives in God, the God of their fathers, to do what the law said, and to follow the commandments. Because he got rid of all the pagan shrines and altars in the cities of Judah, his kingdom was at peace. Because the land was quiet and there was no war, he was able to build up a good defense system in Judah. God kept the peace.
7 Asa said to his people, “While we have the chance and the land is quiet, let’s build a solid defense system, fortifying our cities with walls, towers, gates, and bars. We have this peaceful land because we sought God; he has given us rest from all troubles.” So they built and enjoyed prosperity.
8 Asa had an army of 300,000 Judeans, equipped with shields and spears, and another 280,000 Benjaminites who were shield bearers and archers. They were all courageous warriors.
9-11 Zerah the Ethiopian went to war against Asa with an army of a million plus three hundred chariots and got as far as Mareshah. Asa met him there and prepared to fight from the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah. Then Asa prayed to God, “O God, you aren’t impressed by numbers or intimidated by a show of force once you decide to help: Help us, O God; we have come out to meet this huge army because we trust in you and who you are. Don’t let mere mortals stand against you!”
12-15 God defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; the Ethiopians ran for their lives. Asa and his men chased them as far as Gerar; so many of the Ethiopians were killed that there was no fight left in them—a massacre before God and his troops; Judah carted off loads of plunder. They devastated all the towns around Gerar whose people were helpless, paralyzed by the fear of God, and looted the country. They also attacked herdsmen and brought back a lot of sheep and camels to Jerusalem.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Matthew 4:1–11
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempteda v by the devil.w 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights,x he was hungry. 3 The temptery came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God,z tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’b”a
5 Then the devil took him to the holy cityb and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,”c he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’c”d
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’d”e
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan!f For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’e”g
11 Then the devil left him,h and angels came and attended him.i
Insight
Some scholars believe Isaiah 14:12–15 and Ezekiel 28:11–19 tell of how Lucifer became Satan (meaning “adversary”) and was cast out of heaven because of his rebellion against and desire to be God. Alluding to this, Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Three times he’s called “the prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). In the third temptation of Jesus, Satan—claiming to rule over the world—offers Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” if He would worship him (Matthew 4:8–10). Though powerful, Satan is a defeated foe (Genesis 3:15; John 12:31; 16:11; Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8; Revelation 20:7–10), and has no power other than that allowed by God (Job 1:12; 2:6; Luke 22:31–32).
The Mouse That Roared
The one who is in [us] is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4
Several years ago my sons and I spent a few days camping in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Northern Idaho. It’s grizzly bear habitat, but we carried bear spray, kept our campsites clean, and anticipated no major grizzly encounters.
One evening, in the middle of the night, I heard Randy scramble around trying to get out of his sleeping bag. I grabbed my flashlight and turned it on, expecting to see him in the clutches of an enraged grizzly.
There, sitting upright on its haunches and waving its paws in the air was a field mouse about 4 inches tall. It had Randy’s cap firmly clenched in its teeth. The little creature had tugged and tugged until he pulled Randy’s cap from his head. As I laughed, the mouse dropped the cap and scampered away. We crawled back into our sleeping bags. I, however, fully adrenalized, couldn’t get back to sleep and thought about another predator—the devil.
Consider Satan’s temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:1–11). He countered his enticements with the Scriptures. With each answer, Jesus reminded Himself that God had spoken on this issue and therefore He wouldn’t disobey. This caused the devil to flee.
Although Satan wants to devour us, it’s good to remember that he’s a created being like the little rodent. John said, “the one who is in [us] is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). By: David H. Roper
Reflect & Pray
What are your greatest temptations? What does God say about these issues and how might you use that when you’re tempted?
Dear God, I’m grateful that You’re greater than any temptation that comes at me. Please provide the way out
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 15, 2020
“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
None of us lives to himself… —Romans 14:7
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We “sit together in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 2:6). “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, “Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?” “Our sufficiency is from God…” and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).
“You shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone— to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him— “…lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is impossible to read too much, but always keep before you why you read. Remember that “the need to receive, recognize, and rely on the Holy Spirit” is before all else. Approved Unto God, 11 L
Will I learn what God intends? If I listen, I will. A little girl returned from her first day at school. Her mom asked, "Did you learn anything?" "I guess not," the girl responded. "I have to go back tomorrow and the next day and the next day. . ."
Such is the case with learning. And such is the case with Bible study.
Understanding comes a little at a time over a lifetime. James said: "The man who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and makes a habit of doing so is not the man who hears and forgets. He puts that law into practice and wins true happiness." (James 1:25).
The Bible is not a newspaper to be skimmed but rather a mine to be quarried. Proverbs 2:4 says to "search for it like silver, and hunt for it like hidden treasure."
And we need to do it today, and the next day, and the next….
From Just Like Jesus
2 Chronicles 14
Abijah died and was buried with his ancestors in the City of David. His son Asa became the next king.
For ten years into Asa’s reign the country was at peace.
2-6 Asa was a good king. He did things right in God’s eyes. He cleaned house: got rid of the pagan altars and shrines, smashed the sacred stone pillars, and chopped down the sex-and-religion groves (Asherim). He told Judah to center their lives in God, the God of their fathers, to do what the law said, and to follow the commandments. Because he got rid of all the pagan shrines and altars in the cities of Judah, his kingdom was at peace. Because the land was quiet and there was no war, he was able to build up a good defense system in Judah. God kept the peace.
7 Asa said to his people, “While we have the chance and the land is quiet, let’s build a solid defense system, fortifying our cities with walls, towers, gates, and bars. We have this peaceful land because we sought God; he has given us rest from all troubles.” So they built and enjoyed prosperity.
8 Asa had an army of 300,000 Judeans, equipped with shields and spears, and another 280,000 Benjaminites who were shield bearers and archers. They were all courageous warriors.
9-11 Zerah the Ethiopian went to war against Asa with an army of a million plus three hundred chariots and got as far as Mareshah. Asa met him there and prepared to fight from the Valley of Zephathah near Mareshah. Then Asa prayed to God, “O God, you aren’t impressed by numbers or intimidated by a show of force once you decide to help: Help us, O God; we have come out to meet this huge army because we trust in you and who you are. Don’t let mere mortals stand against you!”
12-15 God defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and Judah; the Ethiopians ran for their lives. Asa and his men chased them as far as Gerar; so many of the Ethiopians were killed that there was no fight left in them—a massacre before God and his troops; Judah carted off loads of plunder. They devastated all the towns around Gerar whose people were helpless, paralyzed by the fear of God, and looted the country. They also attacked herdsmen and brought back a lot of sheep and camels to Jerusalem.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 15, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Matthew 4:1–11
Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness
4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempteda v by the devil.w 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights,x he was hungry. 3 The temptery came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God,z tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’b”a
5 Then the devil took him to the holy cityb and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,”c he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’c”d
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’d”e
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan!f For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’e”g
11 Then the devil left him,h and angels came and attended him.i
Insight
Some scholars believe Isaiah 14:12–15 and Ezekiel 28:11–19 tell of how Lucifer became Satan (meaning “adversary”) and was cast out of heaven because of his rebellion against and desire to be God. Alluding to this, Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Three times he’s called “the prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). In the third temptation of Jesus, Satan—claiming to rule over the world—offers Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” if He would worship him (Matthew 4:8–10). Though powerful, Satan is a defeated foe (Genesis 3:15; John 12:31; 16:11; Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8; Revelation 20:7–10), and has no power other than that allowed by God (Job 1:12; 2:6; Luke 22:31–32).
The Mouse That Roared
The one who is in [us] is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4
Several years ago my sons and I spent a few days camping in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Northern Idaho. It’s grizzly bear habitat, but we carried bear spray, kept our campsites clean, and anticipated no major grizzly encounters.
One evening, in the middle of the night, I heard Randy scramble around trying to get out of his sleeping bag. I grabbed my flashlight and turned it on, expecting to see him in the clutches of an enraged grizzly.
There, sitting upright on its haunches and waving its paws in the air was a field mouse about 4 inches tall. It had Randy’s cap firmly clenched in its teeth. The little creature had tugged and tugged until he pulled Randy’s cap from his head. As I laughed, the mouse dropped the cap and scampered away. We crawled back into our sleeping bags. I, however, fully adrenalized, couldn’t get back to sleep and thought about another predator—the devil.
Consider Satan’s temptation of Jesus (Matthew 4:1–11). He countered his enticements with the Scriptures. With each answer, Jesus reminded Himself that God had spoken on this issue and therefore He wouldn’t disobey. This caused the devil to flee.
Although Satan wants to devour us, it’s good to remember that he’s a created being like the little rodent. John said, “the one who is in [us] is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). By: David H. Roper
Reflect & Pray
What are your greatest temptations? What does God say about these issues and how might you use that when you’re tempted?
Dear God, I’m grateful that You’re greater than any temptation that comes at me. Please provide the way out
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 15, 2020
“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
None of us lives to himself… —Romans 14:7
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We “sit together in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 2:6). “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, “Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?” “Our sufficiency is from God…” and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).
“You shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone— to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him— “…lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is impossible to read too much, but always keep before you why you read. Remember that “the need to receive, recognize, and rely on the Holy Spirit” is before all else. Approved Unto God, 11 L
Friday, February 14, 2020
2 Chronicles 13, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S TRUTH DEFINES ALL PEOPLE
Every person you see was created by God to bear his image and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Imagine the impact this promise would have on the society that embraced it. What civility it would engender. What kindness it would foster. Racism will not flourish when people believe their neighbors bear God’s image.
Will society write off the indigent, the mentally ill, the inmate or the refugee? Not if we believe, truly believe, that every human being is God’s idea. And he has no bad ideas. High IQ or low standing—doesn’t matter. First string or cut from the squad—doesn’t matter. You are a diamond, a rose, and a jewel, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 13
In the eighteenth year of the rule of King Jeroboam, Abijah took over the throne of Judah. He ruled in Jerusalem three years. His mother was Maacah daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.
2-3 War broke out between Abijah and Jeroboam. Abijah started out with 400,000 of his best soldiers; Jeroboam countered with 800,000 of his best.
4-7 Abijah took a prominent position on Mount Zemaraim in the hill country of Ephraim and gave this speech: “Listen, Jeroboam and all Israel! Don’t you realize that God, the one and only God of Israel, established David and his sons as the permanent rulers of Israel, ratified by a ‘covenant of salt’—God’s kingdom ruled by God’s king? And what happened? Jeroboam, the son of Solomon’s slave Nebat, rebelled against his master. All the riffraff joined his cause and were too much for Rehoboam, Solomon’s true heir. Rehoboam didn’t know his way around—besides he was a real wimp; he couldn’t stand up against them.
8-9 “Taking advantage of that weakness, you are asserting yourself against the very rule of God that is delegated to David’s descendants—you think you are so big with your huge army backed up by the golden-calf idols that Jeroboam made for you as gods! But just look at what you’ve done—you threw out the priests of God, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests to suit yourselves, priests just like the pagans have. Anyone who shows up with enough money to pay for it can be a priest! A priest of No-God!
10-11 “But for the rest of us in Judah, we’re sticking with God. We have not traded him in for the latest model—we’re keeping the tried-and-true priests of Aaron to lead us to God and the Levites to lead us in worship by sacrificing Whole-Burnt-Offerings and aromatic incense to God at the daily morning and evening prayers, setting out fresh holy bread on a clean table, and lighting the lamps on the golden Lampstand every night. We continue doing what God told us to in the way he told us to do it; but you have rid yourselves of him.
12 “Can’t you see the obvious? God is on our side; he’s our leader. And his priests with trumpets are all ready to blow the signal to battle. O Israel—don’t fight against God, the God of your ancestors. You will not win this battle.”
13-18 While Abijah was speaking, Jeroboam had sent men around to take them by surprise from the rear: Jeroboam in front of Judah and the ambush behind. When Judah looked back, they saw they were attacked front and back. They prayed desperately to God, the priests blew their trumpets, and the soldiers of Judah shouted their battle cry. At the battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. The army of Israel scattered before Judah; God gave them the victory. Abijah and his troops slaughtered them—500,000 of Israel’s best fighters were killed that day. The army of Israel fell flat on its face—a humiliating defeat. The army of Judah won hands down because they trusted God, the God of their ancestors.
19-21 Abijah followed up his victory by pursuing Jeroboam, taking the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron with their surrounding villages. Jeroboam never did recover from his defeat while Abijah lived. Later on God struck him down and he died. Meanwhile Abijah flourished; he married fourteen wives and ended up with a family of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.
22 The rest of the history of Abijah, what he did and said, is written in the study written by Iddo the prophet.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 14, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 16
A miktama of David.
1 Keep me safe,c my God,
for in you I take refuge.d
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;e
apart from you I have no good thing.”f
3 I say of the holy peopleg who are in the land,h
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
4 Those who run after other godsi will sufferj more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their namesk on my lips.
5 Lord, you alone are my portionl and my cup;m
you make my lotn secure.
6 The boundary lineso have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.p
7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;q
even at nightr my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand,s I will not be shaken.t
9 Therefore my heart is gladu and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,v
10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,w
nor will you let your faithfulb onex see decay.y
11 You make known to me the path of life;z
you will fill me with joy in your presence,a
with eternal pleasuresb at your right hand.c
Insight
Several of David’s inspired songs operate on two levels. The first level describes the emotional weight of David’s own experience, whether good or bad, and the second level looks forward to David’s greater Son (Jesus) and what He would experience on earth during His incarnation. We see a clear example of this in Psalm 22, where David’s experiences of suffering and persecution perfectly anticipate Christ’s crucifixion—even to the point where David says his foes pierced his hands and feet (v. 16).
A similar thing occurs in Psalm 16:8–11, which Peter quotes in Acts 2:25–28 as part of his Pentecost sermon. Peter said that David’s words anticipated the resurrection of Jesus. This is a marvelous picture of divine inspiration of the Scriptures. While David couldn’t have been aware of the future implications of his words, hindsight now makes their reality clear.
When Life Is Hard
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” Psalm 16:2
Physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted, I curled up in my recliner. Our family had followed God’s leading and had moved from California to Wisconsin. After we arrived, our car broke down and left us without a vehicle for two months. Meanwhile, my husband’s limited mobility after an unexpected back surgery and my chronic pain complicated our unpacking. We uncovered costly problems with our new-to-us, old home. Our senior dog suffered with health issues. And though our new pup brought great joy, raising a furry ball of energy was far more work than anticipated. My attitude soured. How was I supposed to have unshakable faith while traveling on a bumpy road of hardships?
As I prayed, God reminded me of the psalmist whose praise didn’t depend on circumstances. David poured out his emotions, often with great vulnerability, and sought refuge in the presence of God (Psalm 16:1). Acknowledging God as provider and protector (vv. 5–6), he praised Him and followed His counsel (v. 7). David affirmed that he would “not be shaken” because he kept his eyes “always on the Lord” (v. 8). So, he rejoiced and rested secure in the joy of God’s presence (vv. 9–11).
We too can delight in knowing our peace doesn’t depend on our present situation. As we thank our unchanging God for who He is and always will be, His presence will fuel our steadfast faith. By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How can offering God praise for His unchanging character and wondrous works increase your faith during challenging circumstances? What situations do you need to place in God’s trustworthy hands?
Thanks for being You, Father!
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 14, 2020
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. —Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark…” — pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, “How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!” And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I becoming more and more in love with God as a holy God, or with the conception of an amiable Being who says, “Oh well, sin doesn’t matter much”? Disciples Indeed, 389 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 14, 2020
Life-Saving Kits with Nothing Inside - #8635
During our college years, my wife spent part of a summer as a counselor at a Bible camp that was buried deep in the mountains. I mean like deep in the mountains - deep enough in the mountains that the rattlesnakes are plentiful. One day as she was hiking with her girls through the woods, they all heard what they thought was just a branch or a stick breaking. Until they realized that one of the girls had been struck in the leg by a rattlesnake. Now my wife was someone you wanted to have around you when there was a crisis - really cool head. She ran to the nearby camp and immediately went for the box in the infirmary that said Snake Bite Kit on it. But her heart sank when she opened it; the life-saving kit was empty. Thankfully, they were able to get that girl to a hospital in time to save her life, no thanks to the empty snake bite kit!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Life-Saving Kits with Nothing Inside."
It's a terrible thing to realize that the thing that claims to be able to save your life really has nothing that can help. As you read the pages of the Bible, you discover that the religions of the world are much like that. Every religion motivates its followers with the same promise - some form of heaven, eternal life if you're a good follower of "whatever" or "whoever." But sadly, religion does not, for the most part, offer a cure for the deadly infection we have: that's sin and its eternal death penalty.
There may be no more famous verse in all the Bible than John 3:16. It says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Interestingly enough, the verses that immediately precede that description of God's plan for saving us talk about a snake. In John 3:14-15, our word for today from the Word of God, He says, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. God so loved the world..."
In order to understand this snake thing, and more importantly, to understand the only way your sins can be forgiven and you can go to heaven, is to go back to Numbers 21 in the Old Testament where this snake incident took place. Venomous snakes have attacked God's people in the desert, and many of those people are dying. So God says to Moses, "'make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live'" (Numbers 21:8-9). Their only hope was to look at what God had lifted up to save them.
For us, that is Jesus, God's Son, dying on that cross. We've all been bitten by the deadly snake called sin. None of the great moralities, none of the great religions can possibly pay the death penalty for our sin. Getting to heaven isn't just about putting enough good on one side of the scale to balance the bad on the other; it's about satisfying a death penalty, and it took Jesus Christ's death to do that. You have to look to Him as the only One who can save you.
Have you ever done that? If you don't know you've given yourself to Jesus, you probably haven't. And you are risking an eternity away from God, paying an eternal death penalty that Jesus already paid on the cross. But listen, this could be your day to look away from any other hope of heaven and say, "Jesus, You're my only hope of having my sins forgiven, my only hope of going to heaven. And Jesus, I'm Yours beginning today!"
This would be the right day t
o go to our website. Because I can walk you through there; the steps to being sure you belong to Jesus from now on, your sins are forgiven and you're going to heaven. That website is ANewStory.com.
Please don't depend on something that promises life but can't possibly give it to you. Depend on the One who loves you so much that He died so you don't have to.
Every person you see was created by God to bear his image and deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Imagine the impact this promise would have on the society that embraced it. What civility it would engender. What kindness it would foster. Racism will not flourish when people believe their neighbors bear God’s image.
Will society write off the indigent, the mentally ill, the inmate or the refugee? Not if we believe, truly believe, that every human being is God’s idea. And he has no bad ideas. High IQ or low standing—doesn’t matter. First string or cut from the squad—doesn’t matter. You are a diamond, a rose, and a jewel, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. And because God’s promises are unbreakable our hope is unshakable!
2 Chronicles 13
In the eighteenth year of the rule of King Jeroboam, Abijah took over the throne of Judah. He ruled in Jerusalem three years. His mother was Maacah daughter of Uriel of Gibeah.
2-3 War broke out between Abijah and Jeroboam. Abijah started out with 400,000 of his best soldiers; Jeroboam countered with 800,000 of his best.
4-7 Abijah took a prominent position on Mount Zemaraim in the hill country of Ephraim and gave this speech: “Listen, Jeroboam and all Israel! Don’t you realize that God, the one and only God of Israel, established David and his sons as the permanent rulers of Israel, ratified by a ‘covenant of salt’—God’s kingdom ruled by God’s king? And what happened? Jeroboam, the son of Solomon’s slave Nebat, rebelled against his master. All the riffraff joined his cause and were too much for Rehoboam, Solomon’s true heir. Rehoboam didn’t know his way around—besides he was a real wimp; he couldn’t stand up against them.
8-9 “Taking advantage of that weakness, you are asserting yourself against the very rule of God that is delegated to David’s descendants—you think you are so big with your huge army backed up by the golden-calf idols that Jeroboam made for you as gods! But just look at what you’ve done—you threw out the priests of God, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and made priests to suit yourselves, priests just like the pagans have. Anyone who shows up with enough money to pay for it can be a priest! A priest of No-God!
10-11 “But for the rest of us in Judah, we’re sticking with God. We have not traded him in for the latest model—we’re keeping the tried-and-true priests of Aaron to lead us to God and the Levites to lead us in worship by sacrificing Whole-Burnt-Offerings and aromatic incense to God at the daily morning and evening prayers, setting out fresh holy bread on a clean table, and lighting the lamps on the golden Lampstand every night. We continue doing what God told us to in the way he told us to do it; but you have rid yourselves of him.
12 “Can’t you see the obvious? God is on our side; he’s our leader. And his priests with trumpets are all ready to blow the signal to battle. O Israel—don’t fight against God, the God of your ancestors. You will not win this battle.”
13-18 While Abijah was speaking, Jeroboam had sent men around to take them by surprise from the rear: Jeroboam in front of Judah and the ambush behind. When Judah looked back, they saw they were attacked front and back. They prayed desperately to God, the priests blew their trumpets, and the soldiers of Judah shouted their battle cry. At the battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. The army of Israel scattered before Judah; God gave them the victory. Abijah and his troops slaughtered them—500,000 of Israel’s best fighters were killed that day. The army of Israel fell flat on its face—a humiliating defeat. The army of Judah won hands down because they trusted God, the God of their ancestors.
19-21 Abijah followed up his victory by pursuing Jeroboam, taking the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah, and Ephron with their surrounding villages. Jeroboam never did recover from his defeat while Abijah lived. Later on God struck him down and he died. Meanwhile Abijah flourished; he married fourteen wives and ended up with a family of twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.
22 The rest of the history of Abijah, what he did and said, is written in the study written by Iddo the prophet.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, February 14, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Psalm 16
A miktama of David.
1 Keep me safe,c my God,
for in you I take refuge.d
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;e
apart from you I have no good thing.”f
3 I say of the holy peopleg who are in the land,h
“They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.”
4 Those who run after other godsi will sufferj more and more.
I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods
or take up their namesk on my lips.
5 Lord, you alone are my portionl and my cup;m
you make my lotn secure.
6 The boundary lineso have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.p
7 I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;q
even at nightr my heart instructs me.
8 I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand,s I will not be shaken.t
9 Therefore my heart is gladu and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest secure,v
10 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,w
nor will you let your faithfulb onex see decay.y
11 You make known to me the path of life;z
you will fill me with joy in your presence,a
with eternal pleasuresb at your right hand.c
Insight
Several of David’s inspired songs operate on two levels. The first level describes the emotional weight of David’s own experience, whether good or bad, and the second level looks forward to David’s greater Son (Jesus) and what He would experience on earth during His incarnation. We see a clear example of this in Psalm 22, where David’s experiences of suffering and persecution perfectly anticipate Christ’s crucifixion—even to the point where David says his foes pierced his hands and feet (v. 16).
A similar thing occurs in Psalm 16:8–11, which Peter quotes in Acts 2:25–28 as part of his Pentecost sermon. Peter said that David’s words anticipated the resurrection of Jesus. This is a marvelous picture of divine inspiration of the Scriptures. While David couldn’t have been aware of the future implications of his words, hindsight now makes their reality clear.
When Life Is Hard
I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.” Psalm 16:2
Physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted, I curled up in my recliner. Our family had followed God’s leading and had moved from California to Wisconsin. After we arrived, our car broke down and left us without a vehicle for two months. Meanwhile, my husband’s limited mobility after an unexpected back surgery and my chronic pain complicated our unpacking. We uncovered costly problems with our new-to-us, old home. Our senior dog suffered with health issues. And though our new pup brought great joy, raising a furry ball of energy was far more work than anticipated. My attitude soured. How was I supposed to have unshakable faith while traveling on a bumpy road of hardships?
As I prayed, God reminded me of the psalmist whose praise didn’t depend on circumstances. David poured out his emotions, often with great vulnerability, and sought refuge in the presence of God (Psalm 16:1). Acknowledging God as provider and protector (vv. 5–6), he praised Him and followed His counsel (v. 7). David affirmed that he would “not be shaken” because he kept his eyes “always on the Lord” (v. 8). So, he rejoiced and rested secure in the joy of God’s presence (vv. 9–11).
We too can delight in knowing our peace doesn’t depend on our present situation. As we thank our unchanging God for who He is and always will be, His presence will fuel our steadfast faith. By: Xochitl Dixon
Reflect & Pray
How can offering God praise for His unchanging character and wondrous works increase your faith during challenging circumstances? What situations do you need to place in God’s trustworthy hands?
Thanks for being You, Father!
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, February 14, 2020
The Discipline of Hearing
Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. —Matthew 10:27
Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark…” — pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.
After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, “How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!” And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Am I becoming more and more in love with God as a holy God, or with the conception of an amiable Being who says, “Oh well, sin doesn’t matter much”? Disciples Indeed, 389 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, February 14, 2020
Life-Saving Kits with Nothing Inside - #8635
During our college years, my wife spent part of a summer as a counselor at a Bible camp that was buried deep in the mountains. I mean like deep in the mountains - deep enough in the mountains that the rattlesnakes are plentiful. One day as she was hiking with her girls through the woods, they all heard what they thought was just a branch or a stick breaking. Until they realized that one of the girls had been struck in the leg by a rattlesnake. Now my wife was someone you wanted to have around you when there was a crisis - really cool head. She ran to the nearby camp and immediately went for the box in the infirmary that said Snake Bite Kit on it. But her heart sank when she opened it; the life-saving kit was empty. Thankfully, they were able to get that girl to a hospital in time to save her life, no thanks to the empty snake bite kit!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Life-Saving Kits with Nothing Inside."
It's a terrible thing to realize that the thing that claims to be able to save your life really has nothing that can help. As you read the pages of the Bible, you discover that the religions of the world are much like that. Every religion motivates its followers with the same promise - some form of heaven, eternal life if you're a good follower of "whatever" or "whoever." But sadly, religion does not, for the most part, offer a cure for the deadly infection we have: that's sin and its eternal death penalty.
There may be no more famous verse in all the Bible than John 3:16. It says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." Interestingly enough, the verses that immediately precede that description of God's plan for saving us talk about a snake. In John 3:14-15, our word for today from the Word of God, He says, "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. God so loved the world..."
In order to understand this snake thing, and more importantly, to understand the only way your sins can be forgiven and you can go to heaven, is to go back to Numbers 21 in the Old Testament where this snake incident took place. Venomous snakes have attacked God's people in the desert, and many of those people are dying. So God says to Moses, "'make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live'" (Numbers 21:8-9). Their only hope was to look at what God had lifted up to save them.
For us, that is Jesus, God's Son, dying on that cross. We've all been bitten by the deadly snake called sin. None of the great moralities, none of the great religions can possibly pay the death penalty for our sin. Getting to heaven isn't just about putting enough good on one side of the scale to balance the bad on the other; it's about satisfying a death penalty, and it took Jesus Christ's death to do that. You have to look to Him as the only One who can save you.
Have you ever done that? If you don't know you've given yourself to Jesus, you probably haven't. And you are risking an eternity away from God, paying an eternal death penalty that Jesus already paid on the cross. But listen, this could be your day to look away from any other hope of heaven and say, "Jesus, You're my only hope of having my sins forgiven, my only hope of going to heaven. And Jesus, I'm Yours beginning today!"
This would be the right day t
o go to our website. Because I can walk you through there; the steps to being sure you belong to Jesus from now on, your sins are forgiven and you're going to heaven. That website is ANewStory.com.
Please don't depend on something that promises life but can't possibly give it to you. Depend on the One who loves you so much that He died so you don't have to.
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