Max Lucado Daily: YOU ARE GOD’S FIRST CHOICE
I’m entering my fourth decade as a pastor, and I’ve learned the question to ask. If we were having this talk over coffee and you were telling me about your tough times, I’d lean across the table and say, “What do you still have that you cannot lose?” The difficulties have taken much away, I get that. But there’s one gift your troubles cannot touch—your destiny. Can we talk about it?
You are God’s child. He saw you, picked you, and placed you. Jesus said, “You did not choose Me. I chose you.” I remember a groom once leaned over, just minutes before the ceremony, and told me, “You weren’t my first choice.” “I wasn’t?” He said, “No, the preacher I wanted couldn’t make it.” “Oh.” “But thanks for filling in.”
Hey, you’ll never hear such words from God. He chose you. Replacement or fill-in? Hardly. You’re His first choice. His open, willful, voluntary choice. “This child is mine!” His child forever, that’s who you are.
Isaiah 34
Draw in close now, nations. Listen carefully,
you people. Pay attention!
Earth, you, too, and everything in you.
World, and all that comes from you.
2-4 And here’s why: God is angry,
good and angry with all the nations,
So blazingly angry at their arms and armies
that he’s going to rid earth of them, wipe them out.
The corpses, thrown in a heap,
will stink like the town dump in midsummer,
Their blood flowing off the mountains
like creeks in spring runoff.
Stars will fall out of the sky
like overripe, rotting fruit in the orchard,
And the sky itself will be folded up like a blanket
and put away in a closet.
All that army of stars, shriveled to nothing,
like leaves and fruit in autumn, dropping and rotting!
5-7 “Once I’ve finished with earth and sky,
I’ll start in on Edom.
I’ll come down hard on Edom,
a people I’ve slated for total termination.”
God has a sword, thirsty for blood and more blood,
a sword hungry for well-fed flesh,
Lamb and goat blood,
the suet-rich kidneys of rams.
Yes, God has scheduled a sacrifice in Bozrah, the capital,
the whole country of Edom a slaughterhouse.
A wholesale slaughter, wild animals
and farm animals alike slaughtered.
The whole country soaked with blood,
all the ground greasy with fat.
8-15 It’s God’s scheduled time for vengeance,
the year all Zion’s accounts are settled.
Edom’s streams will flow sluggish, thick with pollution,
the soil sterile, poisoned with waste,
The whole country
a smoking, stinking garbage dump—
The fires burning day and night,
the skies black with endless smoke.
Generation after generation of wasteland—
no more travelers through this country!
Vultures and skunks will police the streets;
owls and crows will feel at home there.
God will reverse creation. Chaos!
He will cancel fertility. Emptiness!
Leaders will have no one to lead.
They’ll name it No Kingdom There,
A country where all kings
and princes are unemployed.
Thistles will take over, covering the castles,
fortresses conquered by weeds and thornbushes.
Wild dogs will prowl the ruins,
ostriches have the run of the place.
Wildcats and hyenas will hunt together,
demons and devils dance through the night.
The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious,
will establish permanent quarters.
Scavenging carrion birds will breed and brood,
infestations of ominous evil.
16-17 Get and read God’s book:
None of this is going away,
this breeding, brooding evil.
God has personally commanded it all.
His Spirit set it in motion.
God has assigned them their place,
decreed their fate in detail.
This is permanent—
generation after generation, the same old thing.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 23:32–43
Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”[a] And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
35 The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”
36 The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37 and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”
38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[b]”
43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Footnotes:
Luke 23:34 Some early manuscripts do not have this sentence.
Luke 23:42 Some manuscripts come with your kingly power
Insight
In Psalm 22:17–18, crucifixion was prophetically described some 600 years before it was invented: “All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.”
In the first century, the common attire for a Jewish man included five pieces of clothing—shoes, turban, belt, loincloth, and outer tunic. The soldiers stripped Jesus naked and after crucifying Him divided His garments as their spoils for performing the task. Then they gambled for the tunic (John 19:23–24).
Impossible Forgiveness
Father, forgive them. Luke 23:34
Liberators found the following prayer crumpled among the remains of the Ravensbruck concentration camp where Nazis exterminated nearly 50,000 women: O Lord, remember not only the men and women of goodwill, but also those of ill will. But do not remember the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember the fruits we brought thanks to this suffering—our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of this. And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.
I can’t imagine the fear and pain inflicted on the terrorized woman who wrote this prayer. I can’t imagine what kind of inexplicable grace these words required of her. She did the unthinkable: she sought God’s forgiveness for her oppressors.
This prayer echoes Christ’s prayer. After being wrongly accused, mocked, beaten, and humiliated before the people, Jesus was “crucified . . . along with [two] criminals” (Luke 23:33). Hanging, with mutilated body and gasping for breath, from a rough-hewn cross, I would expect Jesus to pronounce judgment on His tormentors, to seek retribution or divine justice. However, Jesus uttered a prayer contradicting every human impulse: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (v. 34).
The forgiveness Jesus offers seems impossible, but He offers it to us. In His divine grace, impossible forgiveness spills free. By: Winn Collier
Reflect & Pray
How has God’s impossible forgiveness changed you? How can we help others experience true forgiveness in Him?
God, Your forgiveness is a strange, impossible thing. In our pain, it’s hard to imagine this possibility. Help us. Teach us Your love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Liberty and the Standards of Jesus
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free… —Galatians 5:1
A spiritually-minded person will never come to you with the demand— “Believe this and that”; a spiritually-minded person will demand that you align your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One whom the Bible reveals (see John 5:39-40). We are called to present liberty for the conscience of others, not to bring them liberty for their thoughts and opinions. And if we ourselves are free with the liberty of Christ, others will be brought into that same liberty— the liberty that comes from realizing the absolute control and authority of Jesus Christ.
Always measure your life solely by the standards of Jesus. Submit yourself to His yoke, and His alone; and always be careful never to place a yoke on others that is not of Jesus Christ. It takes God a long time to get us to stop thinking that unless everyone sees things exactly as we do, they must be wrong. That is never God’s view. There is only one true liberty— the liberty of Jesus at work in our conscience enabling us to do what is right.
Don’t get impatient with others. Remember how God dealt with you— with patience and with gentleness. But never water down the truth of God. Let it have its way and never apologize for it. Jesus said, “Go…and make disciples…” (Matthew 28:19), not, “Make converts to your own thoughts and opinions.”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Both nations and individuals have tried Christianity and abandoned it, because it has been found too difficult; but no man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making Jesus Lord and found Him to be a failure. The Love of God—The Making of a Christian, 680 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 21-22; Luke 23:26-56
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Why It's Good to Go M.A.D. - #8693
When it was 7:00 a.m. in the Hutchcraft house, the word "chaos" took on new meaning - a typical school day morning. It was very exciting to get two teenage sons up, get them around, and get them dressed and out to school. Of course, both of them were a little crazy like their Mother, and that contributed to the chaos as well. Finally we were able to get them off to school.
But in-between all kinds of things happen. I mean, pairs of pants mysteriously disappeared and reappeared on the other brother. What? Socks and underwear took on enormous value as we tried to find one pair. Phones rang, papers needed signing, books needed covering. And after it was all over and the boys were headed out, on a typical morning you might hear me step outside the front door and call my final instructions to them for that day.
"Go M.A.D.!" Can't you imagine our next door neighbor sticking his head out and saying, "Say what? Go M.A.D.? Have you? You want your two teenage boys to go mad? What's the matter with you?" Well, that's exactly what I wanted them to do every day. Actually, it's what I hope you'll do.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why It's Good to Go M.A.D."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 5, and verses 13 and 14, and Jesus is using two figures of speech here to describe His followers. As you listen to these, maybe you'll ask the question I've asked, "What do they have in common?" Jesus says, "You are the salt of the earth." And then in verse 14 He says, "You are the light of the world."
Now in these verses, and you probably don't realize this, Jesus is telling us to "go M.A.D." You say, "Come on Ron, that's not even in the original Greek. Where are you getting that?" Well, if you understand what M.A.D. stands for, it's an acrostic. When I told my boys to "Go M.A.D.," I was saying, "Guys, go make a difference." That's what a day in the life of a Jesus-follower is all about, and that's what Jesus is saying here, "Go make a difference." What does salt and light have in common? Not much. But they have one thing in common.
Take, for example, popcorn without salt. Blaaa! Or meat...usually meat requires some salt. It doesn't take a lot. A little salt will change the environment you put it in. It will change the taste of the popcorn; it will change the taste of the meat. What about light? Well, once again, you take a little light into a big, dark room, and it will change the environment. And in both cases it doesn't take much.
Now, Jesus is saying, "You're my salt; you're my light." If you're a Jesus-follower, you should be changing the people around you; changing the atmosphere around you. You should go M.A.D. You should make a difference. Now, most believers have a smaller purpose in life. Not necessarily to make a difference, maybe to make money, or make friends, or make an impression, or just make it through and survive as a Christian.
Jesus said, "You're not here for any of those. You're here to make a difference." Well, are you? Do you change the flat flavor of the world around you, do you bring a smile, do you bring a positive spirit, do you bring some real love into your circle? Do you bring light to a dark office, a locker room, a classroom, a home?
Let Christ make a difference in you, then you can go make a difference in others. And the ultimate difference you can make in anyone's life is to change their eternal address from hell to heaven. And that can only happen if you will let them know what you know about Jesus; if you'll tell them how Jesus changed your life by what He did on the cross, and by being a living Savior who walked into your life. That's making a difference that will last a hundred billion years.
There's a lot more reasons for getting up in the morning, believe me, when you say, "Lord, help me make a difference for You today." So, as you head out each morning, imagine Jesus at the front door calling out to you, "Go M.A.D. for Me today! Go make a difference!"
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Romans 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: SOMETIMES GOD TAKES HIS TIME
Sometimes God takes His time. One-hundred and twenty years to prepare Noah for the flood. Eighty years to prepare Moses for his work. God called young David to be king, but returned him to the sheep pasture. He called Paul to be an apostle and then isolated him in Arabia for fourteen years.
How long will God take with you? His history is redeemed, not in minutes, but in lifetimes. We fear the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave. Will this sky ever brighten? This load ever lighten?
Life in the pit stinks. Yet for all its rottenness, doesn’t it do this much? Doesn’t it force us to look upward? The Bible promises, at the right time, in God’s hands, intended evil becomes eventual good. You will get through this!
Romans 3
So what difference does it make who’s a Jew and who isn’t, who has been trained in God’s ways and who hasn’t? As it turns out, it makes a lot of difference—but not the difference so many have assumed.
2-6 First, there’s the matter of being put in charge of writing down and caring for God’s revelation, these Holy Scriptures. So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn’t abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same:
Your words stand fast and true;
Rejection doesn’t faze you.
But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God’s rightdoing, shouldn’t we be commended for helping out? Since our bad words don’t even make a dent in his good words, isn’t it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up. The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn’t do the straightening?
7-8 It’s simply perverse to say, “If my lies serve to show off God’s truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I’m doing God a favor.” Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, “The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let’s just do it!” That’s pure slander, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
9-20 So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:
There’s nobody living right, not even one,
nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.
They’ve all taken the wrong turn;
they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.
No one’s living right;
I can’t find a single one.
Their throats are gaping graves,
their tongues slick as mudslides.
Every word they speak is tinged with poison.
They open their mouths and pollute the air.
They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,
litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,
Don’t know the first thing about living with others.
They never give God the time of day.
This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.
21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
25-26 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
27-28 So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we’ve learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. We’ve finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.
29-30 And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.
31 But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don’t we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Kings 19:1–9
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”
3 Elijah was afraid[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Footnotes:
1 Kings 19:3 Or Elijah saw
Insight
Following Israel’s dramatic return to the God of their fathers on Mount Carmel, Queen Jezebel’s threats against Elijah’s life (1 Kings 19:1–2) drove him to Mount Horeb (v. 8), where he encountered God. Horeb is also known as Mount Sinai—where Moses had encountered God many years before (Exodus 19ff.). This is one of several connections between these two Old Testament giants, but those connections aren’t limited to the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Elijah and Moses were united on another mountain—the Mount of Transfiguration—where they discussed with Jesus His coming departure from Jerusalem (Luke 9:28–31).
Strength for the Journey
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 1 Kings 19:5
One summer, I faced what seemed an impossible task—a big writing project with a looming deadline. Having spent day after day on my own, endeavoring to get the words onto the page, I felt exhausted and discouraged, and I wanted to give up. A wise friend asked me, “When’s the last time you felt refreshed? Maybe you need to allow yourself to rest and to enjoy a good meal.”
I knew immediately that she was right. Her advice made me think of Elijah and the terrifying message he received from Jezebel (1 Kings 19:2)—although, of course, my writing project wasn’t anywhere near the cosmic scale of the prophet’s experience. After Elijah triumphed over the false prophets on Mount Carmel, Jezebel sent word that she would capture and kill him, and he despaired, longing to die. But then he enjoyed a good sleep and was twice visited by an angel who gave him food to eat. After God renewed his physical strength, he was able to continue with his journey.
When the “journey is too much” for us (v. 7), we might need to rest and enjoy a healthy and satisfying meal. For when we are exhausted or hungry, we can easily succumb to disappointment or fear. But when God meets our physical needs through His resources, as much as possible in this fallen world, we can take the next step in serving Him. By: Amy Boucher Pye
Reflect & Pray
Looking back, when have you needed to slow down and receive sustenance before pressing on? How can you look for signs of burnout as you serve God?
Creator God, You formed us as Your people. Thank You for our limitations, which remind us that You’re God and we’re not. Help us to serve You with gladness and joy.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.
Disciples Indeed
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 16-18; Luke 22:47-71
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
How to Win When You've Been Losing - #8692
As part of our ministry among Native American young people, our sons helped out with the local high school football team on a reservation. That was a team that hadn't known much about winning until the previous season. The players were pretty much the same as the year before, but their record was dramatically different that year. The year before, they won one game. That year they were undefeated and even went to the state playoffs. Everybody was in shock! You could tell it was going to be a great season after one of their very early games, because they soundly defeated a team that had beaten them the year before 59-0! What was the difference? Pretty much same players; pretty much same opponents, but a new coach. He knew what to do with that team!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Win When You've Been Losing."
It's amazing what a difference the right coach can make...maybe even for you right now. It's seemed maybe like you've had a losing season, and you're getting discouraged and depleted. But maybe a new season begins when you get a new coach. So many times, our losing seasons are when we're coaching our life - doing it our way, doing it in the same old way, doing it the easy way, but not necessarily doing it God's way.
In our word for today from the Word of God, we discover the expensive lesson that King David learned about letting God call the plays. He's Israel's new king, and he's determined to bring the Ark of God back to God's people. 1 Chronicles 13, beginning with verse 7, describes the moving of the Ark on a new cart, pulled by oxen. The account says, "Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark because the oxen stumbled." The Bible says that Uzzah died on the spot that day, struck down for touching this holy object that no one was ever supposed to touch.
In 1 Chronicles 15, David tries again to bring back the ark. Only this time, he's listening to a different coach. Verse 2, "No one but the Levites may carry the ark of God because the Lord chose them to carry the ark of the Lord...It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the Lord your God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of Him about how to do it in the prescribed way." At that point, the Levites did it as God had said to do it over the years - carrying it on their shoulders, suspended on poles - so no man touched what literally represented the personal presence of a holy God.
Bottom line: when David called the play, he lost. When he let God call the play; when he did it God's way, he won. That's how it always works. And maybe you've been losing because you've been doing it your way or their way, but not His way; how you've been running your business, your love life, things you've been trying to do in your ministry, in your family, maybe how you've been spending, or how you've been trying to fix things. You've been trying to figure out why it isn't working. You may be trying to do something good. David was trying to do something good, but not in God's way and not in God's time. And, just like David, your dream is turning into a nightmare.
But David got it back because he got back to God's way, and that's what's going to turn around this losing season for you. It's the only thing that's going to turn it around. God's way may seem harder, it often is. It may seem longer; it often is. And it will mean surrendering your way to His way. But you know what? Honestly, there's no other way to win.
Sometimes God takes His time. One-hundred and twenty years to prepare Noah for the flood. Eighty years to prepare Moses for his work. God called young David to be king, but returned him to the sheep pasture. He called Paul to be an apostle and then isolated him in Arabia for fourteen years.
How long will God take with you? His history is redeemed, not in minutes, but in lifetimes. We fear the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave. Will this sky ever brighten? This load ever lighten?
Life in the pit stinks. Yet for all its rottenness, doesn’t it do this much? Doesn’t it force us to look upward? The Bible promises, at the right time, in God’s hands, intended evil becomes eventual good. You will get through this!
Romans 3
So what difference does it make who’s a Jew and who isn’t, who has been trained in God’s ways and who hasn’t? As it turns out, it makes a lot of difference—but not the difference so many have assumed.
2-6 First, there’s the matter of being put in charge of writing down and caring for God’s revelation, these Holy Scriptures. So, what if, in the course of doing that, some of those Jews abandoned their post? God didn’t abandon them. Do you think their faithlessness cancels out his faithfulness? Not on your life! Depend on it: God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth. Scripture says the same:
Your words stand fast and true;
Rejection doesn’t faze you.
But if our wrongdoing only underlines and confirms God’s rightdoing, shouldn’t we be commended for helping out? Since our bad words don’t even make a dent in his good words, isn’t it wrong of God to back us to the wall and hold us to our word? These questions come up. The answer to such questions is no, a most emphatic No! How else would things ever get straightened out if God didn’t do the straightening?
7-8 It’s simply perverse to say, “If my lies serve to show off God’s truth all the more gloriously, why blame me? I’m doing God a favor.” Some people are actually trying to put such words in our mouths, claiming that we go around saying, “The more evil we do, the more good God does, so let’s just do it!” That’s pure slander, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
9-20 So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it:
There’s nobody living right, not even one,
nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God.
They’ve all taken the wrong turn;
they’ve all wandered down blind alleys.
No one’s living right;
I can’t find a single one.
Their throats are gaping graves,
their tongues slick as mudslides.
Every word they speak is tinged with poison.
They open their mouths and pollute the air.
They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year,
litter the land with heartbreak and ruin,
Don’t know the first thing about living with others.
They never give God the time of day.
This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin.
21-24 But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
25-26 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.
27-28 So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims? Canceled? Yes, canceled. What we’ve learned is this: God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. We’ve finally figured it out. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.
29-30 And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.
31 But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, don’t we cancel out all our careful keeping of the rules and ways God commanded? Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
1 Kings 19:1–9
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.”
3 Elijah was afraid[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Footnotes:
1 Kings 19:3 Or Elijah saw
Insight
Following Israel’s dramatic return to the God of their fathers on Mount Carmel, Queen Jezebel’s threats against Elijah’s life (1 Kings 19:1–2) drove him to Mount Horeb (v. 8), where he encountered God. Horeb is also known as Mount Sinai—where Moses had encountered God many years before (Exodus 19ff.). This is one of several connections between these two Old Testament giants, but those connections aren’t limited to the Old Testament. In the New Testament, Elijah and Moses were united on another mountain—the Mount of Transfiguration—where they discussed with Jesus His coming departure from Jerusalem (Luke 9:28–31).
Strength for the Journey
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 1 Kings 19:5
One summer, I faced what seemed an impossible task—a big writing project with a looming deadline. Having spent day after day on my own, endeavoring to get the words onto the page, I felt exhausted and discouraged, and I wanted to give up. A wise friend asked me, “When’s the last time you felt refreshed? Maybe you need to allow yourself to rest and to enjoy a good meal.”
I knew immediately that she was right. Her advice made me think of Elijah and the terrifying message he received from Jezebel (1 Kings 19:2)—although, of course, my writing project wasn’t anywhere near the cosmic scale of the prophet’s experience. After Elijah triumphed over the false prophets on Mount Carmel, Jezebel sent word that she would capture and kill him, and he despaired, longing to die. But then he enjoyed a good sleep and was twice visited by an angel who gave him food to eat. After God renewed his physical strength, he was able to continue with his journey.
When the “journey is too much” for us (v. 7), we might need to rest and enjoy a healthy and satisfying meal. For when we are exhausted or hungry, we can easily succumb to disappointment or fear. But when God meets our physical needs through His resources, as much as possible in this fallen world, we can take the next step in serving Him. By: Amy Boucher Pye
Reflect & Pray
Looking back, when have you needed to slow down and receive sustenance before pressing on? How can you look for signs of burnout as you serve God?
Creator God, You formed us as Your people. Thank You for our limitations, which remind us that You’re God and we’re not. Help us to serve You with gladness and joy.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.
Disciples Indeed
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 16-18; Luke 22:47-71
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
How to Win When You've Been Losing - #8692
As part of our ministry among Native American young people, our sons helped out with the local high school football team on a reservation. That was a team that hadn't known much about winning until the previous season. The players were pretty much the same as the year before, but their record was dramatically different that year. The year before, they won one game. That year they were undefeated and even went to the state playoffs. Everybody was in shock! You could tell it was going to be a great season after one of their very early games, because they soundly defeated a team that had beaten them the year before 59-0! What was the difference? Pretty much same players; pretty much same opponents, but a new coach. He knew what to do with that team!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Win When You've Been Losing."
It's amazing what a difference the right coach can make...maybe even for you right now. It's seemed maybe like you've had a losing season, and you're getting discouraged and depleted. But maybe a new season begins when you get a new coach. So many times, our losing seasons are when we're coaching our life - doing it our way, doing it in the same old way, doing it the easy way, but not necessarily doing it God's way.
In our word for today from the Word of God, we discover the expensive lesson that King David learned about letting God call the plays. He's Israel's new king, and he's determined to bring the Ark of God back to God's people. 1 Chronicles 13, beginning with verse 7, describes the moving of the Ark on a new cart, pulled by oxen. The account says, "Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark because the oxen stumbled." The Bible says that Uzzah died on the spot that day, struck down for touching this holy object that no one was ever supposed to touch.
In 1 Chronicles 15, David tries again to bring back the ark. Only this time, he's listening to a different coach. Verse 2, "No one but the Levites may carry the ark of God because the Lord chose them to carry the ark of the Lord...It was because you, the Levites, did not bring it up the first time that the Lord your God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of Him about how to do it in the prescribed way." At that point, the Levites did it as God had said to do it over the years - carrying it on their shoulders, suspended on poles - so no man touched what literally represented the personal presence of a holy God.
Bottom line: when David called the play, he lost. When he let God call the play; when he did it God's way, he won. That's how it always works. And maybe you've been losing because you've been doing it your way or their way, but not His way; how you've been running your business, your love life, things you've been trying to do in your ministry, in your family, maybe how you've been spending, or how you've been trying to fix things. You've been trying to figure out why it isn't working. You may be trying to do something good. David was trying to do something good, but not in God's way and not in God's time. And, just like David, your dream is turning into a nightmare.
But David got it back because he got back to God's way, and that's what's going to turn around this losing season for you. It's the only thing that's going to turn it around. God's way may seem harder, it often is. It may seem longer; it often is. And it will mean surrendering your way to His way. But you know what? Honestly, there's no other way to win.
Monday, May 4, 2020
Isaiah 33, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: DELIVERANCE COMES
You’ll get through this! You fear you won’t. We all do. We feel stuck, trapped, locked in. Will we ever exit this pit? Yes! Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras— bold, brassy, and everywhere.
Out of the lion’s den for Daniel, the whale’s belly for Jonah, and prison for Paul. Through the Red Sea onto dry ground. Through the wilderness, through the valley of the shadow of death. Through! It’s a favorite word of God’s! Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.”
It won’t be painless. Have you wept your final tear, received your last round of chemotherapy? Not necessarily. Does God guarantee the absence of struggle? Not in this life. We see Satan’s tricks and ploys but God sees Satan tripped and foiled. You’ll get through this!
Isaiah 33
Doom to you, Destroyer,
not yet destroyed;
And doom to you, Betrayer,
not yet betrayed.
When you finish destroying,
your turn will come—destroyed!
When you quit betraying,
your turn will come—betrayed!
2-4 God, treat us kindly. You’re our only hope.
First thing in the morning, be there for us!
When things go bad, help us out!
You spoke in thunder and everyone ran.
You showed up and nations scattered.
Your people, for a change, got in on the loot,
picking the field clean of the enemy spoils.
5-6 God is supremely esteemed. His center holds.
Zion brims over with all that is just and right.
God keeps your days stable and secure—
salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in surplus,
and best of all, Zion’s treasure, Fear-of-God.
7-9 But look! Listen!
Tough men weep openly.
Peacemaking diplomats are in bitter tears.
The roads are empty—
not a soul out on the streets.
The peace treaty is broken,
its conditions violated,
its signers reviled.
The very ground under our feet mourns,
the Lebanon mountains hang their heads,
Flowering Sharon is a weed-choked gully,
and the forests of Bashan and Carmel? Bare branches.
10-12 “Now I’m stepping in,” God says.
“From now on, I’m taking over.
The gloves come off. Now see how mighty I am.
There’s nothing to you.
Pregnant with chaff, you produce straw babies;
full of hot air, you self-destruct.
You’re good for nothing but fertilizer and fuel.
Earth to earth—and the sooner the better.
13-14 “If you’re far away,
get the reports on what I’ve done,
And if you’re in the neighborhood,
pay attention to my record.
The sinners in Zion are rightly terrified;
the godless are at their wit’s end:
‘Who among us can survive this firestorm?
Who of us can get out of this purge with our lives?’”
15-16 The answer’s simple:
Live right,
speak the truth,
despise exploitation,
refuse bribes,
reject violence,
avoid evil amusements.
This is how you raise your standard of living!
A safe and stable way to live.
A nourishing, satisfying way to live.
17-19 Oh, you’ll see the king—a beautiful sight!
And you’ll take in the wide vistas of land.
In your mind you’ll go over the old terrors:
“What happened to that Assyrian inspector who condemned and confiscated?
And the one who gouged us of taxes?
And that cheating moneychanger?”
Gone! Out of sight forever! Their insolence
nothing now but a fading stain on the carpet!
No more putting up with a language you can’t understand,
no more sounds of gibberish in your ears.
20-22 Just take a look at Zion, will you?
Centering our worship in festival feasts!
Feast your eyes on Jerusalem,
a quiet and permanent place to live.
No more pulling up stakes and moving on,
no more patched-together lean-tos.
Instead, God! God majestic, God himself the place
in a country of broad rivers and streams,
But rivers blocked to invading ships,
off-limits to predatory pirates.
For God makes all the decisions here. God is our king.
God runs this place and he’ll keep us safe.
23 Ha! Your sails are in shreds,
your mast wobbling,
your hold leaking.
The plunder is free for the taking, free for all—
for weak and strong, insiders and outsiders.
24 No one in Zion will say, “I’m sick.”
Best of all, they’ll all live guilt-free.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 04, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Amos 8:9–12; 9:11–12
“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
“In that day
“I will restore David’s fallen shelter—
I will repair its broken walls
and restore its ruins—
and will rebuild it as it used to be,
12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations that bear my name,[a]”
declares the Lord, who will do these things.
Footnotes:
Amos 9:12 Hebrew; Septuagint so that the remnant of people / and all the nations that bear my name may seek me
Insight
Amos prophesied during the days when Uzziah ruled Judah and Jeroboam II ruled Israel (about 760–750 bc). Yet Amos claimed to be not a prophet but “one of the shepherds of Tekoa” (Amos 1:1). Tekoa is about five miles south of Bethlehem in Judah. And when commanded by Amaziah the priest of Bethel to stop prophesying, he answered, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’” God called Amos to drop everything to warn Israel’s people and leaders of God’s impending judgment (7:14–17). Although the people prospered, they were unjust, immoral, and mistreated the poor (2:6–8; 3:10; 5:11); and the judges were corrupt (5:12). Judgment was imminent (8:11–12), but a remnant would be preserved (9:11–12).
Eclipse
I will restore David’s fallen shelter—I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins—and will rebuild it as it used to be. Amos 9:11
I was prepared with eye protection, an ideal viewing location, and homemade moon pie desserts. Along with millions of people in the US, my family watched the rare occurrence of a total solar eclipse—the moon covering the entire disk of the sun.
The eclipse caused an unusual darkness to come over the typically bright summer afternoon. Although for us this eclipse was a fun celebration and a reminder of God’s incredible power over creation (Psalm 135:6–7), throughout history darkness during the day has been seen as abnormal and foreboding (Exodus 10:21; Matthew 27:45), a sign that everything is not as it should be.
This is what darkness signified for Amos, a prophet during the time of the divided monarchy in ancient Israel. Amos warned the Northern Kingdom that destruction would come if they continued to turn away from God. As a sign, God would “make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight” (Amos 8:9).
But God’s ultimate desire and purpose was—and is—to make all things right. Even when the people were taken into exile, God promised to one day bring a remnant back to Jerusalem and “repair its broken walls and restore its ruins” (9:11).
Even when life is at its darkest, like Israel, we can find comfort in knowing God is at work to bring light and hope back—to all people (Acts 15:14–18). By: Lisa M. Samra
Reflect & Pray
When was a time you chose to reject or disobey God? How did God provide rescue and bring light into your dark situation?
Jesus, as we read in Revelation 21:23, thank You that You shine brighter than the sun and turn back the darkness.
To learn more about the book of Amos, visit bit.ly/2YAfbqG.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 04, 2020
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
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, 1465 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 16-18; Luke 22:47-71
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 04, 2020
When it Hurts to Copy Your Father - #8691
Our daughter was just a toddler, and she'd often talk with me while I was brushing my teeth in the morning, or shaving, or combing my hair. But one morning, unbeknownst to my wife, our daughter got in the bathroom, stood on something, and got the blade razor that I shaved with. When her mother walked in, our daughter was stroking that razor across her face, minus any shaving cream and leaving some pretty serious scratches and scrapes behind.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When it Hurts to Copy Your Father."
All our daughter was doing was copying her father and inflicting wounds as a result. That's a mistake a lot of folks, grownup folks, have made...copying their father or their mother, and inflicting wounds as a result.
There are things our father and mother did and that they said, that we were determined we weren't going to repeat when we had kids. Well, so much for that good intention. All too often, the longer we live, the more we sound like or act like our father or mother in ways we never wanted to repeat. We know how much those things hurt us, and in spite of ourselves, they are hurting our children now: that same temper, that same critical spirit, that same manipulating, guilt tripping, the harsh words, the withdrawal or the selfishness.
It seems like we're almost powerless to change the dark side of us. We hate it, especially that part that was handed down to us by what I call "family sins." If we could have changed those things we would have changed them by now, which makes our word for today from the Word of God really, really good news. It's in 1 Peter 1:18-19.
God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers." In other words, there's actually hope of changing, of actually getting rid of some of those "empty ways" handed down to us by our father or mother. How does this "redeeming" happen? The Bible goes on to say "you were redeemed...with the precious blood of Christ." Wait! Then there's a connection between my family baggage and the violent death of Jesus Christ on the cross?
There's all the connection in the world. Because all this dark stuff inside us, whether it's from our past or from our own choices, is wrapped up in God's word for it - sin. And our sin is what Jesus died for on the cross to forgive it, to break its power, to make possible a relationship where Jesus comes right into your heart, your personality, and changes you from the inside out!
That is good news - not just for you, but for the people you love. There's a Savior who literally stands ready to save you from the sin that's already done way too much damage. The transformation begins when you reach out to Jesus and you trust Him to be your own personal Savior from your personal sin which He died to make possible that relationship. Yeah, that was the purpose of His death. If you've never begun your relationship with Him, you have yet to have your sins forgiven. You have yet to experience His life-changing power and what it can do inside you. This could be your day for that new beginning. Now, how do you do that?
Well, it's a matter of talking to Him and telling Him in total faith, and you can do it right where you are right now: "Jesus, I cannot change myself. I cannot forgive my own sin. I cannot get out from under my dark side. But I believe you died on the cross, and the reason you died was to deal with all that darkness and all that sin. You walked out of your grave; you're alive today! So, today I'm ready to turn from that sin and let go of it with both hands, so I have both hands to grab You. Jesus, beginning right here; beginning right now, I am Yours."
We'd love to help you be sure you have that relationship. And that's what our website is for. It's ANewStory.com. It's where your new story could begin; a new story for you and the people you love. I hope you go there today.
Here's what happens. When you open up your life to Jesus, you have for the first time in your life the power to say, "It stops in this generation!"
You’ll get through this! You fear you won’t. We all do. We feel stuck, trapped, locked in. Will we ever exit this pit? Yes! Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras— bold, brassy, and everywhere.
Out of the lion’s den for Daniel, the whale’s belly for Jonah, and prison for Paul. Through the Red Sea onto dry ground. Through the wilderness, through the valley of the shadow of death. Through! It’s a favorite word of God’s! Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you…when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.”
It won’t be painless. Have you wept your final tear, received your last round of chemotherapy? Not necessarily. Does God guarantee the absence of struggle? Not in this life. We see Satan’s tricks and ploys but God sees Satan tripped and foiled. You’ll get through this!
Isaiah 33
Doom to you, Destroyer,
not yet destroyed;
And doom to you, Betrayer,
not yet betrayed.
When you finish destroying,
your turn will come—destroyed!
When you quit betraying,
your turn will come—betrayed!
2-4 God, treat us kindly. You’re our only hope.
First thing in the morning, be there for us!
When things go bad, help us out!
You spoke in thunder and everyone ran.
You showed up and nations scattered.
Your people, for a change, got in on the loot,
picking the field clean of the enemy spoils.
5-6 God is supremely esteemed. His center holds.
Zion brims over with all that is just and right.
God keeps your days stable and secure—
salvation, wisdom, and knowledge in surplus,
and best of all, Zion’s treasure, Fear-of-God.
7-9 But look! Listen!
Tough men weep openly.
Peacemaking diplomats are in bitter tears.
The roads are empty—
not a soul out on the streets.
The peace treaty is broken,
its conditions violated,
its signers reviled.
The very ground under our feet mourns,
the Lebanon mountains hang their heads,
Flowering Sharon is a weed-choked gully,
and the forests of Bashan and Carmel? Bare branches.
10-12 “Now I’m stepping in,” God says.
“From now on, I’m taking over.
The gloves come off. Now see how mighty I am.
There’s nothing to you.
Pregnant with chaff, you produce straw babies;
full of hot air, you self-destruct.
You’re good for nothing but fertilizer and fuel.
Earth to earth—and the sooner the better.
13-14 “If you’re far away,
get the reports on what I’ve done,
And if you’re in the neighborhood,
pay attention to my record.
The sinners in Zion are rightly terrified;
the godless are at their wit’s end:
‘Who among us can survive this firestorm?
Who of us can get out of this purge with our lives?’”
15-16 The answer’s simple:
Live right,
speak the truth,
despise exploitation,
refuse bribes,
reject violence,
avoid evil amusements.
This is how you raise your standard of living!
A safe and stable way to live.
A nourishing, satisfying way to live.
17-19 Oh, you’ll see the king—a beautiful sight!
And you’ll take in the wide vistas of land.
In your mind you’ll go over the old terrors:
“What happened to that Assyrian inspector who condemned and confiscated?
And the one who gouged us of taxes?
And that cheating moneychanger?”
Gone! Out of sight forever! Their insolence
nothing now but a fading stain on the carpet!
No more putting up with a language you can’t understand,
no more sounds of gibberish in your ears.
20-22 Just take a look at Zion, will you?
Centering our worship in festival feasts!
Feast your eyes on Jerusalem,
a quiet and permanent place to live.
No more pulling up stakes and moving on,
no more patched-together lean-tos.
Instead, God! God majestic, God himself the place
in a country of broad rivers and streams,
But rivers blocked to invading ships,
off-limits to predatory pirates.
For God makes all the decisions here. God is our king.
God runs this place and he’ll keep us safe.
23 Ha! Your sails are in shreds,
your mast wobbling,
your hold leaking.
The plunder is free for the taking, free for all—
for weak and strong, insiders and outsiders.
24 No one in Zion will say, “I’m sick.”
Best of all, they’ll all live guilt-free.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, May 04, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Amos 8:9–12; 9:11–12
“In that day,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your religious festivals into mourning
and all your singing into weeping.
I will make all of you wear sackcloth
and shave your heads.
I will make that time like mourning for an only son
and the end of it like a bitter day.
11 “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord,
“when I will send a famine through the land—
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and wander from north to east,
searching for the word of the Lord,
but they will not find it.
“In that day
“I will restore David’s fallen shelter—
I will repair its broken walls
and restore its ruins—
and will rebuild it as it used to be,
12 so that they may possess the remnant of Edom
and all the nations that bear my name,[a]”
declares the Lord, who will do these things.
Footnotes:
Amos 9:12 Hebrew; Septuagint so that the remnant of people / and all the nations that bear my name may seek me
Insight
Amos prophesied during the days when Uzziah ruled Judah and Jeroboam II ruled Israel (about 760–750 bc). Yet Amos claimed to be not a prophet but “one of the shepherds of Tekoa” (Amos 1:1). Tekoa is about five miles south of Bethlehem in Judah. And when commanded by Amaziah the priest of Bethel to stop prophesying, he answered, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’” God called Amos to drop everything to warn Israel’s people and leaders of God’s impending judgment (7:14–17). Although the people prospered, they were unjust, immoral, and mistreated the poor (2:6–8; 3:10; 5:11); and the judges were corrupt (5:12). Judgment was imminent (8:11–12), but a remnant would be preserved (9:11–12).
Eclipse
I will restore David’s fallen shelter—I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins—and will rebuild it as it used to be. Amos 9:11
I was prepared with eye protection, an ideal viewing location, and homemade moon pie desserts. Along with millions of people in the US, my family watched the rare occurrence of a total solar eclipse—the moon covering the entire disk of the sun.
The eclipse caused an unusual darkness to come over the typically bright summer afternoon. Although for us this eclipse was a fun celebration and a reminder of God’s incredible power over creation (Psalm 135:6–7), throughout history darkness during the day has been seen as abnormal and foreboding (Exodus 10:21; Matthew 27:45), a sign that everything is not as it should be.
This is what darkness signified for Amos, a prophet during the time of the divided monarchy in ancient Israel. Amos warned the Northern Kingdom that destruction would come if they continued to turn away from God. As a sign, God would “make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight” (Amos 8:9).
But God’s ultimate desire and purpose was—and is—to make all things right. Even when the people were taken into exile, God promised to one day bring a remnant back to Jerusalem and “repair its broken walls and restore its ruins” (9:11).
Even when life is at its darkest, like Israel, we can find comfort in knowing God is at work to bring light and hope back—to all people (Acts 15:14–18). By: Lisa M. Samra
Reflect & Pray
When was a time you chose to reject or disobey God? How did God provide rescue and bring light into your dark situation?
Jesus, as we read in Revelation 21:23, thank You that You shine brighter than the sun and turn back the darkness.
To learn more about the book of Amos, visit bit.ly/2YAfbqG.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, May 04, 2020
Vicarious Intercession
…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus… —Hebrews 10:19
Beware of thinking that intercession means bringing our own personal sympathies and concerns into the presence of God, and then demanding that He do whatever we ask. Our ability to approach God is due entirely to the vicarious, or substitutionary, identification of our Lord with sin. We have “boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.”
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effective hindrance to intercession, because it is based on a sympathetic “understanding” of things we see in ourselves and others that we think needs no atonement. We have the idea that there are certain good and virtuous things in each of us that do not need to be based on the atonement by the Cross of Christ. Just the sluggishness and lack of interest produced by this kind of thinking makes us unable to intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God’s interests and concerns for others, and we get irritated with Him. Yet we are always ready with our own ideas, and our intercession becomes only the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means a radical change of all of our sympathies and interests. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God’s interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Am I spoiled or complete in my relationship to God? Am I irritable or spiritual? Am I determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
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, 1465 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 16-18; Luke 22:47-71
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, May 04, 2020
When it Hurts to Copy Your Father - #8691
Our daughter was just a toddler, and she'd often talk with me while I was brushing my teeth in the morning, or shaving, or combing my hair. But one morning, unbeknownst to my wife, our daughter got in the bathroom, stood on something, and got the blade razor that I shaved with. When her mother walked in, our daughter was stroking that razor across her face, minus any shaving cream and leaving some pretty serious scratches and scrapes behind.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When it Hurts to Copy Your Father."
All our daughter was doing was copying her father and inflicting wounds as a result. That's a mistake a lot of folks, grownup folks, have made...copying their father or their mother, and inflicting wounds as a result.
There are things our father and mother did and that they said, that we were determined we weren't going to repeat when we had kids. Well, so much for that good intention. All too often, the longer we live, the more we sound like or act like our father or mother in ways we never wanted to repeat. We know how much those things hurt us, and in spite of ourselves, they are hurting our children now: that same temper, that same critical spirit, that same manipulating, guilt tripping, the harsh words, the withdrawal or the selfishness.
It seems like we're almost powerless to change the dark side of us. We hate it, especially that part that was handed down to us by what I call "family sins." If we could have changed those things we would have changed them by now, which makes our word for today from the Word of God really, really good news. It's in 1 Peter 1:18-19.
God says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers." In other words, there's actually hope of changing, of actually getting rid of some of those "empty ways" handed down to us by our father or mother. How does this "redeeming" happen? The Bible goes on to say "you were redeemed...with the precious blood of Christ." Wait! Then there's a connection between my family baggage and the violent death of Jesus Christ on the cross?
There's all the connection in the world. Because all this dark stuff inside us, whether it's from our past or from our own choices, is wrapped up in God's word for it - sin. And our sin is what Jesus died for on the cross to forgive it, to break its power, to make possible a relationship where Jesus comes right into your heart, your personality, and changes you from the inside out!
That is good news - not just for you, but for the people you love. There's a Savior who literally stands ready to save you from the sin that's already done way too much damage. The transformation begins when you reach out to Jesus and you trust Him to be your own personal Savior from your personal sin which He died to make possible that relationship. Yeah, that was the purpose of His death. If you've never begun your relationship with Him, you have yet to have your sins forgiven. You have yet to experience His life-changing power and what it can do inside you. This could be your day for that new beginning. Now, how do you do that?
Well, it's a matter of talking to Him and telling Him in total faith, and you can do it right where you are right now: "Jesus, I cannot change myself. I cannot forgive my own sin. I cannot get out from under my dark side. But I believe you died on the cross, and the reason you died was to deal with all that darkness and all that sin. You walked out of your grave; you're alive today! So, today I'm ready to turn from that sin and let go of it with both hands, so I have both hands to grab You. Jesus, beginning right here; beginning right now, I am Yours."
We'd love to help you be sure you have that relationship. And that's what our website is for. It's ANewStory.com. It's where your new story could begin; a new story for you and the people you love. I hope you go there today.
Here's what happens. When you open up your life to Jesus, you have for the first time in your life the power to say, "It stops in this generation!"
Sunday, May 3, 2020
Isaiah 32, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: God Calls the Shots
Every time Satan sets out to score for evil, he ends up scoring a point for good. Consider Paul. Satan hoped prison would silence his pulpit, and it did, but it also unleashed his pen. The letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians were all written in a jail cell.
Satan is the Colonel Klink of the Bible. Remember Klink? He was the fall guy for Hogan on the television series, Hogan’s Heroes. Klink supposedly ran a German POW camp during World War 2. Those inside the camp, however, knew better. They knew who really ran the camp: the prisoners. They listened to Klink’s calls and read his mail. They even gave Klink ideas, all the while using him for their own cause.
Over and over the Bible makes it clear who really runs the earth. Satan may strut and prance, but it is God who calls the shots.
from The Great House of God
Isaiah 32
But look! A king will rule in the right way,
and his leaders will carry out justice.
Each one will stand as a shelter from high winds,
provide safe cover in stormy weather.
Each will be cool running water in parched land,
a huge granite outcrop giving shade in the desert.
Anyone who looks will see,
anyone who listens will hear.
The impulsive will make sound decisions,
the tongue-tied will speak with eloquence.
No more will fools become celebrities,
nor crooks be rewarded with fame.
For fools are fools and that’s that,
thinking up new ways to do mischief.
They leave a wake of wrecked lives
and lies about God,
Turning their backs on the homeless hungry,
ignoring those dying of thirst in the streets.
And the crooks? Underhanded sneaks they are,
inventive in sin and scandal,
Exploiting the poor with scams and lies,
unmoved by the victimized poor.
But those who are noble make noble plans,
and stand for what is noble.
9-14 Take your stand, indolent women!
Listen to me!
Indulgent, indolent women,
listen closely to what I have to say.
In just a little over a year from now,
you’ll be shaken out of your lazy lives.
The grape harvest will fail,
and there’ll be no fruit on the trees.
Oh tremble, you indolent women.
Get serious, you pampered dolls!
Strip down and discard your silk fineries.
Put on funeral clothes.
Shed honest tears for the lost harvest,
the failed vintage.
Weep for my people’s gardens and farms
that grow nothing but thistles and thornbushes.
Cry tears, real tears, for the happy homes no longer happy,
the merry city no longer merry.
The royal palace is deserted,
the bustling city quiet as a morgue,
The emptied parks and playgrounds
taken over by wild animals,
delighted with their new home.
15-20 Yes, weep and grieve until the Spirit is poured
down on us from above
And the badlands desert grows crops
and the fertile fields become forests.
Justice will move into the badlands desert.
Right will build a home in the fertile field.
And where there’s Right, there’ll be Peace
and the progeny of Right: quiet lives and endless trust.
My people will live in a peaceful neighborhood—
in safe houses, in quiet gardens.
The forest of your pride will be clear-cut,
the city showing off your power leveled.
But you will enjoy a blessed life,
planting well-watered fields and gardens,
with your farm animals grazing freely.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, May 03, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Numbers 32:16–24
Then they came up to him and said, “We would like to build pens here for our livestock and cities for our women and children. 17 But we will arm ourselves for battle[a] and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our women and children will live in fortified cities, for protection from the inhabitants of the land. 18 We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has received their inheritance. 19 We will not receive any inheritance with them on the other side of the Jordan, because our inheritance has come to us on the east side of the Jordan.”
20 Then Moses said to them, “If you will do this—if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle 21 and if all of you who are armed cross over the Jordan before the Lord until he has driven his enemies out before him— 22 then when the land is subdued before the Lord, you may return and be free from your obligation to the Lord and to Israel. And this land will be your possession before the Lord.
23 “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. 24 Build cities for your women and children, and pens for your flocks, but do what you have promised.”
Footnotes:
Numbers 32:17 Septuagint; Hebrew will be quick to arm ourselves
Insight
The words sinning and sin in Numbers 32:23 both come from the same Hebrew root chata’. Meanings of the word include “to lose the path,” “miss,” or “miss the mark.” Though this word is used extensively in the Old Testament, it’s one of several terms used to denote sin and evil. The first occurrence of the word sin in the Bible (Genesis 4:7) is translated from this Hebrew word: “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.”
The One Who Sees
You may be sure that your sin will find you out. Numbers 32:23
“Oh no!” My wife’s voice rang out when she stepped into the kitchen. The moment she did, our ninety-pound Labrador retriever “Max” bolted from the room.
Gone was the leg of lamb that had been sitting too close to the edge of the counter. Max had consumed it, leaving only an empty pan. He tried to hide under a bed. But only his head and shoulders fit. His uncovered rump and tail betrayed his whereabouts when I went to track him down.
“Oh, Max,” I murmured, “Your ‘sin’ will find you out.” The phrase was borrowed from Moses, when he admonished two tribes of Israel to be obedient to God and keep their promises. He told them: “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
Sin may feel good for a moment, but it causes the ultimate pain of separation from God. Moses was reminding his people that God misses nothing. As one biblical writer put it, “Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).
Though seeing all, our holy God lovingly draws us to confess our sin, repent of it (turn from it), and walk rightly with Him (1 John 1:9). May we follow Him in love today.
By: James Banks
Reflect & Pray
How does the truth that God sees everything we do and still loves us encourage you to turn from sin? In what practical ways can you respond to His love today?
Thank You for being “the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13). I praise You that though You see both good and bad, You sent Your Son to save and set me free. Help me to walk in loving obedience.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, May 03, 2020
Vital Intercession
…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit… —Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, “I will not allow that thing to happen.” And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own “sad and pitiful self.” You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand. Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 14-15; Luke 22:21-46
Every time Satan sets out to score for evil, he ends up scoring a point for good. Consider Paul. Satan hoped prison would silence his pulpit, and it did, but it also unleashed his pen. The letters to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians were all written in a jail cell.
Satan is the Colonel Klink of the Bible. Remember Klink? He was the fall guy for Hogan on the television series, Hogan’s Heroes. Klink supposedly ran a German POW camp during World War 2. Those inside the camp, however, knew better. They knew who really ran the camp: the prisoners. They listened to Klink’s calls and read his mail. They even gave Klink ideas, all the while using him for their own cause.
Over and over the Bible makes it clear who really runs the earth. Satan may strut and prance, but it is God who calls the shots.
from The Great House of God
Isaiah 32
But look! A king will rule in the right way,
and his leaders will carry out justice.
Each one will stand as a shelter from high winds,
provide safe cover in stormy weather.
Each will be cool running water in parched land,
a huge granite outcrop giving shade in the desert.
Anyone who looks will see,
anyone who listens will hear.
The impulsive will make sound decisions,
the tongue-tied will speak with eloquence.
No more will fools become celebrities,
nor crooks be rewarded with fame.
For fools are fools and that’s that,
thinking up new ways to do mischief.
They leave a wake of wrecked lives
and lies about God,
Turning their backs on the homeless hungry,
ignoring those dying of thirst in the streets.
And the crooks? Underhanded sneaks they are,
inventive in sin and scandal,
Exploiting the poor with scams and lies,
unmoved by the victimized poor.
But those who are noble make noble plans,
and stand for what is noble.
9-14 Take your stand, indolent women!
Listen to me!
Indulgent, indolent women,
listen closely to what I have to say.
In just a little over a year from now,
you’ll be shaken out of your lazy lives.
The grape harvest will fail,
and there’ll be no fruit on the trees.
Oh tremble, you indolent women.
Get serious, you pampered dolls!
Strip down and discard your silk fineries.
Put on funeral clothes.
Shed honest tears for the lost harvest,
the failed vintage.
Weep for my people’s gardens and farms
that grow nothing but thistles and thornbushes.
Cry tears, real tears, for the happy homes no longer happy,
the merry city no longer merry.
The royal palace is deserted,
the bustling city quiet as a morgue,
The emptied parks and playgrounds
taken over by wild animals,
delighted with their new home.
15-20 Yes, weep and grieve until the Spirit is poured
down on us from above
And the badlands desert grows crops
and the fertile fields become forests.
Justice will move into the badlands desert.
Right will build a home in the fertile field.
And where there’s Right, there’ll be Peace
and the progeny of Right: quiet lives and endless trust.
My people will live in a peaceful neighborhood—
in safe houses, in quiet gardens.
The forest of your pride will be clear-cut,
the city showing off your power leveled.
But you will enjoy a blessed life,
planting well-watered fields and gardens,
with your farm animals grazing freely.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, May 03, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Numbers 32:16–24
Then they came up to him and said, “We would like to build pens here for our livestock and cities for our women and children. 17 But we will arm ourselves for battle[a] and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our women and children will live in fortified cities, for protection from the inhabitants of the land. 18 We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has received their inheritance. 19 We will not receive any inheritance with them on the other side of the Jordan, because our inheritance has come to us on the east side of the Jordan.”
20 Then Moses said to them, “If you will do this—if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle 21 and if all of you who are armed cross over the Jordan before the Lord until he has driven his enemies out before him— 22 then when the land is subdued before the Lord, you may return and be free from your obligation to the Lord and to Israel. And this land will be your possession before the Lord.
23 “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out. 24 Build cities for your women and children, and pens for your flocks, but do what you have promised.”
Footnotes:
Numbers 32:17 Septuagint; Hebrew will be quick to arm ourselves
Insight
The words sinning and sin in Numbers 32:23 both come from the same Hebrew root chata’. Meanings of the word include “to lose the path,” “miss,” or “miss the mark.” Though this word is used extensively in the Old Testament, it’s one of several terms used to denote sin and evil. The first occurrence of the word sin in the Bible (Genesis 4:7) is translated from this Hebrew word: “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.”
The One Who Sees
You may be sure that your sin will find you out. Numbers 32:23
“Oh no!” My wife’s voice rang out when she stepped into the kitchen. The moment she did, our ninety-pound Labrador retriever “Max” bolted from the room.
Gone was the leg of lamb that had been sitting too close to the edge of the counter. Max had consumed it, leaving only an empty pan. He tried to hide under a bed. But only his head and shoulders fit. His uncovered rump and tail betrayed his whereabouts when I went to track him down.
“Oh, Max,” I murmured, “Your ‘sin’ will find you out.” The phrase was borrowed from Moses, when he admonished two tribes of Israel to be obedient to God and keep their promises. He told them: “But if you fail to do this, you will be sinning against the Lord; and you may be sure that your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
Sin may feel good for a moment, but it causes the ultimate pain of separation from God. Moses was reminding his people that God misses nothing. As one biblical writer put it, “Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).
Though seeing all, our holy God lovingly draws us to confess our sin, repent of it (turn from it), and walk rightly with Him (1 John 1:9). May we follow Him in love today.
By: James Banks
Reflect & Pray
How does the truth that God sees everything we do and still loves us encourage you to turn from sin? In what practical ways can you respond to His love today?
Thank You for being “the God who sees me” (Genesis 16:13). I praise You that though You see both good and bad, You sent Your Son to save and set me free. Help me to walk in loving obedience.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, May 03, 2020
Vital Intercession
…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit… —Ephesians 6:18
As we continue on in our intercession for others, we may find that our obedience to God in interceding is going to cost those for whom we intercede more than we ever thought. The danger in this is that we begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting up to a totally different level in direct answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from our close identification with God’s interest and concern for others and step into having emotional sympathy with them, the vital connection with God is gone. We have then put our sympathy and concern for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with Him it is because of our sympathy with others, not because of sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our intercessory relationship with God, but sympathy will. It is sympathy with ourselves or with others that makes us say, “I will not allow that thing to happen.” And instantly we are out of that vital connection with God.
Vital intercession leaves you with neither the time nor the inclination to pray for your own “sad and pitiful self.” You do not have to struggle to keep thoughts of yourself out, because they are not even there to be kept out of your thinking. You are completely and entirely identified with God’s interests and concerns in other lives. God gives us discernment in the lives of others to call us to intercession for them, never so that we may find fault with them.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand. Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 14-15; Luke 22:21-46
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Romans 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Drop Some Stuff
God has a great race for you to run. Under His care you'll go where you have never been and serve in ways you've never dreamed. But you have to drop some stuff.
How can you share grace if you're full of guilt? How can you offer comfort if you're disheartened. How can you lift someone else's load if your arms are full with your own? For the sake of those you love-travel light. For the sake of the God you serve, travel light. For the sake of your own joy, travel light.
There are weights in life you simply cannot carry. Set them down and trust Him. I can't overstate God's promise in 1 Peter 5:7: "Unload all your worries onto Him, since He is looking after you."
What do you say we take God up on His offer? We might find ourselves traveling a little lighter.
From Traveling Light
Romans 2
Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.
3-4 You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he’s such a nice God, he’d let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.
5-8 You’re not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it’s going to blaze hot and high, God’s fiery and righteous judgment. Make no mistake: In the end you get what’s coming to you—Real Life for those who work on God’s side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!
9-11 If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you’re from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up. Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.
12-13 If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.
14-16 When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.
17-24 If you’re brought up Jewish, don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you’re an insider to God’s revelation, a connoisseur of the best things of God, informed on the latest doctrines! I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God’s revealed Word inside and out, feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God. While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I’m quite serious. While preaching “Don’t steal!” are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you? The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law. The line from Scripture, “It’s because of you Jews that the outsiders are down on God,” shows it’s an old problem that isn’t going to go away.
25-29 Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with God’s law. But if you don’t, it’s worse than not being circumcised. The reverse is also true: The uncircumcised who keep God’s ways are as good as the circumcised—in fact, better. Better to keep God’s law uncircumcised than break it circumcised. Don’t you see: It’s not the cut of a knife that makes a Jew. You become a Jew by who you are. It’s the mark of God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. And recognition comes from God, not legalistic critics.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, May 02, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 22:14–23
When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.[a] 21 But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. 22 The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!” 23 They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.
Footnotes:
Luke 22:20 Some manuscripts do not have given for you … poured out for you.
Insight
Communion refers to our celebration of the Lord’s Supper commemorating the last Passover meal Jesus had with His disciples before He was crucified. At this meal He instituted and explained the new covenant He was making with His followers. The bread represents His body, and the wine represents His blood. In Luke 22:15 Jesus says, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” Other translations render this phrase “earnestly desired” (nasb), “with desire I have desired” (kjv), and “fervent desire” (nkjv). The Greek word is epithumia and is sometimes translated “lust” (see James 1:14–15; 2 Peter 1:4; 2:10; 1 John 2:16–17). While the word lust is often used negatively, in this instance it refers to Jesus’ consuming desire for this meal and its result: instating the new covenant that would define the relationship between God and people.
Community Memory
He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you.” Luke 22:19
In his book Restless Faith, theologian Richard Mouw talks about the importance of remembering the lessons of the past. He quotes sociologist Robert Bellah, who said that “healthy nations must be ‘communities of memory.’ ” Bellah extended that principle to other societal bonds such as families. Remembering is an important part of living in community.
The Scriptures teach the value of community memory as well. The Israelites were given the Passover feast to remind them of what God had done to rescue them from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 12:1–30). Still today, Jewish people around the world revisit that rich community memory every spring.
Passover holds great meaning for followers of Christ too, for Passover has always pointed to the work of the Messiah on the cross. It was during Passover, the night before the cross, that Jesus established His own memorial table. Luke 22:19 records, “He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’”
Every time we gather at the Lord’s Table to celebrate Communion, we remember that Christ rescued us from slavery to sin and provided us with eternal life. May the rescuing love of Jesus remind us that His cross is worth remembering—together. By: Bill Crowder
Reflect & Pray
Why is it valuable to take Communion with other believers in Jesus? How does the shared event remind you of Jesus’ sacrificial love?
Thank You, Father, for the gift of Your Son. Thank You also that He has given us a tangible way to remember His sacrifice whenever we gather at the Table.
Read For This He Came: Jesus’ Journey to the Cross at discoveryseries.org/hp191.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, May 02, 2020
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it… —Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. “…he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue— he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
“Though it tarries, wait for it….” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, “What shall I render to the Lord…? I will take up the cup of salvation…” (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, “Now I’ve got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure.” Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on…” (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand. Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 12-13; Luke 22:1-20
God has a great race for you to run. Under His care you'll go where you have never been and serve in ways you've never dreamed. But you have to drop some stuff.
How can you share grace if you're full of guilt? How can you offer comfort if you're disheartened. How can you lift someone else's load if your arms are full with your own? For the sake of those you love-travel light. For the sake of the God you serve, travel light. For the sake of your own joy, travel light.
There are weights in life you simply cannot carry. Set them down and trust Him. I can't overstate God's promise in 1 Peter 5:7: "Unload all your worries onto Him, since He is looking after you."
What do you say we take God up on His offer? We might find ourselves traveling a little lighter.
From Traveling Light
Romans 2
Those people are on a dark spiral downward. But if you think that leaves you on the high ground where you can point your finger at others, think again. Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.
3-4 You didn’t think, did you, that just by pointing your finger at others you would distract God from seeing all your misdoings and from coming down on you hard? Or did you think that because he’s such a nice God, he’d let you off the hook? Better think this one through from the beginning. God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.
5-8 You’re not getting by with anything. Every refusal and avoidance of God adds fuel to the fire. The day is coming when it’s going to blaze hot and high, God’s fiery and righteous judgment. Make no mistake: In the end you get what’s coming to you—Real Life for those who work on God’s side, but to those who insist on getting their own way and take the path of least resistance, Fire!
9-11 If you go against the grain, you get splinters, regardless of which neighborhood you’re from, what your parents taught you, what schools you attended. But if you embrace the way God does things, there are wonderful payoffs, again without regard to where you are from or how you were brought up. Being a Jew won’t give you an automatic stamp of approval. God pays no attention to what others say (or what you think) about you. He makes up his own mind.
12-13 If you sin without knowing what you’re doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you’re doing, that’s a different story entirely. Merely hearing God’s law is a waste of your time if you don’t do what he commands. Doing, not hearing, is what makes the difference with God.
14-16 When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation. There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong. Their response to God’s yes and no will become public knowledge on the day God makes his final decision about every man and woman. The Message from God that I proclaim through Jesus Christ takes into account all these differences.
17-24 If you’re brought up Jewish, don’t assume that you can lean back in the arms of your religion and take it easy, feeling smug because you’re an insider to God’s revelation, a connoisseur of the best things of God, informed on the latest doctrines! I have a special word of caution for you who are sure that you have it all together yourselves and, because you know God’s revealed Word inside and out, feel qualified to guide others through their blind alleys and dark nights and confused emotions to God. While you are guiding others, who is going to guide you? I’m quite serious. While preaching “Don’t steal!” are you going to rob people blind? Who would suspect you? The same with adultery. The same with idolatry. You can get by with almost anything if you front it with eloquent talk about God and his law. The line from Scripture, “It’s because of you Jews that the outsiders are down on God,” shows it’s an old problem that isn’t going to go away.
25-29 Circumcision, the surgical ritual that marks you as a Jew, is great if you live in accord with God’s law. But if you don’t, it’s worse than not being circumcised. The reverse is also true: The uncircumcised who keep God’s ways are as good as the circumcised—in fact, better. Better to keep God’s law uncircumcised than break it circumcised. Don’t you see: It’s not the cut of a knife that makes a Jew. You become a Jew by who you are. It’s the mark of God on your heart, not of a knife on your skin, that makes a Jew. And recognition comes from God, not legalistic critics.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, May 02, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Luke 22:14–23
When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. 15 And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
17 After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. 18 For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
20 In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.[a] 21 But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. 22 The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed. But woe to that man who betrays him!” 23 They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this.
Footnotes:
Luke 22:20 Some manuscripts do not have given for you … poured out for you.
Insight
Communion refers to our celebration of the Lord’s Supper commemorating the last Passover meal Jesus had with His disciples before He was crucified. At this meal He instituted and explained the new covenant He was making with His followers. The bread represents His body, and the wine represents His blood. In Luke 22:15 Jesus says, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” Other translations render this phrase “earnestly desired” (nasb), “with desire I have desired” (kjv), and “fervent desire” (nkjv). The Greek word is epithumia and is sometimes translated “lust” (see James 1:14–15; 2 Peter 1:4; 2:10; 1 John 2:16–17). While the word lust is often used negatively, in this instance it refers to Jesus’ consuming desire for this meal and its result: instating the new covenant that would define the relationship between God and people.
Community Memory
He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you.” Luke 22:19
In his book Restless Faith, theologian Richard Mouw talks about the importance of remembering the lessons of the past. He quotes sociologist Robert Bellah, who said that “healthy nations must be ‘communities of memory.’ ” Bellah extended that principle to other societal bonds such as families. Remembering is an important part of living in community.
The Scriptures teach the value of community memory as well. The Israelites were given the Passover feast to remind them of what God had done to rescue them from slavery in Egypt (see Exodus 12:1–30). Still today, Jewish people around the world revisit that rich community memory every spring.
Passover holds great meaning for followers of Christ too, for Passover has always pointed to the work of the Messiah on the cross. It was during Passover, the night before the cross, that Jesus established His own memorial table. Luke 22:19 records, “He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’”
Every time we gather at the Lord’s Table to celebrate Communion, we remember that Christ rescued us from slavery to sin and provided us with eternal life. May the rescuing love of Jesus remind us that His cross is worth remembering—together. By: Bill Crowder
Reflect & Pray
Why is it valuable to take Communion with other believers in Jesus? How does the shared event remind you of Jesus’ sacrificial love?
Thank You, Father, for the gift of Your Son. Thank You also that He has given us a tangible way to remember His sacrifice whenever we gather at the Table.
Read For This He Came: Jesus’ Journey to the Cross at discoveryseries.org/hp191.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, May 02, 2020
The Patience To Wait for the Vision
Though it tarries, wait for it… —Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. “…he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue— he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.
“Though it tarries, wait for it….” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, “What shall I render to the Lord…? I will take up the cup of salvation…” (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, “Now I’ve got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure.” Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on…” (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand. Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 12-13; Luke 22:1-20
Friday, May 1, 2020
Isaiah 31, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A MESS FOR GOD TO USE
Twenty years of marriage, three kids, and he’s gone. Traded in for a younger model. She told me her story, and we prayed. Then I said, “It won’t be painless or quick. But God will use this mess for good. With God’s help you’ll get through this.”
Remember Joseph? Genesis 37:4 says his brothers hated him. Far from home, they cast him into a pit, leaving him for dead. A murderous cover-up from the get go. Joseph’s pit came in the form of a cistern. Yours may be in the form of a diagnosis, a foster home, a divorce. Pits have no easy exit.
Joseph’s story got worse before it got better. Yet in his explanation we find his inspiration. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. . .” The very acts intended to destroy God’s servant, turned out to strengthen him.
You will get through this!
Isaiah 31
Doom to those who go off to Egypt
thinking that horses can help them,
Impressed by military mathematics,
awed by sheer numbers of chariots and riders—
And to The Holy of Israel, not even a glance,
not so much as a prayer to God.
Still, he must be reckoned with,
a most wise God who knows what he’s doing.
He can call down catastrophe.
He’s a God who does what he says.
He intervenes in the work of those who do wrong,
stands up against interfering evildoers.
Egyptians are mortal, not God,
and their horses are flesh, not Spirit.
When God gives the signal, helpers and helped alike
will fall in a heap and share the same dirt grave.
4-5 This is what God told me:
“Like a lion, king of the beasts,
that gnaws and chews and worries its prey,
Not fazed in the least by a bunch of shepherds
who arrive to chase it off,
So God-of-the-Angel-Armies comes down
to fight on Mount Zion, to make war from its heights.
And like a huge eagle hovering in the sky,
God-of-the-Angel-Armies protects Jerusalem.
I’ll protect and rescue it.
Yes, I’ll hover and deliver.”
6-7 Repent, return, dear Israel, to the One you so cruelly abandoned. On the day you return, you’ll throw away—every last one of you—the no-gods your sinful hands made from metal and wood.
8-9 “Assyrians will fall dead,
killed by a sword-thrust but not by a soldier,
laid low by a sword not swung by a mortal.
Assyrians will run from that sword, run for their lives,
and their prize young men made slaves.
Terrorized, that rock-solid people will fall to pieces,
their leaders scatter hysterically.”
God’s Decree on Assyria.
His fire blazes in Zion,
his furnace burns hot in Jerusalem.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, May 01, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:14–24
Then we will no longer be infants,x tossed back and forth by the waves,y and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.z 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love,a we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head,b that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, growsc and builds itself upd in love,e as each part does its work.
Instructions for Christian Living
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longerf live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.g 18 They are darkened in their understandingh and separated from the life of Godi because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.j 19 Having lost all sensitivity,k they have given themselves overl to sensualitym so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put offn your old self,o which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;p 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;q 24 and to put onr the new self,s created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Insight
The church at Ephesus faced tremendous challenges in their home city. One was the fanatical devotion of the Ephesian people to the goddess Artemis, whose temple there was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Additionally, Ephesus was a center of the dark arts—magic and the occult. In Acts 19:19, some of the people who trusted Christ displayed their spiritual commitment by destroying the scrolls used in the practice of sorcery—scrolls valued at 50,000 drachmas (a drachma was a day’s wage). With challenges like these, Ephesus was a difficult place to live for Christ.
Living in the Branches
Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. Ephesians 3:17 nlt
As I shared with my counselor my roller-coaster of emotions after a stress-filled week, she listened thoughtfully. Then she invited me to look out the window at the trees, lush with autumnal oranges and golds, the branches swaying in the wind.
Pointing out that the trunks weren’t moving at all in the wind, my counselor explained, “We’re a bit like that. When life is blowing at us from every direction, of course our emotions will go up and down and all around. But sometimes we live as if we only have branches. Our goal is to help you find your own trunk. That way, even when life is pulling from all sides, you won’t be living in your branches. You’ll still be secure and stable.”
It’s an image that’s stuck with me, and it’s similar to the image Paul offered new believers in Ephesians. Reminding them of God’s incredible gift—a new life of tremendous purpose and value (Ephesians 2:6–10), Paul shared his longing that they’d become deeply “rooted and established” in Christ’s love (3:17), no longer “blown here and there by every wind of teaching” (4:14).
On our own, it’s easy to feel insecure and fragile, pummeled by our fears and insecurities. But as we grow in our true identity in Christ (vv. 22–24), we can experience deep peace with God and each other (v. 3), nourished and sustained by Christ’s power and beauty (vv. 15–16). By: Monica La Rose
Reflect & Pray
When do you feel most “blown here and there” by life’s challenges? How might remembering your identity in Jesus encourage and strengthen you?
Jesus, thank You for the overwhelmingly good news that the strength needed to withstand life’s challenges isn’t our own. Help us to grow ever-deeper roots in Your love and our place in Your family.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 01, 2020
Faith— Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight. —2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God’s concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, “I cannot do anything else until God appears to me”? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, “Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!” Never live for those exceptional moments— they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life— our work is our standard.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand. Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 10-11; Luke 21:20-38
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 01, 2020
The Geography of Power - #8690
People in the real estate business will tell you that three things really matter when it comes to the value of any property: location, location, and location. Apparently, the President's White House team believes that, too. After the re-election of Bill Clinton many years ago, "Newsweek" actually described the efforts of various officials to get the best office spaces at the White House. I guess it happens with every administration. But I liked the title, "The Geography of Power." So what makes an office at the White House a good office? Well, if you had a choice about your office, you'd probably want the one with windows and plenty of space. But that's not what matters most in the White House office scramble. It's how close are you to the Oval Office! You've got to be near the President! Right? The way they put it is this - "proximity is power." Uh-huh, it is.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Geography of Power."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 27:51-52. It's the event that changed forever the geography of power - spiritual power. The Bible says, "And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom." Someone might say, "That's impressive. A curtain in the temple just suddenly split in two at the moment Jesus died. But so what?"
Well, the "so what" is this. That curtain covered the Holy of Holies, the place where God Himself was present on earth. No one could enter that place and live for centuries, except for one man, the high priest, one time a year. He would go in to make sacrifice for the nation's sins. The geography of spiritual power was that basically no one could get near the personal presence of the living God. Sin kept everyone out, until the day Jesus died to pay for every sin of every man and woman. And suddenly, God said, "If you belong to Me, come on into My Presence, anytime, for any reason." And today, if you've put your trust in Jesus Christ to be the Rescuer from your sin, you have a spot that is always close to the power.
Listen to God's invitation - it's staggering. Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need." People think they have power because they can come and go from the Oval Office regularly? That's nothing, compared to your privilege of coming and going regularly from the Throne Room of Almighty God. The Throne Room from which a hundred billion galaxies are governed! Through prayer, God has thrown open His Throne Room to you, His blood-bought child!
So are you praying like you are with an awesome, all-powerful God? Or are you, like too many of us, under praying? And over worrying, over scheming, praying too often as a last resort ("I guess all we can do is pray") or an afterthought, or praying for just like man-sized things; praying these safe, small, predictable prayers. Listen, you have access to the power but you're trying to figure it out in your little office down the hall if you're under praying. See, you're probably under living then. You're settling for mediocrity and you're settling for unnecessary spiritual poverty. When you don't spend time in God's Throne Room, you overestimate the problem and you underestimate your Lord.
If proximity is power, then God has placed you in the most powerful position a human being can be in. By earth standards, your spot may not be very impressive. But because Jesus opened the door, you have instant access to all the power, all the love, all the resources of the God of the universe. Pray like it! Live like it!
Twenty years of marriage, three kids, and he’s gone. Traded in for a younger model. She told me her story, and we prayed. Then I said, “It won’t be painless or quick. But God will use this mess for good. With God’s help you’ll get through this.”
Remember Joseph? Genesis 37:4 says his brothers hated him. Far from home, they cast him into a pit, leaving him for dead. A murderous cover-up from the get go. Joseph’s pit came in the form of a cistern. Yours may be in the form of a diagnosis, a foster home, a divorce. Pits have no easy exit.
Joseph’s story got worse before it got better. Yet in his explanation we find his inspiration. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. . .” The very acts intended to destroy God’s servant, turned out to strengthen him.
You will get through this!
Isaiah 31
Doom to those who go off to Egypt
thinking that horses can help them,
Impressed by military mathematics,
awed by sheer numbers of chariots and riders—
And to The Holy of Israel, not even a glance,
not so much as a prayer to God.
Still, he must be reckoned with,
a most wise God who knows what he’s doing.
He can call down catastrophe.
He’s a God who does what he says.
He intervenes in the work of those who do wrong,
stands up against interfering evildoers.
Egyptians are mortal, not God,
and their horses are flesh, not Spirit.
When God gives the signal, helpers and helped alike
will fall in a heap and share the same dirt grave.
4-5 This is what God told me:
“Like a lion, king of the beasts,
that gnaws and chews and worries its prey,
Not fazed in the least by a bunch of shepherds
who arrive to chase it off,
So God-of-the-Angel-Armies comes down
to fight on Mount Zion, to make war from its heights.
And like a huge eagle hovering in the sky,
God-of-the-Angel-Armies protects Jerusalem.
I’ll protect and rescue it.
Yes, I’ll hover and deliver.”
6-7 Repent, return, dear Israel, to the One you so cruelly abandoned. On the day you return, you’ll throw away—every last one of you—the no-gods your sinful hands made from metal and wood.
8-9 “Assyrians will fall dead,
killed by a sword-thrust but not by a soldier,
laid low by a sword not swung by a mortal.
Assyrians will run from that sword, run for their lives,
and their prize young men made slaves.
Terrorized, that rock-solid people will fall to pieces,
their leaders scatter hysterically.”
God’s Decree on Assyria.
His fire blazes in Zion,
his furnace burns hot in Jerusalem.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, May 01, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Ephesians 4:14–24
Then we will no longer be infants,x tossed back and forth by the waves,y and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.z 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love,a we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head,b that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, growsc and builds itself upd in love,e as each part does its work.
Instructions for Christian Living
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longerf live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.g 18 They are darkened in their understandingh and separated from the life of Godi because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.j 19 Having lost all sensitivity,k they have given themselves overl to sensualitym so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put offn your old self,o which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;p 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds;q 24 and to put onr the new self,s created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
Insight
The church at Ephesus faced tremendous challenges in their home city. One was the fanatical devotion of the Ephesian people to the goddess Artemis, whose temple there was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Additionally, Ephesus was a center of the dark arts—magic and the occult. In Acts 19:19, some of the people who trusted Christ displayed their spiritual commitment by destroying the scrolls used in the practice of sorcery—scrolls valued at 50,000 drachmas (a drachma was a day’s wage). With challenges like these, Ephesus was a difficult place to live for Christ.
Living in the Branches
Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. Ephesians 3:17 nlt
As I shared with my counselor my roller-coaster of emotions after a stress-filled week, she listened thoughtfully. Then she invited me to look out the window at the trees, lush with autumnal oranges and golds, the branches swaying in the wind.
Pointing out that the trunks weren’t moving at all in the wind, my counselor explained, “We’re a bit like that. When life is blowing at us from every direction, of course our emotions will go up and down and all around. But sometimes we live as if we only have branches. Our goal is to help you find your own trunk. That way, even when life is pulling from all sides, you won’t be living in your branches. You’ll still be secure and stable.”
It’s an image that’s stuck with me, and it’s similar to the image Paul offered new believers in Ephesians. Reminding them of God’s incredible gift—a new life of tremendous purpose and value (Ephesians 2:6–10), Paul shared his longing that they’d become deeply “rooted and established” in Christ’s love (3:17), no longer “blown here and there by every wind of teaching” (4:14).
On our own, it’s easy to feel insecure and fragile, pummeled by our fears and insecurities. But as we grow in our true identity in Christ (vv. 22–24), we can experience deep peace with God and each other (v. 3), nourished and sustained by Christ’s power and beauty (vv. 15–16). By: Monica La Rose
Reflect & Pray
When do you feel most “blown here and there” by life’s challenges? How might remembering your identity in Jesus encourage and strengthen you?
Jesus, thank You for the overwhelmingly good news that the strength needed to withstand life’s challenges isn’t our own. Help us to grow ever-deeper roots in Your love and our place in Your family.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, May 01, 2020
Faith— Not Emotion
We walk by faith, not by sight. —2 Corinthians 5:7
For a while, we are fully aware of God’s concern for us. But then, when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it. Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, “I cannot do anything else until God appears to me”? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, “Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!” Never live for those exceptional moments— they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life— our work is our standard.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand. Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 10-11; Luke 21:20-38
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, May 01, 2020
The Geography of Power - #8690
People in the real estate business will tell you that three things really matter when it comes to the value of any property: location, location, and location. Apparently, the President's White House team believes that, too. After the re-election of Bill Clinton many years ago, "Newsweek" actually described the efforts of various officials to get the best office spaces at the White House. I guess it happens with every administration. But I liked the title, "The Geography of Power." So what makes an office at the White House a good office? Well, if you had a choice about your office, you'd probably want the one with windows and plenty of space. But that's not what matters most in the White House office scramble. It's how close are you to the Oval Office! You've got to be near the President! Right? The way they put it is this - "proximity is power." Uh-huh, it is.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Geography of Power."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Matthew 27:51-52. It's the event that changed forever the geography of power - spiritual power. The Bible says, "And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, He gave up His spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom." Someone might say, "That's impressive. A curtain in the temple just suddenly split in two at the moment Jesus died. But so what?"
Well, the "so what" is this. That curtain covered the Holy of Holies, the place where God Himself was present on earth. No one could enter that place and live for centuries, except for one man, the high priest, one time a year. He would go in to make sacrifice for the nation's sins. The geography of spiritual power was that basically no one could get near the personal presence of the living God. Sin kept everyone out, until the day Jesus died to pay for every sin of every man and woman. And suddenly, God said, "If you belong to Me, come on into My Presence, anytime, for any reason." And today, if you've put your trust in Jesus Christ to be the Rescuer from your sin, you have a spot that is always close to the power.
Listen to God's invitation - it's staggering. Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need." People think they have power because they can come and go from the Oval Office regularly? That's nothing, compared to your privilege of coming and going regularly from the Throne Room of Almighty God. The Throne Room from which a hundred billion galaxies are governed! Through prayer, God has thrown open His Throne Room to you, His blood-bought child!
So are you praying like you are with an awesome, all-powerful God? Or are you, like too many of us, under praying? And over worrying, over scheming, praying too often as a last resort ("I guess all we can do is pray") or an afterthought, or praying for just like man-sized things; praying these safe, small, predictable prayers. Listen, you have access to the power but you're trying to figure it out in your little office down the hall if you're under praying. See, you're probably under living then. You're settling for mediocrity and you're settling for unnecessary spiritual poverty. When you don't spend time in God's Throne Room, you overestimate the problem and you underestimate your Lord.
If proximity is power, then God has placed you in the most powerful position a human being can be in. By earth standards, your spot may not be very impressive. But because Jesus opened the door, you have instant access to all the power, all the love, all the resources of the God of the universe. Pray like it! Live like it!
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Isaiah 30, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: REMIND GOD OF HIS PROMISES
I remember sitting in high school Algebra class staring at my textbook as if it were written in Mandarin Chinese. Fortunately I had a patient teacher. He issued the invitation and stuck to it: “If you cannot solve a problem, come to me and I will help you.” I wore a trail between his desk and mine. I would remind him, “Remember how you promised you would help?” I still had the problem, mind you, but I entrusted the problem to one who knew how to solve it.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said, “Put the Lord in remembrance of His promises, keep not silence” (Isaiah 62:6). God invites you—yes, commands you—to remind him of his promises. Find a promise that fits your problem, and build your prayer around it! These prayers of faith touch the heart of God and miracles are set in motion!
Isaiah 30
“Doom, rebel children!”
God’s Decree.
“You make plans, but not mine.
You make deals, but not in my Spirit.
You pile sin on sin,
one sin on top of another,
Going off to Egypt
without so much as asking me,
Running off to Pharaoh for protection,
expecting to hide out in Egypt.
Well, some protection Pharaoh will be!
Some hideout, Egypt!
They look big and important, true,
with officials strategically established in
Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south,
but there’s nothing to them.
Anyone stupid enough to trust them
will end up looking stupid—
All show, no substance,
an embarrassing farce.”
6-7 And this note on the animals of the Negev
encountered on the road to Egypt:
A most dangerous, treacherous route,
menaced by lions and deadly snakes.
And you’re going to lug all your stuff down there,
your donkeys and camels loaded down with bribes,
Thinking you can buy protection
from that hollow farce of a nation?
Egypt is all show, no substance.
My name for her is Toothless Dragon.
8-11 So, go now and write all this down.
Put it in a book
So that the record will be there
to instruct the coming generations,
Because this is a rebel generation,
a people who lie,
A people unwilling to listen
to anything God tells them.
They tell their spiritual leaders,
“Don’t bother us with irrelevancies.”
They tell their preachers,
“Don’t waste our time on impracticalities.
Tell us what makes us feel better.
Don’t bore us with obsolete religion.
That stuff means nothing to us.
Quit hounding us with The Holy of Israel.”
12-14 Therefore, The Holy of Israel says this:
“Because you scorn this Message,
Preferring to live by injustice
and shape your lives on lies,
This perverse way of life
will be like a towering, badly built wall
That slowly, slowly tilts and shifts,
and then one day, without warning, collapses—
Smashed to bits like a piece of pottery,
smashed beyond recognition or repair,
Useless, a pile of debris
to be swept up and thrown in the trash.”
15-17 God, the Master, The Holy of Israel,
has this solemn counsel:
“Your salvation requires you to turn back to me
and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.
Your strength will come from settling down
in complete dependence on me—
The very thing
you’ve been unwilling to do.
You’ve said, ‘Nothing doing! We’ll rush off on horseback!’
You’ll rush off, all right! Just not far enough!
You’ve said, ‘We’ll ride off on fast horses!’
Do you think your pursuers ride old nags?
Think again: A thousand of you will scatter before one attacker.
Before a mere five you’ll all run off.
There’ll be nothing left of you—
a flagpole on a hill with no flag,
a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off.”
18 But God’s not finished. He’s waiting around to be gracious to you.
He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you.
God takes the time to do everything right—everything.
Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.
19-22 Oh yes, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, your time of tears is over. Cry for help and you’ll find it’s grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he’ll answer. Just as the Master kept you alive during the hard times, he’ll keep your teacher alive and present among you. Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job, urging you on whenever you wander left or right: “This is the right road. Walk down this road.” You’ll scrap your expensive and fashionable god-images. You’ll throw them in the trash as so much garbage, saying, “Good riddance!”
23-26 God will provide rain for the seeds you sow. The grain that grows will be abundant. Your cattle will range far and wide. Oblivious to war and earthquake, the oxen and donkeys you use for hauling and plowing will be fed well near running brooks that flow freely from mountains and hills. Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land.
27-28 Look, God’s on his way,
and from a long way off!
Smoking with anger,
immense as he comes into view,
Words steaming from his mouth,
searing, indicting words!
A torrent of words, a flash flood of words
sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words.
He’ll shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction,
herd them into a dead end.
29-33 But you will sing,
sing through an all-night holy feast!
Your hearts will burst with song,
make music like the sound of flutes on parade,
En route to the mountain of God,
on the way to the Rock of Israel.
God will sound out in grandiose thunder,
display his hammering arm,
Furiously angry, showering sparks—
cloudburst, storm, hail!
Oh yes, at God’s thunder
Assyria will cower under the clubbing.
Every blow God lands on them with his club
is in time to the music of drums and pipes,
God in all-out, two-fisted battle,
fighting against them.
Topheth’s fierce fires are well prepared,
ready for the Assyrian king.
The Topheth furnace is deep and wide,
well stoked with hot-burning wood.
God’s breath, like a river of burning pitch,
starts the fire.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 8:31–36
Dispute Over Whose Children Jesus’ Opponents Are
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching,b you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”c
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendantsd and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.e 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.f 36 So if the Son sets you free,g you will be free indeed.
Insight
The debate that started in John 7:25–27 over Jesus’ identity and whether He was the Messiah intensified in chapter 8. The people asked Him, “Who are you?” (v. 25). John tells us that “many believed in him” (v. 30). Then Jesus clarified the identity of His true disciples: those who not only know Jesus, but also obey Him (v. 31). Jesus also cautioned the Jews that their privileged status as God’s chosen people and their heritage standing as descendants of Abraham had blinded them. They refused to see that they too were slaves to sin (vv. 31–36). Only when they accepted and believed the truth that Jesus is their Messiah—that He’s “the way and the truth and the life” (14:6)—would they be truly set free. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (8:36).
Free Indeed
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
The film Amistad tells the story of West African slaves in 1839 taking over the boat that was transporting them and killing the captain and some of the crew. Eventually they were recaptured, imprisoned, and taken to trial. An unforgettable courtroom scene features Cinqué, leader of the slaves, passionately pleading for freedom. Three simple words—repeated with increasing force by a shackled man with broken English—eventually silenced the courtroom, “Give us free!” Justice was served and the men were freed.
Most people today aren’t in danger of being physically bound, yet true liberation from the spiritual bondage of sin remains elusive. The words of Jesus in John 8:36 offer sweet relief: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus pointed to Himself as the source of true emancipation because He offers forgiveness to anyone who believes in Him. Though some in Christ’s audience claimed freedom (v. 33), their words, attitudes, and actions regarding Jesus betrayed their claim.
Jesus longs to hear those who would echo Cinqué’s plea and say, “Give me freedom!” With compassion He awaits the cries of those who are shackled by unbelief or fear or failure. Freedom is a matter of the heart. Such liberty is reserved for those who believe that Jesus is God’s Son who was sent into the world to break the power of sin’s hold on us through His death and resurrection. By: Arthur Jackson
Reflect & Pray
How has Jesus set you free? What can you share with others about God’s liberating power?
Jesus, help me to believe that You can set me free.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Spontaneous Love
Love suffers long and is kind… —1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is not premeditated– it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul’s description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, “Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe.” No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don’t deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.
The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it “has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5).
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don’t love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 8-9; Luke 21:1-19
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Bridges to Nowhere - #8689
A few summers ago, I went on a river trip with some young people. It was a river that had not been nearly so friendly just three months before. The spring rains had been record breakers and the resulting floods had even redirected parts of the river. Our guide took us down a whole new channel of the river that hadn't even been there three months earlier, and he pointed out this palatial home that was built near the river by a multi-millionaire. The flood had suddenly made his home very vulnerable. It was saved only by a hastily-constructed brick wall. A lot of the landscaping around that home couldn't be saved, like the bridges for example. See, since this had just been a little stream before the flood, the homeowner built some charming wooden bridges across it at several points. Now the bridges weren't really destroyed, they were just, like, relocated. As we moved downstream, we saw this charming wooden bridge sitting in the middle of an island of mud in the middle of the river. Later we saw another bridge, pretty intact, just sitting on the riverbank. Oh, they were nice bridges all right, they just didn't go anywhere.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Bridges to Nowhere."
One of the most defining, most bottom-lining statements in all of the Bible is our word for today from the Word of God. It's Acts 4:12 - the disciples of Jesus have just been talking about the name of Jesus Christ. Listen to this. "Salvation is found in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Wow! Let me tell you, in our age of pluralism and tolerance and eclectic spirituality, those are pretty loaded words about Jesus.
Salvation is in no one else. We have to be saved by His name. How can this be? Mankind seems to know instinctively that we need some kind of bridge to get to God. We feel the distance between us and the one who made us, and maybe you do. We're trying to discover what will get us to Him. So, we have the Protestant bridge to God with good works that are supposed to take us to God, and the Catholic bridge with good Catholic things to do, and the Jewish bridge, and the Muslim bridge, and the Buddhist bridge, the Hindu bridge, the bridge of New Age spirituality, etc.
Our human nature wants to believe that all those bridges end up the same place with God. But Jesus defied our preferences when He made this incredible claim. He said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In other words, even though all those religious bridges are beautiful, they're bridges to nowhere.
Why? Because of what it is that stands between us and the God that we're desperately trying to get to. In simple words, it's a death penalty. The Bible says, "The wages of our sin is death." All of us have missed the way we were created to live with God running things. We've hijacked our lives from our Creator, we've run our lives our own way, and the penalty is death. You can't pay a death penalty by any amount of doing good. There's only one way. Somebody has to die, and someone did. But not the one who deserved to die for my sin. I should have, but the Bible says, "Christ died for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God." Out of His amazing love, Jesus, God's Son, did all the dying for all the sinning we've ever done. And while there are many religions, there's only one Savior, and only He can take me across that gap between me and my Creator.
So, everything depends on what you do with Jesus. Maybe you've been on a spiritual bridge trying to find a relationship with God but it's been a bridge to nowhere. But right now, God, who loves you so very much, is pointing you to the bridge He built to bring you to Him. It's the cross where His one and only Son paid for you. The bridge God has provided cost Him what mattered most to Him. It cost Him His Son.
That Jesus came out of his grave. He was resurrected, and today he's ready to walk into your life. He is your bridge to God and to heaven. Tell him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." I hope you can get to our website. We've tried there to tell you the way across that bridge and know you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com.
Don't depend on any other bridge, because every other bridge is a bridge to nowhere.
I remember sitting in high school Algebra class staring at my textbook as if it were written in Mandarin Chinese. Fortunately I had a patient teacher. He issued the invitation and stuck to it: “If you cannot solve a problem, come to me and I will help you.” I wore a trail between his desk and mine. I would remind him, “Remember how you promised you would help?” I still had the problem, mind you, but I entrusted the problem to one who knew how to solve it.
The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said, “Put the Lord in remembrance of His promises, keep not silence” (Isaiah 62:6). God invites you—yes, commands you—to remind him of his promises. Find a promise that fits your problem, and build your prayer around it! These prayers of faith touch the heart of God and miracles are set in motion!
Isaiah 30
“Doom, rebel children!”
God’s Decree.
“You make plans, but not mine.
You make deals, but not in my Spirit.
You pile sin on sin,
one sin on top of another,
Going off to Egypt
without so much as asking me,
Running off to Pharaoh for protection,
expecting to hide out in Egypt.
Well, some protection Pharaoh will be!
Some hideout, Egypt!
They look big and important, true,
with officials strategically established in
Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south,
but there’s nothing to them.
Anyone stupid enough to trust them
will end up looking stupid—
All show, no substance,
an embarrassing farce.”
6-7 And this note on the animals of the Negev
encountered on the road to Egypt:
A most dangerous, treacherous route,
menaced by lions and deadly snakes.
And you’re going to lug all your stuff down there,
your donkeys and camels loaded down with bribes,
Thinking you can buy protection
from that hollow farce of a nation?
Egypt is all show, no substance.
My name for her is Toothless Dragon.
8-11 So, go now and write all this down.
Put it in a book
So that the record will be there
to instruct the coming generations,
Because this is a rebel generation,
a people who lie,
A people unwilling to listen
to anything God tells them.
They tell their spiritual leaders,
“Don’t bother us with irrelevancies.”
They tell their preachers,
“Don’t waste our time on impracticalities.
Tell us what makes us feel better.
Don’t bore us with obsolete religion.
That stuff means nothing to us.
Quit hounding us with The Holy of Israel.”
12-14 Therefore, The Holy of Israel says this:
“Because you scorn this Message,
Preferring to live by injustice
and shape your lives on lies,
This perverse way of life
will be like a towering, badly built wall
That slowly, slowly tilts and shifts,
and then one day, without warning, collapses—
Smashed to bits like a piece of pottery,
smashed beyond recognition or repair,
Useless, a pile of debris
to be swept up and thrown in the trash.”
15-17 God, the Master, The Holy of Israel,
has this solemn counsel:
“Your salvation requires you to turn back to me
and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.
Your strength will come from settling down
in complete dependence on me—
The very thing
you’ve been unwilling to do.
You’ve said, ‘Nothing doing! We’ll rush off on horseback!’
You’ll rush off, all right! Just not far enough!
You’ve said, ‘We’ll ride off on fast horses!’
Do you think your pursuers ride old nags?
Think again: A thousand of you will scatter before one attacker.
Before a mere five you’ll all run off.
There’ll be nothing left of you—
a flagpole on a hill with no flag,
a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off.”
18 But God’s not finished. He’s waiting around to be gracious to you.
He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you.
God takes the time to do everything right—everything.
Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones.
19-22 Oh yes, people of Zion, citizens of Jerusalem, your time of tears is over. Cry for help and you’ll find it’s grace and more grace. The moment he hears, he’ll answer. Just as the Master kept you alive during the hard times, he’ll keep your teacher alive and present among you. Your teacher will be right there, local and on the job, urging you on whenever you wander left or right: “This is the right road. Walk down this road.” You’ll scrap your expensive and fashionable god-images. You’ll throw them in the trash as so much garbage, saying, “Good riddance!”
23-26 God will provide rain for the seeds you sow. The grain that grows will be abundant. Your cattle will range far and wide. Oblivious to war and earthquake, the oxen and donkeys you use for hauling and plowing will be fed well near running brooks that flow freely from mountains and hills. Better yet, on the Day God heals his people of the wounds and bruises from the time of punishment, moonlight will flare into sunlight, and sunlight, like a whole week of sunshine at once, will flood the land.
27-28 Look, God’s on his way,
and from a long way off!
Smoking with anger,
immense as he comes into view,
Words steaming from his mouth,
searing, indicting words!
A torrent of words, a flash flood of words
sweeping everyone into the vortex of his words.
He’ll shake down the nations in a sieve of destruction,
herd them into a dead end.
29-33 But you will sing,
sing through an all-night holy feast!
Your hearts will burst with song,
make music like the sound of flutes on parade,
En route to the mountain of God,
on the way to the Rock of Israel.
God will sound out in grandiose thunder,
display his hammering arm,
Furiously angry, showering sparks—
cloudburst, storm, hail!
Oh yes, at God’s thunder
Assyria will cower under the clubbing.
Every blow God lands on them with his club
is in time to the music of drums and pipes,
God in all-out, two-fisted battle,
fighting against them.
Topheth’s fierce fires are well prepared,
ready for the Assyrian king.
The Topheth furnace is deep and wide,
well stoked with hot-burning wood.
God’s breath, like a river of burning pitch,
starts the fire.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
John 8:31–36
Dispute Over Whose Children Jesus’ Opponents Are
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching,b you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”c
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendantsd and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.e 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.f 36 So if the Son sets you free,g you will be free indeed.
Insight
The debate that started in John 7:25–27 over Jesus’ identity and whether He was the Messiah intensified in chapter 8. The people asked Him, “Who are you?” (v. 25). John tells us that “many believed in him” (v. 30). Then Jesus clarified the identity of His true disciples: those who not only know Jesus, but also obey Him (v. 31). Jesus also cautioned the Jews that their privileged status as God’s chosen people and their heritage standing as descendants of Abraham had blinded them. They refused to see that they too were slaves to sin (vv. 31–36). Only when they accepted and believed the truth that Jesus is their Messiah—that He’s “the way and the truth and the life” (14:6)—would they be truly set free. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (8:36).
Free Indeed
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
The film Amistad tells the story of West African slaves in 1839 taking over the boat that was transporting them and killing the captain and some of the crew. Eventually they were recaptured, imprisoned, and taken to trial. An unforgettable courtroom scene features Cinqué, leader of the slaves, passionately pleading for freedom. Three simple words—repeated with increasing force by a shackled man with broken English—eventually silenced the courtroom, “Give us free!” Justice was served and the men were freed.
Most people today aren’t in danger of being physically bound, yet true liberation from the spiritual bondage of sin remains elusive. The words of Jesus in John 8:36 offer sweet relief: “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus pointed to Himself as the source of true emancipation because He offers forgiveness to anyone who believes in Him. Though some in Christ’s audience claimed freedom (v. 33), their words, attitudes, and actions regarding Jesus betrayed their claim.
Jesus longs to hear those who would echo Cinqué’s plea and say, “Give me freedom!” With compassion He awaits the cries of those who are shackled by unbelief or fear or failure. Freedom is a matter of the heart. Such liberty is reserved for those who believe that Jesus is God’s Son who was sent into the world to break the power of sin’s hold on us through His death and resurrection. By: Arthur Jackson
Reflect & Pray
How has Jesus set you free? What can you share with others about God’s liberating power?
Jesus, help me to believe that You can set me free.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Spontaneous Love
Love suffers long and is kind… —1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is not premeditated– it is spontaneous; that is, it bursts forth in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of precise certainty in Paul’s description of love. We cannot predetermine our thoughts and actions by saying, “Now I will never think any evil thoughts, and I will believe everything that Jesus would have me to believe.” No, the characteristic of love is spontaneity. We don’t deliberately set the statements of Jesus before us as our standard, but when His Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without even realizing it. And when we look back, we are amazed at how unconcerned we have been over our emotions, which is the very evidence that real spontaneous love was there. The nature of everything involved in the life of God in us is only discerned when we have been through it and it is in our past.
The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. It is absurd to think that the love of God is naturally in our hearts, as a result of our own nature. His love is there only because it “has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit…” (Romans 5:5).
If we try to prove to God how much we love Him, it is a sure sign that we really don’t love Him. The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, which flows naturally from His nature within us. And when we look back, we will not be able to determine why we did certain things, but we can know that we did them according to the spontaneous nature of His love in us. The life of God exhibits itself in this spontaneous way because the fountains of His love are in the Holy Spirit.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Awe is the condition of a man’s spirit realizing Who God is and what He has done for him personally. Our Lord emphasizes the attitude of a child; no attitude can express such solemn awe and familiarity as that of a child. Not Knowing Whither, 882 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Kings 8-9; Luke 21:1-19
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Bridges to Nowhere - #8689
A few summers ago, I went on a river trip with some young people. It was a river that had not been nearly so friendly just three months before. The spring rains had been record breakers and the resulting floods had even redirected parts of the river. Our guide took us down a whole new channel of the river that hadn't even been there three months earlier, and he pointed out this palatial home that was built near the river by a multi-millionaire. The flood had suddenly made his home very vulnerable. It was saved only by a hastily-constructed brick wall. A lot of the landscaping around that home couldn't be saved, like the bridges for example. See, since this had just been a little stream before the flood, the homeowner built some charming wooden bridges across it at several points. Now the bridges weren't really destroyed, they were just, like, relocated. As we moved downstream, we saw this charming wooden bridge sitting in the middle of an island of mud in the middle of the river. Later we saw another bridge, pretty intact, just sitting on the riverbank. Oh, they were nice bridges all right, they just didn't go anywhere.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Bridges to Nowhere."
One of the most defining, most bottom-lining statements in all of the Bible is our word for today from the Word of God. It's Acts 4:12 - the disciples of Jesus have just been talking about the name of Jesus Christ. Listen to this. "Salvation is found in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Wow! Let me tell you, in our age of pluralism and tolerance and eclectic spirituality, those are pretty loaded words about Jesus.
Salvation is in no one else. We have to be saved by His name. How can this be? Mankind seems to know instinctively that we need some kind of bridge to get to God. We feel the distance between us and the one who made us, and maybe you do. We're trying to discover what will get us to Him. So, we have the Protestant bridge to God with good works that are supposed to take us to God, and the Catholic bridge with good Catholic things to do, and the Jewish bridge, and the Muslim bridge, and the Buddhist bridge, the Hindu bridge, the bridge of New Age spirituality, etc.
Our human nature wants to believe that all those bridges end up the same place with God. But Jesus defied our preferences when He made this incredible claim. He said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." In other words, even though all those religious bridges are beautiful, they're bridges to nowhere.
Why? Because of what it is that stands between us and the God that we're desperately trying to get to. In simple words, it's a death penalty. The Bible says, "The wages of our sin is death." All of us have missed the way we were created to live with God running things. We've hijacked our lives from our Creator, we've run our lives our own way, and the penalty is death. You can't pay a death penalty by any amount of doing good. There's only one way. Somebody has to die, and someone did. But not the one who deserved to die for my sin. I should have, but the Bible says, "Christ died for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God." Out of His amazing love, Jesus, God's Son, did all the dying for all the sinning we've ever done. And while there are many religions, there's only one Savior, and only He can take me across that gap between me and my Creator.
So, everything depends on what you do with Jesus. Maybe you've been on a spiritual bridge trying to find a relationship with God but it's been a bridge to nowhere. But right now, God, who loves you so very much, is pointing you to the bridge He built to bring you to Him. It's the cross where His one and only Son paid for you. The bridge God has provided cost Him what mattered most to Him. It cost Him His Son.
That Jesus came out of his grave. He was resurrected, and today he's ready to walk into your life. He is your bridge to God and to heaven. Tell him today, "Jesus, I'm yours." I hope you can get to our website. We've tried there to tell you the way across that bridge and know you belong to Him. That website is ANewStory.com.
Don't depend on any other bridge, because every other bridge is a bridge to nowhere.
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