Max Lucado Daily: LOOKING UPWARD
Genesis tells us, “When Joseph had come to his brothers, they stripped him of his tunic. . .they took him and cast him into a pit. . .and they sat down to eat a meal.” Joseph’s hands were bound, his ankles tied, and his voice became hoarse from screaming. It wasn’t that his brothers didn’t hear him. Twenty-two years later, when a famine tamed their swagger, they would confess, “We saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear.”
You’re a version of Joseph. You carry something of God within you—something the world needs. If Satan can neutralize you, he can mute your influence. Life in the pit stinks! Yet it forces you to look upward. Someone from up there must come down here and give you a hand. God did for Joseph. He will do the same for you!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Peter 3
In the Last Days
1-2 My dear friends, this is now the second time I’ve written to you, both letters reminders to hold your minds in a state of undistracted attention. Keep in mind what the holy prophets said, and the command of our Master and Savior that was passed on by your apostles.
3-4 First off, you need to know that in the last days, mockers are going to have a heyday. Reducing everything to the level of their puny feelings, they’ll mock, “So what’s happened to the promise of his Coming? Our ancestors are dead and buried, and everything’s going on just as it has from the first day of creation. Nothing’s changed.”
5-7 They conveniently forget that long ago all the galaxies and this very planet were brought into existence out of watery chaos by God’s word. Then God’s word brought the chaos back in a flood that destroyed the world. The current galaxies and earth are fuel for the final fire. God is poised, ready to speak his word again, ready to give the signal for the judgment and destruction of the desecrating skeptics.
The Day the Sky Will Collapse
8-9 Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.
10 But when the Day of God’s Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment.
11-13 Since everything here today might well be gone tomorrow, do you see how essential it is to live a holy life? Daily expect the Day of God, eager for its arrival. The galaxies will burn up and the elements melt down that day—but we’ll hardly notice. We’ll be looking the other way, ready for the promised new heavens and the promised new earth, all landscaped with righteousness.
14-16 So, my dear friends, since this is what you have to look forward to, do your very best to be found living at your best, in purity and peace. Interpret our Master’s patient restraint for what it is: salvation. Our good brother Paul, who was given much wisdom in these matters, refers to this in all his letters, and has written you essentially the same thing. Some things Paul writes are difficult to understand. Irresponsible people who don’t know what they are talking about twist them every which way. They do it to the rest of the Scriptures, too, destroying themselves as they do it.
17-18 But you, friends, are well-warned. Be on guard lest you lose your footing and get swept off your feet by these lawless and loose-talking teachers. Grow in grace and understanding of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Glory to the Master, now and forever! Yes!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 08, 2017
Read: Hebrews 8:6–13
6-13 But Jesus’ priestly work far surpasses what these other priests do, since he’s working from a far better plan. If the first plan—the old covenant—had worked out, a second wouldn’t have been needed. But we know the first was found wanting, because God said,
Heads up! The days are coming
when I’ll set up a new plan
for dealing with Israel and Judah.
I’ll throw out the old plan
I set up with their ancestors
when I led them by the hand out of Egypt.
They didn’t keep their part of the bargain,
so I looked away and let it go.
This new plan I’m making with Israel
isn’t going to be written on paper,
isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;
This time I’m writing out the plan in them,
carving it on the lining of their hearts.
I’ll be their God,
they’ll be my people.
They won’t go to school to learn about me,
or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons.
They’ll all get to know me firsthand,
the little and the big, the small and the great.
They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven,
with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.
By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.
INSIGHT:
The book of Hebrews was written to a Jewish audience who had trusted Jesus as Messiah. Because of their Old Testament background, they were tempted to regress into trusting the Mosaic law instead of Christ’s sufficiency. So the author speaks of Jesus as providing a superior ministry, a superior covenant, and better promises (8:6).
Consider God’s promise of forgiveness in Hebrews 8:12—“I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”—and see how you have every reason to rejoice.
Rings and Grace
By Keila Ochoa
[I] will remember their sins no more. Hebrews 8:12
When I look at my hands, I am reminded that I lost my wedding and engagement rings. I was multitasking as I packed for a trip, and I still have no idea where they ended up.
I dreaded telling my husband about my careless mistake—worried how the news would affect him. But he responded with more compassion and care for me than concern over the rings. However, there are times when I still want to do something to earn his grace! He, on the contrary, doesn’t hold this episode against me.
Grace and forgiveness are unearned gifts.
So many times we remember our sins and feel we must do something to earn God’s forgiveness. But God has said it is by grace, not by works, that we are saved (Eph. 2:8–9). Speaking of a new covenant, God promised Israel, “I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jer. 31:34). We have a God who forgives and no longer calls to mind the wrongs we have done.
We may still feel sad about our past, but we need to trust His promise and believe His grace and forgiveness is real through faith in Jesus Christ. This news should lead us to thankfulness and the assurance faith brings. When God forgives, He forgets.
Dear Lord, thank You for Your grace and Your offer of salvation and forgiveness through Christ. Thank You for this free gift that is not based on anything I can do.
Grace and forgiveness are unearned gifts.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 08, 2017
What’s Next To Do?
If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. —John 13:17
Be determined to know more than others. If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.
Not Knowing Whither
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 08, 2017
Re-Aiming Your Lens - #7934
It was an ugly day. The worst part was that it was a weekend when Karen and I had finally been able to get away for a weekend in the Adirondack Mountains. But the weather didn't seem to care. Our Saturday was drippy and damp and chilly. I finally said, "Let's go home, Karen. We can get this weather for free there!" So I started hauling out suitcases and grumbling most of the way. When I looked around to see where Karen was, I saw her leaning over this wishing well-and she wasn't moving. Old Happy Husband ambled over there to get her to the car. When I got to the well, I saw she had her long camera lens trained on something just inside the well. Quite a good photographer, this girl. And I learned that she usually knew what she was doing when it looked like she didn't. She said, "Look at this." It was a large, perfectly engineered spider web, and little rain droplets sprinkled all over it. Wouldn't you know, she went back, enlarged that photo and took first prize in an art contest for a picture called "Jeweled Web". Amazing! While I was looking at the ugly all around us, she found something beautiful to train her lens on!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Re-Aiming Your Lens."
I wonder where you've been aiming your lens and what kind of attitude you've had lately. Those two things really go together.
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Psalm 34-where our lens is supposed to be focused. David is writing from a miserable situation. The king of Israel is furiously jealous of him and pursuing him with a posse. The king wants him dead. David is hiding in a cave, he's a fugitive, unsure if he will be alive or dead tomorrow. His situation probably might even make yours look fairly bright.
Here's what he says, "I will extol the Lord at all times; His praise will always be on my lips." He says, "I've decided to focus my lens-not on the bad things going on. There's a lot of them, but on the greatness of my God and the great things He's doing." So, here are some things David finds to be thankful for in this dark season.
"I sought the Lord, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears...the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and he delivers him...those who seek the Lord lack no good thing." Just like my wife on that ugly day, David finds what's beautiful and focuses his lens on it. His praise just lifts him above his situation.
So what would a tape of this last week's conversations reveal about what's in your heart? Have you been tending to lead with the negative...to talk a lot about what's wrong? Or would the recording reflect a conversation that was filled with things to thank God for...with the good things He's doing? God tells us we're to be known for consistent praise-"always on my lips".
It's also contagious praise. David says, "Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together." There's something about 'praisy' talk that affects the overall climate in the room, and it starts turning a cloudy climate into a sunny day. David also talks about the fact that praise is comforting. "My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice."
Your negative talk is just going to further submerge someone who is already sinking. But your positive praise, your focus on an awesome God, you can lighten their load and help them aim their lens at the Savior instead of the situation.
Here's what happens to the person who determines that praise is going to be what their mouth is used for-"Those who look to Him (David says) are radiant." They carry this God-glow with them wherever they are. And it's all in which way you decide to aim your lens.
Make a choice. Focus on what's beautiful.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Ezekiel 41, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE MASTER BUILDER
Several years ago the state was rebuilding an overpass near my house. Three lanes reduced to one, transforming a morning commute into a daily stew. The project, like human history, had been in development since before time began. My next-door neighbors were highway engineers, consultants to the department of transportation. “It’ll take time,” they responded to my grumbles, “but it will get finished. “ They had seen the plans.
In the Old Testament story of Joseph, God allows us to study His plans. Brothers dumping brother. Their family feuds scattered like nails and cement bags on a vacant lot. But watch the Master Builder at work. He cleared the debris and stabilized the structure. And the chaos of Genesis 37:24—“They cast him into the pit”—became the triumph of Genesis 50:20—“life for many people.” God redeemed the story of Joseph. Can’t He redeem your story as well?
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 41
1-2 He brought me into the Temple itself and measured the doorposts on each side. Each was ten and a half feet thick. The entrance was seventeen and a half feet wide. The walls on each side were eight and three-quarters feet thick.
He also measured the Temple Sanctuary: seventy feet by thirty-five feet.
3-4 He went further in and measured the doorposts at the entrance: Each was three and a half feet thick. The entrance itself was ten and a half feet wide, and the entrance walls were twelve and a quarter feet thick. He measured the inside Sanctuary, thirty-five feet square, set at the end of the main Sanctuary. He told me, “This is The Holy of Holies.”
5-7 He measured the wall of the Temple. It was ten and a half feet thick. The side rooms around the Temple were seven feet wide. There were three floors of these side rooms, thirty rooms on each of the three floors. There were supporting beams around the Temple wall to hold up the side rooms, but they were freestanding, not attached to the wall itself. The side rooms around the Temple became wider from first floor to second floor to third floor. A staircase went from the bottom floor, through the middle, and then to the top floor.
8-11 I observed that the Temple had a ten-and-a-half-foot-thick raised base around it, which provided a foundation for the side rooms. The outside walls of the side rooms were eight and three-quarters feet thick. The open area between the side rooms of the Temple and the priests’ rooms was a thirty-five-foot-wide strip all around the Temple. There were two entrances to the side rooms from the open area, one placed on the north side, the other on the south. There were eight and three-quarters feet of open space all around.
12 The house that faced the Temple courtyard to the west was one hundred twenty-two and a half feet wide, with eight-and-three-quarters-foot-thick walls. The length of the wall and building was one hundred fifty-seven and a half feet.
13-14 He measured the Temple: one hundred seventy-five feet long. The Temple courtyard and the house, including its walls, measured a hundred seventy-five feet. The breadth of the front of the Temple and the open area to the east was a hundred seventy-five feet.
15-18 He measured the length of the house facing the courtyard at the back of the Temple, including the shelters on each side: one hundred seventy-five feet. The main Sanctuary, the inner Sanctuary, and the vestibule facing the courtyard were paneled with wood, and had window frames and door frames in all three sections. From floor to windows the walls were paneled. Above the outside entrance to the inner Sanctuary and on the walls at regular intervals all around the inner Sanctuary and the main Sanctuary, angel-cherubim and palm trees were carved in alternating sequence.
18-20 Each angel-cherub had two faces: a human face toward the palm tree on the right and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the left. They were carved around the entire Temple. The cherubim–palm tree motif was carved from floor to door height on the wall of the main Sanctuary.
21-22 The main Sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe. In front of the Holy Place was something that looked like an altar of wood, five and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. The man said to me, “This is the table that stands before God.”
23-26 Both the main Sanctuary and the Holy Place had double doors. Each door had two leaves: two hinged leaves for each door, one set swinging inward and the other set outward. The doors of the main Sanctuary were carved with angel-cherubim and palm trees. There was a canopy of wood in front of the vestibule outside. There were narrow windows alternating with carved palm trees on both sides of the porch.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Read: Genesis 3:1–10
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
INSIGHT:
God did not force Adam and Eve to obey Him but allowed them to choose whether or not they would obey. Similarly, He did not force them to come to Him after they sinned. Instead, He called to them and allowed them to respond to His call. Have you responded to God’s offer of a restored relationship with Him?
God Calling
By James Banks
This is how God showed his love . . . : He sent his one and only Son into the world. 1 John 4:9
One morning my daughter gave her eleven-month-old son her cell phone for a moment to entertain him. Less than a minute later my phone rang, and as I picked it up I heard his little voice. He had somehow hit the “speed dial” to my number, and what followed was a “conversation” I will long remember. My grandson can only say a few words, but he knows my voice and responds to it. So I talked to him and told him how much I love him.
The joy I felt at the sound of my grandson’s voice was a reminder to me of God’s deep desire for a relationship with us. From the very beginning, the Bible shows God actively pursuing us. After Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God and then hid from Him in the garden, “the Lord God called” to Adam (Gen. 3:9).
God's love for us is revealed through Jesus.
God continued to pursue humanity through Jesus. Because God desires a relationship with us, He sent Jesus to earth to pay the penalty for our sin by His death on the cross. “This is how God showed his love . . . . He sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God” (1 John 4:9–10 The Message).
How good it is to know that God loves us and wants us to respond to His love through Jesus. Even when we don't quite know what to say, our Father longs to hear from us!
Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me and pursuing a relationship with me. Help me to be a joy to You by drawing near to You.
God’s love for us is revealed through Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do… —John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point— the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? “If you abide in Me…”— that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point— “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these— what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
“Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do….” The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God’s foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The message of the prophets is that although they have forsaken God, it has not altered God. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the same truth, that God remains God even when we are unfaithful (see 2 Timothy 2:13). Never interpret God as changing with our changes. He never does; there is no variableness in Him. Notes on Ezekiel, 1477 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love - #7933
It was a 2004 American League Championship Series. I remember it because my Yankees were in it. One big reason the Boston Red Sox triumphed over my New York Yankees (Boo!) was a veteran pitcher named Curt Schilling. He was selected to pitch the opening game in the New York series, and although he had torn an ankle tendon in his previous start, he thought he could gut it out. He was wrong. Losing that game actually started the Red Sox into a 3-0 deficit in the best of seven series. They started to come back, and amazingly, Curt Schilling had a chance to try again. Later he would tell the press that the first game showed what he could do. He said the second outing showed what God can do. Although Curt had been named "Good Guy of the Year" by Sporting News, he had never talked publicly about the commitment to Jesus Christ that he'd made several years before.
This time, while he was praying with his pastor before the game, he expressed his willingness to speak up about his Lord if he was given the opportunity. Well, he pitched an incredible four-hit victory that gave him that chance. He clearly glorified God in that post game interview. Later, when he pitched a winning game in Game 2 of the World Series, Curt Schilling told reporters, "If you haven't checked it out, read Philippians 4:13. That's 'I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.' I can't do anything these days without having that reverberate in my head." Those public declarations of his dependency on Christ - that might have been his greatest victories. He said later, "I've learned that you should never hide your faith. I had wasted seven years. People didn't know."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love."
And what is that? Remaining silent about your Savior to the people in your personal world. First, because Jesus died publicly on a cross for you. He was not ashamed of us. How can we be ashamed of Him? Secondly, because the eternity of the people you care about depends on them understanding what Jesus did on that cross for them. You know what He did. They probably don't. That makes you responsible.
"Never hide." That was Curt Schilling's conclusion looking back on what he called the "wasted years" of his spiritual silence. Sure, everyone knew he was a "good guy." But people "didn't know it was all about his Jesus." If you belong to Jesus, He laid out very plainly your role in the world in Matthew 5:14-16, our word for today from the Word of God. "You are the light of the world...People do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl! Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." So Jesus says, "Show them the difference I make by the way you live, and then tell them I'm the One who's making the difference."
Helping people you care about be in heaven with you begins with repenting of the silence that has left them in the dark spiritually. Then you start praying daily for natural opportunities to bring up your personal relationship with Jesus and to tell them about the difference He's making when you're winning, when you're struggling, when you're there for them, when they're in a crisis or when you are in a crisis. Open doors to talk about Jesus, because He's the great Difference-Maker.
Out of all the Christians on this planet, God has placed you in their life as His chosen messenger to introduce them to His Son. How are you doing? You're the Jesus-light where you work, where you play, where you go to school, and where you live. In olden days, if the lighthouse went out, ships were lost - lives were lost.
If your light isn't shining where you are, lives will be lost – forever; people you care about, people who need a rescuer, people who desperately need for you to tell them about your Jesus.
Several years ago the state was rebuilding an overpass near my house. Three lanes reduced to one, transforming a morning commute into a daily stew. The project, like human history, had been in development since before time began. My next-door neighbors were highway engineers, consultants to the department of transportation. “It’ll take time,” they responded to my grumbles, “but it will get finished. “ They had seen the plans.
In the Old Testament story of Joseph, God allows us to study His plans. Brothers dumping brother. Their family feuds scattered like nails and cement bags on a vacant lot. But watch the Master Builder at work. He cleared the debris and stabilized the structure. And the chaos of Genesis 37:24—“They cast him into the pit”—became the triumph of Genesis 50:20—“life for many people.” God redeemed the story of Joseph. Can’t He redeem your story as well?
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 41
1-2 He brought me into the Temple itself and measured the doorposts on each side. Each was ten and a half feet thick. The entrance was seventeen and a half feet wide. The walls on each side were eight and three-quarters feet thick.
He also measured the Temple Sanctuary: seventy feet by thirty-five feet.
3-4 He went further in and measured the doorposts at the entrance: Each was three and a half feet thick. The entrance itself was ten and a half feet wide, and the entrance walls were twelve and a quarter feet thick. He measured the inside Sanctuary, thirty-five feet square, set at the end of the main Sanctuary. He told me, “This is The Holy of Holies.”
5-7 He measured the wall of the Temple. It was ten and a half feet thick. The side rooms around the Temple were seven feet wide. There were three floors of these side rooms, thirty rooms on each of the three floors. There were supporting beams around the Temple wall to hold up the side rooms, but they were freestanding, not attached to the wall itself. The side rooms around the Temple became wider from first floor to second floor to third floor. A staircase went from the bottom floor, through the middle, and then to the top floor.
8-11 I observed that the Temple had a ten-and-a-half-foot-thick raised base around it, which provided a foundation for the side rooms. The outside walls of the side rooms were eight and three-quarters feet thick. The open area between the side rooms of the Temple and the priests’ rooms was a thirty-five-foot-wide strip all around the Temple. There were two entrances to the side rooms from the open area, one placed on the north side, the other on the south. There were eight and three-quarters feet of open space all around.
12 The house that faced the Temple courtyard to the west was one hundred twenty-two and a half feet wide, with eight-and-three-quarters-foot-thick walls. The length of the wall and building was one hundred fifty-seven and a half feet.
13-14 He measured the Temple: one hundred seventy-five feet long. The Temple courtyard and the house, including its walls, measured a hundred seventy-five feet. The breadth of the front of the Temple and the open area to the east was a hundred seventy-five feet.
15-18 He measured the length of the house facing the courtyard at the back of the Temple, including the shelters on each side: one hundred seventy-five feet. The main Sanctuary, the inner Sanctuary, and the vestibule facing the courtyard were paneled with wood, and had window frames and door frames in all three sections. From floor to windows the walls were paneled. Above the outside entrance to the inner Sanctuary and on the walls at regular intervals all around the inner Sanctuary and the main Sanctuary, angel-cherubim and palm trees were carved in alternating sequence.
18-20 Each angel-cherub had two faces: a human face toward the palm tree on the right and the face of a lion toward the palm tree on the left. They were carved around the entire Temple. The cherubim–palm tree motif was carved from floor to door height on the wall of the main Sanctuary.
21-22 The main Sanctuary had a rectangular doorframe. In front of the Holy Place was something that looked like an altar of wood, five and a quarter feet high and three and a half feet square. Its corners, base, and sides were of wood. The man said to me, “This is the table that stands before God.”
23-26 Both the main Sanctuary and the Holy Place had double doors. Each door had two leaves: two hinged leaves for each door, one set swinging inward and the other set outward. The doors of the main Sanctuary were carved with angel-cherubim and palm trees. There was a canopy of wood in front of the vestibule outside. There were narrow windows alternating with carved palm trees on both sides of the porch.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
Read: Genesis 3:1–10
The serpent was clever, more clever than any wild animal God had made. He spoke to the Woman: “Do I understand that God told you not to eat from any tree in the garden?”
2-3 The Woman said to the serpent, “Not at all. We can eat from the trees in the garden. It’s only about the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘Don’t eat from it; don’t even touch it or you’ll die.’”
4-5 The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil.”
6 When the Woman saw that the tree looked like good eating and realized what she would get out of it—she’d know everything!—she took and ate the fruit and then gave some to her husband, and he ate.
7 Immediately the two of them did “see what’s really going on”—saw themselves naked! They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.
8 When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God.
9 God called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
INSIGHT:
God did not force Adam and Eve to obey Him but allowed them to choose whether or not they would obey. Similarly, He did not force them to come to Him after they sinned. Instead, He called to them and allowed them to respond to His call. Have you responded to God’s offer of a restored relationship with Him?
God Calling
By James Banks
This is how God showed his love . . . : He sent his one and only Son into the world. 1 John 4:9
One morning my daughter gave her eleven-month-old son her cell phone for a moment to entertain him. Less than a minute later my phone rang, and as I picked it up I heard his little voice. He had somehow hit the “speed dial” to my number, and what followed was a “conversation” I will long remember. My grandson can only say a few words, but he knows my voice and responds to it. So I talked to him and told him how much I love him.
The joy I felt at the sound of my grandson’s voice was a reminder to me of God’s deep desire for a relationship with us. From the very beginning, the Bible shows God actively pursuing us. After Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God and then hid from Him in the garden, “the Lord God called” to Adam (Gen. 3:9).
God's love for us is revealed through Jesus.
God continued to pursue humanity through Jesus. Because God desires a relationship with us, He sent Jesus to earth to pay the penalty for our sin by His death on the cross. “This is how God showed his love . . . . He sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God” (1 John 4:9–10 The Message).
How good it is to know that God loves us and wants us to respond to His love through Jesus. Even when we don't quite know what to say, our Father longs to hear from us!
Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me and pursuing a relationship with me. Help me to be a joy to You by drawing near to You.
God’s love for us is revealed through Jesus.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Greatest Source of Power
Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do… —John 14:13
Am I fulfilling this ministry of intercession deep within the hidden recesses of my life? There is no trap nor any danger at all of being deceived or of showing pride in true intercession. It is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit through which the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to waste away, or am I focused, bringing everything to one central point— the atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him.
However, I must take the time to realize what this central point of power is. Am I willing to give one minute out of every hour to concentrate on it? “If you abide in Me…”— that is, if you continue to act, and think, and work from that central point— “you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7). Am I abiding? Am I taking the time to abide? What is the greatest source of power in my life? Is it my work, service, and sacrifice for others, or is it my striving to work for God? It should be none of these— what ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the atonement of the Lord. It is not on what we spend the greatest amount of time that molds us the most, but whatever exerts the most power over us. We must make a determination to limit and concentrate our desires and interests on the atonement by the Cross of Christ.
“Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do….” The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and what appears to be his free choices are actually God’s foreordained decrees. Is this mysterious? Does it appear to contradict sound logic or seem totally absurd? Yes, but what a glorious truth it is to a saint of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The message of the prophets is that although they have forsaken God, it has not altered God. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the same truth, that God remains God even when we are unfaithful (see 2 Timothy 2:13). Never interpret God as changing with our changes. He never does; there is no variableness in Him. Notes on Ezekiel, 1477 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, June 07, 2017
The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love - #7933
It was a 2004 American League Championship Series. I remember it because my Yankees were in it. One big reason the Boston Red Sox triumphed over my New York Yankees (Boo!) was a veteran pitcher named Curt Schilling. He was selected to pitch the opening game in the New York series, and although he had torn an ankle tendon in his previous start, he thought he could gut it out. He was wrong. Losing that game actually started the Red Sox into a 3-0 deficit in the best of seven series. They started to come back, and amazingly, Curt Schilling had a chance to try again. Later he would tell the press that the first game showed what he could do. He said the second outing showed what God can do. Although Curt had been named "Good Guy of the Year" by Sporting News, he had never talked publicly about the commitment to Jesus Christ that he'd made several years before.
This time, while he was praying with his pastor before the game, he expressed his willingness to speak up about his Lord if he was given the opportunity. Well, he pitched an incredible four-hit victory that gave him that chance. He clearly glorified God in that post game interview. Later, when he pitched a winning game in Game 2 of the World Series, Curt Schilling told reporters, "If you haven't checked it out, read Philippians 4:13. That's 'I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.' I can't do anything these days without having that reverberate in my head." Those public declarations of his dependency on Christ - that might have been his greatest victories. He said later, "I've learned that you should never hide your faith. I had wasted seven years. People didn't know."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Biggest Way to Fail the People You Love."
And what is that? Remaining silent about your Savior to the people in your personal world. First, because Jesus died publicly on a cross for you. He was not ashamed of us. How can we be ashamed of Him? Secondly, because the eternity of the people you care about depends on them understanding what Jesus did on that cross for them. You know what He did. They probably don't. That makes you responsible.
"Never hide." That was Curt Schilling's conclusion looking back on what he called the "wasted years" of his spiritual silence. Sure, everyone knew he was a "good guy." But people "didn't know it was all about his Jesus." If you belong to Jesus, He laid out very plainly your role in the world in Matthew 5:14-16, our word for today from the Word of God. "You are the light of the world...People do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl! Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." So Jesus says, "Show them the difference I make by the way you live, and then tell them I'm the One who's making the difference."
Helping people you care about be in heaven with you begins with repenting of the silence that has left them in the dark spiritually. Then you start praying daily for natural opportunities to bring up your personal relationship with Jesus and to tell them about the difference He's making when you're winning, when you're struggling, when you're there for them, when they're in a crisis or when you are in a crisis. Open doors to talk about Jesus, because He's the great Difference-Maker.
Out of all the Christians on this planet, God has placed you in their life as His chosen messenger to introduce them to His Son. How are you doing? You're the Jesus-light where you work, where you play, where you go to school, and where you live. In olden days, if the lighthouse went out, ships were lost - lives were lost.
If your light isn't shining where you are, lives will be lost – forever; people you care about, people who need a rescuer, people who desperately need for you to tell them about your Jesus.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Ezekiel 40, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily:A Human Being
One night I was on baby duty and Jenna’s breathing slowed. I leaned my ear onto her mouth to see if she was alive. And when she burbled and panted, so did I. That’s when a tsunami of sobriety washed over me. We are in charge of a human being!
I don’t care how tough you are. You may be a Navy SEAL who skydives behind enemy lines. It doesn’t matter. Every parent melts the moment he or she feels the full force of parenthood. How did I get myself into this? Moms have thirty-six weeks of reminders elbowing around inside them. Dads, our kick in the gut comes later… but it does come. And for me it came years ago in the midnight quiet of an apartment living room—as I held a human being in my arms!
From Dad Time
Ezekiel 40
Measuring the Temple Complex
1-3 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year on the tenth of the month—it was the fourteenth year after the city fell—God touched me and brought me here. He brought me in divine vision to the land of Israel and set me down on a high mountain. To the south there were buildings that looked like a city. He took me there and I met a man deeply tanned, like bronze. He stood at the entrance holding a linen cord and a measuring stick.
4 The man said to me, “Son of man, look and listen carefully. Pay close attention to everything I’m going to show you. That’s why you’ve been brought here. And then tell Israel everything you see.”
5 First I saw a wall around the outside of the Temple complex. The measuring stick in the man’s hand was about ten feet long. He measured the thickness of the wall: about ten feet. The height was also about ten feet.
6-7 He went into the gate complex that faced the east and went up the seven steps. He measured the depth of the outside threshold of the gate complex: ten feet. There were alcoves flanking the gate corridor, each ten feet square, each separated by a wall seven and a half feet thick. The inside threshold of the gate complex that led to the porch facing into the Temple courtyard was ten feet deep.
8-9 He measured the inside porch of the gate complex: twelve feet deep, flanked by pillars three feet thick. The porch opened onto the Temple courtyard.
10 Inside this east gate complex were three alcoves on each side. Each room was the same size and the separating walls were identical.
11 He measured the outside entrance to the gate complex: fifteen feet wide and nineteen and a half feet deep.
12 In front of each alcove was a low wall eighteen inches high. The alcoves were ten feet square.
13 He measured the width of the gate complex from the outside edge of the alcove roof on one side to the outside edge of the alcove roof on the other: thirty-seven and a half feet from one top edge to the other.
14 He measured the inside walls of the gate complex: ninety feet to the porch leading into the courtyard.
15 The distance from the entrance of the gate complex to the far end of the porch was seventy-five feet.
16 The alcoves and their connecting walls inside the gate complex were topped by narrow windows all the way around. The porch also. All the windows faced inward. The doorjambs between the alcoves were decorated with palm trees.
17-19 The man then led me to the outside courtyard and all its rooms. A paved walkway had been built connecting the courtyard gates. Thirty rooms lined the courtyard. The walkway was the same length as the gateways. It flanked them and ran their entire length. This was the walkway for the outside courtyard. He measured the distance from the front of the entrance gateway across to the entrance of the inner court: one hundred fifty feet.
19-23 Then he took me to the north side. Here was another gate complex facing north, exiting the outside courtyard. He measured its length and width. It had three alcoves on each side. Its gateposts and porch were the same as in the first gate: eighty-seven and a half feet by forty-three and three-quarters feet. The windows and palm trees were identical to the east gateway. Seven steps led up to it, and its porch faced inward. Opposite this gate complex was a gate complex to the inside courtyard, on the north as on the east. The distance between the two was one hundred seventy-five feet.
24-27 Then he took me to the south side, to the south gate complex. He measured its gateposts and its porch. It was the same size as the others. The porch with its windows was the same size as those previously mentioned. It also had seven steps up to it. Its porch opened onto the outside courtyard, with palm trees decorating its gateposts on both sides. Opposite to it, the gate complex for the inner court faced south. He measured the distance across the courtyard from gate to gate: one hundred seventy-five feet.
28-31 He led me into the inside courtyard through the south gate complex. He measured it and found it the same as the outside ones. Its alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule were the same. The gate complex and porch, windowed all around, measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet. The vestibule of each of the gate complexes leading to the inside courtyard was forty-three and three-quarters by eight and three-quarters feet. Each vestibule faced the outside courtyard. Palm trees were carved on its doorposts. Eight steps led up to it.
32-34 He then took me to the inside courtyard on the east and measured the gate complex. It was identical to the others—alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule all the same. The gate complex and vestibule had windows all around. It measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet. Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on the doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.
35-37 He brought me to the gate complex to the north and measured it: same measurements. The alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule with its windows: eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet. Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on its doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.
38-43 There was a room with a door at the vestibule of the gate complex where the burnt offerings were cleaned. Two tables were placed within the vestibule, one on either side, on which the animals for burnt offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings were slaughtered. Two tables were also placed against both outside walls of the vestibule—four tables inside and four tables outside, eight tables in all for slaughtering the sacrificial animals. The four tables used for the burnt offerings were thirty-one and a half inches square and twenty-one inches high. The tools for slaughtering the sacrificial animals and other sacrifices were kept there. Meat hooks, three inches long, were fastened to the walls. The tables were for the sacrificial animals.
44-46 Right where the inside gate complex opened onto the inside courtyard there were two rooms, one at the north gate facing south and the one at the south gate facing north. The man told me, “The room facing south is for the priests who are in charge of the Temple. And the room facing north is for the priests who are in charge of the altar. These priests are the sons of Zadok, the only sons of Levi permitted to come near to God to serve him.”
47 He measured the inside courtyard: a hundred seventy-five feet square. The altar was in front of the Temple.
48-49 He led me to the porch of the Temple and measured the gateposts of the porch: eight and three-quarters feet high on both sides. The entrance to the gate complex was twenty-one feet wide and its connecting walls were four and a half feet thick. The vestibule itself was thirty-five feet wide and twenty-one feet deep. Ten steps led up to the porch. Columns flanked the gateposts.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
Read: Psalm 119:33–40
God, teach me lessons for living
so I can stay the course.
Give me insight so I can do what you tell me—
my whole life one long, obedient response.
Guide me down the road of your commandments;
I love traveling this freeway!
Give me a bent for your words of wisdom,
and not for piling up loot.
Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets,
invigorate me on the pilgrim way.
Affirm your promises to me—
promises made to all who fear you.
Deflect the harsh words of my critics—
but what you say is always so good.
See how hungry I am for your counsel;
preserve my life through your righteous ways!
INSIGHT:
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. Each new section starts with a successive letter from the Hebrew alphabet (known as an acrostic poem). The major emphasis of this psalm is to celebrate the usefulness and value of the law. In Psalm 119 the author uses a variety of words to describe the laws and commands of God. Eight times he mentions meditating: on God’s decrees (vv. 23, 48), deeds (v. 27), precepts (vv. 15, 78), laws (v. 97), statutes (v. 99), and promises (v. 148). Meditation is the act of thinking deeply about something, focusing intently on an idea. We really get to know the commands of God by meditating on them. Reading is the necessary first step, but once we have read His Word, meditating on it throughout the day helps us to keep it in our minds.
Do you want to learn more about spending time with God? Read In His Presence at discoveryseries.org/q0718.
Fifteen-Minute Challenge
By David C. McCasland
Turn my heart toward your statutes. Psalm 119:36
Dr. Charles W. Eliot, longtime president of Harvard University, believed that ordinary people who read consistently from the world’s great literature for even a few minutes a day could gain a valuable education. In 1910, he compiled selections from books of history, science, philosophy, and fine art into fifty volumes called The Harvard Classics. Each set of books included Dr. Eliot’s Reading Guide titled “Fifteen Minutes A Day” containing recommended selections of eight to ten pages for each day of the year.
What if we spent fifteen minutes a day reading God’s Word? We could say with the psalmist, “Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word” (Ps. 119:36–37).
“Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end.” (Psalm 119:33)
Fifteen minutes a day adds up to ninety-one hours a year. But for whatever amount of time we decide to read the Bible each day, consistency is the secret and the key ingredient is not perfection but persistence. If we miss a day or a week, we can start reading again. As the Holy Spirit teaches us, God’s Word moves from our minds to our hearts, then to our hands and feet—taking us beyond education to transformation.
“Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end” (v. 33).
I turn to You, the Author, to teach me as I read Your Word today. I want to hear from You, to know You, and to grow closer to You.
Join the Fifteen-Minute Bible Reading Challenge! Visit Facebook.com/ourdailybread.
The Bible is the only Book whose Author is always present when it is read.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
“Work Out” What God “Works in” You
…work out your own salvation…for it is God who works in you… —Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, “But I don’t know if my will is in agreement with God.” Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say “I will not obey” is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.
The will is the essential element in God’s creation of human beings— sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. “…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” With focused attention and great care, you have to “work out” what God “works in” you— not work to accomplish or earn “your own salvation,” but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God’s will— God’s will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God’s will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with “dynamite,” and the “dynamite” is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. Our Brilliant Heritage, 946 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
In The Middle Of Your Love - #7932
Over the years, my wife, Karen, and I were guilty of what they used to call in college PDAs (public displays of affection) - mostly at home. Who says you can't hug or kiss in the kitchen or the hallway? It's been interesting to watch the reactions of our kids over the years. Like our youngest when he was still a baby in the high chair in the kitchen. Karen and I would be, well the kids would call it "smooching", and suddenly we realized that he was laughing, he'd be pounding on his tray, and he'd be applauding. I don't know how you like kissing to applause and laughter, but I find it a little distracting. But our baby loved it when we were affectionate! I guess all three of the kids did. Sometimes when Karen and I were hugging, we would suddenly feel this little person in between us. We'd look down into big blue eyes and hear them asking that question, "Will you let me in your love?"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "In the Middle of Your Love."
Our kids wanted to be in the middle of our love. Actually, that's where children were supposed to be. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Malachi 2:13-17. "You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer pays attention to your offerings and accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, 'Why?'" The answer for this breakdown in this relationship with God is a surprising answer - there is a breakdown in their marriage! God says, "It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant."
God is saying, "You're not treating your mate as you promised you would, and that's hurting your relationship with Me." Why is God so concerned about this? He said, "Has not the Lord made them one? ...And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring."
God says when your marriage isn't working, something damaging happens to your children. Spiritually healthy children are the by-product of a man and woman who are loving each other as they promised they would. Some people decide that the way to resolve the conflict situation in their marriage is to end their marriage. The next verse makes it very clear how God feels about that option, "I hate divorce, says the Lord God." God wants the relationship fixed, not ended, fought for, not given up on.
When our little guy was clapping for his Mom and Dad kissing, he was expressing, even as a baby, where the security of every child is supposed to be rooted - in knowing that the love from which he or she came is still going strong. When our kids were asking, "Will you let me be in the middle of your love?" they were identifying the safe place that a husband and wife's love for each other is supposed to provide for their children. Without that, kids are insecure; they're not confident, they're not sure where they stand. We were not meant to love our children instead of loving our husband and wife. Confident, healthy children are caught in the overflow of mom and dad loving each other. Someone said the greatest thing a father could do for his children is to love their mother and I'd say vice versa.
Maybe the love you once had in your marriage has taken a beating. Maybe there are walls, resentments, just a cold silence or lack of affection. Your son's watching, your daughter's watching, and they desperately need for you and your mate to do whatever it takes to find the hope factors in your relationship, to get whatever help you need to rekindle the love from which they came. To cry out to Jesus and say, "Jesus, I can't, but give me Your love to give to them."
They may be too big to say it or they might be too big to interrupt a hug, but you can be sure your son or daughter is asking in their heart, "Can I be in the middle of your love?" That love is worth fighting for, it's worth sacrificing for. In the middle of you and your spouse's love - that's where your child was created to be.
One night I was on baby duty and Jenna’s breathing slowed. I leaned my ear onto her mouth to see if she was alive. And when she burbled and panted, so did I. That’s when a tsunami of sobriety washed over me. We are in charge of a human being!
I don’t care how tough you are. You may be a Navy SEAL who skydives behind enemy lines. It doesn’t matter. Every parent melts the moment he or she feels the full force of parenthood. How did I get myself into this? Moms have thirty-six weeks of reminders elbowing around inside them. Dads, our kick in the gut comes later… but it does come. And for me it came years ago in the midnight quiet of an apartment living room—as I held a human being in my arms!
From Dad Time
Ezekiel 40
Measuring the Temple Complex
1-3 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year on the tenth of the month—it was the fourteenth year after the city fell—God touched me and brought me here. He brought me in divine vision to the land of Israel and set me down on a high mountain. To the south there were buildings that looked like a city. He took me there and I met a man deeply tanned, like bronze. He stood at the entrance holding a linen cord and a measuring stick.
4 The man said to me, “Son of man, look and listen carefully. Pay close attention to everything I’m going to show you. That’s why you’ve been brought here. And then tell Israel everything you see.”
5 First I saw a wall around the outside of the Temple complex. The measuring stick in the man’s hand was about ten feet long. He measured the thickness of the wall: about ten feet. The height was also about ten feet.
6-7 He went into the gate complex that faced the east and went up the seven steps. He measured the depth of the outside threshold of the gate complex: ten feet. There were alcoves flanking the gate corridor, each ten feet square, each separated by a wall seven and a half feet thick. The inside threshold of the gate complex that led to the porch facing into the Temple courtyard was ten feet deep.
8-9 He measured the inside porch of the gate complex: twelve feet deep, flanked by pillars three feet thick. The porch opened onto the Temple courtyard.
10 Inside this east gate complex were three alcoves on each side. Each room was the same size and the separating walls were identical.
11 He measured the outside entrance to the gate complex: fifteen feet wide and nineteen and a half feet deep.
12 In front of each alcove was a low wall eighteen inches high. The alcoves were ten feet square.
13 He measured the width of the gate complex from the outside edge of the alcove roof on one side to the outside edge of the alcove roof on the other: thirty-seven and a half feet from one top edge to the other.
14 He measured the inside walls of the gate complex: ninety feet to the porch leading into the courtyard.
15 The distance from the entrance of the gate complex to the far end of the porch was seventy-five feet.
16 The alcoves and their connecting walls inside the gate complex were topped by narrow windows all the way around. The porch also. All the windows faced inward. The doorjambs between the alcoves were decorated with palm trees.
17-19 The man then led me to the outside courtyard and all its rooms. A paved walkway had been built connecting the courtyard gates. Thirty rooms lined the courtyard. The walkway was the same length as the gateways. It flanked them and ran their entire length. This was the walkway for the outside courtyard. He measured the distance from the front of the entrance gateway across to the entrance of the inner court: one hundred fifty feet.
19-23 Then he took me to the north side. Here was another gate complex facing north, exiting the outside courtyard. He measured its length and width. It had three alcoves on each side. Its gateposts and porch were the same as in the first gate: eighty-seven and a half feet by forty-three and three-quarters feet. The windows and palm trees were identical to the east gateway. Seven steps led up to it, and its porch faced inward. Opposite this gate complex was a gate complex to the inside courtyard, on the north as on the east. The distance between the two was one hundred seventy-five feet.
24-27 Then he took me to the south side, to the south gate complex. He measured its gateposts and its porch. It was the same size as the others. The porch with its windows was the same size as those previously mentioned. It also had seven steps up to it. Its porch opened onto the outside courtyard, with palm trees decorating its gateposts on both sides. Opposite to it, the gate complex for the inner court faced south. He measured the distance across the courtyard from gate to gate: one hundred seventy-five feet.
28-31 He led me into the inside courtyard through the south gate complex. He measured it and found it the same as the outside ones. Its alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule were the same. The gate complex and porch, windowed all around, measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet. The vestibule of each of the gate complexes leading to the inside courtyard was forty-three and three-quarters by eight and three-quarters feet. Each vestibule faced the outside courtyard. Palm trees were carved on its doorposts. Eight steps led up to it.
32-34 He then took me to the inside courtyard on the east and measured the gate complex. It was identical to the others—alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule all the same. The gate complex and vestibule had windows all around. It measured eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet. Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on the doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.
35-37 He brought me to the gate complex to the north and measured it: same measurements. The alcoves, connecting walls, and vestibule with its windows: eighty-seven and a half by forty-three and three-quarters feet. Its porch faced the outside courtyard. There were palm trees on its doorposts on both sides. And it had eight steps.
38-43 There was a room with a door at the vestibule of the gate complex where the burnt offerings were cleaned. Two tables were placed within the vestibule, one on either side, on which the animals for burnt offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings were slaughtered. Two tables were also placed against both outside walls of the vestibule—four tables inside and four tables outside, eight tables in all for slaughtering the sacrificial animals. The four tables used for the burnt offerings were thirty-one and a half inches square and twenty-one inches high. The tools for slaughtering the sacrificial animals and other sacrifices were kept there. Meat hooks, three inches long, were fastened to the walls. The tables were for the sacrificial animals.
44-46 Right where the inside gate complex opened onto the inside courtyard there were two rooms, one at the north gate facing south and the one at the south gate facing north. The man told me, “The room facing south is for the priests who are in charge of the Temple. And the room facing north is for the priests who are in charge of the altar. These priests are the sons of Zadok, the only sons of Levi permitted to come near to God to serve him.”
47 He measured the inside courtyard: a hundred seventy-five feet square. The altar was in front of the Temple.
48-49 He led me to the porch of the Temple and measured the gateposts of the porch: eight and three-quarters feet high on both sides. The entrance to the gate complex was twenty-one feet wide and its connecting walls were four and a half feet thick. The vestibule itself was thirty-five feet wide and twenty-one feet deep. Ten steps led up to the porch. Columns flanked the gateposts.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
Read: Psalm 119:33–40
God, teach me lessons for living
so I can stay the course.
Give me insight so I can do what you tell me—
my whole life one long, obedient response.
Guide me down the road of your commandments;
I love traveling this freeway!
Give me a bent for your words of wisdom,
and not for piling up loot.
Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets,
invigorate me on the pilgrim way.
Affirm your promises to me—
promises made to all who fear you.
Deflect the harsh words of my critics—
but what you say is always so good.
See how hungry I am for your counsel;
preserve my life through your righteous ways!
INSIGHT:
Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the Bible. Each new section starts with a successive letter from the Hebrew alphabet (known as an acrostic poem). The major emphasis of this psalm is to celebrate the usefulness and value of the law. In Psalm 119 the author uses a variety of words to describe the laws and commands of God. Eight times he mentions meditating: on God’s decrees (vv. 23, 48), deeds (v. 27), precepts (vv. 15, 78), laws (v. 97), statutes (v. 99), and promises (v. 148). Meditation is the act of thinking deeply about something, focusing intently on an idea. We really get to know the commands of God by meditating on them. Reading is the necessary first step, but once we have read His Word, meditating on it throughout the day helps us to keep it in our minds.
Do you want to learn more about spending time with God? Read In His Presence at discoveryseries.org/q0718.
Fifteen-Minute Challenge
By David C. McCasland
Turn my heart toward your statutes. Psalm 119:36
Dr. Charles W. Eliot, longtime president of Harvard University, believed that ordinary people who read consistently from the world’s great literature for even a few minutes a day could gain a valuable education. In 1910, he compiled selections from books of history, science, philosophy, and fine art into fifty volumes called The Harvard Classics. Each set of books included Dr. Eliot’s Reading Guide titled “Fifteen Minutes A Day” containing recommended selections of eight to ten pages for each day of the year.
What if we spent fifteen minutes a day reading God’s Word? We could say with the psalmist, “Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word” (Ps. 119:36–37).
“Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end.” (Psalm 119:33)
Fifteen minutes a day adds up to ninety-one hours a year. But for whatever amount of time we decide to read the Bible each day, consistency is the secret and the key ingredient is not perfection but persistence. If we miss a day or a week, we can start reading again. As the Holy Spirit teaches us, God’s Word moves from our minds to our hearts, then to our hands and feet—taking us beyond education to transformation.
“Teach me, Lord, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end” (v. 33).
I turn to You, the Author, to teach me as I read Your Word today. I want to hear from You, to know You, and to grow closer to You.
Join the Fifteen-Minute Bible Reading Challenge! Visit Facebook.com/ourdailybread.
The Bible is the only Book whose Author is always present when it is read.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
“Work Out” What God “Works in” You
…work out your own salvation…for it is God who works in you… —Philippians 2:12-13
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God. Yet you say, “But I don’t know if my will is in agreement with God.” Look to Jesus and you will find that your will and your conscience are in agreement with Him every time. What causes you to say “I will not obey” is something less deep and penetrating than your will. It is perversity or stubbornness, and they are never in agreement with God. The most profound thing in a person is his will, not sin.
The will is the essential element in God’s creation of human beings— sin is a perverse nature which entered into people. In someone who has been born again, the source of the will is Almighty God. “…for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” With focused attention and great care, you have to “work out” what God “works in” you— not work to accomplish or earn “your own salvation,” but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God’s will— God’s will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God’s will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing. Stubbornness is an unintelligent barrier, refusing enlightenment and blocking its flow. The only thing to do with this barrier of stubbornness is to blow it up with “dynamite,” and the “dynamite” is obedience to the Holy Spirit.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is in me to do it.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. Our Brilliant Heritage, 946 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, June 06, 2017
In The Middle Of Your Love - #7932
Over the years, my wife, Karen, and I were guilty of what they used to call in college PDAs (public displays of affection) - mostly at home. Who says you can't hug or kiss in the kitchen or the hallway? It's been interesting to watch the reactions of our kids over the years. Like our youngest when he was still a baby in the high chair in the kitchen. Karen and I would be, well the kids would call it "smooching", and suddenly we realized that he was laughing, he'd be pounding on his tray, and he'd be applauding. I don't know how you like kissing to applause and laughter, but I find it a little distracting. But our baby loved it when we were affectionate! I guess all three of the kids did. Sometimes when Karen and I were hugging, we would suddenly feel this little person in between us. We'd look down into big blue eyes and hear them asking that question, "Will you let me in your love?"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "In the Middle of Your Love."
Our kids wanted to be in the middle of our love. Actually, that's where children were supposed to be. Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Malachi 2:13-17. "You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer pays attention to your offerings and accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, 'Why?'" The answer for this breakdown in this relationship with God is a surprising answer - there is a breakdown in their marriage! God says, "It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant."
God is saying, "You're not treating your mate as you promised you would, and that's hurting your relationship with Me." Why is God so concerned about this? He said, "Has not the Lord made them one? ...And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring."
God says when your marriage isn't working, something damaging happens to your children. Spiritually healthy children are the by-product of a man and woman who are loving each other as they promised they would. Some people decide that the way to resolve the conflict situation in their marriage is to end their marriage. The next verse makes it very clear how God feels about that option, "I hate divorce, says the Lord God." God wants the relationship fixed, not ended, fought for, not given up on.
When our little guy was clapping for his Mom and Dad kissing, he was expressing, even as a baby, where the security of every child is supposed to be rooted - in knowing that the love from which he or she came is still going strong. When our kids were asking, "Will you let me be in the middle of your love?" they were identifying the safe place that a husband and wife's love for each other is supposed to provide for their children. Without that, kids are insecure; they're not confident, they're not sure where they stand. We were not meant to love our children instead of loving our husband and wife. Confident, healthy children are caught in the overflow of mom and dad loving each other. Someone said the greatest thing a father could do for his children is to love their mother and I'd say vice versa.
Maybe the love you once had in your marriage has taken a beating. Maybe there are walls, resentments, just a cold silence or lack of affection. Your son's watching, your daughter's watching, and they desperately need for you and your mate to do whatever it takes to find the hope factors in your relationship, to get whatever help you need to rekindle the love from which they came. To cry out to Jesus and say, "Jesus, I can't, but give me Your love to give to them."
They may be too big to say it or they might be too big to interrupt a hug, but you can be sure your son or daughter is asking in their heart, "Can I be in the middle of your love?" That love is worth fighting for, it's worth sacrificing for. In the middle of you and your spouse's love - that's where your child was created to be.
Monday, June 5, 2017
2 Peter 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD REDEEMS FOR GOOD
Have you wept your final tear or received your last round of chemotherapy? Not necessarily. Will your unhappy marriage become happy in a heartbeat? Not likely. Does God guarantee the absence of struggle and the abundance of strength? Not in this life. But he does pledge to reweave your pain for a higher purpose.
It won’t be quick! Sometimes God takes His time. Twenty years to prepare Noah for the flood, eighty years to prepare Moses for his work. How long will God take with you? He may take His time. His history is redeemed not in minutes but in lifetimes. We see a perfect mess; God sees a perfect chance to train, test, and teach. We see a prison; God sees bootcamp. What Satan intends for evil, God redeems for good!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Peter 2
Lying Religious Leaders
1-2 But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They’ll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other—biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They’ve put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can’t tell right from wrong.
2-3 They give the way of truth a bad name. They’re only out for themselves. They’ll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won’t, of course, get by with it. They’ll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on.
4-5 God didn’t let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day. Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people—Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.
6-8 God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left—grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life. But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued. Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.
9 So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.
Predators on the Prowl
10-11 God is especially incensed against these “teachers” who live by lust, addicted to a filthy existence. They despise interference from true authority, preferring to indulge in self-rule. Insolent egotists, they don’t hesitate to speak evil against the most splendid of creatures. Even angels, their superiors in every way, wouldn’t think of throwing their weight around like that, trying to slander others before God.
12-14 These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end. Their evil will boomerang on them. They’re so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight. They’re obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they’re experts at it. Dead souls!
15-16 They’ve left the main road and are directionless, having taken the way of Balaam, son of Beor, the prophet who turned profiteer, a connoisseur of evil. But Balaam was stopped in his wayward tracks: A dumb animal spoke in a human voice and prevented the prophet’s craziness.
17-19 There’s nothing to these people—they’re dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell. They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they’re dangerous. Men and women who have recently escaped from a deviant life are most susceptible to their brand of seduction. They promise these newcomers freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for if they’re addicted to corruption—and they are—they’re enslaved.
20-22 If they’ve escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they’re worse than if they had never left. Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command. They prove the point of the proverbs, “A dog goes back to its own vomit” and “A scrubbed-up pig heads for the mud.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 05, 2017
Read: Romans 8:1–11
The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms
1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.
9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
INSIGHT:
Read John 10:10 to see what Jesus said about eternal life. What hinders you from enjoying life on earth now?
To read more on the subject of contentment see Cultivating a Heart of Contentment at discoveryseries.org/hp052.
What Do We Want?
By Tim Gustafson
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Romans 8:11
“I went from the horse-and-buggy to a man walking on the moon,” said the elderly man to his granddaughter, who shared this story with me recently. But then he mused, “I never thought it would be so short.”
Life is short, and many of us turn to Jesus because we want to live forever. That’s not bad, but we don’t comprehend what eternal life really is. We tend to crave the wrong things. We long for something better, and we think it’s just ahead. If only I were out of school. If only I had that job. If only I were married. If only I could retire. If only . . . And then one day we catch an echo of our grandfather’s voice as we wonder where the time has flown.
When we find our life in Jesus, we enjoy life with Him, both now and forever.
The truth is, we possess eternal life now. The apostle Paul wrote, “The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). Then he said, “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires” (v. 5). In other words, our desires change when we come to Christ. This naturally gives us what we most desire. “The mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace” (v. 6).
It’s one of life’s great lies that we need to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else before we start truly living. When we find our life in Jesus, we exchange regret over life’s brevity for the full enjoyment of life with Him, both now and forever.
Lord, You said You came to give us life to the fullest, but so often we have our own agenda and the wrong goals in mind. Please forgive us, and help us desire what You want.
To live forever we must let Jesus live in us now.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 05, 2017
God’s Assurance
He Himself has said….So we may boldly say… —Hebrews 13:5-6
My assurance is to be built upon God’s assurance to me. God says, “I will never leave you,” so that then I “may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear’ ” (Hebrews 13:5-6). In other words, I will not be obsessed with apprehension. This does not mean that I will not be tempted to fear, but I will remember God’s words of assurance. I will be full of courage, like a child who strives to reach the standard his father has set for him. The faith of many people begins to falter when apprehensions enter their thinking, and they forget the meaning of God’s assurance— they forget to take a deep spiritual breath. The only way to remove the fear from our lives is to listen to God’s assurance to us.
What are you fearing? Whatever it may be, you are not a coward about it— you are determined to face it, yet you still have a feeling of fear. When it seems that there is nothing and no one to help you, say to yourself, “But ‘The Lord is my helper’ this very moment, even in my present circumstance.” Are you learning to listen to God before you speak, or are you saying things and then trying to make God’s Word fit what you have said? Take hold of the Father’s assurance, and then say with strong courage, “I will not fear.” It does not matter what evil or wrong may be in our way, because “He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you….’ ”
Human frailty is another thing that gets between God’s words of assurance and our own words and thoughts. When we realize how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and God seems to be nonexistent. But remember God’s assurance to us— “I will never…forsake you.” Have we learned to sing after hearing God’s keynote? Are we continually filled with enough courage to say, “The Lord is my helper,” or are we yielding to fear?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 05, 2017
When You Don't Have Your Birth Certificate - #7931
When I had to go for a new passport, it meant I had to dig out a document that I don't look at very often – my birth certificate. I had to prove to the State Department that I exist! Of course, I have to be careful with my birth certificate – one that's been around that long is about to disintegrate. It's interesting that when you have to produce the most authoritative proof of who you are, what do they ask for? Your birth certificate! And mine, like yours, clearly identifies who you are and exactly when and where you were born. I was a little nervous before I went for my passport because we had just moved and I couldn't find my birth certificate for a little while! That's very bad news!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You Don't Have Your Birth Certificate."
One thing that birth certificate demonstrates for sure – your life. Your relationship with your parents has a definite beginning. You know, you celebrate that day every year. Birth, of course, is a clear, definite thing – into your family...into God's family. Tragically, a lot of people can't remember a beginning to their personal relationship with God – often because there hasn't been one. And without a "birth certificate" on file in heaven, one that marks the beginning of your belonging to your Heavenly Father, you are in real danger. Eternal danger if that doesn't change.
Our word for today from the Word of God talks about how a person gets born into God's family. John 1:12 says, "To all who received Him (that's Jesus), to those who believed in His name, (God) gave the right to become the children of God." Now, God likens our beginning with Him to birth into His family. That's why Jesus would say just two chapters later, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3).
There's a conscious, deliberate choice that begins your God-relationship. It's what our word for today calls "receiving" Jesus Christ, "believing" in Him. It's describing a moment when you consciously open up your heart for Jesus Christ to come in, when you tell Him you are putting your total trust in Him to remove that wall of sin between you and God and to give you a relationship with Him.
The reason we don't have that love relationship is because we've taken a life that God was supposed to run and we've run it ourselves. That "sin" has cut us off from a God whose sinless and perfect. And no religious ceremony can remove that sin – not baptism, not church attendance, not confirmation, not church membership, not all the good things you do. In fact, the Bible explicitly says, "It is by grace you have been saved...(Listen to this.) not by works" (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
It couldn't be any clearer. Our only hope is that Jesus paid for the sin that we could only pay for with an eternity in hell. So when you put your total trust in Him and welcome Him into your life, every sin is forgiven and God records your birth into His family.
Actually, God doesn't have birth certificates – He has what the Bible calls the "book of life." And your name is entered in it the moment you come to Jesus. Revelation 20:15 says that on Judgment Day, "If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." My prayer is that if you have not begun your personal relationship with Jesus, that you'll do it today, so your name can be entered in God's Book of Life in indelible ink.
He doesn't intend for anybody; He never wanted anybody to suffer that judgment. That's why He sent His Son to take the judgment for us on the cross. This is your day to reach out and take what He died to give you. Tell Him you want what He died on the cross for – to forgive your sin, to change your life, to take you to heaven with Him.
If you don't know there's been a time when you gave yourself to Him, there probably hasn't been. It's a conscious choice. You know if you've done it. But today can be that day.
Let me encourage you as an action step to go to our website ANewStory.com. And there you're going to find the information that will help you know for sure that you belong to Jesus Christ; that you've begun your relationship with Him. Let's get this done today.
You need to know that you've been born spiritually. And you can today. God is waiting right now for you to reach out to Jesus, so He can enter your name in His Book of Life.
Have you wept your final tear or received your last round of chemotherapy? Not necessarily. Will your unhappy marriage become happy in a heartbeat? Not likely. Does God guarantee the absence of struggle and the abundance of strength? Not in this life. But he does pledge to reweave your pain for a higher purpose.
It won’t be quick! Sometimes God takes His time. Twenty years to prepare Noah for the flood, eighty years to prepare Moses for his work. How long will God take with you? He may take His time. His history is redeemed not in minutes but in lifetimes. We see a perfect mess; God sees a perfect chance to train, test, and teach. We see a prison; God sees bootcamp. What Satan intends for evil, God redeems for good!
From You’ll Get Through This
2 Peter 2
Lying Religious Leaders
1-2 But there were also lying prophets among the people then, just as there will be lying religious teachers among you. They’ll smuggle in destructive divisions, pitting you against each other—biting the hand of the One who gave them a chance to have their lives back! They’ve put themselves on a fast downhill slide to destruction, but not before they recruit a crowd of mixed-up followers who can’t tell right from wrong.
2-3 They give the way of truth a bad name. They’re only out for themselves. They’ll say anything, anything, that sounds good to exploit you. They won’t, of course, get by with it. They’ll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on.
4-5 God didn’t let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day. Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people—Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them.
6-8 God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left—grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life. But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued. Surrounded by moral rot day after day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment.
9 So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.
Predators on the Prowl
10-11 God is especially incensed against these “teachers” who live by lust, addicted to a filthy existence. They despise interference from true authority, preferring to indulge in self-rule. Insolent egotists, they don’t hesitate to speak evil against the most splendid of creatures. Even angels, their superiors in every way, wouldn’t think of throwing their weight around like that, trying to slander others before God.
12-14 These people are nothing but brute beasts, born in the wild, predators on the prowl. In the very act of bringing down others with their ignorant blasphemies, they themselves will be brought down, losers in the end. Their evil will boomerang on them. They’re so despicable and addicted to pleasure that they indulge in wild parties, carousing in broad daylight. They’re obsessed with adultery, compulsive in sin, seducing every vulnerable soul they come upon. Their specialty is greed, and they’re experts at it. Dead souls!
15-16 They’ve left the main road and are directionless, having taken the way of Balaam, son of Beor, the prophet who turned profiteer, a connoisseur of evil. But Balaam was stopped in his wayward tracks: A dumb animal spoke in a human voice and prevented the prophet’s craziness.
17-19 There’s nothing to these people—they’re dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell. They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they’re dangerous. Men and women who have recently escaped from a deviant life are most susceptible to their brand of seduction. They promise these newcomers freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption, for if they’re addicted to corruption—and they are—they’re enslaved.
20-22 If they’ve escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they’re worse than if they had never left. Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command. They prove the point of the proverbs, “A dog goes back to its own vomit” and “A scrubbed-up pig heads for the mud.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 05, 2017
Read: Romans 8:1–11
The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms
1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.
9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
INSIGHT:
Read John 10:10 to see what Jesus said about eternal life. What hinders you from enjoying life on earth now?
To read more on the subject of contentment see Cultivating a Heart of Contentment at discoveryseries.org/hp052.
What Do We Want?
By Tim Gustafson
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Romans 8:11
“I went from the horse-and-buggy to a man walking on the moon,” said the elderly man to his granddaughter, who shared this story with me recently. But then he mused, “I never thought it would be so short.”
Life is short, and many of us turn to Jesus because we want to live forever. That’s not bad, but we don’t comprehend what eternal life really is. We tend to crave the wrong things. We long for something better, and we think it’s just ahead. If only I were out of school. If only I had that job. If only I were married. If only I could retire. If only . . . And then one day we catch an echo of our grandfather’s voice as we wonder where the time has flown.
When we find our life in Jesus, we enjoy life with Him, both now and forever.
The truth is, we possess eternal life now. The apostle Paul wrote, “The law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). Then he said, “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires” (v. 5). In other words, our desires change when we come to Christ. This naturally gives us what we most desire. “The mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace” (v. 6).
It’s one of life’s great lies that we need to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else before we start truly living. When we find our life in Jesus, we exchange regret over life’s brevity for the full enjoyment of life with Him, both now and forever.
Lord, You said You came to give us life to the fullest, but so often we have our own agenda and the wrong goals in mind. Please forgive us, and help us desire what You want.
To live forever we must let Jesus live in us now.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 05, 2017
God’s Assurance
He Himself has said….So we may boldly say… —Hebrews 13:5-6
My assurance is to be built upon God’s assurance to me. God says, “I will never leave you,” so that then I “may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear’ ” (Hebrews 13:5-6). In other words, I will not be obsessed with apprehension. This does not mean that I will not be tempted to fear, but I will remember God’s words of assurance. I will be full of courage, like a child who strives to reach the standard his father has set for him. The faith of many people begins to falter when apprehensions enter their thinking, and they forget the meaning of God’s assurance— they forget to take a deep spiritual breath. The only way to remove the fear from our lives is to listen to God’s assurance to us.
What are you fearing? Whatever it may be, you are not a coward about it— you are determined to face it, yet you still have a feeling of fear. When it seems that there is nothing and no one to help you, say to yourself, “But ‘The Lord is my helper’ this very moment, even in my present circumstance.” Are you learning to listen to God before you speak, or are you saying things and then trying to make God’s Word fit what you have said? Take hold of the Father’s assurance, and then say with strong courage, “I will not fear.” It does not matter what evil or wrong may be in our way, because “He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you….’ ”
Human frailty is another thing that gets between God’s words of assurance and our own words and thoughts. When we realize how feeble we are in facing difficulties, the difficulties become like giants, we become like grasshoppers, and God seems to be nonexistent. But remember God’s assurance to us— “I will never…forsake you.” Have we learned to sing after hearing God’s keynote? Are we continually filled with enough courage to say, “The Lord is my helper,” or are we yielding to fear?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically. Disciples Indeed, 387 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 05, 2017
When You Don't Have Your Birth Certificate - #7931
When I had to go for a new passport, it meant I had to dig out a document that I don't look at very often – my birth certificate. I had to prove to the State Department that I exist! Of course, I have to be careful with my birth certificate – one that's been around that long is about to disintegrate. It's interesting that when you have to produce the most authoritative proof of who you are, what do they ask for? Your birth certificate! And mine, like yours, clearly identifies who you are and exactly when and where you were born. I was a little nervous before I went for my passport because we had just moved and I couldn't find my birth certificate for a little while! That's very bad news!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "When You Don't Have Your Birth Certificate."
One thing that birth certificate demonstrates for sure – your life. Your relationship with your parents has a definite beginning. You know, you celebrate that day every year. Birth, of course, is a clear, definite thing – into your family...into God's family. Tragically, a lot of people can't remember a beginning to their personal relationship with God – often because there hasn't been one. And without a "birth certificate" on file in heaven, one that marks the beginning of your belonging to your Heavenly Father, you are in real danger. Eternal danger if that doesn't change.
Our word for today from the Word of God talks about how a person gets born into God's family. John 1:12 says, "To all who received Him (that's Jesus), to those who believed in His name, (God) gave the right to become the children of God." Now, God likens our beginning with Him to birth into His family. That's why Jesus would say just two chapters later, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3).
There's a conscious, deliberate choice that begins your God-relationship. It's what our word for today calls "receiving" Jesus Christ, "believing" in Him. It's describing a moment when you consciously open up your heart for Jesus Christ to come in, when you tell Him you are putting your total trust in Him to remove that wall of sin between you and God and to give you a relationship with Him.
The reason we don't have that love relationship is because we've taken a life that God was supposed to run and we've run it ourselves. That "sin" has cut us off from a God whose sinless and perfect. And no religious ceremony can remove that sin – not baptism, not church attendance, not confirmation, not church membership, not all the good things you do. In fact, the Bible explicitly says, "It is by grace you have been saved...(Listen to this.) not by works" (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
It couldn't be any clearer. Our only hope is that Jesus paid for the sin that we could only pay for with an eternity in hell. So when you put your total trust in Him and welcome Him into your life, every sin is forgiven and God records your birth into His family.
Actually, God doesn't have birth certificates – He has what the Bible calls the "book of life." And your name is entered in it the moment you come to Jesus. Revelation 20:15 says that on Judgment Day, "If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." My prayer is that if you have not begun your personal relationship with Jesus, that you'll do it today, so your name can be entered in God's Book of Life in indelible ink.
He doesn't intend for anybody; He never wanted anybody to suffer that judgment. That's why He sent His Son to take the judgment for us on the cross. This is your day to reach out and take what He died to give you. Tell Him you want what He died on the cross for – to forgive your sin, to change your life, to take you to heaven with Him.
If you don't know there's been a time when you gave yourself to Him, there probably hasn't been. It's a conscious choice. You know if you've done it. But today can be that day.
Let me encourage you as an action step to go to our website ANewStory.com. And there you're going to find the information that will help you know for sure that you belong to Jesus Christ; that you've begun your relationship with Him. Let's get this done today.
You need to know that you've been born spiritually. And you can today. God is waiting right now for you to reach out to Jesus, so He can enter your name in His Book of Life.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Ezekiel 39, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: The Master Weaver
In God’s hands intended evil becomes eventual good! Nothing in the Old Testament story of Joseph glosses over the presence of evil. Bloodstains and tearstains are everywhere. Joseph’s heart was rubbed raw against the rocks of disloyalty and miscarried justice. Yet time and time again God redeemed the pain. The torn robe became a royal one. The pit became a palace. The broken family grew old together. The very acts intended to destroy God’s servant turned out to strengthen him.
“You meant evil against me,” Joseph told his brothers, using a Hebrew verb that means to weave. You wove evil, he was saying, but God re-wove it together for good. God, the Master Weaver. He stretches the yarn, intertwines the colors. Nothing escapes His reach!
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 39
Call the Wild Animals!
1-5 “Son of man, prophesy against Gog. Say, ‘A Message of God, the Master: I’m against you, Gog, head of Meshech and Tubal. I’m going to turn you around and drag you out, drag you out of the far north and down on the mountains of Israel. Then I’ll knock your bow out of your left hand and your arrows from your right hand. On the mountains of Israel you’ll be slaughtered, you and all your troops and the people with you. I’ll serve you up as a meal to carrion birds and scavenging animals. You’ll be killed in the open field. I’ve given my word. Decree of God, the Master.’
6 “I’ll set fire to Magog and the far-off islands, where people are so seemingly secure. And they’ll realize that I am God.
7 “I’ll reveal my holy name among my people Israel. Never again will I let my holy name be dragged in the mud. Then the nations will realize that I, God, am The Holy in Israel.
8 “It’s coming! Yes, it will happen! This is the day I’ve been telling you about.
9-10 “People will come out of the cities of Israel and make a huge bonfire of the weapons of war, piling on shields large and small, bows and arrows, clubs and spears, a fire they’ll keep going for seven years. They won’t need to go into the woods to get fuel for the fire. There’ll be plenty of weapons to keep it going. They’ll strip those who stripped them. They’ll rob those who robbed them. Decree of God, the Master.
11 “At that time I’ll set aside a burial ground for Gog in Israel at Traveler’s Rest, just east of the sea. It will obstruct the route of travelers, blocking their way, the mass grave of Gog and his mob of an army. They’ll call the place Gog’s Mob.
12-16 “Israel will bury the corpses in order to clean up the land. It will take them seven months. All the people will turn out to help with the burials. It will be a big day for the people when it’s all done and I’m given my due. Men will be hired full-time for the cleanup burial operation and will go through the country looking for defiling, decomposing corpses. At the end of seven months, there’ll be an all-out final search. Anyone who sees a bone will mark the place with a stick so the buriers can get it and bury it in the mass burial site, Gog’s Mob. (A town nearby is called Mobville, or Hamonah.) That’s how they’ll clean up the land.
17-20 “Son of man, God, the Master, says: Call the birds! Call the wild animals! Call out, ‘Gather and come, gather around my sacrificial meal that I’m preparing for you on the mountains of Israel. You’ll eat meat and drink blood. You’ll eat off the bodies of great heroes and drink the blood of famous princes as if they were so many rams and lambs, goats and bulls, the choicest grain-fed animals of Bashan. At the sacrificial meal I’m fixing for you, you’ll eat fat till you’re stuffed and drink blood till you’re drunk. At the table I set for you, you’ll stuff yourselves with horses and riders, heroes and fighters of every kind.’ Decree of God, the Master.
21-24 “I’ll put my glory on display among the nations and they’ll all see the judgment I execute, see me at work handing out judgment. From that day on, Israel will realize that I am their God. And the nations will get the message that it was because of their sins that Israel went into exile. They were disloyal to me and I turned away from them. I turned them over to their enemies and they were all killed. I treated them as their polluted and sin-sated lives deserved. I turned away from them, refused to look at them.
25-29 “But now I will return Jacob back from exile, I’ll be compassionate with all the people of Israel, and I’ll be zealous for my holy name. Eventually the memory will fade, the memory of their shame over their betrayals of me when they lived securely in their own land, safe and unafraid. Once I’ve brought them back from foreign parts, gathered them in from enemy territories, I’ll use them to demonstrate my holiness with all the nations watching. Then they’ll realize for sure that I am their God, for even though I sent them off into exile, I will gather them back to their own land, leaving not one soul behind. After I’ve poured my Spirit on Israel, filled them with my life, I’ll no longer turn away. I’ll look them full in the face. Decree of God, the Master.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 04, 2017
Read: John 14:25–31
“I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.
28 “You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.
29-31 “I’ve told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me. I’ll not be talking with you much more like this because the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don’t worry—he has nothing on me, no claim on me. But so the world might know how thoroughly I love the Father, I am carrying out my Father’s instructions right down to the last detail.
“Get up. Let’s go. It’s time to leave here.”
INSIGHT:
Jesus repeatedly talks about peace in John 14, yet He would soon be arrested and His disciples would be hiding in fear. In verse 1 Jesus offered peace by encouraging them not to be troubled by the events that were coming on them. Instead, they were to look forward to reunion with Him and a home in the Father’s house. Then in today’s reading Jesus rooted this peace in the coming of the Holy Spirit—reminding us that, in part, the fruit of the Spirit is peace (Gal. 5:22–23). Jesus concluded His words to them with the promise of peace for everyday living: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). For now and forever, His great gift of peace carries us through all the seasons of life.
How do you see Jesus’s peace present in your life today?
Perfect Peace
By Amy Boucher Pye
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. John 14:27
A friend shared with me that for years she searched for peace and contentment. She and her husband built up a successful business, so she was able to buy a big house, fancy clothes, and expensive jewelry. But these possessions didn’t satisfy her inner longings for peace, nor did her friendships with influential people. Then one day, when she was feeling low and desperate, a friend told her about the good news of Jesus. There she found the Prince of Peace, and her understanding of true peace and contentment was forever changed.
Jesus spoke words of such peace to His friends after their last supper together (John 14), when He prepared them for the events that would soon follow: His death, resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Describing a peace—unlike anything the world can give—He wanted them to learn how to find a sense of well-being even in the midst of hardship.
Jesus came to usher peace into our lives and our world.
Later, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to the frightened disciples after His death, He greeted them, saying, “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19). Now He could give them, and us, a new understanding of resting in what He has done for us. As we do, we can find the awareness of a confidence far deeper than our ever-changing feelings.
Heavenly Father, You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on You. Help us to trust in You forever, for You are our Rock eternal.
Jesus came to usher peace into our lives and our world.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 04, 2017
The Never-forsaking God
He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." —Hebrews 13:5
What line of thinking do my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears? Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then to respond after I have heard what He says? “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’ ” (Hebrews 13:5-6).
“I will never leave you…”— not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, then let me listen again.
“I will never…forsake you.” Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think God will forsake me. When there is no major difficulty to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful— just the everyday activities of life— do I hear God’s assurance even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing— that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God’s assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence. Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
In God’s hands intended evil becomes eventual good! Nothing in the Old Testament story of Joseph glosses over the presence of evil. Bloodstains and tearstains are everywhere. Joseph’s heart was rubbed raw against the rocks of disloyalty and miscarried justice. Yet time and time again God redeemed the pain. The torn robe became a royal one. The pit became a palace. The broken family grew old together. The very acts intended to destroy God’s servant turned out to strengthen him.
“You meant evil against me,” Joseph told his brothers, using a Hebrew verb that means to weave. You wove evil, he was saying, but God re-wove it together for good. God, the Master Weaver. He stretches the yarn, intertwines the colors. Nothing escapes His reach!
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 39
Call the Wild Animals!
1-5 “Son of man, prophesy against Gog. Say, ‘A Message of God, the Master: I’m against you, Gog, head of Meshech and Tubal. I’m going to turn you around and drag you out, drag you out of the far north and down on the mountains of Israel. Then I’ll knock your bow out of your left hand and your arrows from your right hand. On the mountains of Israel you’ll be slaughtered, you and all your troops and the people with you. I’ll serve you up as a meal to carrion birds and scavenging animals. You’ll be killed in the open field. I’ve given my word. Decree of God, the Master.’
6 “I’ll set fire to Magog and the far-off islands, where people are so seemingly secure. And they’ll realize that I am God.
7 “I’ll reveal my holy name among my people Israel. Never again will I let my holy name be dragged in the mud. Then the nations will realize that I, God, am The Holy in Israel.
8 “It’s coming! Yes, it will happen! This is the day I’ve been telling you about.
9-10 “People will come out of the cities of Israel and make a huge bonfire of the weapons of war, piling on shields large and small, bows and arrows, clubs and spears, a fire they’ll keep going for seven years. They won’t need to go into the woods to get fuel for the fire. There’ll be plenty of weapons to keep it going. They’ll strip those who stripped them. They’ll rob those who robbed them. Decree of God, the Master.
11 “At that time I’ll set aside a burial ground for Gog in Israel at Traveler’s Rest, just east of the sea. It will obstruct the route of travelers, blocking their way, the mass grave of Gog and his mob of an army. They’ll call the place Gog’s Mob.
12-16 “Israel will bury the corpses in order to clean up the land. It will take them seven months. All the people will turn out to help with the burials. It will be a big day for the people when it’s all done and I’m given my due. Men will be hired full-time for the cleanup burial operation and will go through the country looking for defiling, decomposing corpses. At the end of seven months, there’ll be an all-out final search. Anyone who sees a bone will mark the place with a stick so the buriers can get it and bury it in the mass burial site, Gog’s Mob. (A town nearby is called Mobville, or Hamonah.) That’s how they’ll clean up the land.
17-20 “Son of man, God, the Master, says: Call the birds! Call the wild animals! Call out, ‘Gather and come, gather around my sacrificial meal that I’m preparing for you on the mountains of Israel. You’ll eat meat and drink blood. You’ll eat off the bodies of great heroes and drink the blood of famous princes as if they were so many rams and lambs, goats and bulls, the choicest grain-fed animals of Bashan. At the sacrificial meal I’m fixing for you, you’ll eat fat till you’re stuffed and drink blood till you’re drunk. At the table I set for you, you’ll stuff yourselves with horses and riders, heroes and fighters of every kind.’ Decree of God, the Master.
21-24 “I’ll put my glory on display among the nations and they’ll all see the judgment I execute, see me at work handing out judgment. From that day on, Israel will realize that I am their God. And the nations will get the message that it was because of their sins that Israel went into exile. They were disloyal to me and I turned away from them. I turned them over to their enemies and they were all killed. I treated them as their polluted and sin-sated lives deserved. I turned away from them, refused to look at them.
25-29 “But now I will return Jacob back from exile, I’ll be compassionate with all the people of Israel, and I’ll be zealous for my holy name. Eventually the memory will fade, the memory of their shame over their betrayals of me when they lived securely in their own land, safe and unafraid. Once I’ve brought them back from foreign parts, gathered them in from enemy territories, I’ll use them to demonstrate my holiness with all the nations watching. Then they’ll realize for sure that I am their God, for even though I sent them off into exile, I will gather them back to their own land, leaving not one soul behind. After I’ve poured my Spirit on Israel, filled them with my life, I’ll no longer turn away. I’ll look them full in the face. Decree of God, the Master.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 04, 2017
Read: John 14:25–31
“I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.
28 “You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.
29-31 “I’ve told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me. I’ll not be talking with you much more like this because the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don’t worry—he has nothing on me, no claim on me. But so the world might know how thoroughly I love the Father, I am carrying out my Father’s instructions right down to the last detail.
“Get up. Let’s go. It’s time to leave here.”
INSIGHT:
Jesus repeatedly talks about peace in John 14, yet He would soon be arrested and His disciples would be hiding in fear. In verse 1 Jesus offered peace by encouraging them not to be troubled by the events that were coming on them. Instead, they were to look forward to reunion with Him and a home in the Father’s house. Then in today’s reading Jesus rooted this peace in the coming of the Holy Spirit—reminding us that, in part, the fruit of the Spirit is peace (Gal. 5:22–23). Jesus concluded His words to them with the promise of peace for everyday living: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). For now and forever, His great gift of peace carries us through all the seasons of life.
How do you see Jesus’s peace present in your life today?
Perfect Peace
By Amy Boucher Pye
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. John 14:27
A friend shared with me that for years she searched for peace and contentment. She and her husband built up a successful business, so she was able to buy a big house, fancy clothes, and expensive jewelry. But these possessions didn’t satisfy her inner longings for peace, nor did her friendships with influential people. Then one day, when she was feeling low and desperate, a friend told her about the good news of Jesus. There she found the Prince of Peace, and her understanding of true peace and contentment was forever changed.
Jesus spoke words of such peace to His friends after their last supper together (John 14), when He prepared them for the events that would soon follow: His death, resurrection, and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Describing a peace—unlike anything the world can give—He wanted them to learn how to find a sense of well-being even in the midst of hardship.
Jesus came to usher peace into our lives and our world.
Later, when the resurrected Jesus appeared to the frightened disciples after His death, He greeted them, saying, “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19). Now He could give them, and us, a new understanding of resting in what He has done for us. As we do, we can find the awareness of a confidence far deeper than our ever-changing feelings.
Heavenly Father, You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are fixed on You. Help us to trust in You forever, for You are our Rock eternal.
Jesus came to usher peace into our lives and our world.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 04, 2017
The Never-forsaking God
He Himself has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." —Hebrews 13:5
What line of thinking do my thoughts take? Do I turn to what God says or to my own fears? Am I simply repeating what God says, or am I learning to truly hear Him and then to respond after I have heard what He says? “For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we may boldly say: ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?’ ” (Hebrews 13:5-6).
“I will never leave you…”— not for any reason; not my sin, selfishness, stubbornness, nor waywardness. Have I really let God say to me that He will never leave me? If I have not truly heard this assurance of God, then let me listen again.
“I will never…forsake you.” Sometimes it is not the difficulty of life but the drudgery of it that makes me think God will forsake me. When there is no major difficulty to overcome, no vision from God, nothing wonderful or beautiful— just the everyday activities of life— do I hear God’s assurance even in these?
We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing— that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God’s assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence. Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Ezekiel 38 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: YOU BE YOU
You be you! Don’t be your parents or grandparents. You can admire them, appreciate them, and learn from them. But you cannot be them. Don’t compare yourself with others.
The apostle Paul said “…each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life (Galatians 6:4-5).”
Jesus was insistent upon this. After the resurrection he appeared to some of his followers. He gave Peter a specific pastoral assignment; one that included great sacrifice. The apostle Peter responded in John 21:21-22 by pointing at John and saying, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to live until I come back, that is not your business. You follow me.”
Don’t occupy yourself with another person’s assignment. You be you..stay focused on your own!
From God is With You Every Day
Ezekiel 38
God Against Gog
1-6 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, confront Gog from the country of Magog, head of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him. Say, ‘God, the Master, says: Be warned, Gog. I am against you, head of Meshech and Tubal. I’m going to turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and drag you off with your whole army, your horses and riders in full armor—all those shields and bucklers and swords—fighting men armed to the teeth! Persia and Cush and Put will be in the ranks, also well-armed, as will Gomer and its army and Beth-togarmah out of the north with its army. Many nations will be with you!
7-9 “‘Get ready to fight, you and the whole company that’s been called out. Take charge and wait for orders. After a long time, you’ll be given your orders. In the distant future you’ll arrive at a country that has recovered from a devastating war. People from many nations will be gathered there on the mountains of Israel, for a long time now a wasteland. These people have been brought back from many countries and now live safe and secure. You’ll rise like a thunderstorm and roll in like clouds and cover the land, you and the massed troops with you.
10-12 “‘Message of God, the Master: At that time you’ll start thinking things over and cook up an evil plot. You’ll say, “I’m going to invade a country without defenses, attack an unsuspecting, carefree people going about their business—no gates to their cities, no locks on their doors. And I’m going to plunder the place, march right in and clean them out, this rebuilt country risen from the ashes, these returned exiles and their booming economy centered down at the navel of the earth.”
13 “‘Sheba and Dedan and Tarshish, traders all out to make a fast buck, will say, “So! You’ve opened a new market for plunder! You’ve brought in your troops to get rich quick!”’
14-16 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy! Tell Gog, ‘A Message from God, the Master: When my people Israel are established securely, will you make your move? Will you come down out of the far north, you and that mob of armies, charging out on your horses like a tidal wave across the land, and invade my people Israel, covering the country like a cloud? When the time’s ripe, I’ll unleash you against my land in such a way that the nations will recognize me, realize that through you, Gog, in full view of the nations, I am putting my holiness on display.
17-22 “‘A Message of God, the Master: Years ago when I spoke through my servants, the prophets of Israel, wasn’t it you I was talking about? Year after year they prophesied that I would bring you against them. And when the day comes, Gog, you will attack that land of Israel. Decree of God, the Master. My raging anger will erupt. Fueled by blazing jealousy, I tell you that then there will be an earthquake that rocks the land of Israel. Fish and birds and wild animals—even ants and beetles!—and every human being will tremble and shake before me. Mountains will disintegrate, terraces will crumble. I’ll order all-out war against you, Gog—Decree of God, the Master—Gog killing Gog on all the mountains of Israel. I’ll deluge Gog with judgment: disease and massacre, torrential rain and hail, volcanic lava pouring down on you and your mobs of troops and people.
23 “‘I’ll show you how great I am, how holy I am. I’ll make myself known all over the world. Then you’ll realize that I am God.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, June 03, 2017
Read: John 13:33–35
33 “Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I’m telling you: ‘Where I go, you are not able to come.’
34-35 “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
INSIGHT:
Love is one of the most prominent themes in the apostle John’s writing. In John’s gospel, Jesus spoke often about love: God’s love for the world (3:16), the love of the Father for the Son (3:35; 5:20; 10:17), Jesus’s love for His disciples (13:34–35), how the disciples were to show they love Jesus and each other (14:23–28), and even what love looks like (15:13). In his later letters (see 1, 2, and 3 John), John continues to focus on God’s love, mentioning God’s love for us or our love for Him and others more than thirty times.
Perhaps the most famous of all Jesus’s statements about love is found in John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus said this in the same context of asking His disciples to love one another as He had loved them (13:34) and mere hours before He demonstrated this great love by going to the cross to die for them. Sacrificing ourselves for another is the greatest expression of love. Who needs to see Jesus’s love through you today?
Someone to Trust
By Monica Brands
Many proclaim themselves loyal, but who can find one worthy of trust? Proverbs 20:6 nrsv
“I just can’t trust anyone,” my friend said through tears. “Every time I do, they hurt me.” Her story angered me—an ex-boyfriend, whom she really thought she could trust, had started spreading rumors about her as soon as they broke up. Struggling to trust again after a pain-filled childhood, this betrayal seemed just one more confirmation that people could not be trusted.
I struggled to find words that would comfort. One thing I could not say was that she was wrong about how hard it is to find someone to fully trust, that most people are completely kind and trustworthy. Her story was painfully familiar, reminding me of moments of unexpected betrayal in my own life. In fact, Scripture is very candid about human nature. In Proverbs 20:6, the author voices the same lament as my friend, forever memorializing the pain of betrayal.
Jesus, help us to share Your love with the world.
What I could say is that the cruelty of others is only part of the story. Although wounds from others are real and painful, Jesus has made genuine love possible. In John 13:35, Jesus told His disciples that the world would know they were His followers because of their love. Although some people may still hurt us, because of Jesus there will also always be those who, freely sharing His love, will unconditionally support and care for us. Resting in His unfailing love, may we find healing, community, and courage to love others as He did.
Welcome to Monica Brands! Meet all our authors at odb.org/all-authors.
Jesus has made true love possible.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 03, 2017
“The Secret of the Lord”
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him… —Psalm 25:14
What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are we continually telling God our secrets, leaving Him no time to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God. But then we find that God wants to get us into an intimate relationship with Himself— to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so intimately united to Jesus Christ’s idea of prayer— “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10)— that we catch the secrets of God? What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us— He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.
“Him shall He teach in the way He chooses” (Psalm 25:12). At first, we want the awareness of being guided by God. But then as we grow spiritually, we live so fully aware of God that we do not even need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing another way will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices. And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never try to reason it out, saying, “I wonder why I shouldn’t do this?” God instructs us in what we choose; that is, He actually guides our common sense. And when we yield to His teachings and guidance, we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually asking, “Now, Lord, what is Your will?”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them. The Place of Help, 1032 L
You be you! Don’t be your parents or grandparents. You can admire them, appreciate them, and learn from them. But you cannot be them. Don’t compare yourself with others.
The apostle Paul said “…each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life (Galatians 6:4-5).”
Jesus was insistent upon this. After the resurrection he appeared to some of his followers. He gave Peter a specific pastoral assignment; one that included great sacrifice. The apostle Peter responded in John 21:21-22 by pointing at John and saying, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to live until I come back, that is not your business. You follow me.”
Don’t occupy yourself with another person’s assignment. You be you..stay focused on your own!
From God is With You Every Day
Ezekiel 38
God Against Gog
1-6 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, confront Gog from the country of Magog, head of Meshech and Tubal. Prophesy against him. Say, ‘God, the Master, says: Be warned, Gog. I am against you, head of Meshech and Tubal. I’m going to turn you around, put hooks in your jaws, and drag you off with your whole army, your horses and riders in full armor—all those shields and bucklers and swords—fighting men armed to the teeth! Persia and Cush and Put will be in the ranks, also well-armed, as will Gomer and its army and Beth-togarmah out of the north with its army. Many nations will be with you!
7-9 “‘Get ready to fight, you and the whole company that’s been called out. Take charge and wait for orders. After a long time, you’ll be given your orders. In the distant future you’ll arrive at a country that has recovered from a devastating war. People from many nations will be gathered there on the mountains of Israel, for a long time now a wasteland. These people have been brought back from many countries and now live safe and secure. You’ll rise like a thunderstorm and roll in like clouds and cover the land, you and the massed troops with you.
10-12 “‘Message of God, the Master: At that time you’ll start thinking things over and cook up an evil plot. You’ll say, “I’m going to invade a country without defenses, attack an unsuspecting, carefree people going about their business—no gates to their cities, no locks on their doors. And I’m going to plunder the place, march right in and clean them out, this rebuilt country risen from the ashes, these returned exiles and their booming economy centered down at the navel of the earth.”
13 “‘Sheba and Dedan and Tarshish, traders all out to make a fast buck, will say, “So! You’ve opened a new market for plunder! You’ve brought in your troops to get rich quick!”’
14-16 “Therefore, son of man, prophesy! Tell Gog, ‘A Message from God, the Master: When my people Israel are established securely, will you make your move? Will you come down out of the far north, you and that mob of armies, charging out on your horses like a tidal wave across the land, and invade my people Israel, covering the country like a cloud? When the time’s ripe, I’ll unleash you against my land in such a way that the nations will recognize me, realize that through you, Gog, in full view of the nations, I am putting my holiness on display.
17-22 “‘A Message of God, the Master: Years ago when I spoke through my servants, the prophets of Israel, wasn’t it you I was talking about? Year after year they prophesied that I would bring you against them. And when the day comes, Gog, you will attack that land of Israel. Decree of God, the Master. My raging anger will erupt. Fueled by blazing jealousy, I tell you that then there will be an earthquake that rocks the land of Israel. Fish and birds and wild animals—even ants and beetles!—and every human being will tremble and shake before me. Mountains will disintegrate, terraces will crumble. I’ll order all-out war against you, Gog—Decree of God, the Master—Gog killing Gog on all the mountains of Israel. I’ll deluge Gog with judgment: disease and massacre, torrential rain and hail, volcanic lava pouring down on you and your mobs of troops and people.
23 “‘I’ll show you how great I am, how holy I am. I’ll make myself known all over the world. Then you’ll realize that I am God.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, June 03, 2017
Read: John 13:33–35
33 “Children, I am with you for only a short time longer. You are going to look high and low for me. But just as I told the Jews, I’m telling you: ‘Where I go, you are not able to come.’
34-35 “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
INSIGHT:
Love is one of the most prominent themes in the apostle John’s writing. In John’s gospel, Jesus spoke often about love: God’s love for the world (3:16), the love of the Father for the Son (3:35; 5:20; 10:17), Jesus’s love for His disciples (13:34–35), how the disciples were to show they love Jesus and each other (14:23–28), and even what love looks like (15:13). In his later letters (see 1, 2, and 3 John), John continues to focus on God’s love, mentioning God’s love for us or our love for Him and others more than thirty times.
Perhaps the most famous of all Jesus’s statements about love is found in John 15:13: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus said this in the same context of asking His disciples to love one another as He had loved them (13:34) and mere hours before He demonstrated this great love by going to the cross to die for them. Sacrificing ourselves for another is the greatest expression of love. Who needs to see Jesus’s love through you today?
Someone to Trust
By Monica Brands
Many proclaim themselves loyal, but who can find one worthy of trust? Proverbs 20:6 nrsv
“I just can’t trust anyone,” my friend said through tears. “Every time I do, they hurt me.” Her story angered me—an ex-boyfriend, whom she really thought she could trust, had started spreading rumors about her as soon as they broke up. Struggling to trust again after a pain-filled childhood, this betrayal seemed just one more confirmation that people could not be trusted.
I struggled to find words that would comfort. One thing I could not say was that she was wrong about how hard it is to find someone to fully trust, that most people are completely kind and trustworthy. Her story was painfully familiar, reminding me of moments of unexpected betrayal in my own life. In fact, Scripture is very candid about human nature. In Proverbs 20:6, the author voices the same lament as my friend, forever memorializing the pain of betrayal.
Jesus, help us to share Your love with the world.
What I could say is that the cruelty of others is only part of the story. Although wounds from others are real and painful, Jesus has made genuine love possible. In John 13:35, Jesus told His disciples that the world would know they were His followers because of their love. Although some people may still hurt us, because of Jesus there will also always be those who, freely sharing His love, will unconditionally support and care for us. Resting in His unfailing love, may we find healing, community, and courage to love others as He did.
Welcome to Monica Brands! Meet all our authors at odb.org/all-authors.
Jesus has made true love possible.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, June 03, 2017
“The Secret of the Lord”
The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him… —Psalm 25:14
What is the sign of a friend? Is it that he tells you his secret sorrows? No, it is that he tells you his secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are we continually telling God our secrets, leaving Him no time to talk to us? At the beginning of our Christian life we are full of requests to God. But then we find that God wants to get us into an intimate relationship with Himself— to get us in touch with His purposes. Are we so intimately united to Jesus Christ’s idea of prayer— “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10)— that we catch the secrets of God? What makes God so dear to us is not so much His big blessings to us, but the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy with us— He knows every detail of each of our individual lives.
“Him shall He teach in the way He chooses” (Psalm 25:12). At first, we want the awareness of being guided by God. But then as we grow spiritually, we live so fully aware of God that we do not even need to ask what His will is, because the thought of choosing another way will never occur to us. If we are saved and sanctified, God guides us by our everyday choices. And if we are about to choose what He does not want, He will give us a sense of doubt or restraint, which we must heed. Whenever there is doubt, stop at once. Never try to reason it out, saying, “I wonder why I shouldn’t do this?” God instructs us in what we choose; that is, He actually guides our common sense. And when we yield to His teachings and guidance, we no longer hinder His Spirit by continually asking, “Now, Lord, what is Your will?”
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them. The Place of Help, 1032 L
Friday, June 2, 2017
Ezekiel 37, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GOD GETS US THROUGH STUFF
Whatever it is—you’ll get through this! You think you won’t. But we all do! We fear the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave. We wonder, will this gray sky ever brighten? Will we ever exit this pit?
Yes! Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras— big, bold, and everywhere. Out of the lion’s den for Daniel, the prison for Peter, the whale’s belly for Jonah, the grave for Lazarus, and the shackles for Paul…God gets us through stuff! Through the wilderness, through the valley of the shadow of death– through is a favorite word of God’s! Isaiah 4:32 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned…” You will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 37
Breath of Life
1-2 God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun.
3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Master God, only you know that.”
4 He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!’”
5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones, “Watch this: I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You’ll come alive and you’ll realize that I am God!”
7-8 I prophesied just as I’d been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them.
9 He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, ‘God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!’”
10 So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.
11 Then God said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they’re saying: ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.’
12-14 “Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says: I’ll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I’ll take you straight to the land of Israel. When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you’ll realize that I am God. I’ll breathe my life into you and you’ll live. Then I’ll lead you straight back to your land and you’ll realize that I am God. I’ve said it and I’ll do it. God’s Decree.’”
15-17 God’s Message came to me: “You, son of man: Take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, with his Israelite companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph—Ephraim’s stick, together with all his Israelite companions.’ Then tie the two sticks together so that you’re holding one stick.
18-19 “When your people ask you, ‘Are you going to tell us what you’re doing?’ tell them, ‘God, the Master, says, Watch me! I’ll take the Joseph stick that is in Ephraim’s hand, with the tribes of Israel connected with him, and lay the Judah stick on it. I’ll make them into one stick. I’m holding one stick.’
20-24 “Then take the sticks you’ve inscribed and hold them up so the people can see them. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says, Watch me! I’m taking the Israelites out of the nations in which they’ve been exiled. I’ll gather them in from all directions and bring them back home. I’ll make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and give them one king—one king over all of them. Never again will they be divided into two nations, two kingdoms. Never again will they pollute their lives with their no-god idols and all those vile obscenities and rebellions. I’ll save them out of all their old sinful haunts. I’ll clean them up. They’ll be my people! I’ll be their God! My servant David will be king over them. They’ll all be under one shepherd.
24-27 “‘They’ll follow my laws and keep my statutes. They’ll live in the same land I gave my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their grandchildren will live there forever, and my servant David will be their prince forever. I’ll make a covenant of peace with them that will hold everything together, an everlasting covenant. I’ll make them secure and place my holy place of worship at the center of their lives forever. I’ll live right there with them. I’ll be their God! They’ll be my people!
28 “‘The nations will realize that I, God, make Israel holy when my holy place of worship is established at the center of their lives forever.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 02, 2017
Read: Luke 6:46–49
46-47 “Why are you so polite with me, always saying ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘That’s right, sir,’ but never doing a thing I tell you? These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundation words, words to build a life on.
48-49 “If you work the words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who dug deep and laid the foundation of his house on bedrock. When the river burst its banks and crashed against the house, nothing could shake it; it was built to last. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a dumb carpenter who built a house but skipped the foundation. When the swollen river came crashing in, it collapsed like a house of cards. It was a total loss.”
INSIGHT:
To fully appreciate Jesus’s comments in Luke 6:46–49, it’s helpful to keep in mind the fuller content of His teachings in this chapter (see vv. 20–49). Luke 6 captures many of the same teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7)—teachings that are revolutionary in cultures dominated by the powerful and where weakness is looked down on. Jesus invited His followers into God’s reality—where it is those who know their brokenness, the poor and persecuted, who God is especially near to (vv. 20–25), and where strength is demonstrated in forgiving even our enemies (vv. 27–36).
A temptation when hearing Jesus’s words is to be moved and inspired without wrestling with the ways His words demand change in our lives. Jesus knew that would be our tendency, and so He emphasizes that an emotional confession (“Lord, Lord,” v. 46) is of no value if we do not obey, if we do not let His words challenge the way we live and what we believe. Building our lives on Him means a life of daily transformation, of daily following Him.
What “norms” in your life do you think Jesus’s words might challenge?
For further study, see Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Oswald Chambers at dhp.org/studies.
Table Rock
By Kirsten Holmberg
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46
A large, illuminated cross stands erect on Table Rock, a rocky plateau overlooking my hometown. Several homes were built on neighboring land, but recently the owners have been forced to move out due to safety concerns. Despite their close proximity to the firm bedrock of Table Rock, these homes aren’t secure. They have been shifting atop their foundations—nearly three inches every day—causing risk of major water pipes breaking, which would accelerate the sliding.
Jesus compares those who hear and obey His words to those who build their homes on rock (Luke 6:47–48). These homes survive the storms. By contrast, He says homes built without a firm foundation—like people who don’t heed His instruction—cannot weather the torrents.
Lord, thank you for being my firm foundation.
On many occasions, I’ve been tempted to ignore my conscience when I knew God asked more of me than I had given, thinking my response had been “close enough.” Yet the homes in the shifting foothills nearby have depicted for me that being “close” is nowhere near enough when it comes to obeying Him. To be like those who built their homes on a firm foundation and withstand the storms of life that so often assail us, we must heed the words of our Lord completely.
Help me, Lord, to obey You fully and with my whole heart. Thank You for being my firm foundation.
God’s Word is the only sure foundation for life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 02, 2017
Are You Obsessed by Something?
Who is the man that fears the Lord? —Psalm 25:12
Are you obsessed by something? You will probably say, “No, by nothing,” but all of us are obsessed by something— usually by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our own experience of the Christian life. But the psalmist says that we are to be obsessed by God. The abiding awareness of the Christian life is to be God Himself, not just thoughts about Him. The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. A child’s awareness is so absorbed in his mother that although he is not consciously thinking of her, when a problem arises, the abiding relationship is that with the mother. In that same way, we are to “live and move and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28), looking at everything in relation to Him, because our abiding awareness of Him continually pushes itself to the forefront of our lives.
If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives— not concerns, nor tribulation, nor worries. And now we understand why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worrying. How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us? To be obsessed by God is to have an effective barricade against all the assaults of the enemy.
“He himself shall dwell in prosperity…” (Psalm 25:13). God will cause us to “dwell in prosperity,” keeping us at ease, even in the midst of tribulation, misunderstanding, and slander, if our “life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). We rob ourselves of the miraculous, revealed truth of this abiding companionship with God. “God is our refuge…” (Psalm 46:1). Nothing can break through His shelter of protection.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves.
The Place of Help
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 02, 2017
Angels – Touched By a Human - #7930
It turned out to be one of TV's biggest and most surprising hits of the time -"Touched By an Angel". Actually, CBS almost canceled it after its first season. But they responded to all this mail they got, encouraging them to give it another chance. And with that, it just took off. It was consistently one of the top 10 TV programs in America! It was about three angels who take on human form and assignments from God to bring His hope and His messages into certain people's lives. And in an age when angels had become an intriguing subject for a lot of people, this positive program was really a success. Who would have guessed that it would be a success? Stories of humans whose lives are "touched by an angel"? Of course, there's an even bigger surprise. Did you know that angels can be touched by a human?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Angels – Touched By a Human."
Actually, the Bible says there is something you can do that literally touches the angels in heaven. It all has to do with a spiritual homecoming God has been waiting for a long time for you to experience.
Our word for today from the Word of God is about that. It's in Luke 15:10. Jesus has just been telling about the joy of a shepherd who is bringing home his lost sheep...and a woman who has just found a treasured possession she had lost. In both cases, the finder gets their friends and neighbors together and says, "Rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep...or my lost treasure." Then Jesus tells how people like us can touch the angels in heaven. He says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
In heaven, they know that God sent Jesus, His one and only Son, to rescue us sinners. And. according to the Bible, that's me, that's you, that's all of us. It says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). The angels were there the night the Son of God came to live among us that first Christmas. An angel was there strengthening Jesus when He agonized in a garden over the cross that He knew He was going to be facing in a few hours.
The angels know that we who have lived outside of God's plans deserve the death penalty for running our own lives. They also know that God loved you so much that He sent His Son from Heaven to die so you don't have to.
And now God is waiting, has been waiting for a while, for you to respond to His love...to turn from your "my way" living and put all your trust in Jesus to forgive what only He can forgive, because only He died for it. He's waiting for you to come home spiritually. And when you do, the angels - who know how much is at stake in your decision about Jesus - they start celebrating your homecoming - a party in heaven.
If you've never had your moment when you've begun your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you could make your peace with God right where you are right now. Here's a homecoming prayer you could pray from your heart, "Lord, I know my only hope of having my sins forgiven, my only hope of going to heaven, is You and what You did when You died on the cross for me. I know you're alive! You walked out of your grave, and now I want you to walk into my life. I'm putting all my trust in You. I want You to be my Personal Savior. Beginning this day, Jesus, I'm Yours." It's your homecoming day!
Let me invite you to go to our website, and there you'll see explained very simply and briefly how to begin and be sure you've begun your relationship with Jesus; how to know you belong to Him. The website is ANewStory.com. I hope you'll check it out as soon as you can today.
If you will make this the day you come home to the One who died for you, the Bible says, heaven starts celebrating. Why? Because now, you'll be going there someday...and you'll be there forever.
Whatever it is—you’ll get through this! You think you won’t. But we all do! We fear the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave. We wonder, will this gray sky ever brighten? Will we ever exit this pit?
Yes! Deliverance is to the Bible what jazz music is to Mardi Gras— big, bold, and everywhere. Out of the lion’s den for Daniel, the prison for Peter, the whale’s belly for Jonah, the grave for Lazarus, and the shackles for Paul…God gets us through stuff! Through the wilderness, through the valley of the shadow of death– through is a favorite word of God’s! Isaiah 4:32 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned…” You will get through this!
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 37
Breath of Life
1-2 God grabbed me. God’s Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun.
3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”
I said, “Master God, only you know that.”
4 He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones: ‘Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!’”
5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones, “Watch this: I’m bringing the breath of life to you and you’ll come to life. I’ll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You’ll come alive and you’ll realize that I am God!”
7-8 I prophesied just as I’d been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them.
9 He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, ‘God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!’”
10 So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.
11 Then God said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they’re saying: ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.’
12-14 “Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says: I’ll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I’ll take you straight to the land of Israel. When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you’ll realize that I am God. I’ll breathe my life into you and you’ll live. Then I’ll lead you straight back to your land and you’ll realize that I am God. I’ve said it and I’ll do it. God’s Decree.’”
15-17 God’s Message came to me: “You, son of man: Take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, with his Israelite companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph—Ephraim’s stick, together with all his Israelite companions.’ Then tie the two sticks together so that you’re holding one stick.
18-19 “When your people ask you, ‘Are you going to tell us what you’re doing?’ tell them, ‘God, the Master, says, Watch me! I’ll take the Joseph stick that is in Ephraim’s hand, with the tribes of Israel connected with him, and lay the Judah stick on it. I’ll make them into one stick. I’m holding one stick.’
20-24 “Then take the sticks you’ve inscribed and hold them up so the people can see them. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says, Watch me! I’m taking the Israelites out of the nations in which they’ve been exiled. I’ll gather them in from all directions and bring them back home. I’ll make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and give them one king—one king over all of them. Never again will they be divided into two nations, two kingdoms. Never again will they pollute their lives with their no-god idols and all those vile obscenities and rebellions. I’ll save them out of all their old sinful haunts. I’ll clean them up. They’ll be my people! I’ll be their God! My servant David will be king over them. They’ll all be under one shepherd.
24-27 “‘They’ll follow my laws and keep my statutes. They’ll live in the same land I gave my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived. They and their children and their grandchildren will live there forever, and my servant David will be their prince forever. I’ll make a covenant of peace with them that will hold everything together, an everlasting covenant. I’ll make them secure and place my holy place of worship at the center of their lives forever. I’ll live right there with them. I’ll be their God! They’ll be my people!
28 “‘The nations will realize that I, God, make Israel holy when my holy place of worship is established at the center of their lives forever.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, June 02, 2017
Read: Luke 6:46–49
46-47 “Why are you so polite with me, always saying ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘That’s right, sir,’ but never doing a thing I tell you? These words I speak to you are not mere additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundation words, words to build a life on.
48-49 “If you work the words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who dug deep and laid the foundation of his house on bedrock. When the river burst its banks and crashed against the house, nothing could shake it; it was built to last. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a dumb carpenter who built a house but skipped the foundation. When the swollen river came crashing in, it collapsed like a house of cards. It was a total loss.”
INSIGHT:
To fully appreciate Jesus’s comments in Luke 6:46–49, it’s helpful to keep in mind the fuller content of His teachings in this chapter (see vv. 20–49). Luke 6 captures many of the same teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7)—teachings that are revolutionary in cultures dominated by the powerful and where weakness is looked down on. Jesus invited His followers into God’s reality—where it is those who know their brokenness, the poor and persecuted, who God is especially near to (vv. 20–25), and where strength is demonstrated in forgiving even our enemies (vv. 27–36).
A temptation when hearing Jesus’s words is to be moved and inspired without wrestling with the ways His words demand change in our lives. Jesus knew that would be our tendency, and so He emphasizes that an emotional confession (“Lord, Lord,” v. 46) is of no value if we do not obey, if we do not let His words challenge the way we live and what we believe. Building our lives on Him means a life of daily transformation, of daily following Him.
What “norms” in your life do you think Jesus’s words might challenge?
For further study, see Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Oswald Chambers at dhp.org/studies.
Table Rock
By Kirsten Holmberg
“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Luke 6:46
A large, illuminated cross stands erect on Table Rock, a rocky plateau overlooking my hometown. Several homes were built on neighboring land, but recently the owners have been forced to move out due to safety concerns. Despite their close proximity to the firm bedrock of Table Rock, these homes aren’t secure. They have been shifting atop their foundations—nearly three inches every day—causing risk of major water pipes breaking, which would accelerate the sliding.
Jesus compares those who hear and obey His words to those who build their homes on rock (Luke 6:47–48). These homes survive the storms. By contrast, He says homes built without a firm foundation—like people who don’t heed His instruction—cannot weather the torrents.
Lord, thank you for being my firm foundation.
On many occasions, I’ve been tempted to ignore my conscience when I knew God asked more of me than I had given, thinking my response had been “close enough.” Yet the homes in the shifting foothills nearby have depicted for me that being “close” is nowhere near enough when it comes to obeying Him. To be like those who built their homes on a firm foundation and withstand the storms of life that so often assail us, we must heed the words of our Lord completely.
Help me, Lord, to obey You fully and with my whole heart. Thank You for being my firm foundation.
God’s Word is the only sure foundation for life.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, June 02, 2017
Are You Obsessed by Something?
Who is the man that fears the Lord? —Psalm 25:12
Are you obsessed by something? You will probably say, “No, by nothing,” but all of us are obsessed by something— usually by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our own experience of the Christian life. But the psalmist says that we are to be obsessed by God. The abiding awareness of the Christian life is to be God Himself, not just thoughts about Him. The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. A child’s awareness is so absorbed in his mother that although he is not consciously thinking of her, when a problem arises, the abiding relationship is that with the mother. In that same way, we are to “live and move and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28), looking at everything in relation to Him, because our abiding awareness of Him continually pushes itself to the forefront of our lives.
If we are obsessed by God, nothing else can get into our lives— not concerns, nor tribulation, nor worries. And now we understand why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worrying. How can we dare to be so absolutely unbelieving when God totally surrounds us? To be obsessed by God is to have an effective barricade against all the assaults of the enemy.
“He himself shall dwell in prosperity…” (Psalm 25:13). God will cause us to “dwell in prosperity,” keeping us at ease, even in the midst of tribulation, misunderstanding, and slander, if our “life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). We rob ourselves of the miraculous, revealed truth of this abiding companionship with God. “God is our refuge…” (Psalm 46:1). Nothing can break through His shelter of protection.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves.
The Place of Help
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, June 02, 2017
Angels – Touched By a Human - #7930
It turned out to be one of TV's biggest and most surprising hits of the time -"Touched By an Angel". Actually, CBS almost canceled it after its first season. But they responded to all this mail they got, encouraging them to give it another chance. And with that, it just took off. It was consistently one of the top 10 TV programs in America! It was about three angels who take on human form and assignments from God to bring His hope and His messages into certain people's lives. And in an age when angels had become an intriguing subject for a lot of people, this positive program was really a success. Who would have guessed that it would be a success? Stories of humans whose lives are "touched by an angel"? Of course, there's an even bigger surprise. Did you know that angels can be touched by a human?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Angels – Touched By a Human."
Actually, the Bible says there is something you can do that literally touches the angels in heaven. It all has to do with a spiritual homecoming God has been waiting for a long time for you to experience.
Our word for today from the Word of God is about that. It's in Luke 15:10. Jesus has just been telling about the joy of a shepherd who is bringing home his lost sheep...and a woman who has just found a treasured possession she had lost. In both cases, the finder gets their friends and neighbors together and says, "Rejoice with me. I have found my lost sheep...or my lost treasure." Then Jesus tells how people like us can touch the angels in heaven. He says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
In heaven, they know that God sent Jesus, His one and only Son, to rescue us sinners. And. according to the Bible, that's me, that's you, that's all of us. It says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). The angels were there the night the Son of God came to live among us that first Christmas. An angel was there strengthening Jesus when He agonized in a garden over the cross that He knew He was going to be facing in a few hours.
The angels know that we who have lived outside of God's plans deserve the death penalty for running our own lives. They also know that God loved you so much that He sent His Son from Heaven to die so you don't have to.
And now God is waiting, has been waiting for a while, for you to respond to His love...to turn from your "my way" living and put all your trust in Jesus to forgive what only He can forgive, because only He died for it. He's waiting for you to come home spiritually. And when you do, the angels - who know how much is at stake in your decision about Jesus - they start celebrating your homecoming - a party in heaven.
If you've never had your moment when you've begun your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you could make your peace with God right where you are right now. Here's a homecoming prayer you could pray from your heart, "Lord, I know my only hope of having my sins forgiven, my only hope of going to heaven, is You and what You did when You died on the cross for me. I know you're alive! You walked out of your grave, and now I want you to walk into my life. I'm putting all my trust in You. I want You to be my Personal Savior. Beginning this day, Jesus, I'm Yours." It's your homecoming day!
Let me invite you to go to our website, and there you'll see explained very simply and briefly how to begin and be sure you've begun your relationship with Jesus; how to know you belong to Him. The website is ANewStory.com. I hope you'll check it out as soon as you can today.
If you will make this the day you come home to the One who died for you, the Bible says, heaven starts celebrating. Why? Because now, you'll be going there someday...and you'll be there forever.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
Ezekiel 36 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: ENJOY GOD’S PRESENCE
You will never go where God is not! Envision the next few hours of your life. Where will you find yourself? In a school? God indwells the classroom. On the highways? His presence lingers among the traffic. In the hospital, the boardroom, the living room, the funeral home? God will be there.
Acts 17:27 says, “He is not far from each one of us.” Each of us. God doesn’t play favorites. All people can enjoy God’s presence. But many don’t. They plod through life as if their only strength was their own. As if their only solution comes from within, not above. They live God-less lives. Lay claim to the nearness of God. Grip God’s promise like the parachute it is. Repeat it to yourself over and over: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 36
Back to Your Own Land
1-5 “And now, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel. Say, ‘Mountains of Israel, listen to God’s Message. God, the Master, says, Because the enemy crowed over you, “Good! Those old hills are now ours!” now here is a prophecy in the name of God, the Master: Because nations came at you from all sides, ripping and plundering, hauling pieces of you off every which way, and you’ve become the butt of cheap gossip and jokes, therefore, Mountains of Israel, listen to the Message of God, the Master. My Message to mountains and hills, to ditches and valleys, to the heaps of rubble and the emptied towns that are looted for plunder and turned into jokes by all the surrounding nations: Therefore, says God, the Master, now I’m speaking in a fiery rage against the rest of the nations, but especially against Edom, who in an orgy of violence and shameless insolence robbed me of my land, grabbed it for themselves.’
6-7 “Therefore prophesy over the land of Israel, preach to the mountains and hills, to every ditch and valley: ‘The Message of God, the Master: Look! Listen! I’m angry—and I care. I’m speaking to you because you’ve been humiliated among the nations. Therefore I, God, the Master, am telling you that I’ve solemnly sworn that the nations around you are next. It’s their turn to be humiliated.
8-12 “‘But you, Mountains of Israel, will burst with new growth, putting out branches and bearing fruit for my people Israel. My people are coming home! Do you see? I’m back again. I’m on your side. You’ll be plowed and planted as before! I’ll see to it that your population grows all over Israel, that the towns fill up with people, that the ruins are rebuilt. I’ll make this place teem with life—human and animal. The country will burst into life, life, and more life, your towns and villages full of people just as in the old days. I’ll treat you better than I ever have. And you’ll realize that I am God. I’ll put people over you—my own people Israel! They’ll take care of you and you’ll be their inheritance. Never again will you be a harsh and unforgiving land to them.
13-15 “‘God, the Master, says: Because you have a reputation of being a land that eats people alive and makes women barren, I’m now telling you that you’ll never eat people alive again nor make women barren. Decree of God, the Master. And I’ll never again let the taunts of outsiders be heard over you nor permit nations to look down on you. You’ll no longer be a land that makes women barren. Decree of God, the Master.’”
16-21 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they polluted it by the way they lived. I poured out my anger on them because of the polluted blood they poured out on the ground. And so I got thoroughly angry with them polluting the country with their wanton murders and dirty gods. I kicked them out, exiled them to other countries. I sentenced them according to how they had lived. Wherever they went, they gave me a bad name. People said, ‘These are God’s people, but they got kicked off his land.’ I suffered much pain over my holy reputation, which the people of Israel blackened in every country they entered.
22-23 “Therefore, tell Israel, ‘Message of God, the Master: I’m not doing this for you, Israel. I’m doing it for me, to save my character, my holy name, which you’ve blackened in every country where you’ve gone. I’m going to put my great and holy name on display, the name that has been ruined in so many countries, the name that you blackened wherever you went. Then the nations will realize who I really am, that I am God, when I show my holiness through you so that they can see it with their own eyes.
24-28 “‘For here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to take you out of these countries, gather you from all over, and bring you back to your own land. I’ll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I’ll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. I’ll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You’ll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You’ll be my people! I’ll be your God!
29-30 “‘I’ll pull you out of that stinking pollution. I’ll give personal orders to the wheat fields, telling them to grow bumper crops. I’ll send no more famines. I’ll make sure your fruit trees and field crops flourish. Other nations won’t be able to hold you in contempt again because of famine.
31 “‘And then you’ll think back over your terrible lives—the evil, the shame—and be thoroughly disgusted with yourselves, realizing how badly you’ve lived—all those obscenities you’ve carried out.
32 “‘I’m not doing this for you. Get this through your thick heads! Shame on you. What a mess you made of things, Israel!
33-36 “‘Message of God, the Master: On the day I scrub you clean from all your filthy living, I’ll also make your cities livable. The ruins will be rebuilt. The neglected land will be worked again, no longer overgrown with weeds and thistles, worthless in the eyes of passersby. People will exclaim, “Why, this weed patch has been turned into a Garden of Eden! And the ruined cities, smashed into oblivion, are now thriving!” The nations around you that are still in existence will realize that I, God, rebuild ruins and replant empty waste places. I, God, said so, and I’ll do it.
37-38 “‘Message of God, the Master: Yet again I’m going to do what Israel asks. I’ll increase their population as with a flock of sheep. Like the milling flocks of sheep brought for sacrifices in Jerusalem during the appointed feasts, the ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. And they’ll realize that I am God.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 01, 2017
Read: 2 Peter 1:1–11
1-2 I, Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God’s straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.
Don’t Put It Off
3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
5-9 So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
10-11 So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
INSIGHT:
As Peter conveys God’s provision for godly living (2 Peter 1:3), he refers to Jesus’s transfiguration. Peter, James, and John were “eyewitnesses of his majesty” and “earwitnesses” of the Father’s words (vv. 16–18). Peter notes the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power” (v. 16). While the Lord’s coming is our hope of ultimate rescue, the power of Jesus equips us for everyday living. Has God called you to do something for which you feel inadequate? Ask for God's help to rely on His divine power.
Everything We Need
By David C. McCasland
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 2 Peter 1:3
I often feel completely inadequate for the tasks I face. Whether it’s teaching Sunday school, advising a friend, or writing articles for this publication, the challenge often seems to be larger than my ability. Like Peter, I have a lot to learn.
The New Testament reveals Peter’s shortcomings as he tried to follow the Lord. While walking on water to Jesus, Peter began to sink (Matt. 14:25–31). When Jesus was arrested, Peter swore he didn’t know Him (Mark 14:66–72). But Peter’s encounter with the risen Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit changed his life.
Thank You, Father, for giving me everything I need to serve You and encourage others today.
Peter came to understand that God’s “divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3). An amazing statement from a man who had many flaws!
“[God] has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (v. 4).
Our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is the source of the wisdom, patience, and power we need to honor God, help others, and meet the challenges of today. Through Him, we can overcome our hesitations and feelings of inadequacy.
In every situation, He has given us everything we need to serve and honor Him.
Thank You, Father, for giving me everything I need to serve You and encourage others today. May I honor You in all I do.
God promises to provide everything we need to honor Him with our lives.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 01, 2017
The Staggering Question
He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" —Ezekiel 37:3
Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer— “O Lord God, You know” (Ezekiel 37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, “Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done.”
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we see the activity and mistake panic for inspiration. That is why we see so few fellow workers with God, yet so many people working for God. We would much rather work for God than believe in Him. Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? The degree of hopelessness I have for others comes from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God’s power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see? Has any spiritual work been accomplished in me at all? The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.
“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves…” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My “grave” has been opened by God and “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.
Not Knowing Whither
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 01, 2017
The Tale of Three Ships - #7929
As I sit at my desk, I'm looking at this framed, century-old newspaper on the wall. It's there because I never want to forget the story it tells or the choice it represents. I guess, in short, I'd call it the tale of the three ships.
Everybody knows one of them - the Titanic. The one that 2,200 passengers thought was unsinkable. But that fateful night in the ice fields of the North Atlantic, the Titanic went down and over 1,500 passengers died. Only about 700 survived. Their only hope was a rescue.
Only about ten miles away, the SS Californian saw the flares from the endangered Titanic. Captain Lord decided it was too risky to try to reach her in the dark, so the Californian stayed where she was.
The Carpathia was a daunting 58 miles away when they spotted the flares and they heard the distress calls. There were some 700 passengers on board that night as Captain Rostron gave his fateful order, "Mr. Dean, turn this ship around." See, Captain Rostron ordered that all heat be turned off so that all the power could be directed to the ship's engines. Actually, the Carpathia's maximum speed was supposed to be 14.5 knots. She averaged 17 knots as she steamed toward Titanic's last known location. On the captain's orders, rooms were converted to infirmaries, hot food and drink were prepared and lifeboats were readied. Somehow, the Carpathia navigated around a deadly field of icebergs in the dark. Later, actually, Captain Rostron would say that it was like an unseen hand was guiding them.
But his heart sank when he arrived at the site, because there was no trace of the mighty Titanic. What he did find was 20 lifeboats, carrying those 700 survivors, whose lives were in jeopardy from hours of exposure to 28-degree temperatures. Had it not been for the Carpathia's courageous intervention, there probably would have been no Titanic survivors.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Tale of Three Ships."
Three ships. The Titanic. The ship where people thought they were safe, that in reality, was a ship of death where their only hope was a rescue. The Californian. The ship that was within reach of the dying people but did nothing to save them. The Carpathia. The ship that did whatever it took to rescue the dying, no matter the risks.
We all either are - or were - on the Titanic. Because God says, "Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard," and "the wages of sin is death." But n our word for today from the Word of God in Galatians 1:4, the Bible says, "Jesus gave His life for our sins...in order to rescue us." Our eternal destiny depends on our reaching for the Rescuer - Jesus.
Some of us who have been rescued by Jesus are like the Californian. We have spiritually dying people within our reach. And the command of God from Scripture is to "rescue those being led away to death" (Proverbs 24:11).
But we're doing nothing. It's too risky. We've got all these fears of what might happen if we tried to tell them about Jesus and if we tried to rescue them. You know, they might not like us, whatever.
But some of us are like the Carpathia; more concerned about the dying people than we are about ourselves. Doing whatever it takes to save them. Well, that would be like our Jesus. We'd be recognizing that we are under orders. And here's how the Bible puts it: to "snatch others from the fire and save them" (Jude 23).
Three ships. This tale of three ships confronts me, and all of us, with a soul-searching question. It might even be a life-or-death question for you, "Which ship am I on?"
If you don't have Jesus in your heart; if you've never been to Him to have your sins forgiven, your ship's going down even if you feel like it's unsinkable. No religion, no achievement, no relationship can save you except a relationship with Jesus Christ who died to pay for your sins.
This is your day to turn in death for life and feeling dirty for feeling clean, and lonely for love, and hell for heaven. If you've never reached out to the Rescuer, would you do it today? Say, "Jesus, I'm yours." Go to our website. Get the rest of the story there. It's ANewStory.com.
You will never go where God is not! Envision the next few hours of your life. Where will you find yourself? In a school? God indwells the classroom. On the highways? His presence lingers among the traffic. In the hospital, the boardroom, the living room, the funeral home? God will be there.
Acts 17:27 says, “He is not far from each one of us.” Each of us. God doesn’t play favorites. All people can enjoy God’s presence. But many don’t. They plod through life as if their only strength was their own. As if their only solution comes from within, not above. They live God-less lives. Lay claim to the nearness of God. Grip God’s promise like the parachute it is. Repeat it to yourself over and over: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
From You’ll Get Through This
Ezekiel 36
Back to Your Own Land
1-5 “And now, son of man, prophesy to the mountains of Israel. Say, ‘Mountains of Israel, listen to God’s Message. God, the Master, says, Because the enemy crowed over you, “Good! Those old hills are now ours!” now here is a prophecy in the name of God, the Master: Because nations came at you from all sides, ripping and plundering, hauling pieces of you off every which way, and you’ve become the butt of cheap gossip and jokes, therefore, Mountains of Israel, listen to the Message of God, the Master. My Message to mountains and hills, to ditches and valleys, to the heaps of rubble and the emptied towns that are looted for plunder and turned into jokes by all the surrounding nations: Therefore, says God, the Master, now I’m speaking in a fiery rage against the rest of the nations, but especially against Edom, who in an orgy of violence and shameless insolence robbed me of my land, grabbed it for themselves.’
6-7 “Therefore prophesy over the land of Israel, preach to the mountains and hills, to every ditch and valley: ‘The Message of God, the Master: Look! Listen! I’m angry—and I care. I’m speaking to you because you’ve been humiliated among the nations. Therefore I, God, the Master, am telling you that I’ve solemnly sworn that the nations around you are next. It’s their turn to be humiliated.
8-12 “‘But you, Mountains of Israel, will burst with new growth, putting out branches and bearing fruit for my people Israel. My people are coming home! Do you see? I’m back again. I’m on your side. You’ll be plowed and planted as before! I’ll see to it that your population grows all over Israel, that the towns fill up with people, that the ruins are rebuilt. I’ll make this place teem with life—human and animal. The country will burst into life, life, and more life, your towns and villages full of people just as in the old days. I’ll treat you better than I ever have. And you’ll realize that I am God. I’ll put people over you—my own people Israel! They’ll take care of you and you’ll be their inheritance. Never again will you be a harsh and unforgiving land to them.
13-15 “‘God, the Master, says: Because you have a reputation of being a land that eats people alive and makes women barren, I’m now telling you that you’ll never eat people alive again nor make women barren. Decree of God, the Master. And I’ll never again let the taunts of outsiders be heard over you nor permit nations to look down on you. You’ll no longer be a land that makes women barren. Decree of God, the Master.’”
16-21 God’s Message came to me: “Son of man, when the people of Israel lived in their land, they polluted it by the way they lived. I poured out my anger on them because of the polluted blood they poured out on the ground. And so I got thoroughly angry with them polluting the country with their wanton murders and dirty gods. I kicked them out, exiled them to other countries. I sentenced them according to how they had lived. Wherever they went, they gave me a bad name. People said, ‘These are God’s people, but they got kicked off his land.’ I suffered much pain over my holy reputation, which the people of Israel blackened in every country they entered.
22-23 “Therefore, tell Israel, ‘Message of God, the Master: I’m not doing this for you, Israel. I’m doing it for me, to save my character, my holy name, which you’ve blackened in every country where you’ve gone. I’m going to put my great and holy name on display, the name that has been ruined in so many countries, the name that you blackened wherever you went. Then the nations will realize who I really am, that I am God, when I show my holiness through you so that they can see it with their own eyes.
24-28 “‘For here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to take you out of these countries, gather you from all over, and bring you back to your own land. I’ll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I’ll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. I’ll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You’ll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You’ll be my people! I’ll be your God!
29-30 “‘I’ll pull you out of that stinking pollution. I’ll give personal orders to the wheat fields, telling them to grow bumper crops. I’ll send no more famines. I’ll make sure your fruit trees and field crops flourish. Other nations won’t be able to hold you in contempt again because of famine.
31 “‘And then you’ll think back over your terrible lives—the evil, the shame—and be thoroughly disgusted with yourselves, realizing how badly you’ve lived—all those obscenities you’ve carried out.
32 “‘I’m not doing this for you. Get this through your thick heads! Shame on you. What a mess you made of things, Israel!
33-36 “‘Message of God, the Master: On the day I scrub you clean from all your filthy living, I’ll also make your cities livable. The ruins will be rebuilt. The neglected land will be worked again, no longer overgrown with weeds and thistles, worthless in the eyes of passersby. People will exclaim, “Why, this weed patch has been turned into a Garden of Eden! And the ruined cities, smashed into oblivion, are now thriving!” The nations around you that are still in existence will realize that I, God, rebuild ruins and replant empty waste places. I, God, said so, and I’ll do it.
37-38 “‘Message of God, the Master: Yet again I’m going to do what Israel asks. I’ll increase their population as with a flock of sheep. Like the milling flocks of sheep brought for sacrifices in Jerusalem during the appointed feasts, the ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. And they’ll realize that I am God.’”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, June 01, 2017
Read: 2 Peter 1:1–11
1-2 I, Simon Peter, am a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ. I write this to you whose experience with God is as life-changing as ours, all due to our God’s straight dealing and the intervention of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.
Don’t Put It Off
3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.
5-9 So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
10-11 So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, his choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.
INSIGHT:
As Peter conveys God’s provision for godly living (2 Peter 1:3), he refers to Jesus’s transfiguration. Peter, James, and John were “eyewitnesses of his majesty” and “earwitnesses” of the Father’s words (vv. 16–18). Peter notes the “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power” (v. 16). While the Lord’s coming is our hope of ultimate rescue, the power of Jesus equips us for everyday living. Has God called you to do something for which you feel inadequate? Ask for God's help to rely on His divine power.
Everything We Need
By David C. McCasland
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 2 Peter 1:3
I often feel completely inadequate for the tasks I face. Whether it’s teaching Sunday school, advising a friend, or writing articles for this publication, the challenge often seems to be larger than my ability. Like Peter, I have a lot to learn.
The New Testament reveals Peter’s shortcomings as he tried to follow the Lord. While walking on water to Jesus, Peter began to sink (Matt. 14:25–31). When Jesus was arrested, Peter swore he didn’t know Him (Mark 14:66–72). But Peter’s encounter with the risen Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit changed his life.
Thank You, Father, for giving me everything I need to serve You and encourage others today.
Peter came to understand that God’s “divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3). An amazing statement from a man who had many flaws!
“[God] has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (v. 4).
Our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is the source of the wisdom, patience, and power we need to honor God, help others, and meet the challenges of today. Through Him, we can overcome our hesitations and feelings of inadequacy.
In every situation, He has given us everything we need to serve and honor Him.
Thank You, Father, for giving me everything I need to serve You and encourage others today. May I honor You in all I do.
God promises to provide everything we need to honor Him with our lives.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, June 01, 2017
The Staggering Question
He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" —Ezekiel 37:3
Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer— “O Lord God, You know” (Ezekiel 37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, “Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done.”
It is much easier to do something than to trust in God; we see the activity and mistake panic for inspiration. That is why we see so few fellow workers with God, yet so many people working for God. We would much rather work for God than believe in Him. Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? The degree of hopelessness I have for others comes from never realizing that God has done anything for me. Is my own personal experience such a wonderful realization of God’s power and might that I can never have a sense of hopelessness for anyone else I see? Has any spiritual work been accomplished in me at all? The degree of panic activity in my life is equal to the degree of my lack of personal spiritual experience.
“Behold, O My people, I will open your graves…” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is like separated from Himself, He shows it to you in yourself. If the Spirit of God has ever given you a vision of what you are apart from the grace of God (and He will only do this when His Spirit is at work in you), then you know that in reality there is no criminal half as bad as you yourself could be without His grace. My “grave” has been opened by God and “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.
Not Knowing Whither
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, June 01, 2017
The Tale of Three Ships - #7929
As I sit at my desk, I'm looking at this framed, century-old newspaper on the wall. It's there because I never want to forget the story it tells or the choice it represents. I guess, in short, I'd call it the tale of the three ships.
Everybody knows one of them - the Titanic. The one that 2,200 passengers thought was unsinkable. But that fateful night in the ice fields of the North Atlantic, the Titanic went down and over 1,500 passengers died. Only about 700 survived. Their only hope was a rescue.
Only about ten miles away, the SS Californian saw the flares from the endangered Titanic. Captain Lord decided it was too risky to try to reach her in the dark, so the Californian stayed where she was.
The Carpathia was a daunting 58 miles away when they spotted the flares and they heard the distress calls. There were some 700 passengers on board that night as Captain Rostron gave his fateful order, "Mr. Dean, turn this ship around." See, Captain Rostron ordered that all heat be turned off so that all the power could be directed to the ship's engines. Actually, the Carpathia's maximum speed was supposed to be 14.5 knots. She averaged 17 knots as she steamed toward Titanic's last known location. On the captain's orders, rooms were converted to infirmaries, hot food and drink were prepared and lifeboats were readied. Somehow, the Carpathia navigated around a deadly field of icebergs in the dark. Later, actually, Captain Rostron would say that it was like an unseen hand was guiding them.
But his heart sank when he arrived at the site, because there was no trace of the mighty Titanic. What he did find was 20 lifeboats, carrying those 700 survivors, whose lives were in jeopardy from hours of exposure to 28-degree temperatures. Had it not been for the Carpathia's courageous intervention, there probably would have been no Titanic survivors.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Tale of Three Ships."
Three ships. The Titanic. The ship where people thought they were safe, that in reality, was a ship of death where their only hope was a rescue. The Californian. The ship that was within reach of the dying people but did nothing to save them. The Carpathia. The ship that did whatever it took to rescue the dying, no matter the risks.
We all either are - or were - on the Titanic. Because God says, "Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard," and "the wages of sin is death." But n our word for today from the Word of God in Galatians 1:4, the Bible says, "Jesus gave His life for our sins...in order to rescue us." Our eternal destiny depends on our reaching for the Rescuer - Jesus.
Some of us who have been rescued by Jesus are like the Californian. We have spiritually dying people within our reach. And the command of God from Scripture is to "rescue those being led away to death" (Proverbs 24:11).
But we're doing nothing. It's too risky. We've got all these fears of what might happen if we tried to tell them about Jesus and if we tried to rescue them. You know, they might not like us, whatever.
But some of us are like the Carpathia; more concerned about the dying people than we are about ourselves. Doing whatever it takes to save them. Well, that would be like our Jesus. We'd be recognizing that we are under orders. And here's how the Bible puts it: to "snatch others from the fire and save them" (Jude 23).
Three ships. This tale of three ships confronts me, and all of us, with a soul-searching question. It might even be a life-or-death question for you, "Which ship am I on?"
If you don't have Jesus in your heart; if you've never been to Him to have your sins forgiven, your ship's going down even if you feel like it's unsinkable. No religion, no achievement, no relationship can save you except a relationship with Jesus Christ who died to pay for your sins.
This is your day to turn in death for life and feeling dirty for feeling clean, and lonely for love, and hell for heaven. If you've never reached out to the Rescuer, would you do it today? Say, "Jesus, I'm yours." Go to our website. Get the rest of the story there. It's ANewStory.com.
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