Ezra 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: GRACE BRINGS HONESTY

My high school baseball coach had a firm rule against chewing tobacco, and he wanted to draw it to our attention. He got our attention all right. Before long we’d all tried it! It was a sure test of manhood. One day I’d just popped a plug in my mouth when one of the players warned, “Here comes the coach.” I did what comes naturally—I swallowed. Gulp.

I added new meaning to the scripture, “I felt weak deep inside me. I moaned all day long” (Psalm 32:3). I paid the price for hiding my disobedience. My body was not made to ingest tobacco. Your soul was not made to ingest sin. Are you keeping any secrets from God? Any part of your past or present that you hope you and God never discuss? Well listen, once you’re in the grip of grace, you’re free to be honest. And you’ll be glad you were.


Ezra 5

The Building Resumed

Meanwhile the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo were preaching to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the authority of the God of Israel who ruled them. And so Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jozadak started again, rebuilding The Temple of God in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were right there helping them.

3-4 Tattenai was governor of the land beyond the Euphrates at this time. Tattenai, Shethar-Bozenai, and their associates came to the Israelites and asked, “Who issued you a permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use?” Then we told them the names of the men responsible for this construction work.

5 But God had his eye on the leaders of the Jews, and the work wasn’t stopped until a report could reach Darius and an official reply be returned.

6-7 Tattenai, governor of the land beyond the Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and his associates—the officials of that land—sent a letter to Darius the king. This is what they wrote to him:

To Darius the king. Peace and blessing!

8 We want to report to the king that we went to the province of Judah, to The Temple of the great God that is being rebuilt with large stones. Timbers are being fitted into the walls; the work is going on with great energy and in good time.

9-10 We asked the leaders, “Who issued you the permit to rebuild this Temple and restore it to use?” We also asked for their names so we could pass them on to you and have a record of the men at the head of the construction work.

11-12 This is what they told us: “We are servants of the God of the heavens and the earth. We are rebuilding The Temple that was built a long time ago. A great king of Israel built it, the entire structure. But our ancestors made the God of the heavens really angry and he turned them over to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who knocked this Temple down and took the people to Babylon in exile.

13-16 “But when Cyrus became king of Babylon, in his first year he issued a building permit to rebuild this Temple of God. He also gave back the gold and silver vessels of The Temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had carted off and put in the Babylon temple. Cyrus the king removed them from the temple of Babylon and turned them over to Sheshbazzar, the man he had appointed governor. He told him, ‘Take these vessels and place them in The Temple of Jerusalem and rebuild The Temple of God on its original site.’ And Sheshbazzar did it. He laid the foundation of The Temple of God in Jerusalem. It has been under construction ever since but it is not yet finished.”

17 So now, if it please the king, look up the records in the royal archives in Babylon and see if it is indeed a fact that Cyrus the king issued an official building permit authorizing the rebuilding of The Temple of God in Jerusalem. And then send the king’s ruling on this matter to us.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Monday, March 08, 2021
Read: John 20:24–31

Jesus Appears to Thomas

 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The Purpose of John’s Gospel
30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Footnotes
John 20:24 Thomas (Aramaic) and Didymus (Greek) both mean twin.
John 20:31 Or may continue to believe

INSIGHT
Thomas is mentioned among Jesus’ disciples in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but it’s John’s gospel that gives us a close-up view of him. John’s account of Jesus includes six scenes where Thomas appears (all in chapters 11–20), and he first speaks in 11:16 after the death of Lazarus. Jesus’ well-known words in John 14:6—“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”—were in response to Thomas’ query, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” (v. 5).

In John, we see Thomas as a pessimist and realist—inquisitive, human, honest. And he’s commonly referred to as “doubting Thomas” because of his words in John 20:25 and Jesus’ response to him in verse 27. But his last recorded words reveal that he was convinced of who Jesus is: “My Lord and my God!” (v. 28).

The Reason for Writing - By Our Daily Bread
But these are written that you may believe. John 20:31

“The Lord is my high tower . . . . We left the camp singing.” On September 7, 1943, Etty Hillesum wrote those words on a postcard and threw it from a train. Those were the final recorded words we would hear from her. On November 30, 1943, she was murdered at Auschwitz. Later, Hillesum’s diaries of her experiences in a concentration camp were translated and published. They chronicled her perspectives on the horrors of Nazi occupation along with the beauty of God’s world. Her diaries have been translated into sixty-seven languages—a gift to all who would read and believe the good as well as the bad.

The apostle John didn’t sidestep the harsh realities of Jesus’ life on earth; he wrote of both the good Jesus did and the challenges He faced. The final words from his gospel give insight into the purpose behind the book that bears his name. Jesus performed “many other signs . . . which are not recorded” (20:30) by John. But these, he says, were “written that you may believe” (v. 31). John’s “diary” ends on the note of triumph: “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” The gift of those gospel words allows us the opportunity to believe and “have life in his name.”

The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) are diary accounts of God’s love for us. They’re words to read and believe and share, for they lead us to life. They lead us to Christ.

How might it change the way you read the Gospels if you thought of them as diaries? How are you being led to the heart of Christ through them?

Gracious God, thank You for the gift of the Scriptures, written down by faithful hands so that I might believe and have life.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, March 08, 2021
The Surrendered Life

I have been crucified with Christ… —Galatians 2:20

To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God’s consideration.

Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?

We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.

If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it.  Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1459 R

Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 5-7; Mark 11:1-18

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, March 08, 2021

The Most Important Question About the Road You're On - #8911

Every time I go to an airport, there are a lot of planes to choose from. Sometimes I walk past dozens of gates and planes to get to one plane at a faraway gate. Sometimes I get on this little "puddle jumper" plane when I'd, of course, rather be onboard a big, sleek aircraft. I don't get on the first plane I see, or the one that's the most convenient to get to, or the one that looks like the most comfortable, or the one that looks best to me. No, I pick which plane I'll board based on one simple factor - its destination.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Important Question About the Road You're On."

There are a lot of planes at that airport that will give you a nice ride, but they won't get you home. The question that decides which plane to board is pretty straightforward: "Will this take me where I want to end up?"

Nowhere is more riding on that question than when it comes to where we will spend eternity; especially at a time when our culture offers a confusing spiritual buffet to choose from. Many religions are seeking our allegiance in this growing marketplace of spiritual options. And there are countless alternatives to conventional approaches to God; approaches that allow you to develop your own personalized spirituality.

Whether your way to God is a traditional religion or a non-traditional spirituality, it's important to ask the only question that really matters: "Will this take me where I want to end up?" Not "Do I like the way this makes me feel?" or "Shouldn't I follow the religion I was raised in?" There are some beautiful roads that don't lead to heaven. There are some spiritual systems that will, like that wrong aircraft, give you a lift but they won't get you home.

God's made it very clear in His best-selling book, the Bible, that there's one way to end up in His heaven when you die, and it is not a religion. It's a person. In 1 Timothy 2:3-5, our word for today from the Word of God, He says: "God our Savior...wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all men." Why just one man who can be the go-between to get us to God? Because there's only one man who "gave Himself as a ransom for all men."

What's a ransom? It's the price you pay to get someone back. The price to get us back was the death of Jesus Christ for the sin that separates us from God. A religion, a personal spirituality can make us feel spiritual, even close to God, but it cannot pay the death penalty that we carry because we've de-throned God in our lives to run it ourselves. It took what Jesus did on the cross to do that. Only the man who died for your sin can remove your sin. If you die with your sin unforgiven, there's no way God can let you into His heaven. Even Christianity, the religion that's about Jesus, can't get you to heaven. It's Jesus! In the powerful words of Acts 4:12, "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

The only way to get to heaven is to be totally depending on Jesus Christ to get you there. Which means abandoning all other hopes of getting to God and heaven and fully trusting the one way God provided - Jesus, His one and only Son. If you've never reached out to Him, given yourself to Him, you are in grave spiritual danger, no matter how sincere you may be and whatever else you're depending on. You can be totally sincere in your belief that a certain plane will get you where you want to go, but no amount of sincerity can change the fact that it's not going to get you home.

When you open up your heart and your life to Jesus, you know in your soul that this is finally the real thing because Jesus is there now. I pray that you will tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." At our website, there's a brief explanation of just how to begin your personal relationship with Jesus. Go there and check it out will you? It's ANewStory.com.

Jesus paid your passage to heaven with His life. That is how much He loves you. Go with Him today, because He's the only One that can get you home.

Revelation 10 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: God as Heart Surgeon

Grace is God as heart surgeon! Grace is God cracking open your chest, removing your heart, poisoned as it is with pride and pain, and replacing it with his own.
God's dream isn't just to get you into heaven, but to get heaven into you. Grace lives because Jesus does, works because he works, and matters because he matters. To be saved by grace is to be saved by Jesus-not by an idea, doctrine, creed, or church membership, but by Jesus himself, who will sweep into heaven anyone who so much as gives him the nod. Grace won't be stage-managed.  I have no tips on how to get grace.  Truth is, we don't get grace.  But it can sure get us.
If you wonder whether God can do something with the mess of your life, then grace is what you need!  Make certain it happens to you!
From GRACE

Revelation 10

 I saw another powerful Angel coming down out of Heaven wrapped in a cloud. There was a rainbow over his head, his face was sun-radiant, his legs pillars of fire. He had a small book open in his hand. He placed his right foot on the sea and his left foot on land, then called out thunderously, a lion roar. When he called out, the Seven Thunders called back. When the Seven Thunders spoke, I started to write it all down, but a voice out of Heaven stopped me, saying, “Seal with silence the Seven Thunders; don’t write a word.”

5-7 Then the Angel I saw astride sea and land lifted his right hand to Heaven and swore by the One Living Forever and Ever, who created Heaven and everything in it, earth and everything in it, sea and everything in it, that time was up—that when the seventh Angel blew his trumpet, which he was about to do, the Mystery of God, all the plans he had revealed to his servants, the prophets, would be completed.

8-11 The voice out of Heaven spoke to me again: “Go, take the book held open in the hand of the Angel astride sea and earth.” I went up to the Angel and said, “Give me the little book.” He said, “Take it, then eat it. It will taste sweet like honey, but turn sour in your stomach.” I took the little book from the Angel’s hand and it was sweet honey in my mouth, but when I swallowed, my stomach curdled. Then I was told, “You must go back and prophesy again over many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Sunday, March 07, 2021
Read: Daniel 9:1–5, 17–19

Daniel’s Prayer

 In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes[a] (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian[b] kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes.

4 I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed:

“Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.

INSIGHT
The prayer in Daniel 9 was written near the end of the Israelites’ seventy years in Babylon. It had been prophesied that after seventy years God would bring His people back to Jerusalem (v. 2; see also Jeremiah 25:11–14; 29:10). To prepare for the return, Daniel “pleaded with [God] in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). At the time, praying this way was common in difficult situations (see Esther 4:1–3; Jonah 3:6–9). Daniel’s prayer is now a model for believers in Jesus. He begins by worshiping God for His faithfulness (Daniel 9:4), then he pleads with Him for forgiveness for himself and the nation (vv. 5–7), and finally reminds God of His covenant and asks Him to restore their land (v. 19).

Pleading with God -By Dave Branon
I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures. . . . So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition. Daniel 9:2–3

A family’s prayer time ended with a surprising announcement one morning. As soon as Dad said, “Amen,” five-year-old Kaitlyn proclaimed, “And I prayed for Logan, because he had his eyes open during prayer.”

I’m pretty sure praying for your ten-year-old brother’s prayer protocol isn’t what Scripture has in mind when it calls us to intercessory prayer, but at least Kaitlyn realized that we can pray for others.

Bible teacher Oswald Chambers emphasized the importance of praying for someone else. He said that “intercession is putting yourself in God’s place; it is having His mind and perspective.” It’s praying for others in light of what we know about God and His love for us.

We find a great example of intercessory prayer in Daniel 9. The prophet understood God’s troubling promise that the Jews would have seventy years of captivity in Babylon (Jeremiah 25:11–12). Realizing that those years were nearing their completion, Daniel went into prayer mode. He referenced God’s commands (Daniel 9:4–6), humbled himself (v. 8), honored His character (v. 9), confessed sin (v. 15), and depended on His mercy as he prayed for His people (v. 18). And he got an immediate answer from God (v. 21).

Not all prayer ends with such a dramatic response, but be encouraged that we can go to God on behalf of others with an attitude of trust and dependence on Him.

When you pray for others, how are you seeking the mind of God? How do you seek His perspective?

Dear heavenly Father, help me to know You better so that when I pray for others, I can filter my requests through my knowledge of Your will.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, March 07, 2021
The Source of Abundant Joy

In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. —Romans 8:37

Paul was speaking here of the things that might seem likely to separate a saint from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can come between the love of God and a saint. The things Paul mentioned in this passage can and do disrupt the close fellowship of our soul with God and separate our natural life from Him. But none of them is able to come between the love of God and the soul of a saint on the spiritual level. The underlying foundation of the Christian faith is the undeserved, limitless miracle of the love of God that was exhibited on the Cross of Calvary; a love that is not earned and can never be. Paul said this is the reason that “in all these things we are more than conquerors.” We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.

Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let’s apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against— tribulation, suffering, and persecution— are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. “We are more than conquerors through Him” “in all these things”; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. A saint doesn’t know the joy of the Lord in spite of tribulation, but because of it. Paul said, “I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation” (2 Corinthians 7:4).

The undiminished radiance, which is the result of abundant joy, is not built on anything passing, but on the love of God that nothing can change. And the experiences of life, whether they are everyday events or terrifying ones, are powerless to “separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible; some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples.  Approved Unto God, 11 L

Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 3-4; Mark 10:32-52

Psalm 126, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: God's Best Idea

Your dad makes you come to church, but he can't make you listen.  At least that's what you've always muttered to yourself.  But this morning you listen because he speaks of a God who loves prodigals, and you feel like the worst sort of one.   You can't keep the pregnancy a secret much longer.  Soon your parents will know.   The preacher will know.  He says God already knows.  You wonder what God thinks!
Grace is God's best idea.   Rather than tell us to change, he creates the change.  Do we clean up so he can accept us?  No, he accepts us and begins cleaning us up.  What a difference this makes.
Can't forgive your past?  Christ can, and he is on the move, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living.  Forgiven people forgiving people.  Deep sighs of relief.
Grace is everything Jesus!
From GRACE

Psalm 126

It seemed like a dream, too good to be true,
    when God returned Zion’s exiles.
We laughed, we sang,
    we couldn’t believe our good fortune.
We were the talk of the nations—
    “God was wonderful to them!”
God was wonderful to us;
    we are one happy people.

4-6 And now, God, do it again—
    bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
    will shout “Yes!” at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
    will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Saturday, March 06, 2021
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:9–12

Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

INSIGHT
The church at Thessalonica, imperfect like all human organizations, was nevertheless one of the premier congregations in the New Testament. Established by Paul, Silas, and Timothy (Acts 16:1–5; 17:1–3), this church quickly became a hub of missionary activity—in part because of the profound witness the Thessalonians presented of the transforming power of the gospel. Paul applauds this transformation in the opening verses of this letter, where he says that their witness had reached throughout their land: “They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9). In a first-century Greek culture that proliferated with idols, their turning away from them speaks of dramatic change—turning away from dead idols of wood and stone to the God who is not only living but life-giving to all who trust Him. From idolatry to a living faith in the living God, the Thessalonians displayed true transformation.

Minding My Own Business - By David H. Roper
Mind your own business and work with your hands. 1 Thessalonians 4:11

Years ago, my son Josh and I were making our way up a mountain trail when we spied a cloud of dust rising in the air. We crept forward and discovered a badger busy making a den in a dirt bank. He had his head and shoulders in the hole and was vigorously digging with his front paws and kicking the dirt out of the hole with his hind feet. He was so invested in his work he didn’t hear us.

I couldn’t resist and prodded him from behind with a long stick lying nearby. I didn’t hurt the badger, but he leaped straight up in the air and turned toward us. Josh and I set new world records for the hundred-yard dash.

I learned something from my brashness: Sometimes it’s best not to poke around in other people’s business. That’s especially true in relationships with fellow believers in Jesus. The apostle Paul encouraged the Thessalonians to “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands” (1 Thessalonians 4:11). We’re to pray for others and seek by God’s grace to share the Scriptures, and occasionally we may be called to offer a gentle word of correction. But learning to live a quiet life and not meddling into others’ lives is important. It becomes an example to those who are now outside God’s family (v. 12). Our calling is to “love each other” (v. 9).

What happens when you meddle in other people’s business? What’s the first thing you should do instead for others?

God, teach me to know what it means to love others better.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, March 06, 2021
Taking the Next Step

…in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses. —2 Corinthians 6:4

When you have no vision from God, no enthusiasm left in your life, and no one watching and encouraging you, it requires the grace of Almighty God to take the next step in your devotion to Him, in the reading and studying of His Word, in your family life, or in your duty to Him. It takes much more of the grace of God, and a much greater awareness of drawing upon Him, to take that next step, than it does to preach the gospel.

Every Christian must experience the essence of the incarnation by bringing the next step down into flesh-and-blood reality and by working it out with his hands. We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks. The thing that really testifies for God and for the people of God in the long run is steady perseverance, even when the work cannot be seen by others. And the only way to live an undefeated life is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to discourage you. Never allow yourself to think that some tasks are beneath your dignity or too insignificant for you to do, and remind yourself of the example of Christ inJohn 13:1-17.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 1-2; Mark 10:1-31

Psalm 107, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: DEEP IN HIS LOVE

My friend Keith took his wife, Sarah, to Cozumel, Mexico, to celebrate their anniversary.  Sarah loves to snorkel.  Down she swims, searching for the mysteries below.  Keith’s idea of snorkeling also includes a bellyboard.  The surface satisfies him.  Sarah, however, convinced him to plunge into the water where she showed him a twenty-foot-tall submerged cross.  “If I’d had another breath,” he confessed, “the sight would have taken it away.”

Jesus beckons you to descend and see the same.  Take a breath and descend so deeply into his love that you see nothing else.  Join the psalmist in saying:

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. . . .(Psalm 73:25–26)

Psalm 107

 Oh, thank God—he’s so good!
    His love never runs out.
All of you set free by God, tell the world!
    Tell how he freed you from oppression,
Then rounded you up from all over the place,
    from the four winds, from the seven seas.

4-9 Some of you wandered for years in the desert,
    looking but not finding a good place to live,
Half-starved and parched with thirst,
    staggering and stumbling, on the brink of exhaustion.
Then, in your desperate condition, you called out to God.
    He got you out in the nick of time;
He put your feet on a wonderful road
    that took you straight to a good place to live.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
    for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.
He poured great drafts of water down parched throats;
    the starved and hungry got plenty to eat.

10-16 Some of you were locked in a dark cell,
    cruelly confined behind bars,
Punished for defying God’s Word,
    for turning your back on the High God’s counsel—
A hard sentence, and your hearts so heavy,
    and not a soul in sight to help.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
    he got you out in the nick of time.
He led you out of your dark, dark cell,
    broke open the jail and led you out.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
    for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;
He shattered the heavy jailhouse doors,
    he snapped the prison bars like matchsticks!

17-22 Some of you were sick because you’d lived a bad life,
    your bodies feeling the effects of your sin;
You couldn’t stand the sight of food,
    so miserable you thought you’d be better off dead.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
    he got you out in the nick of time.
He spoke the word that healed you,
    that pulled you back from the brink of death.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
    for his miracle mercy to the children he loves;
Offer thanksgiving sacrifices,
    tell the world what he’s done—sing it out!

23-32 Some of you set sail in big ships;
    you put to sea to do business in faraway ports.
Out at sea you saw God in action,
    saw his breathtaking ways with the ocean:
With a word he called up the wind—
    an ocean storm, towering waves!
You shot high in the sky, then the bottom dropped out;
    your hearts were stuck in your throats.
You were spun like a top, you reeled like a drunk,
    you didn’t know which end was up.
Then you called out to God in your desperate condition;
    he got you out in the nick of time.
He quieted the wind down to a whisper,
    put a muzzle on all the big waves.
And you were so glad when the storm died down,
    and he led you safely back to harbor.
So thank God for his marvelous love,
    for his miracle mercy to the children he loves.
Lift high your praises when the people assemble,
    shout Hallelujah when the elders meet!

33-41 God turned rivers into wasteland,
    springs of water into sunbaked mud;
Luscious orchards became alkali flats
    because of the evil of the people who lived there.
Then he changed wasteland into fresh pools of water,
    arid earth into springs of water,
Brought in the hungry and settled them there;
    they moved in—what a great place to live!
They sowed the fields, they planted vineyards,
    they reaped a bountiful harvest.
He blessed them and they prospered greatly;
    their herds of cattle never decreased.
But abuse and evil and trouble declined
    as he heaped scorn on princes and sent them away.
He gave the poor a safe place to live,
    treated their clans like well-cared-for sheep.

42-43 Good people see this and are glad;
    bad people are speechless, stopped in their tracks.
If you are really wise, you’ll think this over—
    it’s time you appreciated God’s deep love.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Friday, March 05, 2021
Read: Ecclesiastes 6:12; 7:13–14

For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?

Consider what God has done:

Who can straighten
    what he has made crooked?
14 When times are good, be happy;
    but when times are bad, consider this:
God has made the one
    as well as the other.
Therefore, no one can discover
    anything about their future.

INSIGHT
Today’s text might make us conclude that the author of Ecclesiastes, the “Teacher” (1:1), is a fatalist. Gloomy thoughts seem to dominate his writing: Life is “meaningless” and our days pass like a “shadow” (6:12); good and bad stuff happen (7:14). But some Bible scholars offer another perspective by pointing us to the writer’s call to “consider what God has done” (7:13)—reminding us to look carefully at how He works and has worked in the world. “Who can straighten what [God] has made crooked?” (v. 13). Who can fix the difficulties in our lives? No one except God. When we consider His character and acts, we see that “in all things” He works “for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). When we trust in God’s goodness, we can be happy (joyful) “when times are good.” And when “times are bad,” we can remember that God has given us those days as well (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

Who Knows? - By Po Fang Chia
When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Ecclesiastes 7:14

According to Chinese legend, when Sai Weng lost one of his prized horses, his neighbor expressed sorrow for his loss. But Sai Weng was unconcerned. He said, “Who knows if it may be a good thing for me?” Surprisingly, the lost horse returned home with another horse. As the neighbor congratulated him, Sai Weng said, “Who knows if it may be a bad thing for me?” As it turned out, his son broke his leg when he rode on the new horse. This seemed like a misfortune, until the army arrived at the village to recruit all able-bodied men to fight in the war. Because of the son’s injury, he wasn’t recruited, which ultimately could have spared him from death.

This is the story behind the Chinese proverb which teaches that a difficulty can be a blessing in disguise and vice versa. This ancient wisdom has a close parallel in Ecclesiastes 6:12, where the author observes: “Who knows what is good for a person in life?” Indeed, none of us know what the future holds. An adversity might have positive benefits, and prosperity might have ill effects.

Each day offers new opportunities, joys, struggles, and suffering. As God’s beloved children, we can rest in His sovereignty and trust Him through the good and bad times alike. God has “made the one as well as the other” (7:14). He’s with us in all the events in our lives and promises His loving care.

Can you think of an example where a misfortune turned out to be a blessing? How can you keep your focus on God in good times as well as in bad times?

Sovereign God, thank You for ordering my life. Help me to praise You in both good and bad times, believing that You work all things for the ultimate good of those who love You.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, March 05, 2021
Is He Really My Lord?

…so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus… —Acts 20:24

Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfillment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. The joy our Lord experienced came from doing what the Father sent Him to do. And He says to us, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). Have you received a ministry from the Lord? If so, you must be faithful to it— to consider your life valuable only for the purpose of fulfilling that ministry. Knowing that you have done what Jesus sent you to do, think how satisfying it will be to hear Him say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). We each have to find a niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive a ministry from the Lord. To do this we must have close fellowship with Jesus and must know Him as more than our personal Savior. And we must be willing to experience the full impact of Acts 9:16 — “I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

“Do you love Me?” Then, “Feed My sheep” (John 21:17). He is not offering us a choice of how we can serve Him; He is asking for absolute loyalty to His commission, a faithfulness to what we discern when we are in the closest possible fellowship with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is not the same as the call— the need is the opportunity to exercise the call. The call is to be faithful to the ministry you received when you were in true fellowship with Him. This does not imply that there is a whole series of differing ministries marked out for you. It does mean that you must be sensitive to what God has called you to do, and this may sometimes require ignoring demands for service in other areas.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else. “Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord”;…  The Highest Good—The Pilgrim’s Song Book, 537 L

Bible in a Year: Numbers 34-36; Mark 9:30-50

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, March 05, 2021
Mess Prevention - #8910

It was a pretty amusing billboard; a cartoon drawing of a wide-eyed, bewildered-looking squirrel, holding a broken cable in his paws. The sign just said, "Call before you dig" and he gave a toll-free phone number. The utility folks have this problem. I'm not sure if it's with squirrels; it certainly is with people. They start digging and they cut right into their lines and their cables. I mean, those could be gas lines, phone lines, or phone cables. And in the process, the happy diggers make a big mess for the utility company and their customers. A mess that could have easily been avoided.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Mess Prevention."

It really is a good idea to check with the people in the know before you just start plowing ahead. It's our failure to check with the person who's really in the know that explains many of our costly mistakes, that causes some of the biggest messes in our life.

Consider the example in Joshua 9:14-15. It's our word for today from the Word of God. Here's the story: The Jews have been winning one victory after another over the Canaanites as they take possession of the Promised Land that God was giving them. They are about to come upon Gibeon, one of the royal cities of Canaan. The Gibeonites have heard about the fall of the other cities that the Jews have gone against. They know they're going down next unless they can trick God's people somehow into making a peace treaty with them, which seems unlikely in light of the fact that God's orders are to remove every tribe from the land and not to coexist with them.

But the Gibeonites are shrewd. They sent a delegation to see Joshua, with donkeys loaded with cracked wineskins and worn-out sacks. They wore patched sandals and old clothes, and they carried dry and moldy bread with them. The whole scam was to make it look like they were from far away and that they had come on a long journey.

Here's how Joshua and his men decided what to do with these Gibeonites, "The men of Israel sampled their provisions (so they made sure the bread was really dry and moldy) but they did not inquire of the Lord. Then Joshua made a treaty of peace with them to let them live." Do you know, within days, the Jews learned that the Gibeonites were not from far away; they were from close by. But because they had been tricked into this treaty, they could not by honor, remove them as God had commanded.

As a result, the hands of the Jews were tied for years to come, and the treaty actually sparked a major battle with other armies. How did this mess happen? They didn't call before they dug. They decided on the basis of what seemed right to them, but they made the fatal mistake so many of us have made so many times - they didn't check with heaven! And they blew it. So do we.

So much unnecessary pain, so many unnecessary complications and difficulties and conflicts, all because of our failure to seek God's direction. We neglect to check with God for a lot of reasons. We're in too big of a hurry, we're feeling pressured by other people, we compromise for the sake of convenience, or we just plain know how we want it to be and we stubbornly blaze ahead with our own will.

Sometimes, we might even be doing God's thing, but it's not God's time or it's not God's way. We "lean on our own understanding," as the Bible puts it, which can only see part of the picture. When you consult with the Lord, you're getting direction from the only One who can see the whole picture.

In 2 Chronicles 18:4, King Jehoshaphat gave King Ahab this advice before he went running off into battle: "First, seek the counsel of the Lord." By the way, King Ahab didn't, and he died in that battle. You can avoid a lot of problems and a lot of pain if you'll instinctively check with heaven first or call before you dig.

Revelation 9, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: CHOOSE GOD’S LOVE

Does a branch ever release the vine?  Only at the risk of death.  Would you say the branch is vine dependent?  I would. How well do you pass the vine test?  Do you ever release yourself from the love of Christ?  Do you ever go unnourished?  You do so at the certain risk of a parched heart.

From the file entitled “It Ain’t Gonna Happen,“ I pull and pose this suggestion.  Let’s make Christ’s command a federal law:  No person may walk out into the world to begin the day until he or she has stood beneath the cross to receive God’s love.  Wild idea?  I agree.  God’s love cannot be legislated, but it can be chosen.  For Christ’s sake, and yours, choose it. The prayer is as powerful as it is simple– “Lord, I receive your love.  Nothing can separate me today from your love.”

Revelation 9

The fifth Angel trumpeted. I saw a Star plummet from Heaven to earth. The Star was handed a key to the Well of the Abyss. He unlocked the Well of the Abyss—smoke poured out of the Well, billows and billows of smoke, sun and air in blackout from smoke pouring out of the Well.

3-6 Then out of the smoke crawled locusts with the venom of scorpions. They were given their orders: “Don’t hurt the grass, don’t hurt anything green, don’t hurt a single tree—only men and women, and then only those who lack the seal of God on their foreheads.” They were ordered to torture but not kill, torture them for five months, the pain like a scorpion sting. When this happens, people are going to prefer death to torture, look for ways to kill themselves. But they won’t find a way—death will have gone into hiding.

7-11 The locusts looked like horses ready for war. They had gold crowns, human faces, women’s hair, the teeth of lions, and iron breastplates. The sound of their wings was the sound of horse-drawn chariots charging into battle. Their tails were equipped with stings, like scorpion tails. With those tails they were ordered to torture the human race for five months. They had a king over them, the Angel of the Abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, in Greek, Apollyon—“Destroyer.”

12 The first doom is past. Two dooms yet to come.

13-14 The sixth Angel trumpeted. I heard a voice speaking to the sixth Angel from the horns of the Golden Altar before God: “Let the Four Angels loose, the Angels confined at the great River Euphrates.”

15-19 The Four Angels were untied and let loose, Four Angels all prepared for the exact year, month, day, and even hour when they were to kill a third of the human race. The number of the army of horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand. I heard the count and saw both horses and riders in my vision: fiery breastplates on the riders, lion heads on the horses breathing out fire and smoke and brimstone. With these three weapons—fire and smoke and brimstone—they killed a third of the human race. The horses killed with their mouths and tails; their serpentlike tails also had heads that wreaked havoc.

20-21 The remaining men and women who weren’t killed by these weapons went on their merry way—didn’t change their way of life, didn’t quit worshiping demons, didn’t quit centering their lives around lumps of gold and silver and brass, hunks of stone and wood that couldn’t see or hear or move. There wasn’t a sign of a change of heart. They plunged right on in their murderous, occult, promiscuous, and thieving ways.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Thursday, March 04, 2021
Read: John 14:8–11

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

INSIGHT
Jesus’ response to Philip’s request to “show us the Father” (John 14:8) likely echoes Moses’ request in Exodus 33:18 (“show me your glory”). In response to Moses’ request, God promised to “cause all [His] goodness to pass” before Moses, but Moses wasn’t permitted to see His face (Exodus 33:20). Jesus’ response to Philip in John 14:9—“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”—makes it clear that Jesus is the fullest possible encounter with God’s glory. Echoes of Moses’ request can also be heard in John 1:14, which describes witnessing in Christ “the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father.” John explains, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (v. 18).

Knowing the Father -By Con Campbell
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” John 14:9

According to legend, British conductor Sir Thomas Beecham once saw a distinguished-looking woman in a hotel foyer. Believing he knew her but unable to remember her name, he paused to talk with her. As the two chatted, he vaguely recollected that she had a brother. Hoping for a clue, he asked how her brother was doing and whether he was still working at the same job. “Oh, he’s very well,” she said, “And still king.”

A case of mistaken identity can be embarrassing, as it was for Sir Beecham. But at other times it may be more serious, as it was for Jesus’ disciple Philip. The disciple knew Christ, of course, but he hadn’t fully appreciated who He was. He wanted Jesus to “show [them] the Father,” and Jesus responded, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:8–9). As God’s unique Son, Christ reveals the Father so perfectly that to know one is to know the other (vv. 10–11).

If we ever wonder what God is like in His character, personality, or concern for others, we only need to look to Jesus to find out. Christ’s character, kindness, love, and mercy reveal God’s character. And although our amazing, awesome God is beyond our complete comprehension and understanding, we have a tremendous gift in what He’s revealed of Himself in Jesus.

How well do you know God’s character? How does it match your perception of who Jesus is?

Dear God, help me to grow in my knowledge and appreciation of who You are.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, March 04, 2021
Is This True of Me?

None of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself… —Acts 20:24

It is easier to serve or work for God without a vision and without a call, because then you are not bothered by what He requires. Common sense, covered with a layer of Christian emotion, becomes your guide. You may be more prosperous and successful from the world’s perspective, and will have more leisure time, if you never acknowledge the call of God. But once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God asks of you will always be there to prod you on to do His will. You will no longer be able to work for Him on the basis of common sense.

What do I count in my life as “dear to myself”? If I have not been seized by Jesus Christ and have not surrendered myself to Him, I will consider the time I decide to give God and my own ideas of service as dear. I will also consider my own life as “dear to myself.” But Paul said he considered his life dear so that he might fulfill the ministry he had received, and he refused to use his energy on anything else. This verse shows an almost noble annoyance by Paul at being asked to consider himself. He was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him. Our reasonable work is based on the following argument which we say to ourselves, “Remember how useful you are here, and think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.” That attitude chooses our own judgment, instead of Jesus Christ, to be our guide as to where we should go and where we could be used the most. Never consider whether or not you are of use— but always consider that “you are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19). You are His.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Jesus Christ can afford to be misunderstood; we cannot. Our weakness lies in always wanting to vindicate ourselves.  The Place of Help, 1051 L

Bible in a Year: Numbers 31-33; Mark 9:1-29

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, March 04, 2021
Driving Hard On the Wrong Road - #8909

So this guy was heading from northern Arizona to Phoenix, which is in southern Arizona. He called his wife from Flagstaff. That's a two-hour, 75-mile-an-hour drive. "See you in a couple of hours," he said. So he got on the Interstate and took full advantage of those Western speed limits. He had a lot on his mind that day - apparently not including where he was going. By the time he realized what road he was on, he was almost in California; nowhere near Phoenix! Nowhere near home! The guy? Yeah, that was me. I was lost. I didn't even know it!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Driving Hard On the Wrong Road."

Poor guy! Poor me; driving hard on what I was sure was the right road, but there was no way it was going to get me home. It wasn't a fatal mistake, though. When you make that mistake with God, it costs you your eternity. The Bible reveals that a lot of people are driving on a road they think will get them to God and that will get them heaven, and there's no way. It's not going to get them home. However sincere they may be in believing they're on the right road, they are in God's eyes, totally lost.

Our word for today from the Word of God is in Proverbs 14:12. It's what I'd call a wakeup call from God. It says in no uncertain terms, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." When it comes to God, "seems right" won't get you there. It's got to be right according to God; not according to us, or our feelings, or what our religion says. This is the one thing you cannot afford to be wrong about, because eternity is a very long time.

Matthew 7 records that Jesus said many are on the road to destruction, thinking it's the right road (Matthew 7:13-14). A few verses later He describes one of those ways that seemed right to folks but led them to death. He said on Judgment Day, "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name and in Your name drive out demons or perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you'" (Matthew 7:22-23). On Judgment Day there will be people who knew lots of Christian things, did lots of Christian things, who didn't know Jesus. They had the religion, but they missed the relationship. They had Christianity, but they missed Christ.

It doesn't matter how hard you're driving on the wrong road - how dedicated you might be to it - if it isn't God's road, you will be forever lost. And contrary to what so many think, being good is not the way to go to heaven. That's what God says. He says, for example, "No one will be declared righteous in His sight (or, fit for heaven) by observing the law." No one, no matter how good. Because goodness can't pay the death penalty that we deserve because of our sin.

Then, in Romans 3, God spells out the road that will get us to Him. We "are justified (that means made right with God) through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:20, 24). And that came when Jesus hung on that cross and absorbed all the guilt and all the hell of all of my sin and all of yours.

That's why God says this about Jesus in words that are hard to misunderstand: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

God says it all comes down to what you do with Jesus. Trust Him and Him alone to get you to heaven or put your trust in something else and never get there. It's a choice every one of us has to make, and our eternity hangs in the balance.

I truly believe God's speaking to someone who's listening right now and He's saying, "You're on the wrong road, man. But today is your day to get on the road that will bring you home. This is your day to give yourself to My Son who gave His life for you." And I pray you'll listen to that invitation in your heart. Everything depends on it. Tell Him, "Jesus, from this day on I'm Yours ." He doesn't point the way to heaven; He is the way.

You want to get this settled once and for all? Let me encourage you to get to our website. There's a simple explanation there that will help you be sure you belong to Jesus. The website's ANewStory.com.

God does not want to lose you. That's why He's coming to you today to show you how you can get home to Him. The right road will give you everything. The wrong road will cost you everything.

Psalm 84 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: MAKE CHRIST’S LOVE YOUR HOME

To abide in the love of Christ is to make his love your home.  You rest in him.  His fireplace warms you from the winters of life.  You abandon the old house of false love and move into his home of real love.

Adapting to this new home takes time.  You’ve lived a life in a house of imperfect love.  You think God is going to abandon you as your father did, or judge you as false religion did, or curse you as your friend did.  He won’t, but it takes time to be convinced.

For that reason abide in him.  Hang on to Christ the same way a branch clutches the vine.  According to Jesus:  “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4).

Psalm 84

What a beautiful home, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
    I’ve always longed to live in a place like this,
Always dreamed of a room in your house,
    where I could sing for joy to God-alive!

3-4 Birds find nooks and crannies in your house,
    sparrows and swallows make nests there.
They lay their eggs and raise their young,
    singing their songs in the place where we worship.
God-of-the-Angel-Armies! King! God!
    How blessed they are to live and sing there!

5-7 And how blessed all those in whom you live,
    whose lives become roads you travel;
They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks,
    discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain!
God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and
    at the last turn—Zion! God in full view!

8-9 God-of-the-Angel-Armies, listen:
    O God of Jacob, open your ears—I’m praying!
Look at our shields, glistening in the sun,
    our faces, shining with your gracious anointing.

10-12 One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship,
    beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches.
I’d rather scrub floors in the house of my God
    than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.
All sunshine and sovereign is God,
    generous in gifts and glory.
He doesn’t scrimp with his traveling companions.
    It’s smooth sailing all the way with God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
Read: Deuteronomy 31:1–8

Joshua to Succeed Moses

Then Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel: 2 “I am now a hundred and twenty years old and I am no longer able to lead you. The Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not cross the Jordan.’ 3 The Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said. 4 And the Lord will do to them what he did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their land. 5 The Lord will deliver them to you, and you must do to them all that I have commanded you. 6 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

7 Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. 8 The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

INSIGHT
God’s promise never to leave or forsake the Israelites as they enter the promised land (Deuteronomy 31:8) is in fulfillment of His promises to their ancestors (v. 7). God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan after four hundred years in slavery in Egypt (Genesis 15:13; 17:8). And He brought Israel out of slavery so they could trust Him as they entered the promised land.

Centuries later, those who are believers in Jesus are also regarded as children of Abraham and share in His inheritance of the whole world (Romans 4:13). Just as God promised to be with Israel as they took hold of their inheritance (Deuteronomy 31:6; Hebrews 13:5), so He’ll be with us (Matthew 28:20).

Preserved -By James Banks
The Lord himself goes before you. Deuteronomy 31:8

While I was clearing out the garden in preparation for spring planting, I pulled up a large clump of winter weeds . . . and leapt into the air! A venomous copperhead snake lay hidden in the undergrowth just below my hand—an inch lower and I would have grabbed it by mistake. I saw its colorful markings as soon as I lifted the clump; the rest of it was coiled in the weeds between my feet.

When my feet hit the ground a few feet away, I thanked God I hadn’t been bitten. And I wondered how many other times He had kept me from dangers I never knew were there.

God watches over His people. Moses told the Israelites as they prepared to enter the promised land, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged” (Deuteronomy 31:8). They couldn’t see God, but He was with them nonetheless.

Sometimes difficult things happen that we may not understand, but we can also reflect on the number of times God has preserved us without our ever being aware!

Scripture reminds us that His perfect, providential care remains over His people every day. He’s always with us (Matthew 28:20).

How does the biblical truth that God watches over His people comfort you? Who can you tell about His faithfulness today?

Faithful Father, thank You for watching over me every day. Please give me grace to walk closely with You in everything I do today.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
His Commission to Us

Feed My sheep. —John 21:17

This is love in the making. The love of God is not created— it is His nature. When we receive the life of Christ through the Holy Spirit, He unites us with God so that His love is demonstrated in us. The goal of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not just to unite us with God, but to do it in such a way that we will be one with the Father in exactly the same way Jesus was. And what kind of oneness did Jesus Christ have with the Father? He had such a oneness with the Father that He was obedient when His Father sent Him down here to be poured out for us. And He says to us, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21).

Peter now realizes that he does love Him, due to the revelation that came with the Lord’s piercing question. The Lord’s next point is— “Pour yourself out. Don’t testify about how much you love Me and don’t talk about the wonderful revelation you have had, just ‘Feed My sheep.’ ” Jesus has some extraordinarily peculiar sheep: some that are unkempt and dirty, some that are awkward or pushy, and some that have gone astray! But it is impossible to exhaust God’s love, and it is impossible to exhaust my love if it flows from the Spirit of God within me. The love of God pays no attention to my prejudices caused by my natural individuality. If I love my Lord, I have no business being guided by natural emotions— I have to feed His sheep. We will not be delivered or released from His commission to us. Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by following your own natural human emotions, sympathies, or understandings. That will only serve to revile and abuse the true love of God.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

For the past three hundred years men have been pointing out how similar Jesus Christ’s teachings are to other good teachings. We have to remember that Christianity, if it is not a supernatural miracle, is a sham.  The Highest Good, 548 L

Bible in a Year: Numbers 28-30; Mark 8:22-38

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
The Freedom Chain - #8908

When she was in college, my daughter went on a trip to a part of the world that she brought home in her heart with her actually and brought into the hearts of our family. I was back when the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, as it was known then the Communist Empire and the Iron Curtain was coming down. It was right at the beginning of that. She was on a Christian music team on a tour to Estonia and Latvia. They were actually pursuing some historic opportunities to present Christ in public settings. But what really impressed them was the Soviet believers. And that impressed them even more than the meetings that they were able to hold. And they saw in those people a hope of freedom.

About two weeks after the teams returned, those hopes of freedom were channeled into a very powerful demonstration. Now, it's 370 miles from the northern point in the Baltic States to the southern point. That's from the northern border of Estonia by the Gulf of Finland to the southern border of Lithuania. OK, there's your geography lesson for today. Amazingly, one million people formed an unbroken line (try to imagine this) hand-in-hand from one end of that 370 miles to the other, and they just passed one word from the first person in Estonia by the Gulf of Finland to that last person on the southern border of Lithuania. Each person turned to the next and simply said, "Freedom." Wow! Did you know you're in a line like that?

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Freedom Chain."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Timothy 1, beginning at verse 6, where Paul says to Timothy, "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. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord." And then he talks to him about the freedom chain. "And the things you've heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others." Well, there's the chain.

Paul says, "God sent me to touch your life, Timothy, with the claims of Christ. Now I want you to pass that on to reliable men. They in turn will pass it on to others."

Thank the Lord that chain has made it across the centuries and it links you and me. It's really a freedom chain. Because of what Christ has done we can say to people, "You don't have to live as a slave to sin and selfishness. There's forgiveness that will release you from your guilt. There's love to release you from a lonely lifetime. There's a personal presence of God to release you from the darkness that's in you and all around you."

Over 2,000 years one person has turned to another and said, "There's freedom in Jesus." And someone turned to you and said it. Now, who are you saying it to? There's a long, long line of people who did what it says in Timothy, "Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord." They got the message to you. Whether it gets to your family, your friends, to your coworkers, to your personal world? I think that depends on you.

Haven't you been quiet long enough, ashamed long enough? Let God lay on your heart at least one person He wants you to turn to. Ask Him to get them ready for your message and to change your silence to boldness. And then, join God's freedom chain.

Someone grabbed your hand. Now, you grab someone else's and proclaim "Freedom!" because of what Jesus did.

Psalm 83, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE GOD-SANCTIONED GAUGE FOR LOVE

The sight of the healthy or successful prompts us to conclude, God must really love him.  He’s so blessed with health, money, good looks, and skill.  Or we gravitate to the other extreme. Lonely and frail in the hospital bed, we deduce, God does not love me. How could he?  Look at me.

Rebuff such thoughts!  Success signals God’s love no more than struggles indicate the lack of it.  The definitive, God-sanctioned gauge is not a good day or a bad break but the dying hours of his Son.  Consider them often. Let the gap between trips to the cross diminish daily.

Discover what David Brainerd, the eighteenth-century missionary to American Indians, meant when he said, “My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day.”  Accept this invitation of Jesus from John 15:9, “Abide in My love.”

Psalm 83

God, don’t shut me out;
    don’t give me the silent treatment, O God.
Your enemies are out there whooping it up,
    the God-haters are living it up;
They’re plotting to do your people in,
    conspiring to rob you of your precious ones.
“Let’s wipe this nation from the face of the earth,”
    they say; “scratch Israel’s name off the books.”
And now they’re putting their heads together,
    making plans to get rid of you.

6-8     Edom and the Ishmaelites,
    Moab and the Hagrites,
    Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
    Philistia and the Tyrians,
    And now Assyria has joined up,
    Giving muscle to the gang of Lot.

9-12 Do to them what you did to Midian,
    to Sisera and Jabin at Kishon Brook;
They came to a bad end at Endor,
    nothing but dung for the garden.
Cut down their leaders as you did Oreb and Zeeb,
    their princes to nothings like Zebah and Zalmunna,
With their empty brags, “We’re grabbing it all,
    grabbing God’s gardens for ourselves.”

13-18 My God! I’ve had it with them!
    Blow them away!
Tumbleweeds in the desert waste,
    charred sticks in the burned-over ground.
Knock the breath right out of them, so they’re gasping
    for breath, gasping, “God.”
Bring them to the end of their rope,
    and leave them there dangling, helpless.
Then they’ll learn your name: “God,”
    the one and only High God on earth.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Read: Psalm 91

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a]
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

3 Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
    nor the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
    and see the punishment of the wicked.

9 If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,”
    and you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
    no disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
    you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

14 “Because he[b] loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;
    I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble,
    I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

Footnotes
Psalm 91:1 Hebrew Shaddai
Psalm 91:14 That is, probably the king

INSIGHT
In trying to get Jesus to sin in the wilderness, Satan told Him: “[God] will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (Matthew 4:6). This is a quote from Psalm 91:11–12. Intriguingly, the next verse in Psalm 91 says, “You will trample the great lion and the serpent” (v. 13). The lion and the serpent are two images used in Scripture to refer to the devil (1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:9). Jesus countered the devil’s misuse of Scripture by quoting Scripture accurately, thus effectively “trampling” His enemy.

Safe and Still -By Xochitl Dixon
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. Psalm 91:1

As a full-of-energy preschooler, my son Xavier avoided afternoon quiet time. Being still often resulted in an unwanted, though much-needed, nap. So, he’d wiggle in his seat, slide off the sofa, scoot across the hardwood floor, and even roll across the room to evade the quiet. “Mom, I’m hungry . . . I’m thirsty . . . I have to go to the bathroom . . . I want a hug.”

Understanding the benefits of stillness, I’d help Xavier settle down by inviting him to snuggle. Leaning into my side, he’d give in to sleep.

Early in my spiritual life, I mirrored my son’s desire to remain active. Busyness made me feel accepted, important, and in control, while noise distracted me from fretting over my shortcomings and trials. Surrendering to rest only affirmed my frail humanity. So I avoided stillness and silence, doubting God could handle things without my help.

But He’s our refuge, no matter how many troubles or uncertainties surround us. The path ahead may seem long, scary, or overwhelming, but His love envelops us. He hears us, answers us, and stays with us . . . now and forever into eternity (Psalm 91).

We can embrace the quiet and lean into God’s unfailing love and constant presence. We can be still and rest in Him because we’re safe under the shelter of His unchanging faithfulness (v. 4).

In what ways have you seen God’s protection in your life? How can you face difficulties knowing that God has you under His wings?

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Tuesday, March 02, 2021
Have You Felt the Pain Inflicted by the Lord?

He said to him the third time, "…do you love Me?" —John 21:17

Have you ever felt the pain, inflicted by the Lord, at the very center of your being, deep down in the most sensitive area of your life? The devil never inflicts pain there, and neither can sin nor human emotions. Nothing can cut through to that part of our being but the Word of God. “Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, ‘Do you love Me?’ ” Yet he was awakened to the fact that at the center of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus. And then he began to see what Jesus’ patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest bit of doubt left in Peter’s mind; he could never be deceived again. And there was no need for an impassioned response; no need for immediate action or an emotional display. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he simply said, “Lord, You know all things….” Peter began to see how very much he did love Jesus, and there was no need to say, “Look at this or that as proof of my love.” Peter was beginning to discover within himself just how much he really did love the Lord. He discovered that his eyes were so fixed on Jesus Christ that he saw no one else in heaven above or on the earth below. But he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord were asked. The Lord’s questions always reveal the true me to myself.

Oh, the wonder of the patient directness and skill of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the perfect time. Rarely, but probably once in each of our lives, He will back us into a corner where He will hurt us with His piercing questions. Then we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than our words can ever say.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ.  My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R

Bible in a Year: Numbers 26-27; Mark 8:1-21

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Tuesday, March 02, 2021
How to Avoid a Major Mess - #8907

Back in the 1950s, Walt Disney went to an amusement park he didn't like very much. It was a mess; there was litter all over the ground, dirty bathrooms. It just felt tacky. So he made up his mind that when he built the theme park he had dreamed of, it would never be a mess. If you've ever been to Disneyland or Disney World, you know he got what he wanted. Any time we've been there, it's been amazingly clean; I mean, considering the millions of people who go through there. I've been told that they have a simple strategy that makes Disney parks clean places. Take care of a mess right away. One day at Disney World I dropped my Coke cup and this guy with mouse ears made a flying leap and caught it before it hit the ground. OK, I'm exaggerating. But it almost feels like that. It really does stay clean there because they just won't let a mess get started.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How to Avoid a Major Mess."

The plan for keeping a park clean is the plan for keeping a life clean - don't let a mess get started. When you mess up, clean it up fast. There's not one of us who doesn't have things we wish we hadn't done or things we wish we had done. We've got things that make us feel dirty, ashamed, guilty, maybe unworthy. It all comes under the heading of what God calls sin.

The problem is that too often when we mess up, we give up, so we just keep giving in to more and more spiritual mistakes. So the darkness grows. The garbage starts piling up. But God has given us His spiritual recovery plan in clear, simple terms in our word for today from the Word of God. 1 John 1:8-9 tell us this, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

This is talking about immediate and heartfelt confession. That's the way to keep a mess from accumulating. When I was a kid, I had this inflatable boxer. When I punched him, he fell all the way backwards, but he didn't stay down. He came right back up again. That's what God has made it possible for you to do so you can begin to break a cycle of defeat and discouragement.

As soon as you've done what you know is wrong, don't run from God; run to God. Confess it to Him immediately. And what does it mean to confess your sin? It's much more than just feeling guilty or even feeling sorry for what you did. The original word in the Bible means to "say the same thing." In other words, you confess your sin when you say the same thing about it that God does. You see it for how ugly, how wrong it is; something so bad it took the death of God's Son to pay for it: immediate confession, immediate forgiveness and immediate cleansing. A spiritual shower as soon as you get dirty. As the Bible says, "His compassions never fail. They are new every morning" (Lamentations 3:23-24). Imagine a clean start each new day! Don't carry yesterday's garbage into today.

But wait! How can a holy God forgive this junk that He hates? Soon after that "confess and be clean" verse, God says, "If anyone does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins." Being forgiven by God is a matter of taking what Jesus did on the cross and making it personal for you. It's standing at the cross and saying, "Jesus, You died for what I did. I have no other hope of being forgiven. I'm Yours."

Maybe you've carried the guilt and the shame of things you've done for a long time. The good news is you can go to sleep tonight knowing you are clean from all of that for the first time in your life, if you'll just invite the Savior who died for it all to be your personal Savior from your personal sin.

I've tried to put this whole thing in simple words at our website that I think could help you take this step. The website is ANewStory.com. Please go there.

You don't have to carry the sin and the mistakes on your back one more day. You could lay it down at the cross of Jesus and leave it there, and walk away clean.

Revelation 8 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: A Fountain of Love That Won’t Run Dry

You don’t influence God’s love. You can’t affect the love of God. If your actions altered his devotion, then God would not be love; instead, he would be a human, for this is human love. Don’t you need a fountain of love that won’t run dry? You’ll find one on a stone-cropped hill outside Jerusalem’s walls where Jesus hangs, cross-nailed and thorn-crowned.

When you feel unloved, ascend this mount and meditate long and hard on heaven’s love for you. Both eyes beaten shut, shoulders as raw as ground beef, lips bloody and split. Fists of hair yanked from his beard. Gasps of air escaping his lungs. As you peer into the crimsoned face of heaven’s only Son, remember this: “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 NLT).

Revelation 8

When the Lamb ripped off the seventh seal, Heaven fell quiet—complete silence for about half an hour.

Blowing the Trumpets
2-4 I saw the Seven Angels who are always in readiness before God handed seven trumpets. Then another Angel, carrying a gold censer, came and stood at the Altar. He was given a great quantity of incense so that he could offer up the prayers of all the holy people of God on the Golden Altar before the Throne. Smoke billowed up from the incense-laced prayers of the holy ones, rose before God from the hand of the Angel.

5 Then the Angel filled the censer with fire from the Altar and heaved it to earth. It set off thunders, voices, lightnings, and an earthquake.

6-7 The Seven Angels with the trumpets got ready to blow them. At the first trumpet blast, hail and fire mixed with blood were dumped on earth. A third of the earth was scorched, a third of the trees, and every blade of green grass—burned to a crisp.

8-9 The second Angel trumpeted. Something like a huge mountain blazing with fire was flung into the sea. A third of the sea turned to blood, a third of the living sea creatures died, and a third of the ships sank.

10-11 The third Angel trumpeted. A huge Star, blazing like a torch, fell from Heaven, wiping out a third of the rivers and a third of the springs. The Star’s name was Wormwood. A third of the water turned bitter, and many people died from the poisoned water.

12 The fourth Angel trumpeted. A third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were hit, blacked out by a third, both day and night in one-third blackout.

13 I looked hard; I heard a lone eagle, flying through Middle-Heaven, crying out ominously, “Doom! Doom! Doom to everyone left on earth! There are three more Angels about to blow their trumpets. Doom is on its way!”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Monday, March 01, 2021
Read: Joshua 1:1–9

Joshua Installed as Leader

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 5 No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

INSIGHT
We have limited background information about Joshua the son of Nun, but he was clearly a man who trusted God. Joshua is first referenced in Exodus 17:9, when Moses instructed him to lead Israel’s troops into battle against the Amalekites. In Exodus 24:13, Joshua is portrayed as Moses’ assistant and companion. When the time came to explore the promised land, Joshua was among the men sent for that purpose (Numbers 13–14). Most significantly, it was Joshua whom God selected to replace Moses and lead the people of Israel into the promised land (Deuteronomy 3:28).

Never Give Up - By Patricia Raybon
Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips. Joshua 1:8

“Time went by. War came in.” That’s how Bishop Semi Nigo of the Keliko people of South Sudan described delays in his church’s long struggle to get the Bible in their own language. Not one word, in fact, had ever been printed in the Keliko language. Decades earlier, Bishop Nigo’s grandfather had courageously started a Bible translation project, but war and unrest kept halting the effort. Yet, despite repeated attacks on their refugee camps in northern Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the bishop and fellow believers kept the project alive.

Their persistence paid off. After nearly three decades, the New Testament Bible in Keliko was delivered to the refugees in a rousing celebration. “The motivation of the Keliko is beyond words,” said one project consultant.

The commitment of the Keliko reflects the perseverance God asked of Joshua. As God told him, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8). With equal persistence, the Keliko pursued the translation of Scripture. Now, “when you see them in the camps, they are smiling,” said one translator. Hearing and understanding the Bible “gives them hope.” Like the Keliko people, may we never give up seeking the power and wisdom of Scripture.

What will help you persist in reading Scripture? How could another person help you better understand it?

Loving God, stir up in me a greater hunger to seek, study, and know the Bible, never giving up my quest to understand Your wisdom.

To learn more about how to study the Bible, visit ChristianUniversity.org/SF106.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, March 01, 2021
The Piercing Question

Do you love Me? —John 21:17

Peter’s response to this piercing question is considerably different from the bold defiance he exhibited only a few days before when he declared, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!” (Matthew 26:35; also see Matthew 26:33-34). Our natural individuality, or our natural self, boldly speaks out and declares its feelings. But the true love within our inner spiritual self can be discovered only by experiencing the hurt of this question of Jesus Christ. Peter loved Jesus in the way any natural man loves a good person. Yet that is nothing but emotional love. It may reach deeply into our natural self, but it never penetrates to the spirit of a person. True love never simply declares itself. Jesus said, “Whoever confesses Me before men [that is, confesses his love by everything he does, not merely by his words], him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8).

Unless we are experiencing the hurt of facing every deception about ourselves, we have hindered the work of the Word of God in our lives. The Word of God inflicts hurt on us more than sin ever could, because sin dulls our senses. But this question of the Lord intensifies our sensitivities to the point that this hurt produced by Jesus is the most exquisite pain conceivable. It hurts not only on the natural level, but also on the deeper spiritual level. “For the Word of God is living and powerful…, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit…”— to the point that no deception can remain (Hebrews 4:12). When the Lord asks us this question, it is impossible to think and respond properly, because when the Lord speaks directly to us, the pain is too intense. It causes such a tremendous hurt that any part of our life which may be out of line with His will can feel the pain. There is never any mistaking the pain of the Lord’s Word by His children, but the moment that pain is felt is the very moment at which God reveals His truth to us.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically.  Disciples Indeed, 387 R

Bible in a Year: Numbers 23-25; Mark 7:14-37

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, March 01, 2021
Looking at Something Better - #8906

Some friends of ours were at Universal Studios, and they wanted to see behind the scenes of TV and movies. So they went on the tram that takes you on their backstage tour. They had their preschooler with them, and they weren't really too excited about him being terrorized by King Kong and the shark from "Jaws." So, when King Kong appeared on one side of the dark tunnel, they just turned their child's attention to the tunnel and said, "Ooo, look at this dark tunnel! What's this inside your hat?" It worked. He never saw King Kong. Never saw "Jaws." As the shark was jumping out of the water near his father's back, the little guy was studying the scenery on the other side. Whew! He never saw the shark.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Looking at Something Better."

Now, we could discuss whether this couple should have taken their preschooler on that tour or not, but they did do something smart. When there was something their child shouldn't experience, they creatively turned his attention to something else. That's not a bad strategy for parents who are raising their children in a world that's increasingly filled with monsters that can hurt them and destructive things that they shouldn't experience.

It's a strategy actually directed by God in our word for today from the Word of God in Deuteronomy 11, beginning with verse 16. Like us, these parents were trying to raise their children in a culture where sin was cool and temptation was everywhere. God says, "Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds, teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land."

God is calling godly parents to play offense, not just defense, especially if you're in a spiritually hostile culture. Don't just try to keep your children from touching wrong things. No, help them look in the other direction and find better things to experience - God's things!

You can't just say no to everything; you have to offer alternatives and positive reasons. For example, sex is something that is too beautiful to ruin by taking it out of the Creator's fence called marriage. Heavy dating can be morally dangerous, but why not be for guys and girls having some great times as friends in mixed groups? In fact, why don't you help set some of those things up? In fact, why not at your house?

If you don't want your kids listening to destructive music, invest in music they can listen to. Invest in constructive interests and constructive friendships they have. Make your house a fun place, a welcoming place for their friends so they don't have to go to other homes where it's easier to get in trouble. Have great parties for your kids and for their friends.

And maybe you can give them the two words I gave my kids as they left for school each day, "GO MAD!" Now before you think that's nuts, that has nothing to do with having insane children. That's another discussion. No, "GO MAD" means "Go Make A Difference!" I wanted them to see they didn't have to follow their friends down roads to nowhere; they could lead their friends to experiences that leave no scars and no regrets.

We need to show our children that what we're against is because of what we're for: things like living without guilt, relationships without regrets, the specialness of sex, the value of life, a good reputation, protecting the worth that God gave you.

We can't just be against the monsters and predators - the sharks and the gorillas - that are around our children. We've got to direct their attention to all of God's good stuff!

Psalm 82, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: God in a Real World ·

God calls us in a real world. He doesn’t communicate by performing tricks. He’s not a genie, a magician, a good luck charm, or the man upstairs. He is the Creator of the universe who is right here in the thick of our day-to-day world.

And God speaks in our world.  We just have to learn to hear him. Listen for him amidst the ordinary. Do you need affirmation of his care?  Let the daily sunrise proclaim his loyalty. Could you use an example of his power?  Spend an evening reading how your body works. Are you wondering if his Word is reliable?  Make a list of the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible and promises in your life.

Don’t they say only two things in life are certain: death and taxes? Knowing God, he may speak through something as common as the second to give you the answer for the first!

From And the Angels Were Silent

Psalm 82

“Enough! You’ve corrupted justice long enough,
    you’ve let the wicked get away with murder.
You’re here to defend the defenseless,
    to make sure that underdogs get a fair break;
Your job is to stand up for the powerless,
    and prosecute all those who exploit them.”

5 Ignorant judges! Head-in-the-sand judges!
    They haven’t a clue to what’s going on.
And now everything’s falling apart,
    the world’s coming unglued.

6-7 “I appointed you judges, each one of you,
    deputies of the High God,
But you’ve betrayed your commission
    and now you’re stripped of your rank, busted.”

8 O God, give them what they’ve got coming!
    You’ve got the whole world in your hands!

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion   
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Read: Lamentations 3:19–26

I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.

INSIGHT
The writer of Lamentations isn’t named, but there are reasons to believe that Jeremiah wrote this book. Having prophesied for some forty-seven years (627–580 bc) to a disobedient, disbelieving Judah, Jeremiah writes as an eyewitness, lamenting the destruction and devastation of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonian army. For two years (588–586 bc), Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. Second Kings 25:1–4 tells of the desperate conditions within the besieged city. Jeremiah witnessed the eventual destruction of the city and temple (Jeremiah 52:12–27). In Lamentations, in five emotionally charged dirges or funeral laments, the prophet describes the sufferings of the people and the reasons for them. But he also writes of their hope in the midst of despair. God, who rightly judged their unfaithfulness, is still the God of hope, compassion, faithfulness, and salvation (Lamentations 3:21–33).

New Every Morning- By Amy Boucher Pye

[God’s] compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Lamentations 3:22–23

My brother Paul grew up battling severe epilepsy, and when he entered his teenage years it became even worse. Nighttime was excruciating for him and my parents, as he’d experience continuous seizures for often more than six hours at a time. Doctors couldn’t find a treatment that would alleviate the symptoms while also keeping him conscious for at least part of the day. My parents cried out in prayer: “God, oh God, help us!”

Although their emotions were battered and their bodies exhausted, Paul and my parents received enough strength from God for each new day. In addition, my parents found comfort in the words of the Bible, including the book of Lamentations. Here Jeremiah voiced his grief over the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, remembering “the bitterness and the gall” (3:19). Yet Jeremiah didn’t lose hope. He called to mind the mercies of God, that His compassions “are new every morning” (v. 23). So too did my parents.

Whatever you’re facing, know that God is faithful every morning. He renews our strength day by day and gives us hope. And sometimes, as with my family, He brings relief. After several years, a new medication became available that stopped Paul’s continuous nighttime seizures, giving my family restorative sleep and hope for the future.

When our souls are downcast within us (v. 20), may we call to mind the promises of God that His mercies are new every morning.

How has God sustained you through the trials you’ve faced? How could you support someone who’s enduring a challenging time?

God, Your love will never leave me. When I feel spent and without hope, remind me of Your mercies and compassion.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 28, 2021
“Do You Now Believe?”

"By this we believe…." Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe?" —John 16:30-31

“Now we believe….” But Jesus asks, “Do you…? Indeed the hour is coming…that you…will leave Me alone” (John 16:31-32). Many Christian workers have left Jesus Christ alone and yet tried to serve Him out of a sense of duty, or because they sense a need as a result of their own discernment. The reason for this is actually the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. Our soul has gotten out of intimate contact with God by leaning on our own religious understanding (see Proverbs 3:5-6). This is not deliberate sin and there is no punishment attached to it. But once a person realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and caused uncertainties, sorrows, and difficulties for himself, it is with shame and remorse that he has to return.

We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to “walk in the light” of our conscience or in the light of a sense of duty, but to “walk in the light as He is in the light…” (1 John 1:7). When we do something out of a sense of duty, it is easy to explain the reasons for our actions to others. But when we do something out of obedience to the Lord, there can be no other explanation— just obedience. That is why a saint can be so easily ridiculed and misunderstood.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. Not Knowing Whither, 900 R

Bible in a Year: Numbers 20-22; Mark 7:1-13