Max Lucado Daily: Three Cookie Days
Every day, God prepares for us a plate of experiences. Some days are “three cookie days.” Many are not! Sometimes our plate has nothing but vegetables, twenty-four hours of celery, carrots, and squash. Apparently God knows we need some strength, and though the portion may be hard to swallow, isn’t it for our own good? All are important and all are from God. Romans 8:28 says, “We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love Him.”
The next time your plate has a portion you find hard to swallow, talk to God about it. Jesus did. In the garden of Gethsemane His Father handed Him a cup of suffering so sour, so vile, that Jesus handed it back to heaven.
“My Father,” He prayed, “if it is possible may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Mark 14:36).
from The Great House of God
Isaiah 17
A Message concerning Damascus:
“Watch this: Damascus undone as a city,
a pile of dust and rubble!
Her towns emptied of people.
The sheep and goats will move in
And take over the towns
as if they owned them—which they will!
Not a sign of a fort is left in Ephraim,
not a trace of government left in Damascus.
What’s left of Aram?
The same as what’s left of Israel—not much.”
Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
4-6 “The Day is coming when Jacob’s robust splendor goes pale
and his well-fed body turns skinny.
The country will be left empty, picked clean
as a field harvested by field hands.
She’ll be like a few stalks of barley left standing
in the lush Valley of Rephaim after harvest,
Or like the couple of ripe olives overlooked
in the top of the olive tree,
Or the four or five apples
that the pickers couldn’t reach in the orchard.”
Decree of the God of Israel.
7-8 Yes, the Day is coming when people will notice The One Who Made Them, take a long hard look at The Holy of Israel. They’ll lose interest in all the stuff they’ve made—altars and monuments and rituals, their homemade, handmade religion—however impressive it is.
9 And yes, the Day is coming when their fortress cities will be abandoned—the very same cities that the Hivites and Amorites abandoned when Israel invaded! And the country will be empty, desolate.
10-11 And why? Because you have forgotten God-Your-Salvation,
not remembered your Rock-of-Refuge.
And so, even though you are very religious,
planting all sorts of bushes and herbs and trees
to honor and influence your fertility gods,
And even though you make them grow so well,
bursting with buds and sprouts and blossoms,
Nothing will come of them. Instead of a harvest
you’ll get nothing but grief and pain, pain, pain.
12-13 Oh my! Thunder! A thundering herd of people!
Thunder like the crashing of ocean waves!
Nations roaring, roaring,
like the roar of a massive waterfall,
Roaring like a deafening Niagara!
But God will silence them with a word,
And then he’ll blow them away like dead leaves off a tree,
like down from a thistle.
14 At bedtime, terror fills the air.
By morning it’s gone—not a sign of it anywhere!
This is what happens to those who would ruin us,
this is the fate of those out to get us.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:John 20:11–18
Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tombq 12 and saw two angels in white,r seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”s
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”t 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there,u but she did not realize that it was Jesus.v
15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?w Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic,x “Rabboni!”y (which means “Teacher”).
17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothersz and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Fathera and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
18 Mary Magdaleneb went to the disciplesc with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Insight
The name Mary is the English rendering of the Greek Maria or Mariam (from the Hebrew Miriam) and was one of the most common female names in New Testament times. The first Mary we meet is the mother of Jesus (Matthew 1:16). Other women bearing this name include Mary of Bethany, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (John 11:1–12:8; Luke 10:38–41); Mary, the mother of James (Mark 15:40); Mary, the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:12); Mary, the wife of Clopas (John 19:25); Mary of Rome (Romans 16:6); and Mary Magdalene, who is featured in John 20:11–18. All the gospel writers place this Mary at Jesus’ death or resurrection or both (Matthew 27:56–61; 28:1–10; Mark 15:40, 47; 16:1; Luke 24:10; John 20:1, 18).
Grief Overturned
I have seen the Lord! John 20:18
According to Jim and Jamie Dutcher, filmmakers known for their knowledge of wolves, when happy, wolves wag their tails and romp about. But after the death of a pack member, they grieve for weeks. They visit the place where the pack member died, showing grief by their drooping tails and mournful howls.
Grief is a powerful emotion we’ve all experienced, particularly at the death of a loved one or of a treasured hope. Mary Magdalene experienced it. She’d traveled with and helped support Jesus and His disciples (Luke 8:1–3). But His cruel death on a cross separated them. The only thing left for Mary to do for Jesus was to finish anointing His body for burial—a task the Sabbath had interrupted. But imagine how Mary felt when she found not a lifeless, broken body but a living Savior! Though she hadn’t at first recognized the man standing before her, when He spoke her name, she knew who He was—Jesus! Instantly, grief turned to joy. Mary now had joyful news to share: “I have seen the Lord!” (John 20:18).
Jesus entered our dark world to bring freedom and life. His resurrection celebrates that He accomplished what He set out to do. Watch the devotional video, “Jesus, the Resurrection,” to learn more about the joy of a new life in Christ. We too can celebrate His resurrection and share the good news: He’s alive! By: Linda Washington
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Complete and Effective Dominion
Death no longer has dominion over Him.…the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God… —Romans 6:9-11
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8)— not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life— “…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to “let go.” But any effort to “hang on” to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 19-21; Luke 11:29-54
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Ephesians 3 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: Put on Christ
Scripture often describes our behavior as the clothes we wear. In 1 Peter 5:5, Peter urges us to be "clothed with humility." David speaks of evil people who clothe themselves "with cursing." Garments can symbolize character, and like His garment, Jesus' character was seamless. The character of Jesus was a seamless fabric woven from heaven to earth-from God's thoughts to Jesus' actions. From God's tears to Jesus' compassion. From God's word to Jesus' response. All one piece. A picture of the character of Jesus.
But when Christ was nailed to the cross, He took off His robe of seamless perfection and assumed a different wardrobe. He wore our sin so we could wear His righteousness.
From He Chose the Nail
Ephesians 3
This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you’re familiar with the part I was given in God’s plan for including everybody. I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.
4-6 As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.
7-8 This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
8-10 And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!
11-13 All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!
14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 21:15–19
Jesus Reinstates Peter
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”o
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”p
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”q
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?”r He said, “Lord, you know all things;s you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.t 18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of deathu by which Peter would glorify God.v Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
Insight
Some scholars speculate that John 21, while fully inspired and no doubt written by John, was actually written later and added to the original first twenty chapters. Clearly, the ending of chapter 20 could serve as an adequate conclusion to John’s gospel record. Commentators suggest one purpose for adding chapter 21 as a “second” ending is to show how Jesus restores Peter after his denial. Additionally, verses 20–23 clarify a misunderstanding about Christ’s return. When Jesus told Peter that it shouldn’t be his concern if John were to live until He returns, people drew false conclusions. So John wrote: “Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?’ ” (v. 23).
Feed My Sheep
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” John 21:16
In a lecture in 1911, Oswald Chambers reflected on being a young shepherd in the highlands of Scotland: “When you have to carry across your shoulders a dirty old [goat] and bring it down the mountain-side, you will soon know whether shepherding is poetry or not.” He didn’t want to romanticize this form of labor as “poetry” but rather called it “the most taxing, the most exhausting, and the most exasperating work.” The hard work of shepherding people is what Jesus entrusted to Peter, for Peter would face criticism, misunderstanding, and other challenges in caring for His flock.
Chambers reflected, “To whom did He say, ‘Feed My lambs’? To Peter. Who was Peter? A very wayward sheep.” Even though Peter had denied knowing Jesus (see John 18:15–27), Jesus met him on the beach and lovingly restored him in front of the other disciples (21:15–19). Peter’s bitter experience taught him how to be tender and watchful over the Lord’s sheep. Having received the Holy Spirit, he was ready for the toil and joys of being a shepherd to people.
Like Peter, we may have failed Jesus through denials, wrongdoing, selfishness, or pride. But He seeks us out and forgives us, just as He did Peter. Watch Meno Kalisher’s, Daniel Kalisher’s, and Debby Nalbandian’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Mission,” and learn more about God’s forgiveness and restoration. He restores us and gives us a new commission—helping us care for others. As we follow Jesus, we share our love for Him with those we meet. By: Amy Boucher Pye
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Complete and Effective Divinity
If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection… —Romans 6:5
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.
The idea all through the apostle Paul’s writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God— His complete and effective divinity— to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house— He invades all of it. And once I decide that my “old man” (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to “reckon” that I am actually “dead indeed to sin,” because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness— the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 17-18; Luke 11:1-28
Scripture often describes our behavior as the clothes we wear. In 1 Peter 5:5, Peter urges us to be "clothed with humility." David speaks of evil people who clothe themselves "with cursing." Garments can symbolize character, and like His garment, Jesus' character was seamless. The character of Jesus was a seamless fabric woven from heaven to earth-from God's thoughts to Jesus' actions. From God's tears to Jesus' compassion. From God's word to Jesus' response. All one piece. A picture of the character of Jesus.
But when Christ was nailed to the cross, He took off His robe of seamless perfection and assumed a different wardrobe. He wore our sin so we could wear His righteousness.
From He Chose the Nail
Ephesians 3
This is why I, Paul, am in jail for Christ, having taken up the cause of you outsiders, so-called. I take it that you’re familiar with the part I was given in God’s plan for including everybody. I got the inside story on this from God himself, as I just wrote you in brief.
4-6 As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.
7-8 This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
8-10 And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!
11-13 All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!
14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 21:15–19
Jesus Reinstates Peter
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”o
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”p
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”q
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?”r He said, “Lord, you know all things;s you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.t 18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of deathu by which Peter would glorify God.v Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
Insight
Some scholars speculate that John 21, while fully inspired and no doubt written by John, was actually written later and added to the original first twenty chapters. Clearly, the ending of chapter 20 could serve as an adequate conclusion to John’s gospel record. Commentators suggest one purpose for adding chapter 21 as a “second” ending is to show how Jesus restores Peter after his denial. Additionally, verses 20–23 clarify a misunderstanding about Christ’s return. When Jesus told Peter that it shouldn’t be his concern if John were to live until He returns, people drew false conclusions. So John wrote: “Because of this, the rumor spread among the believers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?’ ” (v. 23).
Feed My Sheep
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” John 21:16
In a lecture in 1911, Oswald Chambers reflected on being a young shepherd in the highlands of Scotland: “When you have to carry across your shoulders a dirty old [goat] and bring it down the mountain-side, you will soon know whether shepherding is poetry or not.” He didn’t want to romanticize this form of labor as “poetry” but rather called it “the most taxing, the most exhausting, and the most exasperating work.” The hard work of shepherding people is what Jesus entrusted to Peter, for Peter would face criticism, misunderstanding, and other challenges in caring for His flock.
Chambers reflected, “To whom did He say, ‘Feed My lambs’? To Peter. Who was Peter? A very wayward sheep.” Even though Peter had denied knowing Jesus (see John 18:15–27), Jesus met him on the beach and lovingly restored him in front of the other disciples (21:15–19). Peter’s bitter experience taught him how to be tender and watchful over the Lord’s sheep. Having received the Holy Spirit, he was ready for the toil and joys of being a shepherd to people.
Like Peter, we may have failed Jesus through denials, wrongdoing, selfishness, or pride. But He seeks us out and forgives us, just as He did Peter. Watch Meno Kalisher’s, Daniel Kalisher’s, and Debby Nalbandian’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Mission,” and learn more about God’s forgiveness and restoration. He restores us and gives us a new commission—helping us care for others. As we follow Jesus, we share our love for Him with those we meet. By: Amy Boucher Pye
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Complete and Effective Divinity
If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection… —Romans 6:5
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.
The idea all through the apostle Paul’s writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God— His complete and effective divinity— to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house— He invades all of it. And once I decide that my “old man” (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to “reckon” that I am actually “dead indeed to sin,” because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness— the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 17-18; Luke 11:1-28
Friday, April 10, 2020
Isaiah 16, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: A LESSON IN TRUST
In one of Henri Nouwen’s books, he tells about the lesson of trust he learned from a great trapeze artist. The acrobat said, “The flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. I have simply to reach out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron.” The flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”
In the great trapeze act of salvation, God is the catcher, and we are the flyers. We trust. Period. We rely solely upon God’s ability to catch us. And as we trust him, a wonderful thing happens– we fly! Your Father has never dropped anyone. He will not drop you. His grip is sturdy and his hands are open. Place yourself entirely in his care. As you do, you will find it is possible, yes possible, to be anxious for nothing!
Isaiah 16
“Dispatch a gift of lambs,” says Moab,
“to the leaders in Jerusalem—
Lambs from Sela sent across the desert
to buy the goodwill of Jerusalem.
The towns and people of Moab
are at a loss,
New-hatched birds knocked from the nest,
fluttering helplessly
At the banks of the Arnon River,
unable to cross:
‘Tell us what to do,
help us out!
Protect us,
hide us!
Give the refugees from Moab
sanctuary with you.
Be a safe place for those on the run
from the killing fields.’”
4-5 “When this is all over,” Judah answers,
“the tyrant toppled,
The killing at an end,
all signs of these cruelties long gone,
A new government of love will be established
in the venerable David tradition.
A Ruler you can depend upon
will head this government,
A Ruler passionate for justice,
a Ruler quick to set things right.”
6-12 We’ve heard—everyone’s heard!—of Moab’s pride,
world-famous for pride—
Arrogant, self-important, insufferable,
full of hot air.
So now let Moab lament for a change,
with antiphonal mock-laments from the neighbors!
What a shame! How terrible!
No more fine fruitcakes and Kir-hareseth candies!
All those lush Heshbon fields dried up,
the rich Sibmah vineyards withered!
Foreign thugs have crushed and torn out
the famous grapevines
That once reached all the way to Jazer,
right to the edge of the desert,
Ripped out the crops in every direction
as far as the eye can see.
I’ll join the weeping. I’ll weep right along with Jazer,
weep for the Sibmah vineyards.
And yes, Heshbon and Elealeh,
I’ll mingle my tears with your tears!
The joyful shouting at harvest is gone.
Instead of song and celebration, dead silence.
No more boisterous laughter in the orchards,
no more hearty work songs in the vineyards.
Instead of the bustle and sound of good work in the fields,
silence—deathly and deadening silence.
My heartstrings throb like harp strings for Moab,
my soul in sympathy for sad Kir-heres.
When Moab trudges to the shrine to pray,
he wastes both time and energy.
Going to the sanctuary and praying for relief
is useless. Nothing ever happens.
13-14 This is God’s earlier Message on Moab. God’s updated Message is, “In three years, no longer than the term of an enlisted soldier, Moab’s impressive presence will be gone, that splendid hot-air balloon will be punctured, and instead of a vigorous population, just a few shuffling bums cadging handouts.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, April 10, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Mark 15:33–41
The Death of Jesus
At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.z 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).b a
35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36 Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar,b put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.c
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.d 39 And when the centurion,e who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died,c he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”f
40 Some women were watching from a distance.g Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph,d and Salome.h 41 In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.
Insight
Who were the women who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion? Among the “many” women there, Mark lists three by name: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome (Mark 15:40–41). Mary Magdalene was from the fishing village of Magdala and had been cured of seven evil spirits by Jesus (Luke 8:1–2). She was also one of the women set free from diseases and evil spirits who helped “to support [Jesus and His disciples] out of their own means” (v. 3; see also Mark 15:41). The other Mary is the mother of James and Joseph, which indicates that her sons were probably well known in the believing community. Salome was most likely the wife of Zebedee and mother of Jesus’ disciples James and John (see Matthew 27:56). The gospel of John states that three Marys witnessed the crucifixion: Jesus’ mother, His mother’s sister (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene (19:25).
Standing Firm
Stand firm. Let nothing move you. 1 Corinthians 15:58
In the Middle Eastern country where they live, Adrian and his family suffer persecution for their faith. Yet, through it all, they demonstrate Christ’s love. Standing in his church courtyard, which was pummeled by bullets when terrorists used it as training ground, he said, “Today is Good Friday. We remember that Jesus suffered for us on the cross.” And suffering, he continued, is something that believers in Jesus there understand. But his family chooses to remain in their homeland: “We’re still here, still standing.”
These believers follow the example of the women who stood watching as Jesus died on the cross (Mark 15:40). They—including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and Salome—were brave to stay there, for friends and family members of an enemy of the state could be ridiculed and punished. Yet the women showed their love for Jesus by their very presence with Him. Even as they “followed him and cared for his needs” in Galilee (v. 41), they stood with Him at His hour of deepest need.
On this day when we remember the greatest gift of our Savior, His death on a cross, take a moment to consider how we can stand for Jesus as we face trials of many kinds (see James 2:2–4). Think too about our fellow believers around the world who suffer for their faith. As Adrian asked, “Can you please stand with us in your prayers?” Watch Moti Vaknin’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Divine,” to learn more about Christ’s death and resurrection. By: Amy Boucher Pye
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, April 10, 2020
Complete and Effective Decision About Sin
…our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. —Romans 6:6
Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin—that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you– not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified— just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.
Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, “Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me.” Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.
This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life— to see the very things that struggle against God’s Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God’s verdict on the nature of sin— that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin” (Romans 6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.
Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are all based on a conception of importance, either our own importance, or the importance of someone else; Jesus tells us to go and teach based on the revelation of His importance. “All power is given unto Me.… Go ye therefore ….” So Send I You, 1325 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 15-16; Luke 10:25-42
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, April 10, 2020
When the Passion Becomes Personal - #8675
Twenty-three marks on the wall of his four-by-four prison cell told the story. It had just been three weeks since the soldiers captured him - the number one name on the Most Wanted List - at a local bar and they hauled him into this cell. The charges were robbery, treason, and murder. Day 23 was going to be just another day there, or so he thought until he heard the growing sounds of that angry mob outside the window above him. He managed to grab the bars on the window and pull himself up high enough to hear what the crowd was screaming. It was a combination of shock and fear that swept over him when he heard they were shouting his name! "Give us Ba-rabbas! Give us Ba-rabbas!"
Then the chant gradually began to change. Now they were shouting with this bloodthirsty anger, "Cru-ci-fy him! Cru-ci-fy him!" Barabbas slumped to the floor. He couldn't believe it. He'd been their hero, but now they were calling for his execution by the most brutal means of execution ever devised - death on a cross. Within minutes, five soldiers were dragging him, kicking and screaming down the corridor, up the stone steps, and to another door. They flung the door open, pushed him through it, and slammed the door behind him.
It took a little while for him to realize where he was. He was out on the cobblestone street of Jerusalem. He was free! Before the reality could fully dawn on Barabbas, the door behind him opened again. He literally had to roll out of the way to keep from being trampled by this angry crowd pushing their way through with a bare-backed, bleeding man in the middle of them. As Barabbas plastered himself against the wall of that narrow street, he could see that man's back had been so brutally beaten it was like one gaping wound, exposing tissue and bone everywhere. Barabbas' first instinct was to run while he could, but he didn't. He followed that crowd all the way up to that skull-shaped hill just outside the city, where from a distance, he heard the hammer and the spikes that the heartless executioners of Rome were driving into that man's hands and feet.
It turned dark as night in the middle of the day and the skies opened up with a deluge of rain. Curious spectators just began to drift away. Finally, Barabbas felt safe enough to walk slowly to the top of Skull Hill, with his head covered. It was as if there was a magnet pulling him toward the man hanging on that middle cross between two other dying criminals. Barabbas had heard the man say from that cross, "Father, forgive them." He'd heard many things at crucifixions. He'd heard cursing, and screaming, and threatening, but never "forgive."
He now could recognize the face that was beaten almost beyond recognition. It was Jesus - the man who had done no wrong, whose only crime was to love those that no one else cared about. And in that moment Barabbas found himself looking up into the eyes of that man on the middle cross and saying aloud, "Jesus, you don't deserve to be there, I do. But because You're dying there, I don't have to die." I could walk up to the cross where Jesus died and say that, and so could you.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You on this Good Friday about "When the Passion Becomes Personal."
I don't know if Barabbas ever really made it to the cross, but I do know that getting to that cross to have your sins forgiven is your only hope of heaven. Our word for today from the Word of God is in Galatians 2:20, and it simply says, "The Son of God...loved me and gave Himself for me."
If you've never been to Jesus' cross and said those words, "For me. You're dying for me," this could be your personal Jesus-day. When you tell Him you are His, when every wrong thing you've ever done will be erased from God's book, because the blood shed on that cross was shed to pay for it. And when you trade hell for heaven this very day, would you tell Him, "Jesus, you're dying for what I've done. And today I am yours and from now on."
Would you make a trip to our website? It's ANewStory.com. I want to help you today be sure you've crossed over from death to life.
Jesus died for your sin so you don't have to.
In one of Henri Nouwen’s books, he tells about the lesson of trust he learned from a great trapeze artist. The acrobat said, “The flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. I have simply to reach out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron.” The flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”
In the great trapeze act of salvation, God is the catcher, and we are the flyers. We trust. Period. We rely solely upon God’s ability to catch us. And as we trust him, a wonderful thing happens– we fly! Your Father has never dropped anyone. He will not drop you. His grip is sturdy and his hands are open. Place yourself entirely in his care. As you do, you will find it is possible, yes possible, to be anxious for nothing!
Isaiah 16
“Dispatch a gift of lambs,” says Moab,
“to the leaders in Jerusalem—
Lambs from Sela sent across the desert
to buy the goodwill of Jerusalem.
The towns and people of Moab
are at a loss,
New-hatched birds knocked from the nest,
fluttering helplessly
At the banks of the Arnon River,
unable to cross:
‘Tell us what to do,
help us out!
Protect us,
hide us!
Give the refugees from Moab
sanctuary with you.
Be a safe place for those on the run
from the killing fields.’”
4-5 “When this is all over,” Judah answers,
“the tyrant toppled,
The killing at an end,
all signs of these cruelties long gone,
A new government of love will be established
in the venerable David tradition.
A Ruler you can depend upon
will head this government,
A Ruler passionate for justice,
a Ruler quick to set things right.”
6-12 We’ve heard—everyone’s heard!—of Moab’s pride,
world-famous for pride—
Arrogant, self-important, insufferable,
full of hot air.
So now let Moab lament for a change,
with antiphonal mock-laments from the neighbors!
What a shame! How terrible!
No more fine fruitcakes and Kir-hareseth candies!
All those lush Heshbon fields dried up,
the rich Sibmah vineyards withered!
Foreign thugs have crushed and torn out
the famous grapevines
That once reached all the way to Jazer,
right to the edge of the desert,
Ripped out the crops in every direction
as far as the eye can see.
I’ll join the weeping. I’ll weep right along with Jazer,
weep for the Sibmah vineyards.
And yes, Heshbon and Elealeh,
I’ll mingle my tears with your tears!
The joyful shouting at harvest is gone.
Instead of song and celebration, dead silence.
No more boisterous laughter in the orchards,
no more hearty work songs in the vineyards.
Instead of the bustle and sound of good work in the fields,
silence—deathly and deadening silence.
My heartstrings throb like harp strings for Moab,
my soul in sympathy for sad Kir-heres.
When Moab trudges to the shrine to pray,
he wastes both time and energy.
Going to the sanctuary and praying for relief
is useless. Nothing ever happens.
13-14 This is God’s earlier Message on Moab. God’s updated Message is, “In three years, no longer than the term of an enlisted soldier, Moab’s impressive presence will be gone, that splendid hot-air balloon will be punctured, and instead of a vigorous population, just a few shuffling bums cadging handouts.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, April 10, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Mark 15:33–41
The Death of Jesus
At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.z 34 And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).b a
35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”
36 Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar,b put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.
37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.c
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.d 39 And when the centurion,e who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died,c he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”f
40 Some women were watching from a distance.g Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph,d and Salome.h 41 In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.
Insight
Who were the women who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion? Among the “many” women there, Mark lists three by name: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph, and Salome (Mark 15:40–41). Mary Magdalene was from the fishing village of Magdala and had been cured of seven evil spirits by Jesus (Luke 8:1–2). She was also one of the women set free from diseases and evil spirits who helped “to support [Jesus and His disciples] out of their own means” (v. 3; see also Mark 15:41). The other Mary is the mother of James and Joseph, which indicates that her sons were probably well known in the believing community. Salome was most likely the wife of Zebedee and mother of Jesus’ disciples James and John (see Matthew 27:56). The gospel of John states that three Marys witnessed the crucifixion: Jesus’ mother, His mother’s sister (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene (19:25).
Standing Firm
Stand firm. Let nothing move you. 1 Corinthians 15:58
In the Middle Eastern country where they live, Adrian and his family suffer persecution for their faith. Yet, through it all, they demonstrate Christ’s love. Standing in his church courtyard, which was pummeled by bullets when terrorists used it as training ground, he said, “Today is Good Friday. We remember that Jesus suffered for us on the cross.” And suffering, he continued, is something that believers in Jesus there understand. But his family chooses to remain in their homeland: “We’re still here, still standing.”
These believers follow the example of the women who stood watching as Jesus died on the cross (Mark 15:40). They—including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and Salome—were brave to stay there, for friends and family members of an enemy of the state could be ridiculed and punished. Yet the women showed their love for Jesus by their very presence with Him. Even as they “followed him and cared for his needs” in Galilee (v. 41), they stood with Him at His hour of deepest need.
On this day when we remember the greatest gift of our Savior, His death on a cross, take a moment to consider how we can stand for Jesus as we face trials of many kinds (see James 2:2–4). Think too about our fellow believers around the world who suffer for their faith. As Adrian asked, “Can you please stand with us in your prayers?” Watch Moti Vaknin’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Divine,” to learn more about Christ’s death and resurrection. By: Amy Boucher Pye
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, April 10, 2020
Complete and Effective Decision About Sin
…our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. —Romans 6:6
Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin—that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you– not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified— just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.
Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, “Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me.” Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.
This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life— to see the very things that struggle against God’s Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God’s verdict on the nature of sin— that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin” (Romans 6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.
Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We are all based on a conception of importance, either our own importance, or the importance of someone else; Jesus tells us to go and teach based on the revelation of His importance. “All power is given unto Me.… Go ye therefore ….” So Send I You, 1325 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 15-16; Luke 10:25-42
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, April 10, 2020
When the Passion Becomes Personal - #8675
Twenty-three marks on the wall of his four-by-four prison cell told the story. It had just been three weeks since the soldiers captured him - the number one name on the Most Wanted List - at a local bar and they hauled him into this cell. The charges were robbery, treason, and murder. Day 23 was going to be just another day there, or so he thought until he heard the growing sounds of that angry mob outside the window above him. He managed to grab the bars on the window and pull himself up high enough to hear what the crowd was screaming. It was a combination of shock and fear that swept over him when he heard they were shouting his name! "Give us Ba-rabbas! Give us Ba-rabbas!"
Then the chant gradually began to change. Now they were shouting with this bloodthirsty anger, "Cru-ci-fy him! Cru-ci-fy him!" Barabbas slumped to the floor. He couldn't believe it. He'd been their hero, but now they were calling for his execution by the most brutal means of execution ever devised - death on a cross. Within minutes, five soldiers were dragging him, kicking and screaming down the corridor, up the stone steps, and to another door. They flung the door open, pushed him through it, and slammed the door behind him.
It took a little while for him to realize where he was. He was out on the cobblestone street of Jerusalem. He was free! Before the reality could fully dawn on Barabbas, the door behind him opened again. He literally had to roll out of the way to keep from being trampled by this angry crowd pushing their way through with a bare-backed, bleeding man in the middle of them. As Barabbas plastered himself against the wall of that narrow street, he could see that man's back had been so brutally beaten it was like one gaping wound, exposing tissue and bone everywhere. Barabbas' first instinct was to run while he could, but he didn't. He followed that crowd all the way up to that skull-shaped hill just outside the city, where from a distance, he heard the hammer and the spikes that the heartless executioners of Rome were driving into that man's hands and feet.
It turned dark as night in the middle of the day and the skies opened up with a deluge of rain. Curious spectators just began to drift away. Finally, Barabbas felt safe enough to walk slowly to the top of Skull Hill, with his head covered. It was as if there was a magnet pulling him toward the man hanging on that middle cross between two other dying criminals. Barabbas had heard the man say from that cross, "Father, forgive them." He'd heard many things at crucifixions. He'd heard cursing, and screaming, and threatening, but never "forgive."
He now could recognize the face that was beaten almost beyond recognition. It was Jesus - the man who had done no wrong, whose only crime was to love those that no one else cared about. And in that moment Barabbas found himself looking up into the eyes of that man on the middle cross and saying aloud, "Jesus, you don't deserve to be there, I do. But because You're dying there, I don't have to die." I could walk up to the cross where Jesus died and say that, and so could you.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You on this Good Friday about "When the Passion Becomes Personal."
I don't know if Barabbas ever really made it to the cross, but I do know that getting to that cross to have your sins forgiven is your only hope of heaven. Our word for today from the Word of God is in Galatians 2:20, and it simply says, "The Son of God...loved me and gave Himself for me."
If you've never been to Jesus' cross and said those words, "For me. You're dying for me," this could be your personal Jesus-day. When you tell Him you are His, when every wrong thing you've ever done will be erased from God's book, because the blood shed on that cross was shed to pay for it. And when you trade hell for heaven this very day, would you tell Him, "Jesus, you're dying for what I've done. And today I am yours and from now on."
Would you make a trip to our website? It's ANewStory.com. I want to help you today be sure you've crossed over from death to life.
Jesus died for your sin so you don't have to.
Thursday, April 9, 2020
Isaiah 15 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: BUT GOD IS GOOD
There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. Your future matters more than your past! God’s grace is greater than your sin. You thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, your job. In reality, it’s this unresolved guilt! Don’t indulge it. Don’t drown in the bilge of your own condemnation. What you did was not good. But your God is good. And He will forgive you.
He is ready to write a new chapter in your life. Say with Paul, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14). Your salvation has nothing to do with your work and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross. Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy!
Isaiah 15
A Message concerning Moab:
Village Ar of Moab is in ruins,
destroyed in a night raid.
Village Kir of Moab is in ruins,
destroyed in a night raid.
Village Dibon climbs to its chapel in the hills,
goes up to lament.
Moab weeps and wails
over Nebo and Medba.
Every head is shaved bald,
every beard shaved clean.
They pour into the streets wearing black,
go up on the roofs, take to the town square,
Everyone in tears,
everyone in grief.
Towns Heshbon and Elealeh cry long and loud.
The sound carries as far as Jahaz.
Moab sobs, shaking in grief.
The soul of Moab trembles.
5-9 Oh, how I grieve for Moab!
Refugees stream to Zoar
and then on to Eglath-shelishiyah.
Up the slopes of Luhith they weep;
on the road to Horonaim they cry their loss.
The springs of Nimrim are dried up—
grass brown, buds stunted, nothing grows.
They leave, carrying all their possessions
on their backs, everything they own,
Making their way as best they can
across Willow Creek to safety.
Poignant cries reverberate
all through Moab,
Gut-wrenching sobs as far as Eglaim,
heart-racking sobs all the way to Beer-elim.
The banks of the Dibon crest with blood,
but God has worse in store for Dibon:
A lion—a lion to finish off the fugitives,
to clean up whoever’s left in the land.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Mark 10:26–31
The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”d
28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”e
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as muchf in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to comeg eternal life.h 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Insight
A wealthy young man approached Jesus trusting that his good works had earned him a place in heaven (Mark 10:17–20). Correcting him, Jesus told him to give up his material wealth and to follow Him in order to receive “treasure in heaven” (v. 21). This got the disciples thinking. They’d left their families and professions to follow Christ (Matthew 4:18–22; 9:9). Peter said to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you!” (Mark 10:28). Jesus affirmed that they’d certainly be rewarded for their sacrifices and they’ll have the very thing the rich young ruler desired—“eternal life” (vv. 17, 30). But He also warned them of the danger of pride (v. 31). They weren’t to think of themselves as “greatest” in the kingdom (9:33–34) because of their sacrifices and achievements and for following Him longer than anyone else.
Surrendering All
Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!” Mark 10:28
Two men remembered for serving others for Jesus left careers in the arts to commit themselves to where they believed God had called them. James O. Fraser (1886–1938) decided not to pursue being a concert pianist in England to serve the Lisu people in China, while the American Judson Van DeVenter (1855–1939) chose to become an evangelist instead of pursuing a career in art. He later wrote the hymn “I Surrender All.”
While having a vocation in the arts is the perfect calling for many, these men believed God called them to relinquish one career for another. Perhaps they found inspiration from Jesus counseling the rich, young ruler to give up his possessions to follow Him (Mark 10:17–25). Witnessing the exchange, Peter exclaimed, “We have left everything to follow you!” (v. 28). Jesus assured him that God would give those who follow Him “a hundred times as much in this present age” and eternal life (v. 30). But He would give according to His wisdom: “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (v. 31).
No matter where God has placed us, we’re called to daily surrender our lives to Christ, obeying His gentle call to follow Him and serve Him with our talents and resources—whether in the home, office, community, or far from home. Watch Annahita Parsan’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Revolutionary.” She surrendered to God’s call to share the gospel in Sweden. As we submit to His call, He’ll also inspire us to love others. By: Amy Boucher Pye
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Have You Seen Jesus?
After that, He appeared in another form to two of them… —Mark 16:12
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many people who have never seen Jesus have received and share in God’s grace. But once you have seen Him, you can never be the same. Other things will not have the appeal they did before.
You should always recognize the difference between what you see Jesus to be and what He has done for you. If you see only what He has done for you, your God is not big enough. But if you have had a vision, seeing Jesus as He really is, experiences can come and go, yet you will endure “as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). The man who was blind from birth did not know who Jesus was until Christ appeared and revealed Himself to him (see John 9). Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something, but we cannot order or predict when He will come. He may appear suddenly, at any turn. Then you can exclaim, “Now I see Him!” (see John 9:25).
Jesus must appear to you and to your friend individually; no one can see Jesus with your eyes. And division takes place when one has seen Him and the other has not. You cannot bring your friend to the point of seeing; God must do it. Have you seen Jesus? If so, you will want others to see Him too. “And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either” (Mark 16:13). When you see Him, you must tell, even if they don’t believe.
O could I tell, you surely would believe it!
O could I only say what I have seen!
How should I tell or how can you receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment.
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 13-14; Luke 10:1-24
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Battlefield Blindness - #8674
"Embedded reporters." It was a concept I had never heard of until Operation Iraqi Freedom years ago. But the U.S. Military decided to allow reporters to actually travel with and report from active combat units, fighting for the liberation of Iraq back then. The result was these amazing live transmissions from sandstorms, rapid troop movements, actual combat in progress, and even the takeover of some of Saddam Hussein's palaces. It was the ultimate in reality TV. Of course, it had one disadvantage; one that briefers and Pentagon officials kept reminding people of. The embedded reporter could only report on the small slice of the big picture that he was able to see from his unit's vantage point. A seasoned military observer expressed it this way on television: "The closer you are to the battle, the less you can see the whole war."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Battlefield Blindness."
That tendency to see only the battle right in front of you is not unique to military campaigns. It's a regular occurrence in our everyday lives. Maybe you're in the middle of some battles of your own right now, in your marriage, the life of your child, in your church, or maybe with your health or your finances or an important relationship. And just like those in the military situation who become totally focused on the fraction they can see, the closer you are to the battle, the less you can see the whole war. Which can lead to some hurtful mistakes: overconfidence, discouragement, overreaction, panic, even retreat or surrender.
Moses was facing one of those moments of battlefield blindness in our word for today from the Word of God. In Exodus 17, beginning with verse 3, we discover God's remedy for this nearsightedness that battles can cause. As Moses was leading God's people through the wilderness, they faced a crisis of having no water. And they were verbally and emotionally beating up on their leader pretty badly and even getting so ugly they were on the brink of stoning him.
The Bible says, "They grumbled against Moses. They said, 'Why did you bring us out of Egypt to makes us and our children...die of thirst?'" Talk about battlefield blindness. "Then Moses cried out to the Lord, 'What am I to do with these people?'" Ever felt that way yourself? Haven't we all? "What am I going to do with these people?" Well, listen to the Lord's wise advice to Moses and to you and me. "The Lord answered Moses, 'Walk on ahead of the people.'" As Moses did that, God revealed to him that by striking a certain rock, water would come out for the people. And that is exactly what happened.
Notice the principle here: as long as you're totally focused on the current battle, you probably won't be able to see God's big picture. You have to "walk on ahead of the people." Take some time away. Get some distance. Breathe! Be in a place where the only voice you're listening to is God's voice. You've been so focused on your child's problems, your mate's problems, the contentious issues, the difficult people, the physical struggles. You're not able to see the big picture of what God's trying to do and what part He wants you to play in it.
Battlefield nearsightedness can also blind us to how far we've come. We're obsessed with how far we still have to go, and it can blind us to how far someone else has come, too. We can only see how far they have to go. And battlefield blindness gives us spiritual amnesia. It makes us forget what an awesome God we have and the mighty things He's done for us in all those past battles. So many of yesterday's mountains are today's monuments to the power of God, to the faithfulness of God.
So take a step back. Walk on ahead of the battle for a little while and God will show you some answers that you would never see in the middle of the battle.
There’s a reason the windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror. Your future matters more than your past! God’s grace is greater than your sin. You thought the problem was your calendar, your marriage, your job. In reality, it’s this unresolved guilt! Don’t indulge it. Don’t drown in the bilge of your own condemnation. What you did was not good. But your God is good. And He will forgive you.
He is ready to write a new chapter in your life. Say with Paul, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us” (Philippians 3:13-14). Your salvation has nothing to do with your work and everything to do with the finished work of Christ on the cross. Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy!
Isaiah 15
A Message concerning Moab:
Village Ar of Moab is in ruins,
destroyed in a night raid.
Village Kir of Moab is in ruins,
destroyed in a night raid.
Village Dibon climbs to its chapel in the hills,
goes up to lament.
Moab weeps and wails
over Nebo and Medba.
Every head is shaved bald,
every beard shaved clean.
They pour into the streets wearing black,
go up on the roofs, take to the town square,
Everyone in tears,
everyone in grief.
Towns Heshbon and Elealeh cry long and loud.
The sound carries as far as Jahaz.
Moab sobs, shaking in grief.
The soul of Moab trembles.
5-9 Oh, how I grieve for Moab!
Refugees stream to Zoar
and then on to Eglath-shelishiyah.
Up the slopes of Luhith they weep;
on the road to Horonaim they cry their loss.
The springs of Nimrim are dried up—
grass brown, buds stunted, nothing grows.
They leave, carrying all their possessions
on their backs, everything they own,
Making their way as best they can
across Willow Creek to safety.
Poignant cries reverberate
all through Moab,
Gut-wrenching sobs as far as Eglaim,
heart-racking sobs all the way to Beer-elim.
The banks of the Dibon crest with blood,
but God has worse in store for Dibon:
A lion—a lion to finish off the fugitives,
to clean up whoever’s left in the land.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight:
Mark 10:26–31
The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”d
28 Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”e
29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as muchf in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to comeg eternal life.h 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Insight
A wealthy young man approached Jesus trusting that his good works had earned him a place in heaven (Mark 10:17–20). Correcting him, Jesus told him to give up his material wealth and to follow Him in order to receive “treasure in heaven” (v. 21). This got the disciples thinking. They’d left their families and professions to follow Christ (Matthew 4:18–22; 9:9). Peter said to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you!” (Mark 10:28). Jesus affirmed that they’d certainly be rewarded for their sacrifices and they’ll have the very thing the rich young ruler desired—“eternal life” (vv. 17, 30). But He also warned them of the danger of pride (v. 31). They weren’t to think of themselves as “greatest” in the kingdom (9:33–34) because of their sacrifices and achievements and for following Him longer than anyone else.
Surrendering All
Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!” Mark 10:28
Two men remembered for serving others for Jesus left careers in the arts to commit themselves to where they believed God had called them. James O. Fraser (1886–1938) decided not to pursue being a concert pianist in England to serve the Lisu people in China, while the American Judson Van DeVenter (1855–1939) chose to become an evangelist instead of pursuing a career in art. He later wrote the hymn “I Surrender All.”
While having a vocation in the arts is the perfect calling for many, these men believed God called them to relinquish one career for another. Perhaps they found inspiration from Jesus counseling the rich, young ruler to give up his possessions to follow Him (Mark 10:17–25). Witnessing the exchange, Peter exclaimed, “We have left everything to follow you!” (v. 28). Jesus assured him that God would give those who follow Him “a hundred times as much in this present age” and eternal life (v. 30). But He would give according to His wisdom: “Many who are first will be last, and the last first” (v. 31).
No matter where God has placed us, we’re called to daily surrender our lives to Christ, obeying His gentle call to follow Him and serve Him with our talents and resources—whether in the home, office, community, or far from home. Watch Annahita Parsan’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Revolutionary.” She surrendered to God’s call to share the gospel in Sweden. As we submit to His call, He’ll also inspire us to love others. By: Amy Boucher Pye
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Have You Seen Jesus?
After that, He appeared in another form to two of them… —Mark 16:12
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many people who have never seen Jesus have received and share in God’s grace. But once you have seen Him, you can never be the same. Other things will not have the appeal they did before.
You should always recognize the difference between what you see Jesus to be and what He has done for you. If you see only what He has done for you, your God is not big enough. But if you have had a vision, seeing Jesus as He really is, experiences can come and go, yet you will endure “as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). The man who was blind from birth did not know who Jesus was until Christ appeared and revealed Himself to him (see John 9). Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something, but we cannot order or predict when He will come. He may appear suddenly, at any turn. Then you can exclaim, “Now I see Him!” (see John 9:25).
Jesus must appear to you and to your friend individually; no one can see Jesus with your eyes. And division takes place when one has seen Him and the other has not. You cannot bring your friend to the point of seeing; God must do it. Have you seen Jesus? If so, you will want others to see Him too. “And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either” (Mark 16:13). When you see Him, you must tell, even if they don’t believe.
O could I tell, you surely would believe it!
O could I only say what I have seen!
How should I tell or how can you receive it,
How, till He bringeth you where I have been?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
We never enter into the Kingdom of God by having our head questions answered, but only by commitment.
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 13-14; Luke 10:1-24
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Battlefield Blindness - #8674
"Embedded reporters." It was a concept I had never heard of until Operation Iraqi Freedom years ago. But the U.S. Military decided to allow reporters to actually travel with and report from active combat units, fighting for the liberation of Iraq back then. The result was these amazing live transmissions from sandstorms, rapid troop movements, actual combat in progress, and even the takeover of some of Saddam Hussein's palaces. It was the ultimate in reality TV. Of course, it had one disadvantage; one that briefers and Pentagon officials kept reminding people of. The embedded reporter could only report on the small slice of the big picture that he was able to see from his unit's vantage point. A seasoned military observer expressed it this way on television: "The closer you are to the battle, the less you can see the whole war."
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Battlefield Blindness."
That tendency to see only the battle right in front of you is not unique to military campaigns. It's a regular occurrence in our everyday lives. Maybe you're in the middle of some battles of your own right now, in your marriage, the life of your child, in your church, or maybe with your health or your finances or an important relationship. And just like those in the military situation who become totally focused on the fraction they can see, the closer you are to the battle, the less you can see the whole war. Which can lead to some hurtful mistakes: overconfidence, discouragement, overreaction, panic, even retreat or surrender.
Moses was facing one of those moments of battlefield blindness in our word for today from the Word of God. In Exodus 17, beginning with verse 3, we discover God's remedy for this nearsightedness that battles can cause. As Moses was leading God's people through the wilderness, they faced a crisis of having no water. And they were verbally and emotionally beating up on their leader pretty badly and even getting so ugly they were on the brink of stoning him.
The Bible says, "They grumbled against Moses. They said, 'Why did you bring us out of Egypt to makes us and our children...die of thirst?'" Talk about battlefield blindness. "Then Moses cried out to the Lord, 'What am I to do with these people?'" Ever felt that way yourself? Haven't we all? "What am I going to do with these people?" Well, listen to the Lord's wise advice to Moses and to you and me. "The Lord answered Moses, 'Walk on ahead of the people.'" As Moses did that, God revealed to him that by striking a certain rock, water would come out for the people. And that is exactly what happened.
Notice the principle here: as long as you're totally focused on the current battle, you probably won't be able to see God's big picture. You have to "walk on ahead of the people." Take some time away. Get some distance. Breathe! Be in a place where the only voice you're listening to is God's voice. You've been so focused on your child's problems, your mate's problems, the contentious issues, the difficult people, the physical struggles. You're not able to see the big picture of what God's trying to do and what part He wants you to play in it.
Battlefield nearsightedness can also blind us to how far we've come. We're obsessed with how far we still have to go, and it can blind us to how far someone else has come, too. We can only see how far they have to go. And battlefield blindness gives us spiritual amnesia. It makes us forget what an awesome God we have and the mighty things He's done for us in all those past battles. So many of yesterday's mountains are today's monuments to the power of God, to the faithfulness of God.
So take a step back. Walk on ahead of the battle for a little while and God will show you some answers that you would never see in the middle of the battle.
Wednesday, April 8, 2020
Isaiah 14, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: HE TOOK MY SIN
Denalyn and I had enjoyed a nice dinner at a local restaurant. As we received our bill, a church member spotted us and came over. After we chatted a few moments, he took our bill. “I’ll take this,” he said. Guess what? I let him do what he wanted to do. I let him take it away.
Someday we will stand before God. All of us will be present. All of us will have to give an account for our lives. Every thought, every deed, every action. Were it not for the grace of Christ, I would find this to be a very terrifying thought. Yet, according to Scripture, Jesus came to “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). On that day, I will point to Christ. When my list of sins is produced, I will gesture toward him and say, “He took it.” Let him take yours!
Isaiah 14
But not so with Jacob. God will have compassion on Jacob. Once again he’ll choose Israel. He’ll establish them in their own country. Outsiders will be attracted and throw their lot in with Jacob. The nations among whom they lived will actually escort them back home, and then Israel will pay them back by making slaves of them, men and women alike, possessing them as slaves in God’s country, capturing those who had captured them, ruling over those who had abused them.
3-4 When God has given you time to recover from the abuse and trouble and harsh servitude that you had to endure, you can amuse yourselves by taking up this satire, a taunt against the king of Babylon:
4-6 Can you believe it? The tyrant is gone!
The tyranny is over!
God has broken the rule of the wicked,
the power of the bully-rulers
That crushed many people.
A relentless rain of cruel outrage
Established a violent rule of anger
rife with torture and persecution.
7-10 And now it’s over, the whole earth quietly at rest.
Burst into song! Make the rafters ring!
Ponderosa pine trees are happy,
giant Lebanon cedars are relieved, saying,
“Since you’ve been cut down,
there’s no one around to cut us down.”
And the underworld dead are all excited,
preparing to welcome you when you come.
Getting ready to greet you are the ghostly dead,
all the famous names of earth.
All the buried kings of the nations
will stand up on their thrones
With well-prepared speeches,
royal invitations to death:
“Now you are as nothing as we are!
Make yourselves at home with us dead folks!”
11 This is where your pomp and fine music led you, Babylon,
to your underworld private chambers,
A king-size mattress of maggots for repose
and a quilt of crawling worms for warmth.
12 What a comedown this, O Babylon!
Daystar! Son of Dawn!
Flat on your face in the underworld mud,
you, famous for flattening nations!
13-14 You said to yourself,
“I’ll climb to heaven.
I’ll set my throne
over the stars of God.
I’ll run the assembly of angels
that meets on sacred Mount Zaphon.
I’ll climb to the top of the clouds.
I’ll take over as King of the Universe!”
15-17 But you didn’t make it, did you?
Instead of climbing up, you came down—
Down with the underground dead,
down to the abyss of the Pit.
People will stare and muse:
“Can this be the one
Who terrorized earth and its kingdoms,
turned earth to a moonscape,
Wasted its cities,
shut up his prisoners to a living death?”
18-20 Other kings get a decent burial,
honored with eulogies and placed in a tomb.
But you’re dumped in a ditch unburied,
like a stray dog or cat,
Covered with rotting bodies,
murdered and indigent corpses.
Your dead body desecrated, mutilated—
no state funeral for you!
You’ve left your land in ruins,
left a legacy of massacre.
The progeny of your evil life
will never be named. Oblivion!
21 Get a place ready to slaughter the sons of the wicked
and wipe out their father’s line.
Unthinkable that they should own a square foot of land
or desecrate the face of the world with their cities!
22-23 “I will confront them”—Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies—“and strip Babylon of name and survivors, children and grandchildren.” God’s Decree. “I’ll make it a worthless swamp and give it as a prize to the hedgehog. And then I’ll bulldoze it out of existence.” Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
24-27 God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:
“Exactly as I planned,
it will happen.
Following my blueprints,
it will take shape.
I will shatter the Assyrian who trespasses my land
and stomp him into the dirt on my mountains.
I will ban his taking and making of slaves
and lift the weight of oppression from all shoulders.”
This is the plan,
planned for the whole earth,
And this is the hand that will do it,
reaching into every nation.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies has planned it.
Who could ever cancel such plans?
His is the hand that’s reached out.
Who could brush it aside?
28-31 In the year King Ahaz died, this Message came:
Hold it, Philistines! It’s too soon to celebrate
the defeat of your cruel oppressor.
From the death throes of that snake a worse snake will come,
and from that, one even worse.
The poor won’t have to worry.
The needy will escape the terror.
But you Philistines will be plunged into famine,
and those who don’t starve, God will kill.
Wail and howl, proud city!
Fall prostrate in fear, Philistia!
On the northern horizon, smoke from burned cities,
the wake of a brutal, disciplined destroyer.
32 What does one say to
outsiders who ask questions?
Tell them, “God has established Zion.
Those in need and in trouble find refuge in her.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: 2 Corinthians 5:14–21
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.i 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselvesj but for him who died for themk and was raised again.
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldlyl point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,m the new creationn has come:a The old has gone, the new is here!o 18 All this is from God,p who reconciled us to himself through Christq and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.r And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors,s as though God were making his appeal through us.t We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.u 21 God made him who had no sinv to be sinb for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Insight
The Bible Knowledge Commentary says of 2 Corinthians: “No letter of Paul’s is more personal and intimate in nature than 2 Corinthians. In it he bared his soul and professed his abiding love for the Corinthians despite the apparent fickleness of their affection for him.” As such, this letter is a fascinating example of the challenges Paul experienced in leading the fledgling first-century church. He had no real template to follow and no completed scriptural authority to refer to, meaning that much of what he did was up for debate and open to question. In this particular letter, Paul’s own motives and apostolic position are on the table—with Paul having to offer a vigorous defense of his heart and his work (1:12–2:11; 11:16–12:10). At the same time, it was necessary that he confront those whose false teaching was undermining the gospel (10:7–11:15). The resulting tension gives 2 Corinthians its own unique edge.
Innocence Found
See what great love the Father has lavished on us. 1 John 3:1
“I’m not who I once was. I’m a new person.”
Those simple words from my son, spoken to students at a school assembly, describe the change God made in his life. Once addicted to heroin, Geoffrey previously saw himself through his sins and mistakes. But now he sees himself as a child of God.
The Bible encourages us with this promise: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). No matter who we’ve been or what we’ve done in our past, when we trust Jesus for our salvation and receive the forgiveness offered through His cross, we become someone new. Since the garden of Eden, the guilt of our sins separated us from God, but He has now “reconciled us to himself through Christ,” “not counting” our sins against us (vv. 18–19). We are His dearly loved children (1 John 3:1–2), washed clean and made new in the likeness of His Son.
Jesus is innocence found. He liberates us from sin and its dominating power, and restores us to a new relationship with God—where we are free to no longer live for ourselves but “for him who died for [us] and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Watch Fernando Sosa’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Liberator.” As with Geoffrey, Christ’s transforming love gave him a new identity and purpose to point others to the Savior. And He does the same for us! By: James Banks
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
His Resurrection Destiny
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26
Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life— a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Paul’s determined purpose was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
Jesus prayed, “…as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2). The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging; therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried. He Shall Glorify Me, 494 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 10-12; Luke 9:37-62
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
The Platform You Would Never Choose - #8673
A lot of us were broke most of the time we were in college. Sound familiar? So, it was always nice to find some free Saturday night entertainment. And in downtown Chicago, there was a place called Bug House Square. Yeah, it's not the real name I don't think, but that was how it was affectionately known in the neighborhood at the time. See, Bug House Square was a small city park just north of downtown Chicago. And it was a place where anybody could get up and make a speech about anything - thus, the name. So, people who couldn't find a platform anywhere else, well, they could find one at Bug House Square. Some frustrated people got to deliver the message that they never got to deliver anywhere else. You know, and actually it's frustrating to have a message and no platform to proclaim it from. And it's surprising sometimes where our platform turns out to be.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Platform You Would Never Choose."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Acts 16. Now, Paul and Silas are in prison for preaching the Gospel in Philippi. They have been severely beaten, they're in the stocks, they're in the inner dungeon, and they are in great pain, and they aren't going anywhere. Listen, "About midnight Paul and Silas get to praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners are listening to them." Never heard anything like this in prison!
Oh wait! "Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors were open, he drew his sword, he was about to kill himself..." Well, that would mean he'd be executed by Rome anyway. "...he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, 'Don't harm yourself! We are all here!' The jailer called for lights, he rushed in and he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and he asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'"
Now, Paul and Silas have, up to this point, only been able to come to Philippi and find the places where people prayed together. I think their question might be, "How do we get a hearing for the Gospel here in Philippi?" Well, here you've got people with a message, and they're trying to find a point of entry to preach that message - a platform. Maybe that sounds like you. Oh, you're not in Philippi, but you know that you have in Christ what your family is looking for. You have what your friends need, your coworkers. But how do you get their attention? Well, you might be surprised.
God started the church at Philippi by putting Paul and Silas in a prison and in an earthquake. That's an interesting church planting method, huh? And it was how they handled their prison and their earthquake that opened a way for the Gospel.
That suggests a very eye-opening principle. The big problem that you've got might be the best platform you've got. Maybe you're in a prison right now. I mean, you've got physical limitations, you've got an injury, an illness. Maybe you're going through a really lonely time, and it's like a prison. Or you're on the edge of financial or business disaster. You're unemployed.
People are watching you now. Can you sing in your prison? Can you demonstrate the inner freedom and the peace that only Christ can give? Or maybe you're in an earthquake right now and everything in your life is shaking. Things that have never moved before are breaking loose.
See, if you can demonstrate that inner peace when the walls are caving in, you will preach Christ more eloquently than any sermon ever could. You're surrounded by people who are in depression because of their prison; who are in panic because of their earthquake. And they're watching to see the difference in how you handle yours.
So, let God sanctify that sick bed, that crisis, that unemployment line, that struggle. He will make it into a platform for the life-saving message of the Gospel of Christ. It's a platform you would never choose, but God has. And you can speak eloquently through your songs in the middle of your night.
Denalyn and I had enjoyed a nice dinner at a local restaurant. As we received our bill, a church member spotted us and came over. After we chatted a few moments, he took our bill. “I’ll take this,” he said. Guess what? I let him do what he wanted to do. I let him take it away.
Someday we will stand before God. All of us will be present. All of us will have to give an account for our lives. Every thought, every deed, every action. Were it not for the grace of Christ, I would find this to be a very terrifying thought. Yet, according to Scripture, Jesus came to “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29). On that day, I will point to Christ. When my list of sins is produced, I will gesture toward him and say, “He took it.” Let him take yours!
Isaiah 14
But not so with Jacob. God will have compassion on Jacob. Once again he’ll choose Israel. He’ll establish them in their own country. Outsiders will be attracted and throw their lot in with Jacob. The nations among whom they lived will actually escort them back home, and then Israel will pay them back by making slaves of them, men and women alike, possessing them as slaves in God’s country, capturing those who had captured them, ruling over those who had abused them.
3-4 When God has given you time to recover from the abuse and trouble and harsh servitude that you had to endure, you can amuse yourselves by taking up this satire, a taunt against the king of Babylon:
4-6 Can you believe it? The tyrant is gone!
The tyranny is over!
God has broken the rule of the wicked,
the power of the bully-rulers
That crushed many people.
A relentless rain of cruel outrage
Established a violent rule of anger
rife with torture and persecution.
7-10 And now it’s over, the whole earth quietly at rest.
Burst into song! Make the rafters ring!
Ponderosa pine trees are happy,
giant Lebanon cedars are relieved, saying,
“Since you’ve been cut down,
there’s no one around to cut us down.”
And the underworld dead are all excited,
preparing to welcome you when you come.
Getting ready to greet you are the ghostly dead,
all the famous names of earth.
All the buried kings of the nations
will stand up on their thrones
With well-prepared speeches,
royal invitations to death:
“Now you are as nothing as we are!
Make yourselves at home with us dead folks!”
11 This is where your pomp and fine music led you, Babylon,
to your underworld private chambers,
A king-size mattress of maggots for repose
and a quilt of crawling worms for warmth.
12 What a comedown this, O Babylon!
Daystar! Son of Dawn!
Flat on your face in the underworld mud,
you, famous for flattening nations!
13-14 You said to yourself,
“I’ll climb to heaven.
I’ll set my throne
over the stars of God.
I’ll run the assembly of angels
that meets on sacred Mount Zaphon.
I’ll climb to the top of the clouds.
I’ll take over as King of the Universe!”
15-17 But you didn’t make it, did you?
Instead of climbing up, you came down—
Down with the underground dead,
down to the abyss of the Pit.
People will stare and muse:
“Can this be the one
Who terrorized earth and its kingdoms,
turned earth to a moonscape,
Wasted its cities,
shut up his prisoners to a living death?”
18-20 Other kings get a decent burial,
honored with eulogies and placed in a tomb.
But you’re dumped in a ditch unburied,
like a stray dog or cat,
Covered with rotting bodies,
murdered and indigent corpses.
Your dead body desecrated, mutilated—
no state funeral for you!
You’ve left your land in ruins,
left a legacy of massacre.
The progeny of your evil life
will never be named. Oblivion!
21 Get a place ready to slaughter the sons of the wicked
and wipe out their father’s line.
Unthinkable that they should own a square foot of land
or desecrate the face of the world with their cities!
22-23 “I will confront them”—Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies—“and strip Babylon of name and survivors, children and grandchildren.” God’s Decree. “I’ll make it a worthless swamp and give it as a prize to the hedgehog. And then I’ll bulldoze it out of existence.” Decree of God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
24-27 God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:
“Exactly as I planned,
it will happen.
Following my blueprints,
it will take shape.
I will shatter the Assyrian who trespasses my land
and stomp him into the dirt on my mountains.
I will ban his taking and making of slaves
and lift the weight of oppression from all shoulders.”
This is the plan,
planned for the whole earth,
And this is the hand that will do it,
reaching into every nation.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies has planned it.
Who could ever cancel such plans?
His is the hand that’s reached out.
Who could brush it aside?
28-31 In the year King Ahaz died, this Message came:
Hold it, Philistines! It’s too soon to celebrate
the defeat of your cruel oppressor.
From the death throes of that snake a worse snake will come,
and from that, one even worse.
The poor won’t have to worry.
The needy will escape the terror.
But you Philistines will be plunged into famine,
and those who don’t starve, God will kill.
Wail and howl, proud city!
Fall prostrate in fear, Philistia!
On the northern horizon, smoke from burned cities,
the wake of a brutal, disciplined destroyer.
32 What does one say to
outsiders who ask questions?
Tell them, “God has established Zion.
Those in need and in trouble find refuge in her.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: 2 Corinthians 5:14–21
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.i 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselvesj but for him who died for themk and was raised again.
16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldlyl point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,m the new creationn has come:a The old has gone, the new is here!o 18 All this is from God,p who reconciled us to himself through Christq and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.r And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors,s as though God were making his appeal through us.t We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.u 21 God made him who had no sinv to be sinb for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Insight
The Bible Knowledge Commentary says of 2 Corinthians: “No letter of Paul’s is more personal and intimate in nature than 2 Corinthians. In it he bared his soul and professed his abiding love for the Corinthians despite the apparent fickleness of their affection for him.” As such, this letter is a fascinating example of the challenges Paul experienced in leading the fledgling first-century church. He had no real template to follow and no completed scriptural authority to refer to, meaning that much of what he did was up for debate and open to question. In this particular letter, Paul’s own motives and apostolic position are on the table—with Paul having to offer a vigorous defense of his heart and his work (1:12–2:11; 11:16–12:10). At the same time, it was necessary that he confront those whose false teaching was undermining the gospel (10:7–11:15). The resulting tension gives 2 Corinthians its own unique edge.
Innocence Found
See what great love the Father has lavished on us. 1 John 3:1
“I’m not who I once was. I’m a new person.”
Those simple words from my son, spoken to students at a school assembly, describe the change God made in his life. Once addicted to heroin, Geoffrey previously saw himself through his sins and mistakes. But now he sees himself as a child of God.
The Bible encourages us with this promise: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). No matter who we’ve been or what we’ve done in our past, when we trust Jesus for our salvation and receive the forgiveness offered through His cross, we become someone new. Since the garden of Eden, the guilt of our sins separated us from God, but He has now “reconciled us to himself through Christ,” “not counting” our sins against us (vv. 18–19). We are His dearly loved children (1 John 3:1–2), washed clean and made new in the likeness of His Son.
Jesus is innocence found. He liberates us from sin and its dominating power, and restores us to a new relationship with God—where we are free to no longer live for ourselves but “for him who died for [us] and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:15). Watch Fernando Sosa’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Liberator.” As with Geoffrey, Christ’s transforming love gave him a new identity and purpose to point others to the Savior. And He does the same for us! By: James Banks
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
His Resurrection Destiny
Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26
Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life— a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Paul’s determined purpose was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
Jesus prayed, “…as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2). The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Seeing is never believing: we interpret what we see in the light of what we believe. Faith is confidence in God before you see God emerging; therefore the nature of faith is that it must be tried. He Shall Glorify Me, 494 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 10-12; Luke 9:37-62
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
The Platform You Would Never Choose - #8673
A lot of us were broke most of the time we were in college. Sound familiar? So, it was always nice to find some free Saturday night entertainment. And in downtown Chicago, there was a place called Bug House Square. Yeah, it's not the real name I don't think, but that was how it was affectionately known in the neighborhood at the time. See, Bug House Square was a small city park just north of downtown Chicago. And it was a place where anybody could get up and make a speech about anything - thus, the name. So, people who couldn't find a platform anywhere else, well, they could find one at Bug House Square. Some frustrated people got to deliver the message that they never got to deliver anywhere else. You know, and actually it's frustrating to have a message and no platform to proclaim it from. And it's surprising sometimes where our platform turns out to be.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Platform You Would Never Choose."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Acts 16. Now, Paul and Silas are in prison for preaching the Gospel in Philippi. They have been severely beaten, they're in the stocks, they're in the inner dungeon, and they are in great pain, and they aren't going anywhere. Listen, "About midnight Paul and Silas get to praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners are listening to them." Never heard anything like this in prison!
Oh wait! "Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors were open, he drew his sword, he was about to kill himself..." Well, that would mean he'd be executed by Rome anyway. "...he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, 'Don't harm yourself! We are all here!' The jailer called for lights, he rushed in and he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and he asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'"
Now, Paul and Silas have, up to this point, only been able to come to Philippi and find the places where people prayed together. I think their question might be, "How do we get a hearing for the Gospel here in Philippi?" Well, here you've got people with a message, and they're trying to find a point of entry to preach that message - a platform. Maybe that sounds like you. Oh, you're not in Philippi, but you know that you have in Christ what your family is looking for. You have what your friends need, your coworkers. But how do you get their attention? Well, you might be surprised.
God started the church at Philippi by putting Paul and Silas in a prison and in an earthquake. That's an interesting church planting method, huh? And it was how they handled their prison and their earthquake that opened a way for the Gospel.
That suggests a very eye-opening principle. The big problem that you've got might be the best platform you've got. Maybe you're in a prison right now. I mean, you've got physical limitations, you've got an injury, an illness. Maybe you're going through a really lonely time, and it's like a prison. Or you're on the edge of financial or business disaster. You're unemployed.
People are watching you now. Can you sing in your prison? Can you demonstrate the inner freedom and the peace that only Christ can give? Or maybe you're in an earthquake right now and everything in your life is shaking. Things that have never moved before are breaking loose.
See, if you can demonstrate that inner peace when the walls are caving in, you will preach Christ more eloquently than any sermon ever could. You're surrounded by people who are in depression because of their prison; who are in panic because of their earthquake. And they're watching to see the difference in how you handle yours.
So, let God sanctify that sick bed, that crisis, that unemployment line, that struggle. He will make it into a platform for the life-saving message of the Gospel of Christ. It's a platform you would never choose, but God has. And you can speak eloquently through your songs in the middle of your night.
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Ephesians 2 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: GREAT GRACE
I can bear witness to the power of God’s grace! I could take you to the church, to the section of seats in the church auditorium. I might even be able to find the very seat in which I was sitting when this grace found me. I was a twenty-year-old college sophomore, living with a concrete block of guilt that had made a mess of my life.
But then I heard a preacher describe the divine grace that is greater than sin. At the end of the message he asked if anyone would like to come forward and receive this grace. Iron chains couldn’t have held me back. Truth be told, chains had held me back. But mercy snapped the guilt chains and set me free. I know this truth firsthand– Guilt frenzies the soul; grace calms it! The benefit of being a great sinner is dependence upon a great grace!
Ephesians 2
It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
11-13 But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
14-15 The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
16-18 Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
19-22 That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: 2 Timothy 1:6–14
Appeal for Loyalty to Paul and the Gospel
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.n 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid,o but gives us power,p love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamedq of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.r Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel,s by the power of God. 9 He has savedt us and calledu us to a holy life—not because of anything we have donev but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealedw through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus,x who has destroyed deathy and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospelz I was appointeda a herald and an apostle and a teacher.b 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame,c because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guardd what I have entrusted to him until that day.e
13 What you heard from me,f keepg as the patternh of sound teaching,i with faith and love in Christ Jesus.j 14 Guardk the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.l
Insight
Along with Titus, Paul’s letters to Timothy form what are known as the Pastoral Letters. Timothy (who would serve the church in Ephesus) and Titus (who led the congregations on the island of Crete) were two of Paul’s numerous protégés that he’d mentored for spiritual service. As such, Paul’s letters to them are filled with instruction and encouragement on how to deal with situations in the local church. These situations range from qualifications for leaders to dealing with false teachers to personal example and conduct. Even while imprisoned and facing death, the apostle continued to train his students.
A New Calling
He has saved us and called us to a holy life. 2 Timothy 1:9
Teenage gang leader Casey and his followers broke into homes and cars, robbed convenience stores, and fought other gangs. Eventually, Casey was arrested and sentenced. In prison, he became a “shot caller,” someone who handed out homemade knives during riots.
Sometime later, he was placed in solitary confinement. While daydreaming in his cell, Casey experienced a “movie” of sorts replaying key events of his life—and of Jesus, being led to and nailed to the cross and telling him, “I’m doing this for you.” Casey fell to the floor weeping and confessed his sins. Later, he shared his experience with a chaplain, who explained more about Jesus and gave him a Bible. “That was the start of my journey of faith,” Casey said. Eventually, he was released into the mainline prison population, where he was mistreated for his faith. But he felt at peace, because “[he] had found a new calling: telling other inmates about Jesus.”
In his letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul talks about the power of Christ to change lives: God calls us from lives of wrongdoing to follow and serve Jesus (2 Timothy 1:9). Watch the story of Bernice Lee and Tan Soo-Inn in the devotional video, “Jesus, the Spiritual Leader.” Like Casey, they experienced God’s grace, and now the Holy Spirit empowers them to be living witnesses of Christ’s love. Through the Holy Spirit’s enabling, we too have a new calling to share the good news (v. 8). By: Alyson Kieda
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Why We Lack Understanding
He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. —Mark 9:9
As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you— until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth. When you grow and develop the right condition inwardly, the words Jesus spoke become so clear that you are amazed you did not grasp them before. In fact, you were not able to understand them before because you had not yet developed the proper spiritual condition to deal with them.
Our Lord doesn’t hide these things from us, but we are not prepared to receive them until we are in the right condition in our spiritual life. Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). We must have a oneness with His risen life before we are prepared to bear any particular truth from Him. Do we really know anything about the indwelling of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His Word is becoming understandable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we don’t have His Spirit. And our own unyielding and headstrong opinions will effectively prevent God from revealing anything to us. But our insensible thinking will end immediately once His resurrection life has its way with us.
“…tell no one….” But so many people do tell what they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration— their mountaintop experience. They have seen a vision and they testify to it, but there is no connection between what they say and how they live. Their lives don’t add up because the Son of Man has not yet risen in them. How long will it be before His resurrection life is formed and evident in you and in me?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The truth is we have nothing to fear and nothing to overcome because He is all in all and we are more than conquerors through Him. The recognition of this truth is not flattering to the worker’s sense of heroics, but it is amazingly glorifying to the work of Christ. Approved Unto God, 4 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 7-9; Luke 9:18-36
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Last-Second Victories - #8672
They're usually some of the most exciting moments in sports - that touchdown, that field goal that wins the game with no time left on the clock. That game-winning basket; the buzzer-beater as the final buzzer sounds. The game-winning home run with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Whatever the sport, there's nothing like a sudden victory when victory seems out of reach, and the fans go ballistic.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Last-Second Victories."
It can really be nerve-wracking when you're behind and time's running out, but it's really thrilling when a hero pulls it out at the last minute. The longer I walk with this God of ours, the more I've come to appreciate Him as the God of the last-second victory, the God of the eleventh hour.
The Bible reveals many names by which God wants us to know Him. One that has meant so much to so many for so long is the name Jehovah Jireh. It means, "The Lord will provide." You may be facing a need or situation right now where that is literally your only hope - that the Lord will provide; it's got to be God or it ain't going to be. Maybe it's a job, a friend, the funds you need, the person you need, the answer you need, maybe the house, the healing, the breakthrough you need.
We have this rock-solid promise in Philippians 4:19 that "my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." See, God's supply has nothing to do with what's happening in the economy, or in the news, or at work, in what your resources can do. It's all about His unlimited "Jesus-account" in heaven, which transcends every limitation earth has.
To be honest, God often waits a while to meet that need, though, doesn't He? And that's when we tend to panic, to come up with some desperate way to meet the need on our own, to abandon our trust in God because, well, He's taking too long. Which takes us right out of the will of God and aborts what God was going to do. It's in Genesis 22, where we find our word for today from the Word of God, that God is known as Jehovah Jireh for the very first time. We can learn a lot from how He worked that day for Abraham.
Okay, Abraham, by faith, had obeyed God's direction to take the son God had once promised to him, climb Mt. Moriah with him, and sacrifice his son there; as God Himself would do one day when Jesus died on the cross. Believing that God will somehow provide something he can't imagine, Abraham promises his servants that both he and his son, Isaac, will return from the mountain. Well, how is that going to be?
Genesis 22:10 says his faith and obedience went so far that he "reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son." At that very last moment, God stopped him and showed Abraham a ram, stuck in a thicket, who would be sacrificed instead of his son. And the Bible says, "So Abraham called that place, 'The Lord Will Provide.'" Jehovah Jireh - making His move when there was no time left.
Now, about your need. God loves to come through for us when there is absolutely no place else that answer could come from, and there is no time left on the clock. It's 11:59. The buzzer is about to sound. God shows up with His provision at a time and in a way that will blow you away, and that will give Him all the glory, that will show the people around you the greatness of your God and take you to a whole new level of faith and worship.
God's last-minute victories are some of the most awesome moments of your life. So don't lose faith now. The greater the need, the later the hour, the more amazing God's work on your behalf is going to be. Hang in there until the end of the game, because that's when God really does His stuff!
I can bear witness to the power of God’s grace! I could take you to the church, to the section of seats in the church auditorium. I might even be able to find the very seat in which I was sitting when this grace found me. I was a twenty-year-old college sophomore, living with a concrete block of guilt that had made a mess of my life.
But then I heard a preacher describe the divine grace that is greater than sin. At the end of the message he asked if anyone would like to come forward and receive this grace. Iron chains couldn’t have held me back. Truth be told, chains had held me back. But mercy snapped the guilt chains and set me free. I know this truth firsthand– Guilt frenzies the soul; grace calms it! The benefit of being a great sinner is dependence upon a great grace!
Ephesians 2
It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
11-13 But don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.
14-15 The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.
16-18 Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
19-22 That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: 2 Timothy 1:6–14
Appeal for Loyalty to Paul and the Gospel
6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.n 7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid,o but gives us power,p love and self-discipline. 8 So do not be ashamedq of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.r Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel,s by the power of God. 9 He has savedt us and calledu us to a holy life—not because of anything we have donev but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10 but it has now been revealedw through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus,x who has destroyed deathy and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11 And of this gospelz I was appointeda a herald and an apostle and a teacher.b 12 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame,c because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guardd what I have entrusted to him until that day.e
13 What you heard from me,f keepg as the patternh of sound teaching,i with faith and love in Christ Jesus.j 14 Guardk the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.l
Insight
Along with Titus, Paul’s letters to Timothy form what are known as the Pastoral Letters. Timothy (who would serve the church in Ephesus) and Titus (who led the congregations on the island of Crete) were two of Paul’s numerous protégés that he’d mentored for spiritual service. As such, Paul’s letters to them are filled with instruction and encouragement on how to deal with situations in the local church. These situations range from qualifications for leaders to dealing with false teachers to personal example and conduct. Even while imprisoned and facing death, the apostle continued to train his students.
A New Calling
He has saved us and called us to a holy life. 2 Timothy 1:9
Teenage gang leader Casey and his followers broke into homes and cars, robbed convenience stores, and fought other gangs. Eventually, Casey was arrested and sentenced. In prison, he became a “shot caller,” someone who handed out homemade knives during riots.
Sometime later, he was placed in solitary confinement. While daydreaming in his cell, Casey experienced a “movie” of sorts replaying key events of his life—and of Jesus, being led to and nailed to the cross and telling him, “I’m doing this for you.” Casey fell to the floor weeping and confessed his sins. Later, he shared his experience with a chaplain, who explained more about Jesus and gave him a Bible. “That was the start of my journey of faith,” Casey said. Eventually, he was released into the mainline prison population, where he was mistreated for his faith. But he felt at peace, because “[he] had found a new calling: telling other inmates about Jesus.”
In his letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul talks about the power of Christ to change lives: God calls us from lives of wrongdoing to follow and serve Jesus (2 Timothy 1:9). Watch the story of Bernice Lee and Tan Soo-Inn in the devotional video, “Jesus, the Spiritual Leader.” Like Casey, they experienced God’s grace, and now the Holy Spirit empowers them to be living witnesses of Christ’s love. Through the Holy Spirit’s enabling, we too have a new calling to share the good news (v. 8). By: Alyson Kieda
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Why We Lack Understanding
He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. —Mark 9:9
As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you— until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth. When you grow and develop the right condition inwardly, the words Jesus spoke become so clear that you are amazed you did not grasp them before. In fact, you were not able to understand them before because you had not yet developed the proper spiritual condition to deal with them.
Our Lord doesn’t hide these things from us, but we are not prepared to receive them until we are in the right condition in our spiritual life. Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). We must have a oneness with His risen life before we are prepared to bear any particular truth from Him. Do we really know anything about the indwelling of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His Word is becoming understandable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we don’t have His Spirit. And our own unyielding and headstrong opinions will effectively prevent God from revealing anything to us. But our insensible thinking will end immediately once His resurrection life has its way with us.
“…tell no one….” But so many people do tell what they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration— their mountaintop experience. They have seen a vision and they testify to it, but there is no connection between what they say and how they live. Their lives don’t add up because the Son of Man has not yet risen in them. How long will it be before His resurrection life is formed and evident in you and in me?
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The truth is we have nothing to fear and nothing to overcome because He is all in all and we are more than conquerors through Him. The recognition of this truth is not flattering to the worker’s sense of heroics, but it is amazingly glorifying to the work of Christ. Approved Unto God, 4 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 7-9; Luke 9:18-36
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Last-Second Victories - #8672
They're usually some of the most exciting moments in sports - that touchdown, that field goal that wins the game with no time left on the clock. That game-winning basket; the buzzer-beater as the final buzzer sounds. The game-winning home run with two out in the bottom of the ninth. Whatever the sport, there's nothing like a sudden victory when victory seems out of reach, and the fans go ballistic.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Last-Second Victories."
It can really be nerve-wracking when you're behind and time's running out, but it's really thrilling when a hero pulls it out at the last minute. The longer I walk with this God of ours, the more I've come to appreciate Him as the God of the last-second victory, the God of the eleventh hour.
The Bible reveals many names by which God wants us to know Him. One that has meant so much to so many for so long is the name Jehovah Jireh. It means, "The Lord will provide." You may be facing a need or situation right now where that is literally your only hope - that the Lord will provide; it's got to be God or it ain't going to be. Maybe it's a job, a friend, the funds you need, the person you need, the answer you need, maybe the house, the healing, the breakthrough you need.
We have this rock-solid promise in Philippians 4:19 that "my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." See, God's supply has nothing to do with what's happening in the economy, or in the news, or at work, in what your resources can do. It's all about His unlimited "Jesus-account" in heaven, which transcends every limitation earth has.
To be honest, God often waits a while to meet that need, though, doesn't He? And that's when we tend to panic, to come up with some desperate way to meet the need on our own, to abandon our trust in God because, well, He's taking too long. Which takes us right out of the will of God and aborts what God was going to do. It's in Genesis 22, where we find our word for today from the Word of God, that God is known as Jehovah Jireh for the very first time. We can learn a lot from how He worked that day for Abraham.
Okay, Abraham, by faith, had obeyed God's direction to take the son God had once promised to him, climb Mt. Moriah with him, and sacrifice his son there; as God Himself would do one day when Jesus died on the cross. Believing that God will somehow provide something he can't imagine, Abraham promises his servants that both he and his son, Isaac, will return from the mountain. Well, how is that going to be?
Genesis 22:10 says his faith and obedience went so far that he "reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son." At that very last moment, God stopped him and showed Abraham a ram, stuck in a thicket, who would be sacrificed instead of his son. And the Bible says, "So Abraham called that place, 'The Lord Will Provide.'" Jehovah Jireh - making His move when there was no time left.
Now, about your need. God loves to come through for us when there is absolutely no place else that answer could come from, and there is no time left on the clock. It's 11:59. The buzzer is about to sound. God shows up with His provision at a time and in a way that will blow you away, and that will give Him all the glory, that will show the people around you the greatness of your God and take you to a whole new level of faith and worship.
God's last-minute victories are some of the most awesome moments of your life. So don't lose faith now. The greater the need, the later the hour, the more amazing God's work on your behalf is going to be. Hang in there until the end of the game, because that's when God really does His stuff!
Monday, April 6, 2020
Isaiah 13, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals
Max Lucado Daily: THE PROBLEM WITH UNRESOLVED GUILT
What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, pretending. As one man admitted, “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me. I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”
Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess. In a psalm David wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the kind said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.” (Psalm 32:3-4)
As Paul told Titus, God’s grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts! “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).
Isaiah 13
The Message on Babylon. Isaiah son of Amoz saw it:
2-3 “Run up a flag on an open hill.
Yell loud. Get their attention.
Wave them into formation.
Direct them to the nerve center of power.
I’ve taken charge of my special forces,
called up my crack troops.
They’re bursting with pride and passion
to carry out my angry judgment.”
4-5 Thunder rolls off the mountains
like a mob huge and noisy—
Thunder of kingdoms in an uproar,
nations assembling for war.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling
his army into battle formation.
They come from far-off countries,
they pour in across the horizon.
It’s God on the move with the weapons of his wrath,
ready to destroy the whole country.
6-8 Wail! God’s Day of Judgment is near—
an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God!
Everyone paralyzed in the panic,
hysterical and unstrung,
Doubled up in pain
like a woman giving birth to a baby.
Horrified—everyone they see
is like a face out of a nightmare.
9-16 “Watch now. God’s Judgment Day comes.
Cruel it is, a day of wrath and anger,
A day to waste the earth
and clean out all the sinners.
The stars in the sky, the great parade of constellations,
will be nothing but black holes.
The sun will come up as a black disk,
and the moon a blank nothing.
I’ll put a full stop to the evil on earth,
terminate the dark acts of the wicked.
I’ll gag all braggarts and boasters—not a peep anymore from them—
and trip strutting tyrants, leave them flat on their faces.
Proud humanity will disappear from the earth.
I’ll make mortals rarer than hens’ teeth.
And yes, I’ll even make the sky shake,
and the earth quake to its roots
Under the wrath of God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
the Judgment Day of his raging anger.
Like a hunted white-tailed deer,
like lost sheep with no shepherd,
People will huddle with a few of their own kind,
run off to some makeshift shelter.
But tough luck to stragglers—they’ll be killed on the spot,
throats cut, bellies ripped open,
Babies smashed on the rocks
while mothers and fathers watch,
Houses looted,
wives raped.
17-22 “And now watch this:
Against Babylon, I’m inciting the Medes,
A ruthless bunch indifferent to bribes,
the kind of brutality that no one can blunt.
They massacre the young,
wantonly kick and kill even babies.
And Babylon, most glorious of all kingdoms,
the pride and joy of Chaldeans,
Will end up smoking and stinking like Sodom,
and, yes, like Gomorrah, when God had finished with them.
No one will live there anymore,
generation after generation a ghost town.
Not even Bedouins will pitch tents there.
Shepherds will give it a wide berth.
But strange and wild animals will like it just fine,
filling the vacant houses with eerie night sounds.
Skunks will make it their home,
and unspeakable night hags will haunt it.
Hyenas will curdle your blood with their laughing,
and the howling of coyotes will give you the shivers.
“Babylon is doomed.
It won’t be long now.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, April 06, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Romans 3:10–18
As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”b p
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”c q
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”d r
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”e s
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”f t
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Insight
In Romans 1–3, Paul demonstrates that all human beings are sinners. Six times in chapter 3 he emphatically uses the phrases “no one” or “not even one” to show the total sinfulness of all mankind (vv. 10–12). Sin rules the entire person—our words (vv. 13–14), works (vv. 15–17), and heart (v. 18) condemn us. Paul concludes that “all have sinned and fall short” of God’s standards (v. 23). Without the regenerating work of the Spirit, humans are incapable of having a right relationship with God. We don’t seek Him (v. 11) but willfully turn against Him (v. 12), for we have “no fear of God” (v. 18). But God, in His grace and mercy, makes sinners right with Him when we believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood to save us from our sins (vv. 24–25).
A Good Man
By grace you have been saved, through faith—and that is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8
“Jerry was a good man,” the pastor said at Jerald Stevens’ memorial service. “He loved his family. He was faithful to his wife. He served his country in the armed services. He was an excellent dad and grandfather. He was a great friend.”
But then the pastor went on to tell the friends and family gathered that Jerry’s good life and good deeds were not enough to assure him a place in heaven. And that Jerry himself would have been the first to tell them that!
Jerry believed these words from the Bible: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death” (6:23). Jerry’s final and eternal destination in life’s journey was not determined by whether he lived a really good life but entirely by Jesus—the perfect Son of God—dying in his place to pay sin’s penalty. He believed that each of us must personally accept the free gift of God, which is “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 23).
Jerry was a good man, but he could never be “good enough.” Watch Rasool Berry’s “Jesus, the Good Man” devotional video. He, like us, had to learn that salvation and righteousness aren’t the results of human effort. They’re gifts by God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8).
“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15). By: Cindy Hess Kasper
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, April 06, 2020
The Collision of God and Sin
…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree… —1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was manifested in the flesh…” from “…He made Him…to be sin for us…” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. Not Knowing Whither, 903 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 4-6; Luke 9:1-17
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, April 06, 2020
Easter...On Both Sides of the Dirt - #8671
I had the last handful of dirt. Many of our dear Native American friends had led the way. They really loved my Karen. As I threw mine into that six-foot hole, I spoke three words engraved inside our wedding rings, "Til Jesus comes." And then just quietly I said, "See you soon, baby." And I know I will because of Easter. Easter didn't stop the tears. Easter didn't cushion her adoring grandchildren from the shock that they would not see again on this earth the one whose hugs and laugh and love had lit up their lives. Neither would I. Neither would her children who never stopped depending on her prayer and her wisdom. Easter doesn't shield us from the grim reality of the casket, that hole in the ground, the empty blue recliner. Or the gut-wrenching emotional ambushes when the "I'm missing her" feelings that usually whisper, suddenly scream. But the reality of that empty tomb near a skull-shaped hill in Jerusalem is a game-changer in so many ways. For the one by the grave, and the one in the grave on both sides of the dirt.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Easter...On Both Sides of the Dirt."
To be sure, most religions offer some form of hope beyond the grave. But no real evidence that they can deliver on that hope.
And then there's Jesus. Who is, in the Bible's words, and our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:3, "a living hope." And it's with proof, because it says, "Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Eyewitnesses - hundreds of them - followers who saw Jesus, dying because they wouldn't deny it, written contemporary history, and the power elite of government and religion, desperately wielding their power to prove Jesus wasn't alive - and they couldn't.
There is no need to speak of Jesus in the past tense. He's alive now. He's our future. And because He's proven He has eternal life, He's the One who can give eternal life. So it wasn't just some religious cop-out for me to look in that grave and know that my Karen wasn't there. Oh, her "earth suit" was - the body we need for this life, like an astronaut needs his space suit for the moon. But the real Karen - her soul - never stopped living.
When the thief on the cross next to Jesus expressed faith in Him, Jesus made this astonishing statement: "Today you will be with Me in paradise" (Matthew 23:43). I believe that's what He said to my Karen that May afternoon in our living room.
Standing by her grave, I remembered her actual new address: "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). That's why I call that May 16th her "Homegoing." That Easter reality didn't erase what I lost that day. Karen was with Jesus. I wasn't. But because our death-crushing Jesus promised that "because I live, you also will live" (John 14:19), grief doesn't own the death scale. There's something on the other side. Something more powerful. It's called hope. Separation now. Reunion coming!
Since Karen went Home, I kept finding journals of hers. They are essentially heart-dumps to Jesus. And they reflect a vibrant love for Him. She signs her prayers, "Your loving daughter, Karen." Many times I've stood in church with my arm around her waist as we joined in singing praises to Jesus. What blows me away is thinking she is now singing those songs face-to-face with Him!
Although she impacted - even rescued - many lives, she always had a hard time accepting my assurances of the difference that she was making for Christ. She knows now. He's told her Himself. I just love thinking that this incomparable woman I did life with is now experiencing what the Bible says, "no eye has seen, no ear has heard" (1 Corinthians 2:9).
But what about us on "the other side of the dirt"? Suddenly doing life without her. God says He is "close to the brokenhearted" (Psalm 34:18). All I can tell you is this living Savior has been closer to me these past three years than in all my life before.
I want to invite you if you've never made sure you have a relationship with Him, that you belong to Jesus, that you get that taken care of today. The power of Jesus' resurrection has taken my greatest treasure from her last heartbeat to His heaven and resurrected the broken man she left here, giving me so much hope it's overflowing into many other grieving hearts.
Make sure you belong to Jesus. And if you're not, go to our website and get the information you need - ANewStory.com. He's walked with me every step through "the valley of the shadow." I know He'll walk with you all the way home.
What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, pretending. As one man admitted, “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me. I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”
Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess. In a psalm David wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the kind said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.” (Psalm 32:3-4)
As Paul told Titus, God’s grace is the fertile soil out of which courage sprouts! “God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).
Isaiah 13
The Message on Babylon. Isaiah son of Amoz saw it:
2-3 “Run up a flag on an open hill.
Yell loud. Get their attention.
Wave them into formation.
Direct them to the nerve center of power.
I’ve taken charge of my special forces,
called up my crack troops.
They’re bursting with pride and passion
to carry out my angry judgment.”
4-5 Thunder rolls off the mountains
like a mob huge and noisy—
Thunder of kingdoms in an uproar,
nations assembling for war.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling
his army into battle formation.
They come from far-off countries,
they pour in across the horizon.
It’s God on the move with the weapons of his wrath,
ready to destroy the whole country.
6-8 Wail! God’s Day of Judgment is near—
an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God!
Everyone paralyzed in the panic,
hysterical and unstrung,
Doubled up in pain
like a woman giving birth to a baby.
Horrified—everyone they see
is like a face out of a nightmare.
9-16 “Watch now. God’s Judgment Day comes.
Cruel it is, a day of wrath and anger,
A day to waste the earth
and clean out all the sinners.
The stars in the sky, the great parade of constellations,
will be nothing but black holes.
The sun will come up as a black disk,
and the moon a blank nothing.
I’ll put a full stop to the evil on earth,
terminate the dark acts of the wicked.
I’ll gag all braggarts and boasters—not a peep anymore from them—
and trip strutting tyrants, leave them flat on their faces.
Proud humanity will disappear from the earth.
I’ll make mortals rarer than hens’ teeth.
And yes, I’ll even make the sky shake,
and the earth quake to its roots
Under the wrath of God-of-the-Angel-Armies,
the Judgment Day of his raging anger.
Like a hunted white-tailed deer,
like lost sheep with no shepherd,
People will huddle with a few of their own kind,
run off to some makeshift shelter.
But tough luck to stragglers—they’ll be killed on the spot,
throats cut, bellies ripped open,
Babies smashed on the rocks
while mothers and fathers watch,
Houses looted,
wives raped.
17-22 “And now watch this:
Against Babylon, I’m inciting the Medes,
A ruthless bunch indifferent to bribes,
the kind of brutality that no one can blunt.
They massacre the young,
wantonly kick and kill even babies.
And Babylon, most glorious of all kingdoms,
the pride and joy of Chaldeans,
Will end up smoking and stinking like Sodom,
and, yes, like Gomorrah, when God had finished with them.
No one will live there anymore,
generation after generation a ghost town.
Not even Bedouins will pitch tents there.
Shepherds will give it a wide berth.
But strange and wild animals will like it just fine,
filling the vacant houses with eerie night sounds.
Skunks will make it their home,
and unspeakable night hags will haunt it.
Hyenas will curdle your blood with their laughing,
and the howling of coyotes will give you the shivers.
“Babylon is doomed.
It won’t be long now.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, April 06, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: Romans 3:10–18
As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”b p
13 “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”c q
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”d r
14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”e s
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 ruin and misery mark their ways,
17 and the way of peace they do not know.”f t
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Insight
In Romans 1–3, Paul demonstrates that all human beings are sinners. Six times in chapter 3 he emphatically uses the phrases “no one” or “not even one” to show the total sinfulness of all mankind (vv. 10–12). Sin rules the entire person—our words (vv. 13–14), works (vv. 15–17), and heart (v. 18) condemn us. Paul concludes that “all have sinned and fall short” of God’s standards (v. 23). Without the regenerating work of the Spirit, humans are incapable of having a right relationship with God. We don’t seek Him (v. 11) but willfully turn against Him (v. 12), for we have “no fear of God” (v. 18). But God, in His grace and mercy, makes sinners right with Him when we believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood to save us from our sins (vv. 24–25).
A Good Man
By grace you have been saved, through faith—and that is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8
“Jerry was a good man,” the pastor said at Jerald Stevens’ memorial service. “He loved his family. He was faithful to his wife. He served his country in the armed services. He was an excellent dad and grandfather. He was a great friend.”
But then the pastor went on to tell the friends and family gathered that Jerry’s good life and good deeds were not enough to assure him a place in heaven. And that Jerry himself would have been the first to tell them that!
Jerry believed these words from the Bible: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “the wages of sin is death” (6:23). Jerry’s final and eternal destination in life’s journey was not determined by whether he lived a really good life but entirely by Jesus—the perfect Son of God—dying in his place to pay sin’s penalty. He believed that each of us must personally accept the free gift of God, which is “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (v. 23).
Jerry was a good man, but he could never be “good enough.” Watch Rasool Berry’s “Jesus, the Good Man” devotional video. He, like us, had to learn that salvation and righteousness aren’t the results of human effort. They’re gifts by God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8).
“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15). By: Cindy Hess Kasper
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, April 06, 2020
The Collision of God and Sin
…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree… —1 Peter 2:24
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was manifested in the flesh…” from “…He made Him…to be sin for us…” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God. Not Knowing Whither, 903 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 4-6; Luke 9:1-17
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, April 06, 2020
Easter...On Both Sides of the Dirt - #8671
I had the last handful of dirt. Many of our dear Native American friends had led the way. They really loved my Karen. As I threw mine into that six-foot hole, I spoke three words engraved inside our wedding rings, "Til Jesus comes." And then just quietly I said, "See you soon, baby." And I know I will because of Easter. Easter didn't stop the tears. Easter didn't cushion her adoring grandchildren from the shock that they would not see again on this earth the one whose hugs and laugh and love had lit up their lives. Neither would I. Neither would her children who never stopped depending on her prayer and her wisdom. Easter doesn't shield us from the grim reality of the casket, that hole in the ground, the empty blue recliner. Or the gut-wrenching emotional ambushes when the "I'm missing her" feelings that usually whisper, suddenly scream. But the reality of that empty tomb near a skull-shaped hill in Jerusalem is a game-changer in so many ways. For the one by the grave, and the one in the grave on both sides of the dirt.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Easter...On Both Sides of the Dirt."
To be sure, most religions offer some form of hope beyond the grave. But no real evidence that they can deliver on that hope.
And then there's Jesus. Who is, in the Bible's words, and our word for today from the Word of God in 1 Peter 1:3, "a living hope." And it's with proof, because it says, "Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Eyewitnesses - hundreds of them - followers who saw Jesus, dying because they wouldn't deny it, written contemporary history, and the power elite of government and religion, desperately wielding their power to prove Jesus wasn't alive - and they couldn't.
There is no need to speak of Jesus in the past tense. He's alive now. He's our future. And because He's proven He has eternal life, He's the One who can give eternal life. So it wasn't just some religious cop-out for me to look in that grave and know that my Karen wasn't there. Oh, her "earth suit" was - the body we need for this life, like an astronaut needs his space suit for the moon. But the real Karen - her soul - never stopped living.
When the thief on the cross next to Jesus expressed faith in Him, Jesus made this astonishing statement: "Today you will be with Me in paradise" (Matthew 23:43). I believe that's what He said to my Karen that May afternoon in our living room.
Standing by her grave, I remembered her actual new address: "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). That's why I call that May 16th her "Homegoing." That Easter reality didn't erase what I lost that day. Karen was with Jesus. I wasn't. But because our death-crushing Jesus promised that "because I live, you also will live" (John 14:19), grief doesn't own the death scale. There's something on the other side. Something more powerful. It's called hope. Separation now. Reunion coming!
Since Karen went Home, I kept finding journals of hers. They are essentially heart-dumps to Jesus. And they reflect a vibrant love for Him. She signs her prayers, "Your loving daughter, Karen." Many times I've stood in church with my arm around her waist as we joined in singing praises to Jesus. What blows me away is thinking she is now singing those songs face-to-face with Him!
Although she impacted - even rescued - many lives, she always had a hard time accepting my assurances of the difference that she was making for Christ. She knows now. He's told her Himself. I just love thinking that this incomparable woman I did life with is now experiencing what the Bible says, "no eye has seen, no ear has heard" (1 Corinthians 2:9).
But what about us on "the other side of the dirt"? Suddenly doing life without her. God says He is "close to the brokenhearted" (Psalm 34:18). All I can tell you is this living Savior has been closer to me these past three years than in all my life before.
I want to invite you if you've never made sure you have a relationship with Him, that you belong to Jesus, that you get that taken care of today. The power of Jesus' resurrection has taken my greatest treasure from her last heartbeat to His heaven and resurrected the broken man she left here, giving me so much hope it's overflowing into many other grieving hearts.
Make sure you belong to Jesus. And if you're not, go to our website and get the information you need - ANewStory.com. He's walked with me every step through "the valley of the shadow." I know He'll walk with you all the way home.
Sunday, April 5, 2020
Isaiah 12 , Bible reading and Daily Devotions
Max Lucado Daily: You Need A Savior
“If the Son makes you free, you will be truly free.” John 8:36
Trying to make it to heaven on our own goodness is like trying to get to the moon on a moon beam; nice idea, but try it and see what happens.
Listen. Quit trying to quench your own guilt. You can’t do it. There’s no way.
Not with a bottle of whiskey or perfect Sunday school attendance. Sorry. I don’t care how bad you are. You can’t be bad enough to forget it. And I don’t care how good you are. You can’t be good enough to overcome it.
You need a Savior.
Isaiah 12
And you will say in that day,
“I thank you, God.
You were angry
but your anger wasn’t forever.
You withdrew your anger
and moved in and comforted me.
2 “Yes, indeed—God is my salvation.
I trust, I won’t be afraid.
God—yes God!—is my strength and song,
best of all, my salvation!”
3-4 Joyfully you’ll pull up buckets of water
from the wells of salvation.
And as you do it, you’ll say,
“Give thanks to God.
Call out his name.
Ask him anything!
Shout to the nations, tell them what he’s done,
spread the news of his great reputation!
5-6 “Sing praise-songs to God. He’s done it all!
Let the whole earth know what he’s done!
Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, O Zion!
The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, April 05, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 12:12–18
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branchest and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!d”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”e u
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”v
14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:
15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”f w
16 At first his disciples did not understand all this.x Only after Jesus was glorifiedy did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
17 Now the crowd that was with himz when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. 18 Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign,a went out to meet him.
Insight
The word hosanna (John 12:13) appears in the New Testament only in relation to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem during the Passover festival. According to the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, “This term was originally a Hebrew invocation addressed to God [meaning ‘Save now’]. . . . Later it apparently came to be used as a joyous acclamation, an ascription of praise to God.” It could also mean a shout of welcome, which seems to be how it’s used by the crowds welcoming Jesus. But it isn’t out of the question that all three meanings are found in this passage. John mentions that those who saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead were present at His triumphal entry and were spreading the word about Him. Those who came to see the One who could rescue from death may have been pleading for their own rescue from Rome. Others may have been simply shouting Hosanna! as a praise for the things Jesus had done.
The One Who Saves
They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” John 12:13
He was called “one of the bravest persons alive,” but he wasn’t what others expected. Desmond was a soldier who declined to carry a gun. As a medic, he single-handedly rescued seventy-five injured soldiers in one battle, including some who once called him a coward and ridiculed him for his faith. Running into heavy gunfire, Desmond prayed continually, “Lord, please help me get one more.” He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism.
Scripture tells us that Jesus was greatly misunderstood. On a day foretold by the prophet Zechariah (9:9), Jesus entered Jerusalem and the crowd waved branches, shouting, “Hosanna!” (John 12:13). Quoting Psalm 118:26, they cried: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (John 12:13). But the very next verse in that psalm refers to bringing a sacrifice “with boughs in hand” (Psalm 118:27). While the crowd in John 12 anticipated an earthly king to save them from Rome, Jesus was much more. He was King of Kings and our sacrifice—God in the flesh, willingly embracing the cross to save us from our sins—a purpose prophesied centuries earlier.
“At first his disciples did not understand all this,” John writes. Only later “did they realize that these things had been written about him” (John 12:16). Illumined by His Word, God’s eternal purposes became clear. Watch Grant Stevenson’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Savior,” to learn more about the One who saves. By: James Banks
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, April 05, 2020
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples…."Stay here and watch with Me." —Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don’t have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique— they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God— Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan’s assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation— “…the devil…departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan’s final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Crises reveal character. When we are put to the test the hidden resources of our character are revealed exactly. Disciples Indeed, 393 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 1-3; Luke 8:26-56
“If the Son makes you free, you will be truly free.” John 8:36
Trying to make it to heaven on our own goodness is like trying to get to the moon on a moon beam; nice idea, but try it and see what happens.
Listen. Quit trying to quench your own guilt. You can’t do it. There’s no way.
Not with a bottle of whiskey or perfect Sunday school attendance. Sorry. I don’t care how bad you are. You can’t be bad enough to forget it. And I don’t care how good you are. You can’t be good enough to overcome it.
You need a Savior.
Isaiah 12
And you will say in that day,
“I thank you, God.
You were angry
but your anger wasn’t forever.
You withdrew your anger
and moved in and comforted me.
2 “Yes, indeed—God is my salvation.
I trust, I won’t be afraid.
God—yes God!—is my strength and song,
best of all, my salvation!”
3-4 Joyfully you’ll pull up buckets of water
from the wells of salvation.
And as you do it, you’ll say,
“Give thanks to God.
Call out his name.
Ask him anything!
Shout to the nations, tell them what he’s done,
spread the news of his great reputation!
5-6 “Sing praise-songs to God. He’s done it all!
Let the whole earth know what he’s done!
Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, O Zion!
The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, April 05, 2020
Today's Scripture & Insight: John 12:12–18
Jesus Comes to Jerusalem as King
The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. 13 They took palm branchest and went out to meet him, shouting,
“Hosanna!d”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”e u
“Blessed is the king of Israel!”v
14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written:
15 “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion;
see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.”f w
16 At first his disciples did not understand all this.x Only after Jesus was glorifiedy did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.
17 Now the crowd that was with himz when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. 18 Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign,a went out to meet him.
Insight
The word hosanna (John 12:13) appears in the New Testament only in relation to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem during the Passover festival. According to the Zondervan Encyclopedia of the Bible, “This term was originally a Hebrew invocation addressed to God [meaning ‘Save now’]. . . . Later it apparently came to be used as a joyous acclamation, an ascription of praise to God.” It could also mean a shout of welcome, which seems to be how it’s used by the crowds welcoming Jesus. But it isn’t out of the question that all three meanings are found in this passage. John mentions that those who saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead were present at His triumphal entry and were spreading the word about Him. Those who came to see the One who could rescue from death may have been pleading for their own rescue from Rome. Others may have been simply shouting Hosanna! as a praise for the things Jesus had done.
The One Who Saves
They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” John 12:13
He was called “one of the bravest persons alive,” but he wasn’t what others expected. Desmond was a soldier who declined to carry a gun. As a medic, he single-handedly rescued seventy-five injured soldiers in one battle, including some who once called him a coward and ridiculed him for his faith. Running into heavy gunfire, Desmond prayed continually, “Lord, please help me get one more.” He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism.
Scripture tells us that Jesus was greatly misunderstood. On a day foretold by the prophet Zechariah (9:9), Jesus entered Jerusalem and the crowd waved branches, shouting, “Hosanna!” (John 12:13). Quoting Psalm 118:26, they cried: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (John 12:13). But the very next verse in that psalm refers to bringing a sacrifice “with boughs in hand” (Psalm 118:27). While the crowd in John 12 anticipated an earthly king to save them from Rome, Jesus was much more. He was King of Kings and our sacrifice—God in the flesh, willingly embracing the cross to save us from our sins—a purpose prophesied centuries earlier.
“At first his disciples did not understand all this,” John writes. Only later “did they realize that these things had been written about him” (John 12:16). Illumined by His Word, God’s eternal purposes became clear. Watch Grant Stevenson’s devotional video, “Jesus, the Savior,” to learn more about the One who saves. By: James Banks
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, April 05, 2020
His Agony and Our Access
Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples…."Stay here and watch with Me." —Matthew 26:36, 38
We can never fully comprehend Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don’t have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique— they are the gateway into life for us.
It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God— Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan’s assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation— “…the devil…departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan’s final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.
The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Crises reveal character. When we are put to the test the hidden resources of our character are revealed exactly. Disciples Indeed, 393 R
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 1-3; Luke 8:26-56
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