Amos 9, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: GOD ISN’T FINISHED WITH YOU - April 13, 2023

Pick up a high school yearbook and read the “What I want to do” sentence under each picture. You’ll get dizzy breathing the thin air of mountaintop visions: Ivy league school. Write books and live in Switzerland. Physician in a Third World country. Teach inner-city kids. Yet, take the yearbook to a twentieth-year reunion and read the next chapter. Some dreams have come true, but many haven’t.

Changing direction in life is not tragic. Losing passion in life is. Convictions to change the world downgrade to commitments to pay the bills. And rather than make a difference, we make a salary. Rather than look outward, we look inward. And we don’t like what we see. Philippians 1:6 says, “God began doing a good work in you, and he will continue until it is finished.” May I spell out the message? God isn’t finished with you yet!

Amos 9

Israel Thrown into a Sieve

 I saw my Master standing beside the altar at the shrine. He said:

“Hit the tops of the shrine’s pillars,

    make the floor shake.

The roof’s about to fall on the heads of the people,

    and whoever’s still alive, I’ll kill.

No one will get away,

    no runaways will make it.

If they dig their way down into the underworld,

    I’ll find them and bring them up.

If they climb to the stars,

    I’ll find them and bring them down.

If they hide out at the top of Mount Carmel,

    I’ll find them and bring them back.

If they dive to the bottom of the ocean,

    I’ll send Dragon to swallow them up.

If they’re captured alive by their enemies,

    I’ll send Sword to kill them.

I’ve made up my mind

    to hurt them, not help them.”

5-6 My Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,

    touches the earth, a mere touch, and it trembles.

    The whole world goes into mourning.

Earth swells like the Nile at flood stage;

    then the water subsides, like the great Nile of Egypt.

God builds his palace—towers soaring high in the skies,

    foundations set on the rock-firm earth.

He calls ocean waters and they come,

    then he ladles them out on the earth.

        God, your God, does all this.

* * *

7-8 “Do you Israelites think you’re any better than the far-off Cushites?” God’s Decree.

“Am I not involved with all nations? Didn’t I bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Caphtor, the Arameans from Qir? But you can be sure that I, God, the Master, have my eye on the Kingdom of Sin. I’m going to wipe it off the face of the earth. Still, I won’t totally destroy the family of Jacob.” God’s Decree.

9-10 “I’m still giving the orders around here. I’m throwing Israel into a sieve among all the nations and shaking them good, shaking out all the sin, all the sinners. No real grain will be lost, but all the sinners will be sifted out and thrown away, the people who say, ‘Nothing bad will ever happen in our lifetime. It won’t even come close.’

Blessings Like Wine Pouring off the Mountains

11-12 “But also on that Judgment Day I will restore David’s house that has fallen to pieces. I’ll repair the holes in the roof, replace the broken windows, fix it up like new. David’s people will be strong again and seize what’s left of enemy Edom, plus everyone else under my sovereign judgment.” God’s Decree. He will do this.

13-15 “Yes indeed, it won’t be long now.” God’s Decree.

“Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won’t be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once—and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills. I’ll make everything right again for my people Israel:

    “They’ll rebuild their ruined cities.

    They’ll plant vineyards and drink good wine.

    They’ll work their gardens and eat fresh vegetables.

    And I’ll plant them, plant them on their own land.

    They’ll never again be uprooted from the land I’ve given them.”

God, your God, says so.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Today's Scripture

Psalm 30

I give you all the credit, God—

    you got me out of that mess,

    you didn’t let my foes gloat.

2-3 God, my God, I yelled for help

    and you put me together.

God, you pulled me out of the grave,

    gave me another chance at life

    when I was down-and-out.

4-5 All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God!

    Thank him to his face!

He gets angry once in a while, but across

    a lifetime there is only love.

The nights of crying your eyes out

    give way to days of laughter.

6-7 When things were going great

    I crowed, “I’ve got it made.

I’m God’s favorite.

    He made me king of the mountain.”

Then you looked the other way

    and I fell to pieces.

8-10 I called out to you, God;

    I laid my case before you:

“Can you sell me for a profit when I’m dead?

    auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?

When I’m ‘dust to dust’ my songs

    and stories of you won’t sell.

So listen! and be kind!

    Help me out of this!”

11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament

    into whirling dance;

You ripped off my black mourning band

    and decked me with wildflowers.

I’m about to burst with song;

    I can’t keep quiet about you.

God, my God,

    I can’t thank you enough.

Insight

The book of Psalms is one of the most cited books of the Old Testament in the New Testament. Jesus Himself told His disciples that all Scripture anticipated His coming and specifically mentioned the book of Psalms (Luke 24:27, 44–45). Jesus’ words remind us that when we read the Psalms, we should always reflect on how a psalm might point to Him. After all, He’s the Good Shepherd (John 10:11; Psalm 23); He’s “God’s Anointed One” (Psalm 2:2; Hebrew for Messiah); He’s our divine warrior who defeats the spiritual powers by His death and resurrection (Ephesians 4:8, citing Psalm 68:18).

Adapted from Understanding the Bible: The Poetic Books..

Tears of Praise

Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. Psalm 30:4

Years ago, I cared for my mom as she was in hospice. I thanked God for the four months He allowed me to serve as her caregiver and asked Him to help me through the grieving process. I often struggled to praise God as I wrestled with my mixed emotions. But as my mom breathed her last breath and I wept uncontrollably, I whispered, “Hallelujah.” I felt guilty for praising God in that devastating moment until, years later, I took a closer look at Psalm 30.

In David’s song “for the dedication of the temple,” he worshiped God for His faithfulness and mercy (vv. 1–3). He encouraged others to “praise his holy name” (v. 4). Then David explored how intimately God entwines hardship and hope (v. 5). He acknowledged times of grief and rejoicing, times of feeling secure and being dismayed (vv. 6–7). His cries for help remained laced with confidence in God (vv. 7–10). The echo of his praise wove through David’s moments of wailing and dancing, grief and joy (v. 11). As if acknowledging the mystery and complexity of enduring affliction and anticipating God’s faithfulness, David proclaimed his endless devotion to God (v. 12).

Like David, we can sing, “Lord my God, I will praise you forever” (v. 12). Whether we’re happy or hurting, God can help us declare our trust in Him and lead us to worship Him with joyful shouts and tears of praise. By:  Xochitl Dixon

Reflect & Pray

How has God helped you trust Him with your mixed emotions? How can you praise Him while still processing hardship?

Dear God, please help me trust You and praise You as I process my emotions.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Thursday, April 13, 2023

What To Do When Your Burden Is Overwhelming

Cast your burden on the Lord… —Psalm 55:22

We must recognize the difference between burdens that are right for us to bear and burdens that are wrong. We should never bear the burdens of sin or doubt, but there are some burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off. God wants us to roll them back on Him— to literally “cast your burden,” which He has given you, “on the Lord….” If we set out to serve God and do His work but get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility we feel will be overwhelming and defeating. But if we will only roll back on God the burdens He has placed on us, He will take away that immense feeling of responsibility, replacing it with an awareness and understanding of Himself and His presence.

Many servants set out to serve God with great courage and with the right motives. But with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, they are soon defeated. They do not know what to do with their burden, and it produces weariness in their lives. Others will see this and say, “What a sad end to something that had such a great beginning!”

“Cast your burden on the Lord….” You have been bearing it all, but you need to deliberately place one end on God’s shoulder. “…the government will be upon His shoulder” (Isaiah 9:6). Commit to God whatever burden He has placed on you. Don’t just cast it aside, but put it over onto Him and place yourself there with it. You will see that your burden is then lightened by the sense of companionship. But you should never try to separate yourself from your burden.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth. The Place of Help, 1005 R

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 22-24; Luke 12:1-31

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Thursday, April 13, 2023

NO PLACE TO LAND WITH YOUR PAIN - #9459

I've lost count of how many times I have landed in an airplane. But who would care? For the most part - routine landings - except for the ones that were unusually soft or unusually hard. In fact I experienced one of those hard landings a while back. We hit the runway, well, let's say with authority.

Now, my neighbor in the seat next to me commented very matter-of-factly, "Navy pilot." When I asked him what he meant by that, he said, "Well, I've observed this over the years. The guys who are former Air Force pilots glide in because they're used to landing on big runways at big airports. But the former Navy pilots, they land hard. They're used to landing on a small speck - the ship in the middle of the ocean."

And that started me thinking, "Man, if all I had to land on was this little speck in a big ocean called a carrier, I'd land hard too." That's the smart thing to do when there's only one spot to land on.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "No Place to Land With Your Pain."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 1, and I'm going to be reading verses 8 and 9. As I read, would you see if any of these phrases might sound familiar in your life? Here's what Paul says, "We do not want you to be uninformed about the hardships we suffered in the Province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead."

Any of those phrases sound like anything you've been going through, like hardships, under great pressure, beyond your ability to endure? He said, "In our hearts, man, we felt like we were dying this death sentence." A dark time! In a sense, Paul's saying he has no place to land with his pain but one place, and that's why God allowed all the pain so his options would be limited to one. With only one place to land, Paul landed hard in the arms of God and he traded in self-reliance for God-reliance.

This talented, competent, successful, driven, well-educated man had to reach the end of himself to find out what God's power was like. And when he had only God to turn to, he said, "Man, that's when I learned who I was supposed to rely on." He traded in human strength for heaven's strength.

You can learn a lot from studying the people who got a miracle in Jesus' day. The Bible says in Mark 1, "A man with leprosy came to Him and begged Him on his knees, 'If you are willing, you can make me clean.'" And Mark 5, one of the synagogue rulers came. "Seeing Jesus, he fell at His feet and pleaded earnestly with Him." Now, this guy was a "big shot"; he was an official. And yet you see him pleading earnestly and falling at Jesus' feet.

And it says of the woman then who came to Jesus with a hemorrhaging problem that she'd had for 12 years, "When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd, because she thought, 'If I just touch His clothes I would be healed.'" You could just see her desperately pushing through the crowd.

See, people who got a miracle landed hard at Jesus' feet; totally powerless, grabbing Him as if He was their only hope. And their desperate faith released the power of God to change their situation. This is faith that doesn't just pray, "Dear God..." No, it prays "Oh, Lord." And it lands hard.

Well, maybe you're running out of fuel and you're running out of places to land. There's one place left. You could land hard at the feet of Jesus Christ. You know, that's how you even begin a relationship with God. That's how you get your sins forgiven. That's how you trade hell for heaven, as you realize there's nothing you can do to contribute to you getting to heaven; that would give you a relationship with God. And so, that's when you grab Jesus. You land hard in His arms and you say, "Jesus, you died for my sins. Rescue me."

Maybe you've never done that. Maybe you'd like to. You want to know you belong to Him. That's exactly why our website is there. Would you go there today? It's ANewStory.com. Jesus is waiting for you to pin all your hopes on Him. And when you do, you'll be ready to fly again.

Amos 8, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE SHEPHERD KNOWS YOU - April 12, 2023

When I see a flock of sheep I see exactly that – a flock. A rabble of wool. I don’t see a sheep; I see sheep. All alike, none different. But not so with the shepherd. To him every sheep is different. Every face has a story. John 10:3 says, “The sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd. He calls his own sheep by name.”

When we see a crowd we see exactly that – a crowd. We see people, not persons. A herd of humans. But not so with the Shepherd. To him every face is different. Every face is a story. The Shepherd knows you. He knows your name, and he will never forget it. God said in Isaiah 49, “I have written your name on my hand.” Quite a thought isn’t it? Your name on God’s lips. My, could it be?

Amos 8 

You Who Give Little and Take Much

My Master God showed me this vision: A bowl of fresh fruit.

2 He said, “What do you see, Amos?”

I said, “A bowl of fresh, ripe fruit.”

God said, “Right. So, I’m calling it quits with my people Israel. I’m no longer acting as if everything is just fine.”

3 “The royal singers will wail when it happens.”

    My Master God said so.

“Corpses will be strewn here, there, and everywhere.

    Hush!”

4-6 Listen to this, you who walk all over the weak,

    you who treat poor people as less than nothing,

Who say, “When’s my next paycheck coming

    so I can go out and live it up?

How long till the weekend

    when I can go out and have a good time?”

Who give little and take much,

    and never do an honest day’s work.

You exploit the poor, using them—

    and then, when they’re used up, you discard them.

7-8 God swears against the arrogance of Jacob:

    “I’m keeping track of their every last sin.”

God’s oath will shake earth’s foundations,

    dissolve the whole world into tears.

God’s oath will sweep in like a river that rises,

    flooding houses and lands,

And then recedes,

    leaving behind a sea of mud.

9-10 “On Judgment Day, watch out!”

    These are the words of God, my Master.

“I’ll turn off the sun at noon.

    In the middle of the day the earth will go black.

I’ll turn your parties into funerals

    and make every song you sing a dirge.

Everyone will walk around in rags,

    with sunken eyes and bald heads.

Think of the worst that could happen

    —your only son, say, murdered.

That’s a hint of Judgment Day

    —that and much more.

11-12 “Oh yes, Judgment Day is coming!”

    These are the words of my Master God.

“I’ll send a famine through the whole country.

    It won’t be food or water that’s lacking, but my Word.

People will drift from one end of the country to the other,

    roam to the north, wander to the east.

They’ll go anywhere, listen to anyone,

    hoping to hear God’s Word—but they won’t hear it.

13-14 “On Judgment Day,

    lovely young girls will faint of Word-thirst,

    robust young men will faint of God-thirst,

Along with those who take oaths at the Samaria Sin-and-Sex Center,

    saying, ‘As the lord god of Dan is my witness!’

    and ‘The lady goddess of Beer-sheba bless you!’

Their lives will fall to pieces.

    They’ll never put it together again.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Today's Scripture

1 Samuel 3:3–10

“Speak, God. I’m Ready to Listen”

The boy Samuel was serving God under Eli’s direction. This was at a time when the revelation of God was rarely heard or seen. One night Eli was sound asleep (his eyesight was very bad—he could hardly see). It was well before dawn; the sanctuary lamp was still burning. Samuel was still in bed in the Temple of God, where the Chest of God rested.

4-5 Then God called out, “Samuel, Samuel!”

Samuel answered, “Yes? I’m here.” Then he ran to Eli saying, “I heard you call. Here I am.”

Eli said, “I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.” And so he did.

6-7 God called again, “Samuel, Samuel!”

Samuel got up and went to Eli, “I heard you call. Here I am.”

Again Eli said, “Son, I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.” (This all happened before Samuel knew God for himself. It was before the revelation of God had been given to him personally.)

8-9 God called again, “Samuel!”—the third time! Yet again Samuel got up and went to Eli, “Yes? I heard you call me. Here I am.”

That’s when it dawned on Eli that God was calling the boy. So Eli directed Samuel, “Go back and lie down. If the voice calls again, say, ‘Speak, God. I’m your servant, ready to listen.’” Samuel returned to his bed.

10 Then God came and stood before him exactly as before, calling out, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Samuel answered, “Speak. I’m your servant, ready to listen.”

Insight

Eli was a priest in Israel and, as such, a valuable mentor to young Samuel. Unfortunately, Eli’s struggles as a dad are pictured in the failings of his sons Hophni and Phinehas. These men followed in their father’s footsteps as priests but defiled the sacrifices (1 Samuel 2:12–17) and even engaged in sexual acts with women at the very gate of the tabernacle—Israel’s tent of meeting and primary place of worship (v. 22). Verse 12 describes them as “scoundrels” and verse 17 adds that “this sin of the young men was very great in the Lord’s sight.” So severe was their activity that a “man of God” later came to Eli and chastened him for honoring his sons more than God, pronouncing a verdict of judgment upon the house of Eli (vv. 27–36).  By: Bill Crowder

God Speaking to Us

Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” 1 Samuel 3:10

I received a phone call from an unknown number. Often, I let those calls go to voicemail, but this time I picked up. The random caller asked politely if I had just a minute for him to share a short Bible passage. He quoted Revelation 21:3–5 about how God “will wipe every tear from their eyes.” He talked about Jesus, how he was our assurance and hope. I told him I already know Jesus as my personal Savior. But the caller wasn’t aiming to “witness” to me. Instead, he simply asked if he could pray with me. And he did, asking God to give me encouragement and strength.

That call reminded me of another “call” in Scripture—God called out to the young boy Samuel in the middle of the night (1 Samuel 3:4–10). Three times Samuel heard the voice, thinking it was the elderly priest Eli. The final time, following Eli’s instruction, Samuel realized that God was calling him: “Speak, for your servant is listening” (v. 10). Likewise, through our days and nights, God may be speaking to us. We need to “pick up,” which might mean spending more time in His presence and listening for His voice.

I then thought of “the call” in another way. What if we sometimes are the messenger of God’s words to someone else? We might feel we have no way of helping others. But as God guides us, we could phone a friend and ask, “Would it be okay if I just prayed with you today?” By:  Kenneth Petersen

Reflect & Pray

What message of encouragement did someone recently share with you? Who might be encouraged by a phone call from you?

Dear God, prompt me to think of others whom I can encourage with Your wisdom.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Complete and Effective Dominion

Death no longer has dominion over Him.…the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God… —Romans 6:9-11

Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.

“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8)— not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life— “…that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to “let go.” But any effort to “hang on” to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

When we no longer seek God for His blessings, we have time to seek Him for Himself.  The Moral Foundations of Life, 728 L

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 19-21; Luke 11:29-54

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

YOUR STRETCH OF THE BEACH - #9458

Two words that will inevitably cause a lot of excitement to appear on any face in our family - Ocean City. That's the name of this charming town on the Jersey shore where our family has got a lot of memories over the years. There was this one trip where several of us rendezvoused there for a couple of days making a few more memories.

I was riding my bike along the boardwalk there, and I passed some Herculean young men jogging the boards. Their shirts had four letters on them: OCBP. That's Ocean City Beach Patrol. Over a century ago, as Ocean City was becoming a tourist mecca, the number of drownings began to increase. So, the Beach Patrol was formed. As of the last time I was there, they had a record to be proud of. In 100 years, they had never lost anyone at a guarded beach. I remember a time some years ago when a young Amish woman drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, but that was on an unguarded beach.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Stretch of the Beach."

I've seen those lifeguards in action. They concentrate on their stretch of the water and the people that are in it almost as if it's a life-or-death matter. Because it is! Just like the rescue responsibility God has entrusted to you.

Our word for today from the Word of God; Proverbs 24:11-12. As you listen, would you try to picture some of the people on the stretch of beach God has given you to guard. He says, "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, 'But we knew nothing about this,' does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what he has done?" God's saying here, "If you have a rescue responsibility, there is no excuse for you letting people die without your trying to do something about it."

The awful tragedy is that so many Christless lives are being lost forever because one of God's spiritual lifeguards is leaving their beach unguarded. Your beach? It's that circle of influence God has given you - the people you work with, live near, go to school with or recreate with. But too many of us lifeguards, we stay in the lifeguard station, enjoying the fellowship of the other lifeguards, singing our lifeguard songs, planning our lifeguard meetings while people are dying in the surf.

Maybe we leave our stretch of the beach unguarded because we forget that telling people about Jesus really is life-or-death. The people around you may not look or sound like they're dying spiritually, but listen to a few of the words God uses in the Bible to describe the lost people around you. They are called in the Bible, "Those being led away to death" (Proverbs 24:11). They're called "lost" in Luke 19:10. In Ephesians 2:12, they are "without God, without hope." In John 3:36, "Whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." Second Thessalonians 1:9 says those who don't know God "will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord." And in Revelation 20:15, God says, "If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire."

These are people you know, or ought to know. And you carry in your heart the one message that can change all this; the message of a Savior who loved them enough to die so they don't have to. Your job isn't to persuade them to come to Jesus, but it is to present Jesus. If you haven't done that, then they don't know they're dying and they don't know who to grab to rescue them.

You may think there's someone better to rescue the people around you, but it's you that God put in the middle of them. This is your stretch of the beach. The people there are your responsibility. Please don't leave your beach unguarded. Too many people are dying on unguarded beaches.

Amos 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: MEET YOUR FEARS WITH FAITH - April 11, 2023

When ancient sailors sketched maps of the oceans, they disclosed their fears. On the vast unexplored waters, geographers wrote words such as these: “Here be dragons.” “Here be demons.” “Here be sirens.”

Were a map drawn of your world, would we read such phrases? Over the unknown waters of adulthood: “Here be dragons.” Near the sea of the empty nest: “Here be demons.” Next to the furthermost latitudes of death and eternity, do we read “Here be sirens”?

Mark it down. You will never go where God is not. You may be transferred, enlisted, commissioned, reassigned, hospitalized, but brand this truth on your heart: you can never go where God is not. “I am with you always,” Jesus promised (Matthew 28:20 NKJV). Fear visits everyone. But make your fear a visitor and not a resident. Meet your fears with faith.

Amos 7

To Die Homeless and Friendless

 God, my Master, showed me this vision: He was preparing a locust swarm. The first cutting, which went to the king, was complete, and the second crop was just sprouting. The locusts ate everything green. Not even a blade of grass was left.

I called out, “God, my Master! Excuse me, but what’s going to come of Jacob? He’s so small.”

3 God gave in.

“It won’t happen,” he said.

* * *

4 God showed me this vision: Oh! God, my Master God was calling up a firestorm. It burned up the ocean. Then it burned up the Promised Land.

5 I said, “God, my Master! Hold it—please! What’s going to come of Jacob? He’s so small.”

6 God gave in.

“All right, this won’t happen either,” God, my Master, said.

* * *

7 God showed me this vision: My Master was standing beside a wall. In his hand he held a plumb line.

8-9 God said to me, “What do you see, Amos?”

I said, “A plumb line.”

Then my Master said, “Look what I’ve done. I’ve hung a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. I’ve spared them for the last time. This is it!

    “Isaac’s sex-and-religion shrines will be smashed,

    Israel’s unholy shrines will be knocked to pieces.

    I’m raising my sword against the royal family of Jeroboam.”

10 Amaziah, priest at the shrine at Bethel, sent a message to Jeroboam, king of Israel:

“Amos is plotting to get rid of you; and he’s doing it as an insider, working from within Israel. His talk will destroy the country. He’s got to be silenced. Do you know what Amos is saying?

11     ‘Jeroboam will be killed.

    Israel is headed for exile.’”

12-13 Then Amaziah confronted Amos: “Seer, be on your way! Get out of here and go back to Judah where you came from! Hang out there. Do your preaching there. But no more preaching at Bethel! Don’t show your face here again. This is the king’s chapel. This is a royal shrine.”

14-15 But Amos stood up to Amaziah: “I never set up to be a preacher, never had plans to be a preacher. I raised cattle and I pruned trees. Then God took me off the farm and said, ‘Go preach to my people Israel.’

16-17 “So listen to God’s Word. You tell me, ‘Don’t preach to Israel. Don’t say anything against the family of Isaac.’ But here’s what God is telling you:

    Your wife will become a whore in town.

    Your children will get killed.

    Your land will be auctioned off.

    You will die homeless and friendless.

    And Israel will be hauled off to exile, far from home.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Today's Scripture

2 Timothy 4:1–5

I can’t impress this on you too strongly. God is looking over your shoulder. Christ himself is the Judge, with the final say on everyone, living and dead. He is about to break into the open with his rule, so proclaim the Message with intensity; keep on your watch. Challenge, warn, and urge your people. Don’t ever quit. Just keep it simple.

3-5 You’re going to find that there will be times when people will have no stomach for solid teaching, but will fill up on spiritual junk food—catchy opinions that tickle their fancy. They’ll turn their backs on truth and chase mirages. But you—keep your eye on what you’re doing; accept the hard times along with the good; keep the Message alive; do a thorough job as God’s servant.

Insight

Paul’s words to Timothy that he “be prepared in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2) might seem a bit odd. In context, Paul wants Timothy to carry out the task of preaching “the word” when it’s appropriate to his audience (in season) and also when that audience doesn’t want to hear it (out of season).

Then Paul points out that soon Timothy’s audience won’t tolerate the hard truths of following Jesus; instead, they will turn to “what their itching ears want to hear” (v. 3). Paul wanted Timothy to preach the gospel to people regardless of whether they felt up to denying themselves, caring for the poor, the widow, the orphan, or following Jesus into death. As a young church planter, Timothy faced a world that would hate his message as well as embrace it. And still, he preached “the word” (v. 2). By: Jed Ostoich

Seize the Opportunity

Do the work of an evangelist. 2 Timothy 4:5

While waiting to enter the university, twenty-year-old Shin Yi decided to commit three months of her break to serving in a youth mission organization. It seemed like an odd time to do this, given the COVID-19 restrictions that prevented face-to-face meetings. But Shin Yi soon found a way. “We couldn’t meet up with students on the streets, in shopping malls, or fast-food centers like we usually did,” she shared. “But we continued to keep in touch with the Christian students via Zoom to pray for one another and with the non-believers via phone calls.”

Shin Yi did what the apostle Paul encouraged Timothy to do: “Do the work of an evangelist” (2 Timothy 4:5). Paul warned that people would find teachers who would tell them what they wanted to hear and not what they needed to hear (vv. 3–4). Yet Timothy was called to take courage and “be prepared in season and out of season.” He was to “correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction” (v. 2).

Though not all of us are called to be evangelists or preachers, each one of us can play a part in sharing our faith with those around us. Unbelievers are perishing without Christ. Believers need strengthening and encouragement. With God’s help, let’s proclaim His good news whenever and wherever we can.

By:  Poh Fang Chia

Reflect & Pray

What discourages you from sharing your faith? How might remembering that Jesus is coming back help you to overcome your fear?

Dear Jesus, help me to seize every opportunity to share Your words with others that they may find hope and comfort in You.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection… —Romans 6:5

Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.

The idea all through the apostle Paul’s writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God— His complete and effective divinity— to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house— He invades all of it. And once I decide that my “old man” (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to “reckon” that I am actually “dead indeed to sin,” because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness— the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word. Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 17-18; Luke 11:1-28

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

GETTING THE COVER OFF YOUR CAGE - #9457

I would call home to my wife, and I'd get a serenade. No, not from her. From our canary. We had only had him about a couple of weeks, and man, I found out he could sing up a storm! The whole time I was talking to my wife, the yellow bird symphony was going on in the background. It was hard to hear that canary sing and stay gloomy very long let me tell you. Every night we would put this cloth over Cherokee's cage - that was his name. And all the singing stopped. The next morning I would go into the living room and there wasn't a sound coming from under that cloth. But as soon as I took the cover off, the canary started jumping all over the cage and singing his wakeup song.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Getting the Cover Off Your Cage."

Each day with that canary was like life began when the cover came off that cage. In a way, that's like you and me. Your cage? That might be some painful memories, or a broken heart, or maybe a broken dream. Maybe you're caged in by some addiction or a habit, or anger that's eating you up inside. For some of us it's depression or even suicidal thoughts that have held us in. There's a cover on that cage, whatever it is. And as you listen today, it's dark in there isn't it? And maybe there's nothing to sing about.

Well, good news for you in our word for today from the Word of God in Psalm 40. King David said, "The Lord turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth." King David's imagery is a little different, but in canary terms, the cover came off his dark cage and gave him a reason to sing.

The same Lord that did that for King David wants to do that for you. In fact, that's why Jesus Christ came. He says in the Bible, "The Lord has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners." Did you notice that, "release from darkness?"

Now, that little bird of ours was stuck in a dark world that he couldn't change until someone bigger and more powerful came along to remove that cover and release him from his darkness. The Savior, Jesus, came to do that for you and me. He came to die for our darkness, our sin, to remove the death sentence you and I have on our head because of our sins. And when you tell Jesus that you're trusting Him completely for a relationship with God, the cover finally comes off. All the guilt, all the shame, all of that stuff in the past is gone; it's forgiven.

So many people have told me right after they've reached out and put their trust in Christ, and they've said, "I feel like 100 pounds has just been lifted off my shoulders." And the pain is suddenly lightened because God himself is picking it up for you. The dark feelings and the power that may have kept you in darkness? All of that is replaced by this unexplainable personal peace.

Now, our canary? He had no choice when the cover came off his cage, but you do. Your release from darkness comes when you open your heart to Jesus Christ, and that could be today. You tired of the darkness? Well, you might be ready for Jesus to come in. And if you are, I want to encourage you to go to our website today. Because basically what it's there for is to explain how you can begin that relationship with Jesus. Just go there. Just spend a few minutes there. It's ANewStory.com. Got nothing for you to join. There's no religion to be a part of here. It's all about you reaching out and embracing the love of the man who died for you.

There is light to replace your darkness. There's a song that can replace your sin the day you let Jesus lift the cover off of your life.

Galatians 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: FORGIVENESS CAN HAPPEN WITH YOU - April 10, 2023

Harbored grudges suck the joy out of life. Revenge won’t paint the blue in your sky or restore the spring in your step. It will leave you bitter, bent, and angry.

Give the grace you’ve been given. You don’t endorse the deeds of your offender when you do. Jesus didn’t endorse your sins by forgiving you. Grace is not blind; it sees the hurt full well. But grace chooses to see God’s forgiveness even more. It refuses to let hurts poison the heart.

Hebrews 12:15 says, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” Where grace is lacking, bitterness abounds. But where grace abounds, forgiveness grows. Forgiveness may not happen all at once, but it can happen to you.

Galatians 1

 I, Paul, and my companions in faith here, send greetings to the Galatian churches. My authority for writing to you does not come from any popular vote of the people, nor does it come through the appointment of some human higher-up. It comes directly from Jesus the Messiah and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. I’m God-commissioned. So I greet you with the great words, grace and peace! We know the meaning of those words because Jesus Christ rescued us from this evil world we’re in by offering himself as a sacrifice for our sins. God’s plan is that we all experience that rescue. Glory to God forever! Oh, yes!

The Message

6-9 I can’t believe how you waver—how easily you have turned traitor to him who called you by the grace of Christ by embracing an alternative message! It is not a minor variation, you know; it is completely other, an alien message, a no-message, a lie about God. Those who are provoking this agitation among you are turning the Message of Christ on its head. Let me be blunt: If one of us—even if an angel from heaven!—were to preach something other than what we preached originally, let him be cursed. I said it once; I’ll say it again: If anyone, regardless of reputation or credentials, preaches something other than what you received originally, let him be cursed.

10-12 Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? Or court favor with God? Or get popular applause? If my goal was popularity, I wouldn’t bother being Christ’s slave. Know this—I am most emphatic here, friends—this great Message I delivered to you is not mere human optimism. I didn’t receive it through the traditions, and I wasn’t taught it in some school. I got it straight from God, received the Message directly from Jesus Christ.

13-16 I’m sure that you’ve heard the story of my earlier life when I lived in the Jewish way. In those days I went all out in persecuting God’s church. I was systematically destroying it. I was so enthusiastic about the traditions of my ancestors that I advanced head and shoulders above my peers in my career. Even then God had his eye on me. Why, when I was still in my mother’s womb he chose and called me out of sheer generosity! Now he has intervened and revealed his Son to me so that I might joyfully tell non-Jews about him.

16-20 Immediately after my calling—without consulting anyone around me and without going up to Jerusalem to confer with those who were apostles long before I was—I got away to Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus, but it was three years before I went up to Jerusalem to compare stories with Peter. I was there only fifteen days—but what days they were! Except for our Master’s brother James, I saw no other apostles. (I’m telling you the absolute truth in this.)

21-24 Then I began my ministry in the regions of Syria and Cilicia. After all that time and activity I was still unknown by face among the Christian churches in Judea. There was only this report: “That man who once persecuted us is now preaching the very message he used to try to destroy.” Their response was to recognize and worship God because of me!

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Monday, April 10, 2023

Today's Scripture

Judges 7:1–9

 Jerub-Baal (Gideon) got up early the next morning, all his troops right there with him. They set up camp at Harod’s Spring. The camp of Midian was in the plain, north of them near the Hill of Moreh.

2-3 God said to Gideon, “You have too large an army with you. I can’t turn Midian over to them like this—they’ll take all the credit, saying, ‘I did it all myself,’ and forget about me. Make a public announcement: ‘Anyone afraid, anyone who has any qualms at all, may leave Mount Gilead now and go home.’” Twenty-two companies headed for home. Ten companies were left.

4-5 God said to Gideon: “There are still too many. Take them down to the stream and I’ll make a final cut. When I say, ‘This one goes with you,’ he’ll go. When I say, ‘This one doesn’t go,’ he won’t go.” So Gideon took the troops down to the stream.

5-6 God said to Gideon: “Everyone who laps with his tongue, the way a dog laps, set on one side. And everyone who kneels to drink, drinking with his face to the water, set to the other side.” Three hundred lapped with their tongues from their cupped hands. All the rest knelt to drink.

7 God said to Gideon: “I’ll use the three hundred men who lapped at the stream to save you and give Midian into your hands. All the rest may go home.”

8 After Gideon took all their provisions and trumpets, he sent all the Israelites home. He took up his position with the three hundred. The camp of Midian stretched out below him in the valley.

9-12 That night, God told Gideon: “Get up and go down to the camp. I’ve given it to you. If you have any doubts about going down, go down with Purah your armor bearer; when you hear what they’re saying, you’ll be bold and confident.” He and his armor bearer Purah went down near the place where sentries were posted. Midian and Amalek, all the easterners, were spread out on the plain like a swarm of locusts. And their camels! Past counting, like grains of sand on the seashore!

Insight

Some scholars suggest that the reason God chose the three hundred soldiers who lapped water from their hands like dogs to defeat the Midianites (Judges 7) is because they were the ones who kept their eyes up. Those who knelt to drink had to put their faces directly into the water and thus couldn’t see around them. However, it was God who gave the victory. The way they drank water wasn’t necessarily important; it was the number of men that was significant (v. 2). If it had been the smaller number who had stuck their faces in the water to drink rather than lapping, God would likely have used them instead. By: J.R. Hudberg

Strength in Weakness

The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men.” Judges 7:2

When my son was nearly three, I needed an operation that would require a month or more of recovery. Prior to the procedure, I imagined myself in bed while stacks of dirty dishes accumulated in the sink. I wasn’t sure how I’d take care of an active toddler and couldn’t picture myself standing in front of the stove to cook our meals. I dreaded the impact my weakness would have on the rhythm of our lives.

God intentionally weakened Gideon’s forces before his troops confronted the Midianites. First, those who were afraid were allowed to leave—twenty-two thousand men went home (Judges 7:3). Then, of the ten thousand who remained, only those who scooped water into their hands to drink could stay. Just three hundred men were left, but this disadvantage prevented the Israelites from relying on themselves (vv. 5–6). They couldn’t say, “My own strength has saved me” (v. 2).

Many of us experience times when we feel drained and powerless. When this happened to me, I realized how much I needed God. He encouraged me inwardly through His Spirit and outwardly through the helpfulness of friends and family. I had to let go of my independence for a while, but this taught me how to lean more fully on God. Because “[His] power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9), we can have hope when we can’t meet our needs on our own. By:  Jennifer Benson Schuldt

Reflect & Pray

How have you experienced God’s power made perfect in your weakness? How could you help someone who’s experiencing weakness?

God, I want my life to display Your power, even in weakness. Help me to depend more on You each day, and to feel Your strength when I struggle.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Monday, April 10, 2023

Complete and Effective Decision About Sin

…our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. —Romans 6:6

Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin—that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you– not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified— just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.

Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, “Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me.” Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.

This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life— to see the very things that struggle against God’s Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God’s verdict on the nature of sin— that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin” (Romans 6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.

Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Civilization is based on principles which imply that the passing moment is permanent. The only permanent thing is God, and if I put anything else as permanent, I become atheistic. I must build only on God (John 14:6). The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 565 L

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 15-16; Luke 10:25-42

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Monday, April 10, 2023

Many years ago, one of the 20th Century's great Christian leaders, Peter Deyneka, was immigrating to America on a long Atlantic voyage with only a few coins in his pocket. When he got hungry, he reached into this little bag he'd brought with him to eat the same thing every meal - a few dry crusts of bread and some water. He was pretty hungry when his ship finally docked in New York; not to mention pretty sick of bread crusts. That's when he realized something that he'd wished he had understood at the beginning of the voyage - three full meals a day were included in his fare. They were all included in the price of his ticket!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "All The Good Stuff You're Missing."

That young traveler had been living at a much lower level than he needed to live! He had no idea all the good things he'd gotten when he got his ticket. Well, when God looks at His children, sailing through life, He sees a lot of us living the same way - under-living. Not realizing how we could be living and all the good stuff we got when we opened our lives to Jesus Christ.

Biblical passages like Ephesians 3, beginning with verse 12, our word for today from the Word of God, they spell out what's included in your ticket. Paul writes: "In Him (that's in Jesus) and through faith in Him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence...I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Holy Spirit in your inner being." Okay, so there's supernatural inner strength that comes when Jesus comes in. Let me go on. "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power...to know this love that surpasses knowledge" - okay, so you got this indescribable love and security when you got Jesus. Then He goes on to say, "that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

Imagine all the resources of God Himself downloadable by you - His wisdom for your questions, His power for your difficulties, His love for your lonely times, His peace for your troubled times. We don't have to live like these stressed out, strung out, weighed down people we often are! Dry bread crusts when we've got all the resources of God at our disposal! Wow!

Those resources are accessed through serious prayer. And we under-live because we under-pray. We over-worry, we overwork and we get overwhelmed because we under-pray. I mean really pray. One model of prayer that moves heaven to your need is found in Acts 4, where the apostles have been threatened by the same Jewish leaders who engineered the death of Jesus. The apostle's response? They gather the believers together and they "raised their voices together in prayer to God. 'Sovereign Lord,' they said, 'You made the heaven and the earth and the sea."

Then they go on to celebrate the fact that all that's happening is under God's sovereign power and will. Finally, after they focused only on the greatness of their God, they ask Him for boldness and supernatural power. The place where they prayed was shaken, the Holy Spirit showed up big-time, and then they told everybody about Jesus.

Now, there's the pattern for aiming all of God's power at your situation; at your need. First, you focus on your big, big God, not your big, big problem. Then, you trust Him for the big, big things you need. But always put your praise before your please, your worship before your request.

When you take a little time to celebrate the awesomeness of the God you belong to, the God you're trusting in, you start to access all those great resources that came with your ticket. You don't have to live the way you've been living! You've got so much to draw on since the day you let Jesus in! So, don't wait until you reach your heavenly destination to realize how you could have been living all along!

Amos 6, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: The Choice is Yours

It would've been nice if God had let us order life like we order a meal.  I'll take good health and a high IQ. I'll pass on the music skills, but give me a fast metabolism!  It would've been nice-but it didn't happen. When it came to your life on earth, you weren't given a voice or a vote.

But when it comes to life after death, you were. In my book that seems like a good deal.  Wouldn't you agree? Have we been given any greater privilege than that of choice? You've made some bad choices in life, haven't you? You've chosen the wrong friends, maybe the wrong career; even the wrong spouse.

You look back and say, "If only…if only I could make up for those bad choices. You can. One good choice for eternity offsets a thousand bad ones on earth. The choice is yours.

From He Chose the Nails

Amos 6 

Those Who Live Only for Today

 Woe to you who think you live on easy street in Zion,

    who think Mount Samaria is the good life.

You assume you’re at the top of the heap,

    voted the number-one best place to live.

Well, wake up and look around. Get off your pedestal.

    Take a look at Calneh.

Go and visit Great Hamath.

    Look in on Gath of the Philistines.

Doesn’t that take you off your high horse?

    Compared to them, you’re not much, are you?

3-6 Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster!

    Catastrophe is just around the corner!

Woe to those who live in luxury

    and expect everyone else to serve them!

Woe to those who live only for today,

    indifferent to the fate of others!

Woe to the playboys, the playgirls,

    who think life is a party held just for them!

Woe to those addicted to feeling good—life without pain!

    those obsessed with looking good—life without wrinkles!

They could not care less

    about their country going to ruin.

7 But here’s what’s really coming:

    a forced march into exile.

They’ll leave the country whining,

    a rag-tag bunch of good-for-nothings.

You’ve Made a Shambles of Justice

8 God, the Master, has sworn, and solemnly stands by his Word.

    The God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:

“I hate the arrogance of Jacob.

    I have nothing but contempt for his forts.

I’m about to hand over the city

    and everyone in it.”

9-10 Ten men are in a house, all dead. A relative comes and gets the bodies to prepare them for a decent burial. He discovers a survivor huddled in a closet and asks, “Are there any more?” The answer: “Not a soul. But hush! God must not be mentioned in this desecrated place.”

11 Note well: God issues the orders.

    He’ll knock large houses to smithereens.

    He’ll smash little houses to bits.

12-13 Do you hold a horse race in a field of rocks?

    Do you plow the sea with oxen?

You’d cripple the horses

    and drown the oxen.

And yet you’ve made a shambles of justice,

    a bloated corpse of righteousness,

Bragging of your trivial pursuits,

    beating up on the weak and crowing, “Look what I’ve done!”

14 “Enjoy it while you can, you Israelites.

    I’ve got a pagan army on the move against you”

    —this is your God speaking, God-of-the-Angel-Armies—

“And they’ll make hash of you,

    from one end of the country to the other.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Sunday, April 09, 2023

Today's Scripture

Isaiah 53:4–6

The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling,

    a scrubby plant in a parched field.

There was nothing attractive about him,

    nothing to cause us to take a second look.

He was looked down on and passed over,

    a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.

One look at him and people turned away.

    We looked down on him, thought he was scum.

But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—

    our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.

We thought he brought it on himself,

    that God was punishing him for his own failures.

But it was our sins that did that to him,

    that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!

He took the punishment, and that made us whole.

    Through his bruises we get healed.

We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.

    We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.

And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,

    on him, on him.

Insight

Isaiah 52:13–53:12 is called the “Suffering Servant” passage and is one of Isaiah’s best-known texts. In fact, The Bible Knowledge Commentary points out that this passage is repeatedly quoted in the New Testament, including Isaiah 52:15 in Romans 15:21; Isaiah 53:1 in John 12:38 and Romans 10:16; Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:7–8 in Acts 8:32–33; Isaiah 53:9 in 1 Peter 2:22; and Isaiah 53:12 in Luke 22:37. The many citations from this text make sense when the “Suffering Servant” is seen as Jesus—whose great suffering would produce great glory. Others see the suffering servant as Isaiah himself, or perhaps Jeremiah. Jewish scholars often see the suffering servant as a picture of Israel. When matching up the descriptions of the sufferer in Isaiah’s text with the Gospels, it’s easy to see why so many believers in Jesus view this as a messianic prophecy. By: Bill Crowder

Deeper Healing

By his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

On Easter Sunday 2020, the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio de Janeiro in Brazil was illuminated in a way that appeared to clothe Jesus in the attire of a physician. The poignant portrayal of Christ as a doctor was in tribute to the many frontline health-care workers battling the coronavirus pandemic. The imagery brings to life the common description of Jesus as our Great Physician (Mark 2:17).

Jesus healed many people of their physical afflictions during His earthly ministry: blind Bartimaeus (10:46–52), a leper (Luke 5:12–16), and a paralytic (Matthew 9:1–8), to name a few. His care for the health of those following Him was also demonstrated in providing for their hunger by multiplying a simple meal to feed the masses (John 6:1–13). Each of these miracles reveal both Jesus’ mighty power and His genuine love for people.

His greatest act of healing, however, came through His death and resurrection, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah. It is “by [Jesus’] wounds we are healed” of our worst affliction: our separation from God as a result of our sins (Isaiah 53:5). Though Jesus doesn’t heal all our health challenges, we can trust the cure for our deepest need: the healing He brings to our relationship with God. By:  Kirsten Holmberg

Reflect & Pray

How have you experienced the miraculous spiritual healing of God? How does your healed relationship through Jesus’ sacrifice help you bear up under your physical ailments?

Jesus, thank You for Your sacrifice that brings healing to my spiritual sickness. Help me to trust You in my physical challenges.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Sunday, April 09, 2023

Have You Seen Jesus?

After that, He appeared in another form to two of them… —Mark 16:12

Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many people who have never seen Jesus have received and share in God’s grace. But once you have seen Him, you can never be the same. Other things will not have the appeal they did before.

You should always recognize the difference between what you see Jesus to be and what He has done for you. If you see only what He has done for you, your God is not big enough. But if you have had a vision, seeing Jesus as He really is, experiences can come and go, yet you will endure “as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). The man who was blind from birth did not know who Jesus was until Christ appeared and revealed Himself to him (see John 9). Jesus appears to those for whom He has done something, but we cannot order or predict when He will come. He may appear suddenly, at any turn. Then you can exclaim, “Now I see Him!” (see John 9:25).

Jesus must appear to you and to your friend individually; no one can see Jesus with your eyes. And division takes place when one has seen Him and the other has not. You cannot bring your friend to the point of seeing; God must do it. Have you seen Jesus? If so, you will want others to see Him too. “And they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either” (Mark 16:13). When you see Him, you must tell, even if they don’t believe.

O could I tell, you surely would believe it!

O could I only say what I have seen!

How should I tell or how can you receive it,

How, till He bringeth you where I have been?

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

God created man to be master of the life in the earth and sea and sky, and the reason he is not is because he took the law into his own hands, and became master of himself, but of nothing else.  The Shadow of an Agony, 1163 L

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 13-14; Luke 10:1-24

Amos 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: The Nail of God

God has penned a list of our faults. The list God has made, however, cannot be read. The words can't be deciphered. The mistakes are covered. The sins are hidden. Those at the top are hidden by His hand; those down the list are covered by His blood. Your sins are blotted out by Jesus. The Bible says that He has forgiven you all your sins. He has utterly wiped out the written evidence of broken commandments which always hung over our heads, and has completely annulled it by nailing it to the cross.

He knew the source of those sins was you, and since He couldn't bear the thought of eternity without you, Jesus Himself chose the nails. The hand is the hand of God. The nail is the nail of God. And as the hands of Jesus opened for the nail, the doors of heaven opened for you!

From He Chose the Nails

Amos 5

All Show, No Substance

Listen to this, family of Israel,

    this Message I’m sending in bold print, this tragic warning:

2 “Virgin Israel has fallen flat on her face.

    She’ll never stand up again.

She’s been left where she’s fallen.

    No one offers to help her up.”

3 This is the Message, God’s Word:

“The city that marches out with a thousand

    will end up with a hundred.

The city that marches out with a hundred

    will end up with ten. Oh, family of Israel!”

4-5 God’s Message to the family of Israel:

“Seek me and live.

    Don’t fool around at those shrines of Bethel,

Don’t waste time taking trips to Gilgal,

    and don’t bother going down to Beer-sheba.

Gilgal is here today and gone tomorrow

    and Bethel is all show, no substance.”

6 So seek God and live! You don’t want to end up

    with nothing to show for your life

But a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground.

    For God will send just such a fire,

    and the firefighters will show up too late.

Raw Truth Is Never Popular

7-9 Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar

    and stomp righteousness into the mud.

Do you realize where you are? You’re in a cosmos

    star-flung with constellations by God,

A world God wakes up each morning

    and puts to bed each night.

God dips water from the ocean

    and gives the land a drink.

    God, God-revealed, does all this.

And he can destroy it as easily as make it.

    He can turn this vast wonder into total waste.

10-12 People hate this kind of talk.

    Raw truth is never popular.

But here it is, bluntly spoken:

    Because you run roughshod over the poor

    and take the bread right out of their mouths,

You’re never going to move into

    the luxury homes you have built.

You’re never going to drink wine

    from the expensive vineyards you’ve planted.

I know precisely the extent of your violations,

    the enormity of your sins. Appalling!

You bully right-living people,

    taking bribes right and left and kicking the poor when they’re down.

13 Justice is a lost cause. Evil is epidemic.

    Decent people throw up their hands.

Protest and rebuke are useless,

    a waste of breath.

14 Seek good and not evil—

    and live!

You talk about God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,

    being your best friend.

Well, live like it,

    and maybe it will happen.

15 Hate evil and love good,

    then work it out in the public square.

Maybe God, the God-of-the-Angel-Armies,

    will notice your remnant and be gracious.

16-17 Now again, my Master’s Message, God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

“Go out into the streets and lament loudly!

    Fill the malls and shops with cries of doom!

Weep loudly, ‘Not me! Not us, Not now!’

    Empty offices, stores, factories, workplaces.

Enlist everyone in the general lament.

    I want to hear it loud and clear when I make my visit.”

        God’s Decree.

Time to Face Hard Reality, Not Fantasy

18-20 Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day!

    Why would you want to see God, want him to come?

When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news,

    the worst of times, not the best of times.

Here’s what it’s like: A man runs from a lion

    right into the jaws of a bear.

A woman goes home after a hard day’s work

    and is raped by a neighbor.

At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy—

    a black cloud with no silver lining.

21-24 “I can’t stand your religious meetings.

    I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.

I want nothing to do with your religion projects,

    your pretentious slogans and goals.

I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,

    your public relations and image making.

I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.

    When was the last time you sang to me?

Do you know what I want?

    I want justice—oceans of it.

I want fairness—rivers of it.

    That’s what I want. That’s all I want.

25-27 “Didn’t you, dear family of Israel, worship me faithfully for forty years in the wilderness, bringing the sacrifices and offerings I commanded? How is it you’ve stooped to dragging gimcrack statues of your so-called rulers around, hauling the cheap images of all your star-gods here and there? Since you like them so much, you can take them with you when I drive you into exile beyond Damascus.” God’s Message, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Saturday, April 08, 2023

Today's Scripture

John 20:1–10

Resurrection!

 Early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, gasping for breath. “They took the Master from the tomb. We don’t know where they’ve put him.”

3-10 Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. They ran, neck and neck. The other disciple got to the tomb first, outrunning Peter. Stooping to look in, he saw the pieces of linen cloth lying there, but he didn’t go in. Simon Peter arrived after him, entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. Then the other disciple, the one who had gotten there first, went into the tomb, took one look at the evidence, and believed. No one yet knew from the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead. The disciples then went back home.

Insight

When John wrote that the disciples “still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead” (John 20:9), what Scripture was he referring to? Similarly, Luke says, “ ‘Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (24:26–27). What passages did Jesus expound here? The answer to these questions is found in the preaching of the apostles in the book of Acts. Indeed, they’d experienced the resurrected Christ personally, but they also had Scripture to defend this crucial doctrine. The apostolic preaching of Peter in Acts 2 includes references to Psalm 16:8–11 (Acts 2:25–28) and Psalm 110:1 (Acts 2:34–35). Paul’s preaching in Acts 13 references Psalm 2:7 (Acts 13:33), Isaiah 55:3 (Acts 13:34), and Psalm 16:10 (Acts 13:35). By: Arthur Jackson

Running to Jesus

Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. John 20:4

On a trip to Paris, Ben and his friends found themselves at one of the renowned museums in the city. Though Ben wasn’t a student of art, he was in awe as he looked upon the painting titled The Disciples Peter and John Running to the Sepulchre on the Morning of the Resurrection by Eugène Burnand. Without words, the looks on the faces of Peter and John and the position of their hands speak volumes, inviting onlookers to step into their shoes and share their adrenaline-charged emotions.

Based on John 20:1–10, the painting portrays the two running in the direction of the empty tomb of Jesus (v. 4). The masterpiece captures the intensity of the two emotionally conflicted disciples. Though at that juncture theirs wasn’t a fully formed faith, they were running in the right direction, and eventually the resurrected Jesus revealed Himself to them (vv. 19–29). Their search was not unlike that of Jesus seekers through the centuries. Although we may be removed from the experiences of an empty tomb or a brilliant piece of art, we can clearly see the good news. Scripture compels us to hope and seek and run in the direction of Jesus and His love—even with doubts, questions, and uncertainties. Tomorrow, as we celebrate Easter, may we remember Jesus’ words: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). By:  Arthur Jackson

Reflect & Pray

If you don’t know Jesus, what will you do to begin running toward Him and His love? If you’re a believer, how will you share His love with others?

Dear Jesus, lead me into Your loving arms today.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Saturday, April 08, 2023

Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26

Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.

Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life— a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Paul’s determined purpose was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).

Jesus prayed, “…as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2). The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Defenders of the faith are inclined to be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and contention are impossible.

Biblical Psychology

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 10-12; Luke 9:37-62

Amos 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 

Max Lucado Daily: He Canceled the Record

How would you feel if a list of your weaknesses were posted so that everyone, including Christ Himself, could see?  Yes, Christ has chronicled your shortcomings. And, yes, that list has been made public. But you've never seen it. Neither have I.

Come with me to the hill of Calvary.  Watch as the soldiers shove the Carpenter to the ground and stretch His arms against the beams. One presses a knee against a forearm and a spike against a hand.  Jesus turns His face toward the nail just as the soldier lifts the hammer to strike it. Couldn't Jesus have stopped Him?

Through the eyes of Scripture we see what others missed but what Jesus saw.  Colossians 2:14 says, "He canceled the record that contained the charges against us.  He took it and destroyed it by nailing it to Christ's cross!"

From He Chose the Nails

Amos 4

You Never Got Hungry for God

“Listen to this, you cows of Bashan

    grazing on the slopes of Samaria.

You women! Mean to the poor,

    cruel to the down-and-out!

Indolent and pampered, you demand of your husbands,

    ‘Bring us a tall, cool drink!’

2-3 “This is serious—I, God, have sworn by my holiness!

    Be well warned: Judgment Day is coming!

They’re going to rope you up and haul you off,

    keep the stragglers in line with cattle prods.

They’ll drag you through the ruined city walls,

    forcing you out single file,

And kick you to kingdom come.”

    God’s Decree.

4-5 “Come along to Bethel and sin!

    And then to Gilgal and sin some more!

Bring your sacrifices for morning worship.

    Every third day bring your tithe.

Burn pure sacrifices—thank offerings.

    Speak up—announce freewill offerings!

That’s the sort of religious show

    you Israelites just love.”

        God’s Decree.

6 “You know, don’t you, that I’m the One

    who emptied your pantries and cleaned out your cupboards,

Who left you hungry and standing in bread lines?

    But you never got hungry for me. You continued to ignore me.”

        God’s Decree.

7-8 “Yes, and I’m the One who stopped the rains

    three months short of harvest.

I’d make it rain on one village

    but not on another.

I’d make it rain on one field

    but not on another—and that one would dry up.

People would stagger from village to village

    crazed for water and never quenching their thirst.

But you never got thirsty for me.

    You ignored me.”

        God’s Decree.

9 “I hit your crops with disease

    and withered your orchards and gardens.

Locusts devoured your olive and fig trees,

    but you continued to ignore me.”

        God’s Decree.

10 “I revisited you with the old Egyptian plagues,

    killed your choice young men and prize horses.

The stink of rot in your camps was so strong

    that you held your noses—

But you didn’t notice me.

    You continued to ignore me.”

        God’s Decree.

11 “I hit you with earthquake and fire,

    left you devastated like Sodom and Gomorrah.

You were like a burning stick

    snatched from the flames.

But you never looked my way.

    You continued to ignore me.”

        God’s Decree.

12 “All this I have done to you, Israel,

    and this is why I have done it.

Time’s up, O Israel!

    Prepare to meet your God!”

13 Look who’s here: Mountain-Shaper! Wind-Maker!

    He laid out the whole plot before Adam.

He brings everything out of nothing,

    like dawn out of darkness.

He strides across the alpine ridges.

    His name is God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Friday, April 07, 2023

Today's Scripture

Luke 22:39–44

A Dark Night

39-40 Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”

41-44 He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.

Insight

After sharing Passover (the Last Supper) with His disciples (Matthew 26:17–30), Jesus went to the Mount of Olives to pray knowing He’d suffer and die a horrific death. Those closest to Him would desert Him, and Peter would deny Him three times (Luke 22:34, 54–62). Yet Jesus also knew that after three days He would rise again (Matthew 12:40; Mark 8:31).

The Mount of Olives, a ridge in the Judean mountains lying east of Jerusalem and the Kidron Valley, is first mentioned in the Old Testament when King David fled from his son Absalom (2 Samuel 15:30). Solomon later chose this mountain to build “a high place” for the “detestable” foreign gods of the Ammonites and Moabites (1 Kings 11:7). Jesus ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:9–12) and will return to the same place, fulfilling the vision of the prophet that the mount “will be split in two from east to west” (Zechariah 14:4). By: Alyson Kieda

Drops of Red

His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. Luke 22:44

Walking through the Scottish National Gallery, I was drawn to the strong brushwork and vibrant colors of one of many Olive Trees paintings by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Many historians believe the work was inspired by Jesus’ experience in the garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. What especially caught my eye on the canvas of the painting were the small red splotches of paint among the ancient trees.

Known as the Mount of Olives because of all the olive trees located on the mountainside, Jesus went there to pray on the night that He predicted His disciple Judas would betray Him. Jesus was overwhelmed with anguish knowing the betrayal would result in His crucifixion. As He prayed, “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Jesus’ agony was evident in the garden as He prepared for the pain and humiliation of a public execution that would result in the physical shedding of His blood on that Good Friday long ago.

The red paint on Van Gogh’s painting reminds us that Jesus had to “suffer many things and be rejected” (Mark 8:31). While suffering is part of His story, however, it no longer dominates the picture. Jesus’ victory over death transforms even our suffering, allowing it to become only a part of the beautiful landscape of our lives He’s creating.

By:  Lisa M. Samra

Reflect & Pray

Why is it important for you to remember Jesus’ suffering? How does His example help you when you suffer?

Jesus, thank You for being willing to suffer, even to death, so that I might receive eternal life.

Learn more about Jesus' example for us.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Friday, April 07, 2023

Why We Lack Understanding

He commanded them that they should tell no one the things they had seen, till the Son of Man had risen from the dead. —Mark 9:9

As the disciples were commanded, you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you— until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth. When you grow and develop the right condition inwardly, the words Jesus spoke become so clear that you are amazed you did not grasp them before. In fact, you were not able to understand them before because you had not yet developed the proper spiritual condition to deal with them.

Our Lord doesn’t hide these things from us, but we are not prepared to receive them until we are in the right condition in our spiritual life. Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). We must have a oneness with His risen life before we are prepared to bear any particular truth from Him. Do we really know anything about the indwelling of the risen life of Jesus? The evidence that we do is that His Word is becoming understandable to us. God cannot reveal anything to us if we don’t have His Spirit. And our own unyielding and headstrong opinions will effectively prevent God from revealing anything to us. But our insensible thinking will end immediately once His resurrection life has its way with us.

“…tell no one….” But so many people do tell what they saw on the Mount of Transfiguration— their mountaintop experience. They have seen a vision and they testify to it, but there is no connection between what they say and how they live. Their lives don’t add up because the Son of Man has not yet risen in them. How long will it be before His resurrection life is formed and evident in you and in me?

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold.  Baffled to Fight Better, 69 L

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 7-9; Luke 9:18-36

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Friday, April 07, 2023

LINCOLN'S GOOD FRIDAY WISH - #9455

Abraham Lincoln was kind of a hero of my boyhood. No, not because I knew him personally, not because I was alive when he was alive. But I'll tell you what, I did study a lot about him. He died on Good Friday. Yeah, he did. And until recently, I didn't know his final wish. He actually whispered it to his wife just before the fatal shot at Ford's Theatre, and it's pretty moving.

Abe Lincoln grew up with a God-loving mother and a religious father. But he was demanding and his dad was distant. Abe's mom died when he was a boy. And as Lincoln grew, he went from a spiritual skeptic to actually a Bible-bashing unbeliever. But somewhere along the way, he began to realize his deep need for God. I guess losing a son and carrying the weight of a bleeding nation can do that for a man.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Lincoln's Good Friday Wish."

The Civil War ended five days before that fateful Good Friday. On what would be the Great Emancipator's last day on earth, he and his wife went for a carriage ride. And, with the war over, they kind of dreamed together about the months and the years ahead.

Then at the theater that night - literally as the assassin crept into the President's box - Abraham Lincoln uttered his final wish to his wife, Mary. "We will visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior. There is no place I so much desire to see as Jerusalem." And then he was gone. In his last moments, he was thinking about Jesus. "The Savior," he called Him.

The journey Abe Lincoln wished for is actually a journey I have made, because ultimately it's a journey of the heart: Walking with Jesus, through the cheering multitudes of that Palm Sunday, through the jeering crowd of Good Friday, and then following the trail of blood to that place of death called Skull Hill.

The crown made of thorns jammed into the forehead of the King of Kings. The merciless mockers, blaspheming the One that angels worship. The spikes pounded into the hands that shaped the universe. The "God, why have You forsaken Me?" cry of God's one and only Son. My heart's screaming, "Why?"

The Bible answers in our word for today from the Word of God in Galatians 2:20. "The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me." Did you get that? For me - that's what levels me. Jesus chose to go through that hell for me. And hell it was, because the Bible says, "He personally carried our sins in His own body on the cross" (1 Peter 2:24) - the pain, the guilt, the eternal separation from God for all the sinning of my life. Jesus took my hell so I could go to His heaven.

Yes, my heart has been to His cross. I went there with my sin and I left forgiven. I went there dirty and I came away clean. I went there without Him in my life and I left there with the promise I'll never be without Him again. Because I got what He died for when those two words captured my heart. "For me." He did this for me.

I embraced Him as the Savior for me, for my sin. And I flung open the door of my heart to this One who has loved me like no other. He said, "If you open the door, I will come in" (Revelation 3:20). He kept His promise. He's done that for everyone who's ever opened that door, and He will for you if you'll make your way to that cross in your heart and tell Him, "For me, Jesus. For me."

If you've never told the man who died for you that you're pinning all your hopes on Him, would you do that today on this Good Friday? Go to our website. It's ANewStory.com, because I've laid out there for you how you can be sure you belong to Him, making this your personal "Jesus day." So He walked out of His grave that Easter morning so He could walk into your life today.