Hosea 11, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: CLOTHED WITH CHRIST - February 16, 2024

Galatians 3:27 (NIV) says, “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” We wear Jesus! And those who don’t believe in Jesus note what we do.

People make decisions about Christ by watching us. When we’re kind, they assume Christ is kind. When we’re gracious, they assume Christ is gracious. No wonder Paul says in Colossians 4:5 (NCV), “Be wise in the way you act with people who are not believers, making the most of every opportunity.” Courteous conduct honors Christ.

It also honors his children. When you surrender a parking place to someone, you honor him. When you make an effort to greet everyone in the room, especially the ones others have overlooked, you honor God’s children. Do your best! You can’t control the attitudes of others, but you can manage yours.

Hosea 11

Israel Played at Religion with Toy Gods

1–9  11 “When Israel was only a child, I loved him.

I called out, ‘My son!’—called him out of Egypt.

But when others called him,

he ran off and left me.

He worshiped the popular sex gods,

he played at religion with toy gods.

Still, I stuck with him. I led Ephraim.

I rescued him from human bondage,

But he never acknowledged my help,

never admitted that I was the one pulling his wagon,

That I lifted him, like a baby, to my cheek,

then I bent down to feed him.

Now he wants to go back to Egypt or go over to Assyria—

anything but return to me!

That’s why his cities are unsafe—the murder rate skyrockets

and every plan to improve things falls to pieces.

My people are hell-bent on leaving me.

They pray to god Baal for help.

He doesn’t lift a finger to help them.

But how can I give up on you, Ephraim?

How can I turn you loose, Israel?

How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah,

devastated like luckless Zeboim?

I can’t bear to even think such thoughts.

My insides churn in protest.

And so I’m not going to act on my anger.

I’m not going to destroy Ephraim.

And why? Because I am God and not a human.

I’m The Holy One and I’m here—in your very midst.

10–12  “The people will end up following God.

I will roar like a lion—

Oh, how I’ll roar!

My frightened children will come running from the west.

Like frightened birds they’ll come from Egypt,

from Assyria like scared doves.

I’ll move them back into their homes.”

God’s Word!

Soul-Destroying Lies

Ephraim tells lies right and left.

Not a word of Israel can be trusted.

Judah, meanwhile, is no better,

addicted to cheap gods.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Friday, February 16, 2024

Today's Scripture

John 15:9–17

 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.

11–15  “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.

16  “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.

17  “But remember the root command: Love one another.

Insight

Hours before He went to the cross, Jesus gave us a new commandment: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). The command to love others isn’t new. In the Mosaic law, God’s people were to “love [their] neighbor as [themselves]” (Leviticus 19:18), which Christ reiterated was the second greatest commandment (Matthew 22:39). However, Jesus introduced a new standard of love, which He emphasized in John 15:12: “Love each other as I have loved you.” The standard is no longer how much we love ourselves but how much Jesus loved us. Christ laid down His life for us (v. 13). He raised the bar from our self-love to His sacrificial love. John would later write, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). By: K. T. Sim

Loving Like Jesus

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:13

He was loved by all—those were the words used to describe Giuseppe Berardelli of Casnigo, Italy. Giuseppe was a beloved man who rode around town on an old motorbike and always led with the greeting: “peace and good.” He worked tirelessly on behalf of the good of others. But in the last years of his life, he had health problems that worsened when he was infected by the coronavirus, and he eventually died in the hospital. A friend who knew him for more than twenty years said he would've given up his potential spot in the intensive care unit for another younger patient if he could have. This reveals the character of a man who was loved and admired for loving others.

Loved for loving, this is the message the apostle John keeps sounding throughout his gospel. Being loved and loving others are like a chapel bell that tolls night and day, regardless of weather. And in John 15, they reach somewhat of a zenith, for John lays bare that it’s not being loved by all but loving all that’s the greatest love: “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (v. 13).

Stories of those willing to offer sacrificial love always inspire us. Yet they pale in comparison to God’s great love. But don’t miss the challenge that brings, for Jesus commands: “Love each other as I have loved you” (v. 12). Yes, love all. By:  John Blase

Reflect & Pray

Loved by all and love all. Do you get those mixed up sometimes? Why or why not? What might sacrificing for a friend look like today?

Loving God, please help me to love as You love me.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Friday, February 16, 2024

The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative

Arise from the dead… —Ephesians 5:14

Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, “Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard— just do what needs to be done!” That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, “Get up and get going,” suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.

We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams and aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, “Arise from the dead….” When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to “arise from the dead” and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes after we “get up and get going.” God does not give us overcoming life— He gives us life as we overcome. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, “Arise from the dead…,” we have to get ourselves up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, “Stretch out your hand” (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately gives us the power of life.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance. Notes on Isaiah, 1376 R

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 19-20; Matthew 27:51-66

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Friday, February 16, 2024

How Freedom Can Leave You Stuck - #9680

It wasn't my idea to get a dog. But, I did get pretty attached to little Missy. She became a part of the family; a little shih tzu dog. Now, I never called her Missy Hutchcraft. I mean, I didn't make her a member of the family, but she was cute.

Getting a dog was my youngest son's idea. He really wanted a dog and I explained we couldn't afford a dog. And he said the magic words, "She's free!" to which I responded, "Okay, there goes my last argument." And I succumbed.

Now, my son kept Missy in the kitchen most of the time, and when she was being housebroken, he would put a gate on the door of the kitchen so she couldn't get into the hallway and the rest of the house. It was a big help to my wife and to me, because he was gone most of the day. We didn't have to check on her as much.

Of course she didn't want to stay in the kitchen. No, she wanted out, as any dog would. Four times this dog chewed through the plastic mesh on the gate. So we'd come in and we'd find her loose in the house doing things she shouldn't do. Then we got some strong electrical tape and put it over the hole. Well, she chewed and chewed. She finally chewed the tape until she got a piece loose. We found her running across the kitchen but slightly slowed down. See, she had a piece of tape stretched from one paw to the other, effectively handcuffing... or paw-cuffing that little dog until we could do a little tape removal surgery.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Freedom Can Leave You Stuck."

Our word for today from the Word of God, John 8:34, the words of Jesus, "I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." Well, that's the ironic consequences of not living God's way, like our dog when she was a puppy. See, we see the gates that God has put up as confinement. "You know, it's really hard to stay married in my situation." "It's really hard to keep sex inside the fence of marriage." "It's hard to tell the truth if you only knew my situation." So we want to get outside the gate, because it's going to cost too much to do the right thing. "It's going to be hard not to be unequally yoked. I really love this girl/I really love this guy." "I don't know if I can stay in the gate."

Maybe you've looked at God's boundaries and you've decided there's something beyond the gate that you want. Missy thought she'd get free and she got stuck. So will you, or so have you. There's something enslaving about sin. Oh, that voice says, "Oh, you could have just a little. Do it just once. Just a little compromise won't hurt." But soon you're in deeper than you ever imagined you would be. You didn't realize the scars this would cause. You didn't realize the guilt, the consequences, the darkness that would start to grow inside of you. You didn't realize how you were going to lose self-respect and you lose your closeness to God and maybe even some of your reputation. You didn't realize the difficulty of trying to stop it when you started it. Where are the brakes? It was easy to find the accelerator.

Jesus said, "Whoever commits sin is a slave to sin." If you haven't crossed that boundary, would you run back from the edge? Freedom is never found in sin; only bondage. Don't be conned by the Devil. You say, "Well, I've gone beyond the boundary. I have gone beyond the gate. I've disobeyed God, and I'm paying for it." Maybe you're stuck.

There's such good news two verses later in John 8:36. "If the Son of God sets you free, you will be free indeed." That's what a Savior means. Jesus wants to lovingly hold you in His arms and cut loose the things that have tied you up. It may hurt, but it is worth it.

There is a cross where Jesus paid for every wrong choice you've ever made, every person you've ever hurt. Bring that garbage to His cross where millions of people have been forgiven and set free. You say, "I don't belong to this Savior. I've never experienced clean inside. This is your day! I hope you'll go to our website. Right there, you'll see the path that will take you right into a personal relationship with God where you will be forgiven. That website is ANewStory.com.

There's nothing good outside the gate. Remember, when you sin to break free, you don't end up free. You end up stuck!

Hosea 10, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE COURTESY OF CHRIST - February 15, 2024

My wife has a heart for single moms. She loves to include them at the table when we go to a restaurant. Through the years I’ve noticed a common appreciation from them. They love it when I pull out their chair. More than once they’ve specifically thanked me. One mom in particular comes to mind. “My,” she said, brushing the sudden moisture from her eye, “it’s been a while since anyone did that.”

Has it been a while for you as well? People can be so rude. We snatch parking places. We forget names. Could you use some courtesy? Has it been a while since someone pulled out your chair? Then let Jesus! Don’t hurry through this thought. Receive the courtesy of Christ. He’s your groom. Let Christ do what he longs to do. For as you receive his love, you’ll find it easier to give yours away.

Hosea 10

You Thought You Could Do It All on Your Own

1–2  10 Israel was once a lush vine,

bountiful in grapes.

The more lavish the harvest,

the more promiscuous the worship.

The more money they got,

the more they squandered on gods-in-their-own-image.

Their sweet smiles are sheer lies.

They’re guilty as sin.

God will smash their worship shrines,

pulverize their god-images.

3–4  They go around saying,

“Who needs a king?

We couldn’t care less about God,

so why bother with a king?

What difference would he make?”

They talk big,

lie through their teeth,

make deals.

But their high-sounding words

turn out to be empty words, litter in the gutters.

5–6  The people of Samaria travel over to Crime City

to worship the golden calf-god.

They go all out, prancing and hollering,

taken in by their showmen priests.

They act so important around the calf-god,

but are oblivious to the sham, the shame.

They have plans to take it to Assyria,

present it as a gift to the great king.

And so Ephraim makes a fool of himself,

disgraces Israel with his stupid idols.

7–8  Samaria is history. Its king

is a dead branch floating down the river.

Israel’s favorite sin centers

will all be torn down.

Thistles and crabgrass

will decorate their ruined altars.

Then they’ll say to the mountains, “Bury us!”

and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

9–10  You got your start in sin at Gibeah—

that ancient, unspeakable, shocking sin—

And you’ve been at it ever since.

And Gibeah will mark the end of it

in a war to end all the sinning.

I’ll come to teach them a lesson.

Nations will gang up on them,

Making them learn the hard way

the sum of Gibeah plus Gibeah.

11–15  Ephraim was a trained heifer

that loved to thresh.

Passing by and seeing her strong, sleek neck,

I wanted to harness Ephraim,

Put Ephraim to work in the fields—

Judah plowing, Jacob harrowing:

Sow righteousness,

reap love.

It’s time to till the ready earth,

it’s time to dig in with God,

Until he arrives

with righteousness ripe for harvest.

But instead you plowed wicked ways,

reaped a crop of evil and ate a salad of lies.

You thought you could do it all on your own,

flush with weapons and manpower.

But the volcano of war will erupt among your people.

All your defense posts will be leveled

As viciously as king Shalman

leveled the town of Beth-arba,

When mothers and their babies

were smashed on the rocks.

That’s what’s ahead for you, you so-called people of God,

because of your off-the-charts evil.

Some morning you’re going to wake up

and find Israel, king and kingdom, a blank—nothing.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Today's Scripture

Proverbs 22:1–5

The Cure Comes Through Discipline

1  22 A sterling reputation is better than striking it rich;

a gracious spirit is better than money in the bank.

2  The rich and the poor shake hands as equals—

God made them both!

3  A prudent person sees trouble coming and ducks;

a simpleton walks in blindly and is clobbered.

4  The payoff for meekness and Fear-of-God

is plenty and honor and a satisfying life.

5  The perverse travel a dangerous road, potholed and mud-slick;

if you know what’s good for you, stay clear of it.

Insight

The book of Proverbs is both helpful and challenging. It’s helpful because it offers us wisdom for living. What’s wisdom? It can be defined as the appropriate application of knowledge and understanding to life situations. Which of us doesn’t need that? Clearly, we all do—and it’s readily available. James wrote, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5). Our wise God is the true and ultimate source of wisdom. What makes the Proverbs challenging, however, is that they offer general insight on how life works best—not ironclad promises. When we attempt to make them into guarantees, we try to prove too much. It’s better to let them guide us in wise, humble living without placing on them the expectation of specific outcomes. By: Bill Crowder

Humility’s Perk

Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life. Proverbs 22:4

Like many teachers, Carrie devotes countless hours to her career, often grading papers and communicating with students and parents late into the evening. To sustain the effort, she relies on her community of colleagues for camaraderie and practical help; her challenging job is made easier through collaboration. A recent study of educators found that the benefit of collaboration is magnified when those we work with demonstrate humility. When colleagues are willing to admit their weaknesses, others feel safe to share their knowledge with one another, effectively helping everyone in the group.

The Bible teaches the importance of humility—for much more than enhanced collaboration. “Fear[ing] the Lord”—having a right understanding of who we are in comparison with the beauty, power, and majesty of God—results in “riches and honor and life” (Proverbs 22:4). Humility leads us to living in community in a way that’s fruitful in God’s economy, not just the world’s, because we seek to benefit our fellow image bearers.

We don’t fear God as a way to gain “riches and honor and life” for ourselves—that wouldn’t be true humility at all. Instead, we imitate Jesus, who “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant” (Philippians 2:7) so we can become part of a body that humbly cooperates together to do His work, give Him honor, and take a message of life to the world around us. By:  Kirsten Holmberg

Reflect & Pray

What does humility mean to you? How have you seen someone’s humility benefit others?

Dear Jesus, I surrender my pride to You.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Thursday, February 15, 2024

“Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”

None of us lives to himself… —Romans 14:7

Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible spiritually to God for other people? For instance, if I allow any turning away from God in my private life, everyone around me suffers. We “sit together in the heavenly places…” (Ephesians 2:6). “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corinthians 12:26). If you allow physical selfishness, mental carelessness, moral insensitivity, or spiritual weakness, everyone in contact with you will suffer. But you ask, “Who is sufficient to be able to live up to such a lofty standard?” “Our sufficiency is from God…” and God alone (2 Corinthians 3:5).

“You shall be witnesses to Me…” (Acts 1:8). How many of us are willing to spend every bit of our nervous, mental, moral, and spiritual energy for Jesus Christ? That is what God means when He uses the word witness. But it takes time, so be patient with yourself. Why has God left us on the earth? Is it simply to be saved and sanctified? No, it is to be at work in service to Him. Am I willing to be broken bread and poured-out wine for Him? Am I willing to be of no value to this age or this life except for one purpose and one alone— to be used to disciple men and women to the Lord Jesus Christ. My life of service to God is the way I say “thank you” to Him for His inexpressibly wonderful salvation. Remember, it is quite possible for God to set any of us aside if we refuse to be of service to Him— “…lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed. So Send I You, 1330 L

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 17-18; Matthew 27:27-50

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Protecting Our Sisters - #9679

I never had a sister, but my sons have one, which means I have a daughter. Now, our oldest son is two years younger than our daughter, who is the oldest, but it was interesting to see as I watched their relationship what I had missed growing up. Oh, there was a lot of kidding around; the kids called it "busting." They had some exciting disagreements growing up because, well, they're two very different people.

There were some hugs, there was some advice, there was sometimes some conflict, but one thing was really clear in that relationship - no one had ever better do my son's sister wrong. Even though he's two years younger, he was her personal - I'm going to make up a word here - "look-out-forer." I'm looking out for her! In fact, when any guy wanted to date her, he had to pass my son's very high requirements first. Oh, he's younger, but he was his sister's protector. Now, if you're a sister, it's nice to have a brother like that.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Protecting Our Sisters."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Timothy 5, and I'm going to be reading verse 2. It's a road map for relationships between, well, men and women in general, but particularly between young men and young women. He is addressing Timothy, who is a young man, and Paul says, "Treat the younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers," and then get this part, "and treat the younger women as sisters with absolute purity."

Now, if you grow up in our culture today, that's not the message you're getting. Oh, no, our culture says, "Hey, if you're a young man, treat the younger woman as a conquest; as a lover." But that's not God's design. He says, "Treat the younger women as sisters." Now, what does that mean? Does that mean you tease them all the time? Does that mean you argue with them, which brothers and sisters are known to do? No. Do you know what I think it's referring to?

See, the love of a brother for a sister is, after all is said and done, protective love. It's like my son and daughter, "I'm not going to let anything happen to you that could hurt you, Sis." That's how young men are supposed to view young women. Not as targets, not as conquests, not as things to use.

That's why it says, "Treat them with absolute purity" so you won't hurt them. You're supposed to guard your sister. That means you look at the women around you and say, "I will not use you. I will not push you for physical involvement. I won't even think about taking your greatest gift from you - your virginity. I won't let my mind wander into scenes where I reduce you to being a thing. I will guard your reputation, sister. I will guard your purity. I will guard your character." Now, that's manhood! And you know what? Ask a lot of young women today, and they'll tell you there is a critical shortage of that kind of man.

See, what happens is you begin to say, "I'm going to develop some sisters here." So, you begin to develop friendships, and not just romances. And that becomes more important than just a passionate romance. You open the door to some real legitimate closeness, and really getting to know somebody. And you do that by finally throwing your sexual agenda out the window and developing a real friendship.

Now, if you're a woman, by the way you dress, the way you act, the way you talk, the way you move, be sure you're encouraging this kind of relationship. Remember this: they always told me when I was fishing that the kind of bait you offer determines the kind of catch you get. Act like you want brothers. Act like you want guys who will be friends. And men, cultivate sisters; a level of sharing and caring that the sexual conquerors will never even get close to. Treat them with dignity, with respect. Absolute purity. Treat her like family. She's your sister, man! And every sister needs a brother.

Hosea 9, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: A VALENTINE FOR MY DAUGHTERS - February 14, 2024

The whirlwind of adolescent doubts and pressure was making regular runs through our house. So on Valentine’s Day 1997, I wrote the following for each of my daughters:

I have a special gift for you. My gift is warmth at night and sunlit afternoons, chuckles and giggles and happy Saturdays. Is there a store which sells laughter? A catalog that offers kisses? No. Such a treasure can’t be bought. But it can be given. 

Your Valentine’s Day gift is a promise, a promise that I will always love your mother. With God as my helper, I will never leave her. You’ll never come home to find me gone. You’ll never wake up and find that I have run away. You’ll always have two parents. I will love your mother. I will honor your mother. I will cherish your mother. That’s my promise, and that’s my gift.

Love, Dad

Hosea 9

Starved for God

1–6  9 Don’t waste your life in wild orgies, Israel.

Don’t party away your life with the heathen.

You walk away from your God at the drop of a hat

and like a whore sell yourself promiscuously

at every sex-and-religion party on the street.

All that party food won’t fill you up.

You’ll end up hungrier than ever.

At this rate you’ll not last long in God’s land:

Some of you are going to end up bankrupt in Egypt.

Some of you will be disillusioned in Assyria.

As refugees in Egypt and Assyria,

you won’t have much chance to worship God—

Sentenced to rations of bread and water,

and your souls polluted by the spirit-dirty air.

You’ll be starved for God,

exiled from God’s own country.

Will you be homesick for the old Holy Days?

Will you miss festival worship of God?

Be warned! When you escape from the frying pan of disaster,

you’ll fall into the fire of Egypt.

Egypt will give you a fine funeral!

What use will all your god-inspired silver be then

as you eke out a living in a field of weeds?

7–9  Time’s up. Doom’s at the doorstep.

It’s payday!

Did Israel bluster, “The prophet is crazy!

The ‘man of the Spirit’ is nuts!”?

Think again. Because of your great guilt,

you’re in big trouble.

The prophet is looking out for Ephraim,

working under God’s orders.

But everyone is trying to trip him up.

He’s hated right in God’s house, of all places.

The people are going from bad to worse,

rivaling that ancient and unspeakable crime at Gibeah.

God’s keeping track of their guilt.

He’ll make them pay for their sins.

They Took to Sin Like a Pig to Filth

10–13  “Long ago when I came upon Israel,

it was like finding grapes out in the desert.

When I found your ancestors, it was like finding

a fig tree bearing fruit for the first time.

But when they arrived at Baal-peor, that pagan shrine,

they took to sin like a pig to filth,

wallowing in the mud with their newfound friends.

Ephraim is fickle and scattered, like a flock of blackbirds,

their beauty dissipated in confusion and clamor,

Frenetic and noisy, frigid and barren,

and nothing to show for it—neither conception nor childbirth.

Even if they did give birth, I’d declare them

unfit parents and take away their children!

Yes indeed—a black day for them

when I turn my back and walk off!

I see Ephraim letting his children run wild.

He might just as well take them and kill them outright!”

14  Give it to them, God! But what?

Give them a dried-up womb and shriveled breasts.

15–16  “All their evil came out into the open

at the pagan shrine at Gilgal. Oh, how I hated them there!

Because of their evil practices,

I’ll kick them off my land.

I’m wasting no more love on them.

Their leaders are a bunch of rebellious adolescents.

Ephraim is hit hard—

roots withered, no more fruit.

Even if by some miracle they had children,

the dear babies wouldn’t live—I’d make sure of that!”

17  My God has washed his hands of them.

They wouldn’t listen.

They’re doomed to be wanderers,

vagabonds among the godless nations.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Today's Scripture

1 Corinthians 13

Love Is the Greatest

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;* but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages* and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.* All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Insight

First Corinthians 13 is considered to be the love chapter of the New Testament. The love Paul describes is contrary to what our culture values and portrays. It has nothing to do with lust or satisfying one’s own needs. Instead, it’s directed outward toward others and is totally unselfish. Such love isn’t primarily an emotion but an active decision to stay engaged and remain connected. Yet this type of love is impossible apart from God’s work in us through the Holy Spirit. It’s the greatest of human qualities (v. 13) and an attribute of God Himself (1 John 4:8). By: Alyson Kieda

Motivated by Love

If I . . . do not have love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3

Jim and Laneeda were college sweethearts. They got married and life was happy for many years. Then Laneeda began to act strangely, getting lost and forgetting appointments. She was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at forty-seven. After a decade of serving as her primary caregiver, Jim was able to say, “Alzheimer’s has given me the opportunity to love and serve my wife in ways that were unimaginable when I said, ‘I do.’ ”

While explaining the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul wrote extensively on the virtue of love (1 Corinthians 13). He contrasted rote acts of service with those overflowing from a loving heart. Powerful speaking is good, Paul wrote, but without love it’s like meaningless noise (v. 1). “If I . . . give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (v. 3). Paul ultimately said, “the greatest [gift] is love” (v. 13).

Jim’s understanding of love and service deepened as he cared for his wife. Only a deep and abiding love could give him the strength to support her every day. Ultimately, the only place we see this sacrificial love modeled perfectly is in God’s love for us, which caused Him to send Jesus to die for our sins (John 3:16). That act of sacrifice, motivated by love, has changed our world forever. By:  Karen Pimpo

Reflect & Pray

How have you tried to serve others without love? How can a love for God and others inspire your actions today?

Loving God, thank You for loving me. May my actions flow out of a loving heart today.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

The Discipline of Hearing

Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. —Matthew 10:27

Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and God puts us into “the shadow of His hand” until we learn to hear Him (Isaiah 49:2). “Whatever I tell you in the dark…” — pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood— darkness is the time to listen. Don’t talk to other people about it; don’t read books to find out the reason for the darkness; just listen and obey. If you talk to other people, you cannot hear what God is saying. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light.

After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. If there is only delight, I question whether we have really heard God at all. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him! Then we will exclaim, “How slow I have been to listen and understand what God has been telling me!” And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks. But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart— a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray. So Send I You, 1325 L

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 15-16; Matthew 27:1-26

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Setting People Free - #9678

John Parker had it made. After two attempts to escape being a slave to a Southern slave owner, he had finally gotten his freedom. He chose to live in Ripley, Ohio, right on the freedom side of the Ohio River. He got a house and he got a good job as a factory worker. In fact, ultimately, he owned a foundry and he invented many processes that were used widely in that industry. He was safe, secure and successful. But night after night, John Parker risked it all. Under cover of darkness, he rowed across the river to the Kentucky side - slave territory. If he was caught, he could lose his freedom. He could lose his life. But in spite of the risks, John Parker went looking for runaway slaves. And he found them and rowed them across the river to the freedom side. It's actually believed that John Parker was responsible for at least 900 slaves going free.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Setting People Free."

A liberated slave, taking great risks, because he can't leave other slaves where he once was. Now, that's a hero! That's the kind of hero Jesus is looking for right now among His followers. It's the kind of hero who, humanly speaking, is the only hope for some folks that you're close to ever having a chance at heaven.

The Bible graphically describes the bondages we're all in until we're set free by Jesus by His life-saving work on the cross. In John 8:34, He said "whoever commits sin is a slave to sin." It's true. We can't stop being selfish, we can't stop being hurtful, thinking dirty, talking trash, being negative, or prideful, or angry, or self-absorbed. We're addicted to our sin. The Bible also describes us as being "without hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). It also says that all our lives we have been "held in slavery to the fear of death." (Hebrews 2:15) We're nervous about dying because we know God's on the other side, and we might not be ready to meet Him.

And ultimately, our family and friends and coworkers who haven't been to Jesus to have their sins forgiven, will in God's own words, "be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Thank God, someone came to you and me with the liberating news of what Jesus did on the cross, and you were set free by the Son of God! Now the question is, can you be content to just be free and forgiven yourself and let the sin-slaves all around you stay where they are? Whose responsibility is it to take the risks to rescue them? You're the liberated slave that Jesus has placed in their world. He's counting on you. They're counting on you and they don't even know it.

Which brings us to our Lord's orders in our word for today from the Word of God in Jude, verse 23 - eight words that describe why you are where you are, with the people you are with all the time. "Snatch others from the fire and save them." You were rescued. Now you need to be a rescuer.

If you'll evaluate the fears that keep you from "crossing the river" to bring them out, you'll notice those fears all have one thing in common. They're all about "me." They might reject me. I might mess it up. But rescue is all about them. A rescuer is still afraid of what might happen to him if he goes in for the rescue, but he's driven by a greater fear. What will happen if he doesn't go in for the rescue? What will happen to them? Someone will die without a chance to live.

Jesus rescued you to be a rescuer. You are the liberated slave that He set free whose mission is to liberate others who are where you were. Jesus gave everything to snatch you from the fire. If you leave others where you were, you'll have to explain to Jesus why you did. You are their chance!

Romans 15:1-13, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: CONSIDER OTHERS - February 13, 2024

True humility is not thinking lowly of yourself but thinking accurately of yourself.

When Paul writes in Philippians 2:3, “Consider others better than yourselves” he uses a verb that means “to calculate.” The word implies a conscious judgment resting on carefully weighed facts. To consider others better than yourself, then, is to say that you know your place. True humility is quick to applaud the success of others. Paul says, “Give each other more honor than you want for yourselves.”

Jesus is our example. Content to be known as a carpenter, happy to be mistaken for the gardener. He served his followers by washing their feet. If Jesus is so willing to honor us, can we not do the same for others? Can we not regard others as more important than ourselves? So be quick to share the applause. That’s what love does.

Romans 15:1-13

Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”

3–6  That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it. Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next. May our dependably steady and warmly personal God develop maturity in you so that you get along with each other as well as Jesus gets along with us all. Then we’ll be a choir—not our voices only, but our very lives singing in harmony in a stunning anthem to the God and Father of our Master Jesus!

7–13  So reach out and welcome one another to God’s glory. Jesus did it; now you do it! Jesus, staying true to God’s purposes, reached out in a special way to the Jewish insiders so that the old ancestral promises would come true for them. As a result, the non-Jewish outsiders have been able to experience mercy and to show appreciation to God. Just think of all the Scriptures that will come true in what we do! For instance:

Then I’ll join outsiders in a hymn-sing;

I’ll sing to your name!

And this one:

Outsiders and insiders, rejoice together!

And again:

People of all nations, celebrate God!

All colors and races, give hearty praise!

And Isaiah’s word:

There’s the root of our ancestor Jesse,

breaking through the earth and growing tree tall,

Tall enough for everyone everywhere to see and take hope!

Oh! May the God of great hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Today's Scripture

Isaiah 1:15–20

When you put on your next prayer-performance,

I’ll be looking the other way.

No matter how long or loud or often you pray,

I’ll not be listening.

And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing

people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.

Go home and wash up.

Clean up your act.

Sweep your lives clean of your evildoings

so I don’t have to look at them any longer.

Say no to wrong.

Learn to do good.

Work for justice.

Help the down-and-out.

Stand up for the homeless.

Go to bat for the defenseless.

Let’s Argue This Out

18–20  “Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.”

This is God’s Message:

“If your sins are blood-red,

they’ll be snow-white.

If they’re red like crimson,

they’ll be like wool.

If you’ll willingly obey,

you’ll feast like kings.

But if you’re willful and stubborn,

you’ll die like dogs.”

That’s right. God says so.

Insight

In Isaiah 1:18, we read, “ ‘Come now, let us settle the matter,’ says the Lord.” Other translations render it, “Come now, and let us reason together” (esv, kjv, rsv). This is amazing! The Creator of the universe, rather than shutting down the conversation, encourages it with the phrase “reason together.” Some translations render it “to discuss” or even “to argue it out.” My preference is “reason” because God is utterly reasonable in His expectations of us. We see His reasonableness affirmed in Paul’s letter to the Romans when he challenged them, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1 kjv). Because of all that God has done for us, it’s only reasonable that we would respond to Him with love and devotion. By: Bill Crowder

Jesus’ Blood

Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Isaiah 1:18

The color red doesn’t always naturally occur in the things we make. How do you put the vibrant color of an apple into a T-shirt or lipstick? In early times, the red pigment was made from clay or red rocks. In the 1400s, the Aztecs invented a way of using cochineal insects to make red dye. Today, those same tiny insects supply the world with red.

In the Bible, red denotes royalty, and it also signifies sin and shame. Further, it’s the color of blood. When soldiers “stripped [Jesus] and put a scarlet robe on him” (Matthew 27:28), these three symbolisms merged into one heartbreaking image of red: Jesus was ridiculed as would-be royalty, He was cloaked in shame, and He was robed in the color of the blood He would soon shed. But Isaiah’s words foretell the promise of this crimsoned Jesus to deliver us from the red that stains us: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (1:18).

One other thing about those cochineal insects used for red dye—they are actually milky white on the outside. Only when they are crushed do they release their red blood. That little fact echoes for us other words from Isaiah: “[Jesus] was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5).

Jesus, who knew no sin, is here to save us who are red with sin. You see, in His crushing death, Jesus endured a whole lot of red so you could be white as snow. By:  Kenneth Petersen

Reflect & Pray

How do “sins . . . like scarlet” stain your life? How might Jesus restore you and make you clean again?

Dear God, thank You for Your Son, Jesus, and the saving grace of His shed blood.

Learn more about having a personal relationship with God.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

The Devotion of Hearing

Samuel answered, "Speak, for Your servant hears." —1 Samuel 3:10

Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says. I show God my lack of love and respect for Him by the insensitivity of my heart and mind toward what He says. If I love my friend, I will instinctively understand what he wants. And Jesus said, “You are My friends…” (John 15:14). Have I disobeyed some command of my Lord’s this week? If I had realized that it was a command of Jesus, I would not have deliberately disobeyed it. But most of us show incredible disrespect to God because we don’t even hear Him. He might as well never have spoken to us.

The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me (see John 11:41). If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God’s message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things. It is not that I don’t want to hear God, but I am not devoted in the right areas of my life. I am devoted to things and even to service and my own convictions. God may say whatever He wants, but I just don’t hear Him. The attitude of a child of God should always be, “Speak, for Your servant hears.” If I have not developed and nurtured this devotion of hearing, I can only hear God’s voice at certain times. At other times I become deaf to Him because my attention is to other things— things which I think I must do. This is not living the life of a child of God. Have you heard God’s voice today?

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.

Not Knowing Whither

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 14; Matthew 26:51-75

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

Faith That Expects - #9677

Our preschool grandson at the time? I think he overheard the weather forecast before his bedtime. It went something like this, "Chance of rain, maybe a few snow flurries." I guess that's all he needed to hear, because he began to pray fervently that night, "Jesus, please make it snow tomorrow." I know he's not the first child to pray that. Now, flurries are barely snow, but apparently the mention of them is enough for fuel for hope, and for faith...especially faith. And when he went to bed that night, his mom and dad...they prayed too. They said, "Dear Jesus, would you please answer a little boy's prayer?"

Well, the next morning, this great scene: the little guy is standing in his jammies, in front of the big window in the living room, staring out at a day that was not white. It was just plain old gray. And then suddenly, there they were. The first flurries. Well actually, flakes. He started running around the living room shouting, "Thank You, Jesus! Thank You, Jesus! You made it snow!" And it kept snowing, by the way, appreciably more than the weatherman had forecast.

Not only did Jesus answer a little boy's prayer, but a little boy showed us what faith looks like, asking God for what only He can do, then expecting Him to do it. Actually, standing at the window, watching for the answer to come.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Faith That Expects."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God is Psalm 5:3. It's a verse we've had up in our prayer chapel. David says, "O Lord, You hear my voice...I lay my requests before You..." But wait, that's not the end of it. Here comes the faith part: "and wait in expectation."

You know, I regularly "lay my request before" Him. But how often do I "go to the window," looking out for that answer; expecting Him to answer? You know, you can come to Jesus and you can talk to Him about something, but you can walk away and you're still carrying it. You haven't left it with Him. You haven't trusted it to Him. I've done that way too many times.

See, faith works this way. It walks into the Throne Room of Almighty God, who we know now created and controls, like, two trillion galaxies. That's your Heavenly Father. But you walk into that Throne Room and you're all bent over. You're carrying the heavy burden that you've been carrying, but faith walks out standing tall. The burden isn't there any more. You know why? You left it at His Throne. Now, if I'm all bent over when I walk out of the Throne Room; if I'm still carrying that heavy backpack after I've prayed about it, then I talked to Him about it but I didn't trust Him with it. And that's where faith comes in.

You know, Jesus made this incredible promise. He said, "If you ask anything in prayer, believe that you have received it..." Now, that's past tense. You haven't got it yet, but "believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Sure, the "snow" doesn't always come, and it doesn't always come on my schedule. But I have got a Father who loves me and Who only says no if He's working on something that's for my good and better than what I have asked for. I remember reading in Tim Keller's book on prayer where he said that "God does answer every prayer but He gives us what we would have prayed for if we knew what God knows."

I wonder how many times the answer didn't come because I didn't really believe Him for it? After all, the Bible says, "Without faith, it is impossible to please Him" (Hebrews 11:6).

I know who I want to be. I want to be the little boy at the window.

Hosea 8, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: AS GOD HAS LOVED YOU - February 12, 2024

Would you do what Jesus did? He swapped a spotless castle for a grimy stable. He exchanged the worship of angels for a company of killers. I wouldn’t do that, but Jesus did.

If you knew that only a few would care that you came, would you still come? If you knew that those you loved would laugh in your face, would you still care? Christ did. He humbled himself. The palm that held the universe took the nail of a soldier. Why? Because that’s what love does. It puts the beloved before itself. He loves you that much, and because he loves you, you are of prime importance to him.

Want to love others as God has loved you? Come thirsty. Drink deeply of God’s love for you. Ask him to fill your heart with a love worth giving.

Hosea 8

Altars for Sinning

1–3  8 “Blow the trumpet! Sound the alarm!

Vultures are circling over God’s people

Who have broken my covenant

and defied my revelation.

Predictably, Israel cries out, ‘My God! We know you!’

But they don’t act like it.

Israel will have nothing to do with what’s good,

and now the enemy is after them.

4–10  “They crown kings, but without asking me.

They set up princes but don’t let me in on it.

Instead, they make idols, using silver and gold,

idols that will be their ruin.

Throw that gold calf-god on the trash heap, Samaria!

I’m seething with anger against that rubbish!

How long before they shape up?

And they’re Israelites!

A sculptor made that thing—

it’s not God.

That Samaritan calf

will be broken to bits.

Look at them! Planting wind-seeds,

they’ll harvest tornadoes.

Wheat with no head

produces no flour.

And even if it did,

strangers would gulp it down.

Israel is swallowed up and spit out.

Among the pagans they’re a piece of junk.

They trotted off to Assyria:

Why, even wild donkeys stick to their own kind,

but donkey-Ephraim goes out and pays to get lovers.

Now, because of their whoring life among the pagans,

I’m going to gather them together and confront them.

They’re going to reap the consequences soon,

feel what it’s like to be oppressed by the big king.

11–14  “Ephraim has built a lot of altars,

and then uses them for sinning.

Can you believe it? Altars for sinning!

I write out my revelation for them in detail

and they pretend they can’t read it.

They offer sacrifices to me

and then they feast on the meat.

God is not pleased!

I’m fed up—I’ll keep remembering their guilt.

I’ll punish their sins

and send them back to Egypt.

Israel has forgotten his Maker

and gotten busy making palaces.

Judah has gone in for a lot of fortress cities.

I’m sending fire on their cities

to burn down their fortifications.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Monday, February 12, 2024

Today's Scripture

Matthew 5:43–48

“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

48  “In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

Insight

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus radically redefined what the people understood as their responsibility to the law of Moses. Christ said He didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Then He introduces six topics—murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, retribution, and love for enemies—with a version of the phrase “you have heard that it was said” followed by “but I tell you.” What’s interesting about Jesus’ explanation of what “you have heard” is that only a portion of it is recorded in the Old Testament. The other elements are likely part of the Mishnah, the traditions and interpretations of the Pharisees that placed further restrictions on people and had been elevated to be equal with the law of Moses. At least part of what Christ was doing was dismantling the power of the Pharisees’ interpretations and returning to the core of the law as God intended.

Dive deeper into the Sermon on the Mount. By: JR Hudberg

Loving Our Enemies

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Matthew 5:44

With the American Civil War spawning many bitter feelings, Abraham Lincoln saw fit to speak a kind word about the South. A shocked bystander asked how he could do so. He replied, “Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” Reflecting on those words a century later, Martin Luther King Jr. commented, “This is the power of redemptive love.”

In calling disciples of Christ to love their enemies, King looked to the teachings of Jesus. He noted that although believers might struggle to love those who persecute them, this love grows out of “a consistent and total surrender to God.” “When we love in this way,” King continued, “we’ll know God and experience the beauty of His holiness.” 

King referenced Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in which He said, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:44–45). Jesus counseled against the conventional wisdom of the day of loving only one’s neighbors and hating one’s enemies. Instead, God the Father gives His children the strength to love those who oppose them.

It may feel impossible to love our enemies, but as we look to God for help, He’ll answer our prayers. He gives the courage to embrace this radical practice, for as Jesus said, “with God all things are possible” (19:26). By:  Amy Boucher Pye

Reflect & Pray

Who is your enemy? If you feel conflicted about loving those who oppose you, how could you submit those feelings to God?

Loving God, You’ve made me—as well as those who hurt me—in Your image. Help me to see them as You do.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Monday, February 12, 2024

Are You Listening to God?

They said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." —Exodus 20:19

We don’t consciously and deliberately disobey God— we simply don’t listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them— not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect Him. “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Once we realize we have constantly been showing disrespect to God, we will be filled with shame and humiliation for ignoring Him.

“You speak with us,…but let not God speak with us….” We show how little love we have for God by preferring to listen to His servants rather than to Him. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we don’t want God Himself to speak to us. Why are we so terrified for God to speak to us? It is because we know that when God speaks we must either do what He asks or tell Him we will not obey. But if it is simply one of God’s servants speaking to us, we feel obedience is optional, not imperative. We respond by saying, “Well, that’s only your own idea, even though I don’t deny that what you said is probably God’s truth.”

Am I constantly humiliating God by ignoring Him, while He lovingly continues to treat me as His child? Once I finally do hear Him, the humiliation I have heaped on Him returns to me. My response then becomes, “Lord, why was I so insensitive and obstinate?” This is always the result once we hear God. But our real delight in finally hearing Him is tempered with the shame we feel for having taken so long to do so.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

No one could have had a more sensitive love in human relationship than Jesus; and yet He says there are times when love to father and mother must be hatred in comparison to our love for Him.   So Send I You, 1301 L

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 13; Matthew 26:26-50

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Monday, February 12, 2024

Four Secrets for Being Unsinkable - #9676

There's that old country song "Country Roads take me home to the place I..." Well, you know. Sometimes I thought that was my wife's national anthem. She grew up in the Ozarks and boy, she had the memories. Most of them were down some country road, unpaved, rutted, rocky and dusty. With a standard rear-wheel drive vehicle, you'd begin to wonder if you'd ever get back from some of those roads, especially if the weather had been bad.

On one of our drives down those country roads I noticed something. Everyone we met was driving a pickup truck with four-wheel drive. But anybody who lives where there are steep roads, rocky roads, muddy roads, or snowy roads, really should have a four-wheel drive vehicle. Because all four wheels are working to get you over something or out of something so that you can go wherever you couldn't in a rear-wheel drive vehicle. You can drive on all kinds of terrain in all kinds of weather if you've got that four-wheel drive.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Four Secrets for Being Unsinkable."

Our word for today from the Word of God actually comes from my life's verse, Romans 8:37. But before we get to that, here is the context. Paul talks about these things that have gone on in his life: trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. Man, he just talked about the worst terrain life has to offer. So if you are on a rocky road or a slippery road right now, it's probably in that list somewhere. Or whatever you're going through is nothing worse than what's on that list.

The response of someone who is living on spiritual four-wheel drive on those bad roads, Romans 8:37 - "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Well, the Bible says here that we can live with four-wheel drive, conquering; more than conquering those things that sink most people.

Tell me, how can you be an all-terrain, all-weather Christian, unsinkable especially with the kind of difficulties you're facing right now? Well Romans 8 describes that all-weather faith and gives us four secrets to it. Verse 28 says, "We know that in all these things God works for the good of those who love Him." First of all, you know there's a perfect plan. No matter how the road or the future looks, you embrace the plan. You trust in God believing that this road is part of something bigger than you can see.

Secondly, you count on inexhaustible resources. Romans 8:32 says, "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things." The one who loved you enough to send His Son to die for you will not ever abandon you no matter how it may feel right now. Your fuel tank may run out, but His is inexhaustible.

The third secret to this four-wheel drive faith; you hang on to unloseable love. Romans 8:39, "Nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Others may not be willing or able to go with you on this tough road, but you will not travel one mile alone if you've got Jesus. He will never abandon you. He is there!

Last of all, this secret: you belong to an invincible Savior. Invincible. Verse 31: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" We're more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Whatever is bigger than you are, Jesus is bigger than it is. It's time you shift it into four-wheel drive for that bumpy road, that dangerous road ahead of you. There's a perfect plan, there are inexhaustible resources, there's unloseable love, and there's an invincible Savior.

Do you have a personal relationship with this Jesus? Or is He a religion? Is He rituals? Is He just a belief? Have you ever reached out to Jesus and said, "Jesus, you're my only hope of being forgiven from my sin because of your death on the cross for me. My only hope of going to heaven is You.

Today you can begin a relationship with Him by saying, "Jesus, I'm yours." Go to our website and check out, there, how you can get started with Him and know you belong to Him. It's ANewStory.com. Look, is there any road you can't handle, when with Jesus you can be more than a conqueror?

Hosea 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: He Gave a Donkey

I don't know his name or what he looks like. I only know what he gave. He gave a donkey for Jesus to use on the Sunday he entered Jerusalem. An interesting bit of history is found in Matthew 21:3. It is the story of the man who gave the donkey to Jesus. The scripture says, "If anyone asks you why you are taking the donkeys, say that the Master needs them, and he will send them at once."

Did the man have any idea his generosity would be used for such a noble purpose? Did it occur to him God was going to ride that donkey?

All of us have a donkey. Something that, if given to God, could move Jesus and His story further down the road. Maybe you sing or program a computer or speak Swahili or write a check. Whichever it may be…that's your donkey. Do you give it?

The guy who gave Jesus the donkey is just one in a long line of folks who gave little things to a big God.

From And the Angels Were Silent

Hosea 7

Despite All the Signs, Israel Ignores God

1–2  7 “Every time I gave Israel a fresh start,

wiped the slate clean and got them going again,

Ephraim soon filled the slate with new sins,

the treachery of Samaria written out in bold print.

Two-faced and double-tongued,

they steal you blind, pick you clean.

It never crosses their mind

that I keep account of their every crime.

They’re mud-spattered head to toe with the residue of sin.

I see who they are and what they’ve done.

3–7  “They entertain the king with their evil circus,

delight the princes with their acrobatic lies.

They’re a bunch of overheated adulterers,

like an oven that holds its heat

From the kneading of the dough

to the rising of the bread.

On the royal holiday the princes get drunk

on wine and the frenzy of the mocking mob.

They’re like wood stoves,

red-hot with lust.

Through the night their passion is banked;

in the morning it blazes up, flames hungrily licking.

Murderous and volcanic,

they incinerate their rulers.

Their kings fall one by one,

and no one pays any attention to me.

8–10  “Ephraim mingles with the pagans, dissipating himself.

Ephraim is half-baked.

Strangers suck him dry

but he doesn’t even notice.

His hair has turned gray—

he doesn’t notice.

Bloated by arrogance, big as a house,

Israel’s a public disgrace.

Israel lumbers along oblivious to God,

despite all the signs, ignoring God.

11–16  “Ephraim is bird-brained,

mindless, clueless,

First chirping after Egypt,

then fluttering after Assyria.

I’ll throw my net over them. I’ll clip their wings.

I’ll teach them to mind me!

Doom! They’ve run away from home.

Now they’re really in trouble! They’ve defied me.

And I’m supposed to help them

while they feed me a line of lies?

Instead of crying out to me in heartfelt prayer,

they whoop it up in bed with their whores,

Gash themselves bloody in their sex-and-religion orgies,

but turn their backs on me.

I’m the one who gave them good minds and healthy bodies,

and how am I repaid? With evil scheming!

They turn, but not to me—

turn here, then there, like a weather vane.

Their rulers will be cut down, murdered—

just desserts for their mocking blasphemies.

And the final sentence?

Ridicule in the court of world opinion.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Today's Scripture

2 Samuel 22:1–4, 48–51

David prayed to God the words of this song after God saved him from all his enemies and from Saul.

2–3  God is bedrock under my feet,

the castle in which I live,

my rescuing knight.

My God—the high crag

where I run for dear life,

hiding behind the boulders,

safe in the granite hideout;

My mountaintop refuge,

he saves me from ruthless men.

4  I sing to God the Praise-Lofty,

and find myself safe and saved.

This God set things right for me

and shut up the people who talked back.

He rescued me from enemy anger.

You pulled me from the grip of upstarts,

You saved me from the bullies.

That’s why I’m thanking you, God,

all over the world.

That’s why I’m singing songs

that rhyme your name.

God’s king takes the trophy;

God’s chosen is beloved.

I mean David and all his children—

always.

Insight

It’s helpful to read 2 Samuel 22 along with Psalm 18. This long psalm (only three psalms are longer: 78, 89, 119) parallels David’s song in 2 Samuel when David praised God for His protection and deliverance from Saul so many years before, although with some slight modifications. Scholars speculate that those changes were made to adapt the song from personal to corporate use. Nevertheless, as he now moved toward the end of his life, David reflected on God’s rescue with clearer eyes than ever before, and he gave praise to God for that specific time when he experienced divine rescue. As such, David referred to Him as his rock, his fortress, and his deliverer. He also referred to Him as his horn (symbolic of power and authority) and shield (Psalm 18:2). Taken together, it’s little wonder that David reflected on the mighty God as his stronghold. By: Bill Crowder

I’ve Seen God’s Faithfulness

I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing the praises of your name. 2 Samuel 22:50

Throughout her historic seventy years as Britain’s ruler, Queen Elizabeth II only endorsed one biography about her life with a personal foreword, The Servant Queen and the King She Serves. Released in celebration of her ninetieth birthday, the book recounts how her faith guided her as she served her country. In the foreword, Queen Elizabeth expressed gratitude for everyone who’d prayed for her, and she thanked God for His steadfast love. She concluded, “I have indeed seen His faithfulness.”

Queen Elizabeth’s simple statement echoes the testimonies of men and women throughout history who’ve experienced the personal, faithful care of God in their lives. It’s this theme underlying a beautiful song King David wrote as he reflected on his life. Recorded in 2 Samuel 22, the song speaks of God’s faithfulness in protecting David, providing for him, and even rescuing him when his very life was in danger (vv. 3–4, 44). In response to his experience of God’s faithfulness, David wrote, “I will sing the praises of your name” (v. 50).

While there’s added beauty when God’s faithfulness is seen over a long lifetime, we don’t have to wait to recount His care in our lives. When we recognize that it’s not our own abilities that carry us through life but the faithful care of a loving Father, we’re moved to gratitude and praise. By:  Lisa M. Samra

Reflect & Pray

How have you seen God’s faithfulness? How might you express your gratitude to Him?

Heavenly Father, I’m so grateful that in every season of life—sorrow or joy—I’ve seen Your faithfulness.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Is Your Mind Stayed on God?

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. —Isaiah 26:3

Is your mind stayed on God or is it starved? Starvation of the mind, caused by neglect, is one of the chief sources of exhaustion and weakness in a servant’s life. If you have never used your mind to place yourself before God, begin to do it now. There is no reason to wait for God to come to you. You must turn your thoughts and your eyes away from the face of idols and look to Him and be saved (see Isaiah 45:22).

Your mind is the greatest gift God has given you and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. You should seek to be “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…” (2 Corinthians 10:5). This will be one of the greatest assets of your faith when a time of trial comes, because then your faith and the Spirit of God will work together. When you have thoughts and ideas that are worthy of credit to God, learn to compare and associate them with all that happens in nature— the rising and the setting of the sun, the shining of the moon and the stars, and the changing of the seasons. You will begin to see that your thoughts are from God as well, and your mind will no longer be at the mercy of your impulsive thinking, but will always be used in service to God.

“We have sinned with our fathers…[and]…did not remember…” (Psalm 106:6-7). Then prod your memory and wake up immediately. Don’t say to yourself, “But God is not talking to me right now.” He ought to be. Remember whose you are and whom you serve. Encourage yourself to remember, and your affection for God will increase tenfold. Your mind will no longer be starved, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray. So Send I You, 1325 L

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 11-12; Matthew 26:1-25

Hosea 6, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Someday

There’s a time for extravagant gestures. A time to pour out your affections on the one you love. And when the time comes—seize it. Don’t dismiss it!

“Someday,” we say, “I’ll take her on the cruise.”

“Someday”, we say, “I’ll have time to call and chat.”

“Someday, the children will understand why I was so busy.”

But you know the truth, don’t you? You could say it better than I. Some days never come. And the price of practicality is sometimes higher than extravagance. So, go to the effort…today. Invest the time, today. Make the apology. Take the trip. Purchase the gift. Do it! The seized opportunity renders joy. The neglected brings regret.

From And The Angels Were Silent

Hosea 6

Gangs of Priests Assaulting Worshipers

1–3  6 “Come on, let’s go back to God.

He hurt us, but he’ll heal us.

He hit us hard,

but he’ll put us right again.

In a couple of days we’ll feel better.

By the third day he’ll have made us brand-new,

Alive and on our feet,

fit to face him.

We’re ready to study God,

eager for God-knowledge.

As sure as dawn breaks,

so sure is his daily arrival.

He comes as rain comes,

as spring rain refreshing the ground.”

4–7  “What am I to do with you, Ephraim?

What do I make of you, Judah?

Your declarations of love last no longer

than morning mist and predawn dew.

That’s why I use prophets to shake you to attention,

why my words cut you to the quick:

To wake you up to my judgment

blazing like light.

I’m after love that lasts, not more religion.

I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings.

You broke the covenant—just like Adam!

You broke faith with me—ungrateful wretches!

8–9  “Gilead has become Crime City—

blood on the sidewalks, blood on the streets.

It used to be robbers who mugged pedestrians.

Now it’s gangs of priests

Assaulting worshipers on their way to Shechem.

Nothing is sacred to them.

10  “I saw a shocking thing in the country of Israel:

Ephraim worshiping in a religious whorehouse,

and Israel in the mud right there with him.

11  “You’re as bad as the worst of them, Judah.

You’ve been sowing wild oats. Now it’s harvest time.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Today's Scripture

2 Timothy 3:10–17

Keep the Message Alive

10–13  You’ve been a good apprentice to me, a part of my teaching, my manner of life, direction, faith, steadiness, love, patience, troubles, sufferings—suffering along with me in all the grief I had to put up with in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. And you also well know that God rescued me! Anyone who wants to live all out for Christ is in for a lot of trouble; there’s no getting around it. Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They’re as deceived as the people they lead astray. As long as they are out there, things can only get worse.

14–17  But don’t let it faze you. Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers—why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother’s milk! There’s nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.

Insight

When Paul says that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16), he’s picking up on the connection to the first two chapters of Genesis. In the first verses of the Bible, God’s Spirit moves over the formless face of the waters (Genesis 1:2) just prior to God speaking the world into existence. The Hebrew word for “spirit” and “breath” are the same (ruakh) and here emphasize that God created the world by His spoken word and through the Spirit.

It’s that life-giving breath that shows up again in God’s creation of humanity (2:7) and that Paul connects to all of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16). Scripture gives life and is useful for all things because it’s the very words of God. Paul’s words to Timothy should encourage us to trust both that Scripture is God’s word to us and that it’s just as life-giving now as it was when He spun the earth into existence. 

By: Jed Ostoich

God’s Transforming Word

You have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 3:15

When Kristin wanted to buy a special book for Xio-Hu, her Chinese husband, the only one she could find in Chinese was a Bible. Although neither of them was a believer in Christ, she hoped he would appreciate the gift anyway. At first sight of the Bible, he was angry, but eventually he picked it up. As he read, he became persuaded by the truth in its pages. Upset at this unforeseen development, Kristin started to read the Scriptures in order to refute Xio-Hu. To her surprise, she also came to faith in Jesus through being convinced by what she read.

The apostle Paul knew the transforming nature of Scripture. Writing from prison in Rome, he urged Timothy, whom he mentored, to “continue in what you have learned” because “from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures” (2 Timothy 3:14–15). In the original language, the Greek for “continue” has the sense of “abide” in what the Bible reveals. Knowing that Timothy would face opposition and persecution, Paul wanted him to be equipped for the challenges; he believed his protégé would find strength and wisdom in the Bible as he spent time pondering its truth.

God through His Spirit brings Scripture alive to us. As we dwell in it, He changes us to be more like Him. Even as He did with Xio-Hu and Kristin. By:  Amy Boucher Pye

Reflect & Pray

How have you been changed through spending time reading and pondering the Bible? When have the Scriptures come alive to you?

Author of all that lives, thank You for inspiring the Bible to be such a life-giving book. May I submit to You as I read the Scriptures.

Learn how to effectively study the Bible.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Is Your Ability to See God Blinded?

Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things… —Isaiah 40:26

The people of God in Isaiah’s time had blinded their minds’ ability to see God by looking on the face of idols. But Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their power to think and to visualize correctly. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in nature and will realize that it is holy and sacred. We will see God reaching out to us in every wind that blows, every sunrise and sunset, every cloud in the sky, every flower that blooms, and every leaf that fades, if we will only begin to use our blinded thinking to visualize it.

The real test of spiritual focus is being able to bring your mind and thoughts under control. Is your mind focused on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Is it your work? Is it your idea of what a servant should be, or maybe your experience of salvation and sanctification? If so, then your ability to see God is blinded. You will be powerless when faced with difficulties and will be forced to endure in darkness. If your power to see has been blinded, don’t look back on your own experiences, but look to God. It is God you need. Go beyond yourself and away from the faces of your idols and away from everything else that has been blinding your thinking. Wake up and accept the ridicule that Isaiah gave to his people, and deliberately turn your thoughts and your eyes to God.

One of the reasons for our sense of futility in prayer is that we have lost our power to visualize. We can no longer even imagine putting ourselves deliberately before God. It is actually more important to be broken bread and poured-out wine in the area of intercession than in our personal contact with others. The power of visualization is what God gives a saint so that he can go beyond himself and be firmly placed into relationships he never before experienced.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.

The Place of Help

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 8-10; Matthew 25:31-46

Hosea 5 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: NO ROOM FOR PECKING ORDERS - February 9, 2024

Pecking orders are a part of life. Ranking systems can clarify our roles. The problem with pecking orders isn’t the order. The problem is with the pecking!

A friend who grew up on a farm told me he saw their chickens attacking a sick newborn. His mother explained, “That’s what chickens do. When one is really sick, the rest peck it to death.” Such a barnyard mentality may fly on the farm, but not in God’s kingdom. In Matthew 23:6 (NIV) Jesus is critical of the Pharisees who “love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues.” Through this passage Jesus blasts the top birds of the church, those who spread their plumes of robes and titles and choice seats. Jesus won’t stand for it. Jesus has no room for pecking orders in his kingdom.

Hosea 5

They Wouldn’t Recognize God If They Saw Him

1–2  5 “Listen to this, priests!

Attention, people of Israel!

Royal family—all ears!

You’re in charge of justice around here.

But what have you done? Exploited people at Mizpah,

ripped them off on Tabor,

Victimized them at Shittim.

I’m going to punish the lot of you.

3–4  “I know you, Ephraim, inside and out.

Yes, Israel, I see right through you!

Ephraim, you’ve played your sex-and-religion games long enough.

All Israel is thoroughly polluted.

They couldn’t turn to God if they wanted to.

Their evil life is a bad habit.

Every breath they take is a whore’s breath.

They wouldn’t recognize God if they saw me.

5–7  “Bloated by arrogance, big as a house,

they’re a public disgrace,

The lot of them—Israel, Ephraim, Judah—

lurching and weaving down their guilty streets.

When they decide to get their lives together

and go off looking for God once again,

They’ll find it’s too late.

I, God, will be long gone.

They’ve played fast and loose with me for too long,

filling the country with their bastard offspring.

A plague of locusts will

devastate their violated land.

8–9  “Blow the ram’s horn shofar in Gibeah,

the bugle in Ramah!

Signal the invasion of Sin City!

Scare the daylights out of Ben-jamin!

Ephraim will be left wasted,

a lifeless moonscape.

I’m telling it straight, the unvarnished truth,

to the tribes of Israel.

10  “Israel’s rulers are crooks and thieves,

cheating the people of their land,

And I’m angry, good and angry.

Every inch of their bodies is going to feel my anger.

11–12  “Brutal Ephraim is himself brutalized—

a taste of his own medicine!

He was so determined

to do it his own worthless way.

Therefore I’m pus to Ephraim,

dry rot in the house of Judah.

13  “When Ephraim saw he was sick

and Judah saw his pus-filled sores,

Ephraim went running to Assyria,

went for help to the big king.

But he can’t heal you.

He can’t cure your oozing sores.

14–15  “I’m a grizzly charging Ephraim,

a grizzly with cubs charging Judah.

I’ll rip them to pieces—yes, I will!

No one can stop me now.

I’ll drag them off.

No one can help them.

Then I’ll go back to where I came from

until they come to their senses.

When they finally hit rock bottom,

maybe they’ll come looking for me.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Friday, February 09, 2024

Today's Scripture

Romans 13:8–10

Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love.

Insight

The Bible has much to say about loving others. Jesus says that “to love your neighbor as yourself” is the second greatest commandment (Matthew 22:39) and that the greatest love a person can show is to “lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13).

Paul’s description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 refers to the love the body of Christ should have for one another. But in his letter to the Roman believers in Jesus, Paul puts his admonition to love (13:8-10) in a peculiar place. It’s sandwiched between an exhortation to be submissive to governing authorities by fulfilling civic responsibilities (vv. 1-7)—authorities that weren’t friendly to early believers in Christ—and a reminder that the day of Lord is “nearer now than when we first believed” (v. 11). Perhaps the apostle is suggesting that love is a responsibility (akin to civic responsibility) that’s motivated by anticipating our future with Jesus. By: JR Hudberg

God’s Great Love Cycle

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another. Romans 13:8

As a new believer in Jesus at the age of thirty, I had lots of questions after committing my life to Him. When I started reading the Scriptures, I had even more questions. I reached out to a friend. “How can I possibly obey all God’s commands? I just snapped at my husband this morning!”

“Just keep reading your Bible,” she said, “and ask the Holy Spirit to help you love like Jesus loves you.”

After more than twenty years of living as a child of God, that simple but profound truth still helps me embrace the three steps in His great love cycle: First, the apostle Paul affirmed that love is central in the life of a believer in Jesus. Second, by continuing to pay the “debt to love one another,” followers of Christ will walk in obedience, “for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8). Finally, we fulfill the law because “love does no harm to a neighbor” (v. 10).

When we experience the depth of God’s love for us, demonstrated best through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, we can respond with gratitude. Our grateful devotion to Jesus leads to loving others with our words, actions, and attitudes. Genuine love flows from the one true God who is love (1 John 4:16, 19).

Loving God, help us get caught up in Your great love cycle! By:  Xochitl Dixon

Reflect & Pray

When have you struggled to feel loved by Jesus or to love like He loves? How does knowing Christ loves you completely and unconditionally change the way you love others?

Dear Jesus, please help me believe You love me so I can love others through the overflow of Your love for me.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Friday, February 09, 2024

Are You Exhausted Spiritually?

The everlasting God…neither faints nor is weary. —Isaiah 40:28

Exhaustion means that our vital energies are completely worn out and spent. Spiritual exhaustion is never the result of sin, but of service. Whether or not you experience exhaustion will depend on where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter, “Feed My sheep,” but He gave him nothing with which to feed them (John 21:17). The process of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other people’s souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you completely— to the very last drop. But be careful to replenish your supply, or you will quickly be utterly exhausted. Until others learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus directly, they will have to draw on His life through you. You must literally be their source of supply, until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and sheep, as well as for Him.

Have you delivered yourself over to exhaustion because of the way you have been serving God? If so, then renew and rekindle your desires and affections. Examine your reasons for service. Is your source based on your own understanding or is it grounded on the redemption of Jesus Christ? Continually look back to the foundation of your love and affection and remember where your Source of power lies. You have no right to complain, “O Lord, I am so exhausted.” He saved and sanctified you to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that He is your supply. “All my springs are in you” (Psalm 87:7).

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest. Disciples Indeed, 395 L

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 6-7; Matthew 25:1-30

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Friday, February 09, 2024

Why the Coach is Working You So Hard - #9675

Back when my son and his friends were going into their sophomore year in high school playing football, they moved up to the junior varsity and the varsity team. And they got word that they were going to have triple sessions in August and September practices. That's exciting... triple sessions meant that you get to go, not for the regular two-hour practice of calisthenics, and running, and working hard, and running into things, and running into each other. No, you get to go for four hours. Hey, you guessed it: not even four... you get to go for six wonderful hours of that!

Twelve different times before the season starts - triple sessions. And you should have heard them when they talked about it, or actually, you should have seen them. Their eyes kind of rolled back in their head, and their mouths drooped, and their shoulders sagged, and they'd go, "Triple sessions!" Well, the coach knew he had an inexperienced crop coming up, and he was the coach who got used to winning. So, he put them through some very demanding training. Of course, that's the price you pay to be a winner. They were state champs!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Why the Coach is Working You So Hard."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Romans 5 - it's about God's training program; He, of course, being the head coach. And verses 3 and 4 tell us this, starting out with a kind of curious phrase, "We also rejoice in our sufferings." Have you been doing that recently? Rejoicing? Well, that's really great that we're going through this hard time, isn't it? Well, Paul says, "We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope."

Well, there's that phrase, "rejoicing in our suffering." How can a football player rejoice in triple session workouts? How can he rejoice in them? Well, he knows if he thinks about it that this extra practice is making him stronger, he's getting more endurance, he's getting experience that will give him the edge when he gets in the game. He'll be a fourth-quarter player. He's ending up having "hope" as Paul says here. His hope is that he's going to win.

We're going to have a winning season. We might walk off with the championship. I might have something special on the back of my jacket all year and for the rest of my high school career. See, his hope comes from the fact that he knows he's getting strong enough to win, and he won't get strong enough to win without double and triple sessions. He may hate the process; he's going to love the outcome.

Now, notice in these verses how God gives us hope in the middle of our hard times. It might be hope that you need right now because there's a lot of pain and stress that you're experiencing. Maybe you've almost lost hope. Notice it says that suffering produces perseverance. Or some translations say "patience." In other words, by making it through hard times, you develop the ability to hang in there even when it hurts like that football player hurting all over. To wait for God's timing to say, "You know, I don't have to have an answer or relief right now." And that patience converts into character Paul says. Or another translation says "experience." You can look back and say, "You know, I've made it through something like this, and now I know I can do it."

There's a confidence that comes from making it through something very, very hard. You can say, "I know I can do this with God's help. I know I can, because I've been here before." And the big things, the daunting things, the scary things don't look as big and daunting and scary any more. But see, people who have never handled anything tough, well, they're the ones who leave practice when it starts to hurt. They run from their problems instead of confronting them. Sometimes that's even why people think about ending their own life, because they've not handled the tough stuff, and they just want the pain to stop.

Listen, stay in the ring. You're building experience and that's what gives hope in suffering. There's no way to develop this kind of strength, this kind of toughness, this kind of durability without suffering first. If the coach has scheduled a triple session for you right now, don't despair. Don't give up. Don't quit. Let suffering develop patience, let patience develop experience, let experience develop hope.

Triple sessions build winners.