Jeremiah 33, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: LOOK UP IN FAITH - May 13, 2024

We can calmly take our concerns to God because he is as near as our next breath. This is the reassuring lesson from the miracle of the bread and fish. Jesus told his disciples to do the impossible: feed five thousand men, plus women and children. The disciples responded, “Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food” (Matthew 14:15 NKJV).

Now you’re not facing five thousand hungry bellies, but you are facing a deadline, a loved one in need of a cure, a spouse entwined in temptation. And typically, you’d get anxious. But this time, instead of starting with what you have, start with Jesus. Start with his wealth, his resources, his strength. And before you open the ledger, open your heart. Before you lash out in fear, look up in faith. Turn to your heavenly father for help.

Jeremiah 33

Things You Could Never Figure Out on Your Own

1  33 While Jeremiah was still locked up in jail, a second Message from God was given to him:

2–3  “This is God’s Message, the God who made earth, made it livable and lasting, known everywhere as God: ‘Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.’

4–5  “This is what God, the God of Israel, has to say about what’s going on in this city, about the homes of both people and kings that have been demolished, about all the ravages of war and the killing by the Chaldeans, and about the streets littered with the dead bodies of those killed because of my raging anger—about all that’s happened because the evil actions in this city have turned my stomach in disgust.

6–9  “But now take another look. I’m going to give this city a thorough renovation, working a true healing inside and out. I’m going to show them life whole, life brimming with blessings. I’ll restore everything that was lost to Judah and Jerusalem. I’ll build everything back as good as new. I’ll scrub them clean from the dirt they’ve done against me. I’ll forgive everything they’ve done wrong, forgive all their rebellions. And Jerusalem will be a center of joy and praise and glory for all the countries on earth. They’ll get reports on all the good I’m doing for her. They’ll be in awe of the blessings I am pouring on her.

10–11  “Yes, God’s Message: ‘You’re going to look at this place, these empty and desolate towns of Judah and streets of Jerusalem, and say, “A wasteland. Unlivable. Not even a dog could live here.” But the time is coming when you’re going to hear laughter and celebration, marriage festivities, people exclaiming, “Thank God-of-the-Angel-Armies. He’s so good! His love never quits,” as they bring thank offerings into God’s Temple. I’ll restore everything that was lost in this land. I’ll make everything as good as new.’ I, God, say so.

12–13  “God-of-the-Angel-Armies says: ‘This coming desolation, unfit for even a stray dog, is once again going to become a pasture for shepherds who care for their flocks. You’ll see flocks everywhere—in the mountains around the towns of the Shephelah and Negev, all over the territory of Ben-jamin, around Jerusalem and the towns of Judah—flocks under the care of shepherds who keep track of each sheep.’ God says so.

A Fresh and True Shoot from the David-Tree

14–18  “ ‘Watch for this: The time is coming’—God’s Decree—‘when I will keep the promise I made to the families of Israel and Judah. When that time comes, I will make a fresh and true shoot sprout from the David-Tree. He will run this country honestly and fairly. He will set things right. That’s when Judah will be secure and Jerusalem live in safety. The motto for the city will be, “God Has Set Things Right for Us.” God has made it clear that there will always be a descendant of David ruling the people of Israel and that there will always be Levitical priests on hand to offer burnt offerings, present grain offerings, and carry on the sacrificial worship in my honor.’ ”

19–22  God’s Message to Jeremiah: “God says, ‘If my covenant with day and my covenant with night ever fell apart so that day and night became haphazard and you never knew which was coming and when, then and only then would my covenant with my servant David fall apart and his descendants no longer rule. The same goes for the Levitical priests who serve me. Just as you can’t number the stars in the sky nor measure the sand on the seashore, neither will you be able to account for the descendants of David my servant and the Levites who serve me.’ ”

23–24  God’s Message to Jeremiah: “Have you heard the saying that’s making the rounds: ‘The two families God chose, Israel and Judah, he disowned’? And have you noticed that my people are treated with contempt, with rumors afoot that there’s nothing to them anymore?

25–26  “Well, here’s God’s response: ‘If my covenant with day and night wasn’t in working order, if sky and earth weren’t functioning the way I set them going, then, but only then, you might think I had disowned the descendants of Jacob and of my servant David, and that I wouldn’t set up any of David’s descendants over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But as it is, I will give them back everything they’ve lost. The last word is, I will have mercy on them.’ ”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Monday, May 13, 2024

Today's Scripture

2 Chronicles 18:9-16

Meanwhile, the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat were seated on their thrones, dressed in their royal robes, resplendent in front of the Samaria city gates. All the prophets were staging a prophecy-performance for their benefit. Zedekiah son of Kenaanah had even made a set of iron horns, and brandishing them, called out, “God’s word! With these horns you’ll gore Aram until there’s nothing left of them!” All the prophets chimed in, “Yes! Go for Ramoth Gilead! An easy victory! God’s gift to the king!”

12  The messenger who went to get Micaiah told him, “The prophets have all said Yes to the king. Make it unanimous—vote Yes!”

13  But Micaiah said, “As sure as God lives, what God says, I’ll say.”

14  With Micaiah before him, the king asked him, “So, Micaiah—do we attack Ramoth Gilead? Or do we hold back?”

“Go ahead,” he said, “an easy victory! God’s gift to the king.”

15  “Not so fast,” said the king. “How many times have I made you promise under oath to tell me the truth and nothing but the truth?”

16  “All right,” said Micaiah, “since you insist …

I saw all of Israel scattered over the hills,

sheep with no shepherd.

Then God spoke, ‘These poor people

have no one to tell them what to do.

Let them go home and do

the best they can for themselves.’ ”

Insight

A similar battle between true and false prophets that’s recorded in 2 Chronicles 18 is also seen in Jeremiah 27-28. The prophet Jeremiah is the solitary voice for truth amid a chorus of false hope (27:9-15) and confronts the lies of the false prophet Hananiah (ch. 28).

In the New Testament, Paul also warned against false prophets and of the day when people “will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3). Every believer in Jesus needs to be discerning and boldly speak truth, even where there are those who itch for something else. By: Arthur Jackson

A Solitary Voice

As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what my God says. 2 Chronicles 18:13

After the Paris Peace Conference that concluded World War I, French Marshall Ferdinand Foch bitterly observed, “This is not peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.” Foch’s view contradicted the popular opinion that the horrifying conflict would be the “war to end all wars.” Twenty years and two months later, World War II erupted. Foch was right.

Long ago, Micaiah, the lone true prophet of God present at the time, consistently prophesied dire military results for Israel (2 Chronicles 18:7). In contrast, four hundred of King Ahab’s false prophets foretold victory: “Look, the other prophets without exception are predicting success for the king,” a court official told Micaiah. “Let your word agree with theirs, and speak favorably” (v. 12).

Micaiah responded, “I can tell him only what my God says” (v. 13). He prophesied how Israel would be “scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd” (v. 16). Micaiah was right. The Arameans killed Ahab and his army fled (vv. 33-34; 1 Kings 22:35-36).

Like Micaiah, we who follow Jesus share a message that contradicts popular opinion. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Many don’t like that message because it seems harshly narrow. Too exclusive, people say. Yet Christ brings a comforting message that’s inclusive. He welcomes everyone who turns to Him.  By:  Tim Gustafson

Reflect & Pray

When the Spirit leads you to say or do something, how will you do so in love? When have your own assumptions needed to be challenged by God?

Father, please give me the wisdom to discern Your truth. 

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Monday, May 13, 2024

The Habit of a Good Conscience

So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man. — Acts 24:16

Conscience is the faculty inside us which attaches itself to the highest ideal we know. Either this ideal is God, or it’s something else. If we are in the habit of steadily facing God, our conscience will always guide us toward his perfect law and indicate what we should do.

The question is, Will I obey what my conscience shows me? It is difficult—too difficult—for human nature to keep God’s commands. But God didn’t give his commands to our human nature; he gave them to the life of Jesus inside us. When I lean on the life of Christ within, following God’s commands becomes divinely easy. I should be living in perfect sympathy with Christ. If I am, my mind will be renewed in every circumstance, and I will be able to discern at once what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Romans 12:2 KJV).

“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God” (Ephesians 4:30). God educates us down to the scruple. Is my ear able to hear the tiniest whisper of the Spirit? The Spirit doesn’t come with a voice like thunder, but with a voice so gentle it is easy to ignore. The one thing that keeps the conscience sensitive to him is the continual habit of being open to God on the inside.

If I sense myself beginning to debate with the Spirit, I must stop immediately. There is no debate possible when conscience speaks. If I allow anything, however small, to obscure my inner communion with God, I do so at my own risk. I must drop the thing, whatever it is, and keep my inner vision clear.

2 Kings 17-18; John 3:19-38

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

When a man’s heart is right with God the mysterious utterances of the Bible are spirit and life to him. Spiritual truth is discernible only to a pure heart, not to a keen intellect. It is not a question of profundity of intellect, but of purity of heart.

Bringing Sons Unto Glory, 231 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Monday, May 13, 2024

The Glory of Your Story - #9741

If my son wants to be sure he has his sons' attention, all he has to do is start telling a story about when he was a kid or a teenager. They are suddenly all ears - and probably taking notes. Our son has some doozies to tell, believe me - from his days as, shall we say, a "challenging" child. They love to hear stories from his life - and mine, for that matter. We may not always be great listeners - but when someone starts telling their story, we're in. Which may tell us something about how to communicate the only Story on the planet that can change an eternity.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Glory of Your Story."

In many ways, it's getting tougher to have conversations about Jesus with people, isn't it. Their guard is up when there's a hint of you trying to lobby them for your faith... change them... convert them. But there's a way to talk about your Jesus naturally, compellingly, non threateningly. Wrap His story in your story.

Our word for today from the Word of God, in Psalm 107:2, says, "Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their stories." In a Gospel hardened culture, that directive has never been more important or strategic.

When Jesus went into Samaria, He was in hostile territory for a Jew. He didn't go charging into the Samaritan village and start preaching. No, He reached a Samaritan - that woman at the well that came thirsting for water and left with a "spring of eternal life" deep in her soul. And she went back to that village telling her story of the most amazing conversation of her life.

And John tells us that "many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony" (John 4:39). Mark tells us about a demon-possessed man that Jesus delivered. Jesus told him to "go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you...So the man began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed" (Mark 5:19, 20).

That's the glory of your Jesus-story! People can argue with your beliefs, but they can't argue with your story. When the blind man told the hostile religious leaders, "Once I was blind, now I can see," no one could argue.

Peter tells us to be ready to tell about "the hope that you have" (1 Peter 3:15). If you know Jesus, you have a Hope Story. About the difference Jesus has made and is making in your life. You are living proof that a husband or wife can change... a mom or dad... an angry person... a control freak. You are proof that an addicted person can change...a self-centered person...a depressed person. Because of Jesus.

Think about it. If it weren't for Jesus, what would your lonely times be like? Your depressed times? Your times when everything's out of control? How about when you get bad news from the doctor? Or you're standing by the casket?

Your Hope Story is the most natural way for you to bring up your Jesus. And how do you get to the Gospel? You just weave into your story the message, the discoveries that changed your life. The fact that you were trying to do life away from God. That Jesus came to bridge the canyon your sin created between you and God. But what He did on that cross and that empty tomb opened the way to a life-changing relationship with God and could do the same for them.

In short, you tell how HIS story changed YOUR story - and could change THEIR story forever!

That, my friend, is the glory of your story!

Hebrews 8, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: Rest in His Finished Work

In Psalm 23:2 when David says, "He makes me to lie down in green pastures"-he's saying, "My shepherd makes me lie down in His finished work." With His own pierced hands, Jesus created a pasture for the soul. Can you imagine the satisfaction in the heart of the shepherd when, with work completed, he sees his sheep rest in the tender grass? Can you imagine the satisfaction in the heart of God when we do the same?

His pasture is His gift to us. This is not a pasture you have made. Nor is it one you deserve. It is a gift of God. Ephesians 2:8 says, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

Your Shepherd invites you to nestle deeply hidden, buried, in the tall shoots of His love-and there you will find rest.

From Traveling Light

Hebrews 8

A New Plan with Israel

1–2  8 In essence, we have just such a high priest: authoritative right alongside God, conducting worship in the one true sanctuary built by God.

3–5  The assigned task of a high priest is to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and it’s no different with the priesthood of Jesus. If he were limited to earth, he wouldn’t even be a priest. We wouldn’t need him since there are plenty of priests who offer the gifts designated in the law. These priests provide only a hint of what goes on in the true sanctuary of heaven, which Moses caught a glimpse of as he was about to set up the tent-shrine. It was then that God said, “Be careful to do it exactly as you saw it on the Mountain.”

6–13  But Jesus’ priestly work far surpasses what these other priests do, since he’s working from a far better plan. If the first plan—the old covenant—had worked out, a second wouldn’t have been needed. But we know the first was found wanting, because God said,

Heads up! The days are coming

when I’ll set up a new plan

for dealing with Israel and Judah.

I’ll throw out the old plan

I set up with their ancestors

when I led them by the hand out of Egypt.

They didn’t keep their part of the bargain,

so I looked away and let it go.

This new plan I’m making with Israel

isn’t going to be written on paper,

isn’t going to be chiseled in stone;

This time I’m writing out the plan in them,

carving it on the lining of their hearts.

I’ll be their God,

they’ll be my people.

They won’t go to school to learn about me,

or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons.

They’ll all get to know me firsthand,

the little and the big, the small and the great.

They’ll get to know me by being kindly forgiven,

with the slate of their sins forever wiped clean.

By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and his people, God put the old plan on the shelf. And there it stays, gathering dust.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Today's Scripture

2 Timothy 1:3-5

To Be Bold with God’s Gifts

3–4  Every time I say your name in prayer—which is practically all the time—I thank God for you, the God I worship with my whole life in the tradition of my ancestors. I miss you a lot, especially when I remember that last tearful good-bye, and I look forward to a joy-packed reunion.

5–7  That precious memory triggers another: your honest faith—and what a rich faith it is, handed down from your grandmother Lois to your mother Eunice, and now to you!

Insight

Though Paul affectionately called Timothy “my true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2; see 2 Timothy 1:2), he wasn’t the one who taught him about Jesus. It was his own mother Eunice and grandmother Lois (2 Timothy 1:5) who “taught [him] the holy Scriptures from childhood, and . . . [gave him] the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus” (3:15 nlt). Timothy was of mixed parentage—a gentile father and Jewish mother. When Paul first met him, Timothy was already a leader and “the believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him” (Acts 16:2). He became Paul’s intern, traveling companion, and trusted protégé (vv. 3-4; Philippians 2:19-22). That the apostle sent Timothy to deal with the troublesome Corinthian church (1 Corinthians 4:17) and to confront false teachers in the Ephesian church (1 Timothy 1:3) testify to this young man’s spiritual maturity and ministry leadership.

Learn more about the lesser-known women of the Bible. By: K. T. Sim

Leaving a Spiritual Legacy

I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice. 2 Timothy 1:5

As teens, my sister and I didn’t understand my mom’s decision to receive Jesus as her Savior, but we couldn’t deny the changes we saw in her. She had more peace and joy and began faithfully serving at church. She had such a hunger for studying the Bible that she attended and graduated from seminary. A few years after my mom’s decision, my sister accepted Christ and started serving Him. And a few years after that, I also placed my trust in Jesus and started serving Him. Many years later, my father joined us in believing in Him as well. My mom’s decision for Christ created a life-changing ripple effect among our immediate and extended family.

When the apostle Paul wrote his final letter to Timothy and encouraged him to persevere in his faith in Jesus, he noted Timothy’s spiritual heritage. “I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also” (2 Timothy 1:5).

Moms and grandmoms, your decisions can affect generations.

How beautiful that Timothy’s mom and grandmom helped nurture his faith so he could become the man God was calling him to be. 

On this Mother’s Day and beyond, let’s honor mothers who’ve made a decision to follow Jesus.

Let’s also leave a spiritual legacy for our loved ones. By:  Nancy Gavilanes

Reflect & Pray

Which godly women can you honor today? What kind of spiritual legacy would you like to leave for others?

Father God, thank You for godly mothers. Please help me to also leave a spiritual legacy for others.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Make a Habit of Having No Habits

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. — 2 Peter 1:8

When we first begin to form a habit, we are highly aware of what we are doing. If we are cultivating habits of patience and godliness, we might consciously think, “Look at how patient and godly I’m being!” This kind of conscious awareness is a stage we must pass through. If we get stuck in it, we’ll become spiritual snobs.

Our spiritual life continually calls us to look within ourselves. When we do, we see that there are some qualities we’re still missing. Our god may be our little Christian habit—praying at bedtime or reading the Bible in the morning. “I can’t do that right now; it’s my hour with God,” you say. No, it’s your hour with your habit. Watch how the Father will upset these times if you begin to worship your habit instead of him. If this is the case in your life, recognize that there is a quality missing in you, and look for the opportunity to set things right.

The right thing to do with habits is to lose them in the life of the Lord, until every habit is so automatic that there is no awareness of it at all. Ultimately, the relationship between our souls and Christ should be very simple: it should be based on love. Love means that there is no detectable habit. You have come to the place where the habit has been lost in the bliss of unconscious devotion. If you are consciously holy, there are certain things you think you can’t do, certain places you feel you can’t go. The only supernatural life is the life the Lord Jesus lived, and Jesus was at home with God anywhere.

Where do you not feel at home with God? Let God press through in that place until you find him, and your life will become the simple life of the child.

2 Kings 15-16; John 3:1-18

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

I have no right to say I believe in God unless I order my life as under His all-seeing Eye.

Disciples Indeed, 385 L

Jeremiah 32, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

 

Max Lucado Daily: God So Loved Us

“If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:11, NKJV

Jesus humbled himself. He went from commanding angels to sleeping in the straw. From holding stars to clutching Mary’s finger. 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.

Jeremiah 32

Killing and Disease Are on Our Doorstep

1–5  32 The Message Jeremiah received from God in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah. It was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was holding Jerusalem under siege. Jeremiah was shut up in jail in the royal palace. Zedekiah, king of Judah, had locked him up, complaining, “How dare you preach, saying, ‘God says, I’m warning you: I will hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will take it over. Zedekiah king of Judah will be handed over to the Chaldeans right along with the city. He will be handed over to the king of Babylon and forced to face the music. He’ll be hauled off to Babylon where he’ll stay until I deal with him. God’s Decree. Fight against the Babylonians all you want—it won’t get you anywhere.’ ”

6–7  Jeremiah said, “God’s Message came to me like this: Prepare yourself! Hanamel, your uncle Shallum’s son, is on his way to see you. He is going to say, ‘Buy my field in Anathoth. You have the legal right to buy it.’

8  “And sure enough, just as God had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me while I was in jail and said, ‘Buy my field in Anathoth in the territory of Ben-jamin, for you have the legal right to keep it in the family. Buy it. Take it over.’

“That did it. I knew it was God’s Message.

9–12  “So I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel. I paid him seventeen silver shekels. I followed all the proper procedures: In the presence of witnesses I wrote out the bill of sale, sealed it, and weighed out the money on the scales. Then I took the deed of purchase—the sealed copy that contained the contract and its conditions and also the open copy—and gave them to Baruch son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah. All this took place in the presence of my cousin Hanamel and the witnesses who had signed the deed, as the Jews who were at the jail that day looked on.

13–15  “Then, in front of all of them, I told Baruch, ‘These are orders from God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel: Take these documents—both the sealed and the open deeds—and put them for safekeeping in a pottery jar. For God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Life is going to return to normal. Homes and fields and vineyards are again going to be bought in this country.” ’

16–19  “And then, having handed over the legal documents to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to God, ‘Dear God, my Master, you created earth and sky by your great power—by merely stretching out your arm! There is nothing you can’t do. You’re loyal in your steadfast love to thousands upon thousands—but you also make children live with the fallout from their parents’ sins. Great and powerful God, named God-of-the-Angel-Armies, determined in purpose and relentless in following through, you see everything that men and women do and respond appropriately to the way they live, to the things they do.

20–23  “ ‘You performed signs and wonders in the country of Egypt and continue to do so right into the present, right here in Israel and everywhere else, too. You’ve made a reputation for yourself that doesn’t diminish. You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders—a powerful deliverance!—by merely stretching out your arm. You gave them this land and solemnly promised to their ancestors a bountiful and fertile land. But when they entered the land and took it over, they didn’t listen to you. They didn’t do what you commanded. They wouldn’t listen to a thing you told them. And so you brought this disaster on them.

24–25  “ ‘Oh, look at the siege ramps already set in place to take the city. Killing and starvation and disease are on our doorstep. The Babylonians are attacking! The Word you spoke is coming to pass—it’s daily news! And yet you, God, the Master, even though it is certain that the city will be turned over to the Babylonians, also told me, Buy the field. Pay for it in cash. And make sure there are witnesses.’ ”

26–30  Then God’s Message came again to Jeremiah: “Stay alert! I am God, the God of everything living. Is there anything I can’t do? So listen to God’s Message: No doubt about it, I’m handing this city over to the Babylonians and Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. He’ll take it. The attacking Chaldeans will break through and burn the city down: All those houses whose roofs were used as altars for offerings to Baal and the worship of who knows how many other gods provoked me. It isn’t as if this were the first time they had provoked me. The people of Israel and Judah have been doing this for a long time—doing what I hate, making me angry by the way they live.” God’s Decree.

31–35  “This city has made me angry from the day they built it, and now I’ve had my fill. I’m destroying it. I can’t stand to look any longer at the wicked lives of the people of Israel and Judah, deliberately making me angry, the whole lot of them—kings and leaders and priests and preachers, in the country and in the city. They’ve turned their backs on me—won’t even look me in the face!—even though I took great pains to teach them how to live. They refused to listen, refused to be taught. Why, they even set up obscene god and goddess statues in the Temple built in my honor—an outrageous desecration! And then they went out and built shrines to the god Baal in the valley of Hinnom, where they burned their children in sacrifice to the god Molech—I can hardly conceive of such evil!—turning the whole country into one huge act of sin.

36  “But there is also this Message from me, the God of Israel, to this city of which you have said, ‘In killing and starvation and disease this city will be delivered up to the king of Babylon’:

37–40  “ ‘Watch for this! I will collect them from all the countries to which I will have driven them in my anger and rage and indignation. Yes, I’ll bring them all back to this place and let them live here in peace. They will be my people, I will be their God. I’ll make them of one mind and heart, always honoring me, so that they can live good and whole lives, they and their children after them. What’s more, I’ll make a covenant with them that will last forever, a covenant to stick with them no matter what, and work for their good. I’ll fill their hearts with a deep respect for me so they’ll not even think of turning away from me.

41  “ ‘Oh how I’ll rejoice in them! Oh how I’ll delight in doing good things for them! Heart and soul, I’ll plant them in this country and keep them here!’

42–44  “Yes, this is God’s Message: ‘I will certainly bring this huge catastrophe on this people, but I will also usher in a wonderful life of prosperity. I promise. Fields are going to be bought here again, yes, in this very country that you assume is going to end up desolate—gone to the dogs, unlivable, wrecked by the Babylonians. Yes, people will buy farms again, and legally, with deeds of purchase, sealed documents, proper witnesses—and right here in the territory of Ben-jamin, and in the area around Jerusalem, around the villages of Judah and the hill country, the Shephelah and the Negev. I will restore everything that was lost.’ God’s Decree.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Saturday, May 11, 2024

Today's Scripture

1 Samuel 28:3-10

Saul Prayed, but God Didn’t Answer

3  Samuel was now dead. All Israel had mourned his death and buried him in Ramah, his hometown. Saul had long since cleaned out all those who held séances with the dead.

4–5  The Philistines had mustered their troops and camped at Shunem. Saul had assembled all Israel and camped at Gilboa. But when Saul saw the Philistine troops, he shook in his boots, scared to death.

6  Saul prayed to God, but God didn’t answer—neither by dream nor by sign nor by prophet.

7  So Saul ordered his officials, “Find me someone who can call up spirits so I may go and seek counsel from those spirits.”

His servants said, “There’s a witch at Endor.”

8  Saul disguised himself by putting on different clothes. Then, taking two men with him, he went under the cover of night to the woman and said, “I want you to consult a ghost for me. Call up the person I name.”

9  The woman said, “Just hold on now! You know what Saul did, how he swept the country clean of mediums. Why are you trying to trap me and get me killed?”

10  Saul swore solemnly, “As God lives, you won’t get in any trouble for this.”

Insight

First Samuel 28:6 says, “[Saul] inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him.” The reason for God’s silence, as the prophet Samuel told him, is that “the Lord has departed from you and become your enemy” (v. 16). This was “because you did not obey the Lord or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites” (v. 18). The Amalekites were descendants of Esau (though they were distinct from his descendants the Edomites). They had a history of attacking Israel, including those who lagged behind during the exodus—in other words, Israel’s weakest citizens. God instructed Israel to annihilate Amalek (Deuteronomy 25:17-19), but Israel didn’t complete the task. Later, Haman, a descendant of Agag (probably King Agag the Amalekite, see 1 Samuel 15), would seek to commit genocide against God’s people, the Jews (Esther 3:5-14). By: Tim Gustafson

Staying the Course in Christ

All you need to say is simply “Yes” or “No”; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. Matthew 5:37

As Gandalf the Grey confronted Saruman the White, it became clear that the latter had turned from what he was supposed to be doing—helping to protect Middle-earth from the power of the evil being Sauron. What’s more, Saruman had allied with Sauron! In this scene from the film The Fellowship of the Ring, based on J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic work, the two former friends then engage in an epic good-versus-evil battle. If only Saruman had stayed the course and done what he knew was right!

King Saul also had trouble staying the course. In one account, he rightly “expelled the mediums and spiritists from [Israel]” (1 Samuel 28:3). Good move, for God had declared that dabbling in the occult was “detestable” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). But when God didn’t answer the king’s plea—due to his prior failures—for how to deal with a massive Philistine army, Saul caved: “Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her” (1 Samuel 28:7). Talk about a complete reversal! Saul failed once more as he went against his own decree—what he knew was right.

A millennium later, Jesus said to His disciples, “All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37). In other words, if we’ve committed ourselves to obeying Christ, it’s vital that we keep our oaths and be truthful. Let’s stay the course in doing those things as God helps us. By:  Tom Felten

Reflect & Pray

What helps you keep your oaths? Why is it vital that you stay the course in being truthful?

Dear Jesus, please help me stay the course in following Your ways.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Saturday, May 11, 2024

The Bedrock of God’s Love

Add to your faith goodness . . . and to mutual affection, love. — 2 Peter 1:5, 7 (see moffatt)

Most of us don’t know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the supreme preference of one person for another. Spiritually, Jesus demands that our preference be for him (Luke 14:26). When the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with the love of God, we easily place Jesus first. But we must also learn to work out what God has worked in: we must act on the love he has placed in our hearts.

Before we can do this, God has to knock our pretensions out of us. Through the Holy Spirit, he reveals to us why he loves us: not because we’re lovable, but because love is his nature. God asks us to show this same love to others. He brings people we neither like nor respect into our lives, then asks that we love them as he has loved us.

We can’t reach this kind of love on tiptoe. Some of us have tried, but we were soon exhausted by the effort. Look within and see how the Lord has dealt with you. The knowledge that God has loved you to the utmost—to the end of all your sin and selfishness and wrongness—will send you out into the world to love in the same way. God’s love for you is inexhaustible. You must love others from the bedrock of this love, not on tiptoe but in a great, abandoned leap.

Neither natural love nor divine love will remain unless you cultivate it. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained by discipline. Growth in grace stops the moment you get irritated. You get irritated because there is a person in your life you don’t particularly like. Just think how disagreeable you are to God! Are you prepared to be so closely identified with Jesus that his life and sweetness shine through you all the time?

2 Kings 13-14; John 2

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

The message of the prophets is that although they have forsaken God, it has not altered God. The Apostle Paul emphasizes the same truth, that God remains God even when we are unfaithful (see 2 Timothy 2:13). Never interpret God as changing with our changes. He never does; there is no variableness in Him. 

Notes on Ezekiel, 1477 L

Jeremiah 31, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: CHANGE FINDS YOU - May 10, 2024

With change comes fear, insecurity, sorrow, and stress. Change finds you. It found the apostle Peter. He and his pals were sailing on calm waters when all of a sudden a storm hit. When Peter saw Jesus walking on the water, he decided to step out in faith on the water. It is possible to walk right over the storms of change – Peter proved it!

Unfortunately, one other thing changed Peter’s mind. “… when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30 NIV). When Peter saw Christ, he was strong. When he saw the storm, he was not. One thing to remember: as Peter sank, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” He knew where to find help, and Jesus reached out his hand to catch Peter. Jesus is always there to pull us to safety.

Jeremiah 31

 “And when that happens”—God’s Decree—

“it will be plain as the sun at high noon:

I’ll be the God of every man, woman, and child in Israel

and they shall be my very own people.”

2–6  This is the way God put it:

“They found grace out in the desert,

these people who survived the killing.

Israel, out looking for a place to rest,

met God out looking for them!”

God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will.

Expect love, love, and more love!

And so now I’ll start over with you and build you up again,

dear virgin Israel.

You’ll resume your singing,

grabbing tambourines and joining the dance.

You’ll go back to your old work of planting vineyards

on the Samaritan hillsides,

And sit back and enjoy the fruit—

oh, how you’ll enjoy those harvests!

The time’s coming when watchmen will call out

from the hilltops of Ephraim:

‘On your feet! Let’s go to Zion,

go to meet our God!’ ”

7  Oh yes, God says so:

“Shout for joy at the top of your lungs for Jacob!

Announce the good news to the number-one nation!

Raise cheers! Sing praises. Say,

‘God has saved his people,

saved the core of Israel.’

8  “Watch what comes next:

“I’ll bring my people back

from the north country

And gather them up from the ends of the earth,

gather those who’ve gone blind

And those who are lame and limping,

gather pregnant women,

Even the mothers whose birth pangs have started,

bring them all back, a huge crowd!

9  “Watch them come! They’ll come weeping for joy

as I take their hands and lead them,

Lead them to fresh flowing brooks,

lead them along smooth, uncluttered paths.

Yes, it’s because I’m Israel’s Father

and Ephraim’s my firstborn son!

10–14  “Hear this, nations! God’s Message!

Broadcast this all over the world!

Tell them, ‘The One who scattered Israel

will gather them together again.

From now on he’ll keep a careful eye on them,

like a shepherd with his flock.’

I, God, will pay a stiff ransom price for Jacob;

I’ll free him from the grip of the Babylonian bully.

The people will climb up Zion’s slopes shouting with joy,

their faces beaming because of God’s bounty—

Grain and wine and oil,

flocks of sheep, herds of cattle.

Their lives will be like a well-watered garden,

never again left to dry up.

Young women will dance and be happy,

young men and old men will join in.

I’ll convert their weeping into laughter,

lavishing comfort, invading their grief with joy.

I’ll make sure that their priests get three square meals a day

and that my people have more than enough.’ ” God’s Decree.

15–17  Again, God’s Message:

“Listen to this! Laments coming out of Ramah,

wild and bitter weeping.

It’s Rachel weeping for her children,

Rachel refusing all solace.

Her children are gone,

gone—long gone into exile.”

But God says, “Stop your incessant weeping,

hold back your tears.

Collect wages from your grief work.” God’s Decree.

“They’ll be coming back home!

There’s hope for your children.” God’s Decree.

18–19  “I’ve heard the contrition of Ephraim.

Yes, I’ve heard it clearly, saying,

‘You trained me well.

You broke me, a wild yearling horse, to the saddle.

Now put me, trained and obedient, to use.

You are my God.

After those years of running loose, I repented.

After you trained me to obedience,

I was ashamed of my past, my wild, unruly past.

Humiliated, I beat on my chest.

Will I ever live this down?’

20  “Oh! Ephraim is my dear, dear son,

my child in whom I take pleasure!

Every time I mention his name,

my heart bursts with longing for him!

Everything in me cries out for him.

Softly and tenderly I wait for him.” God’s Decree.

21–22  “Set up signposts to mark your trip home.

Get a good map.

Study the road conditions.

The road out is the road back.

Come back, dear virgin Israel,

come back to your hometowns.

How long will you flit here and there, indecisive?

How long before you make up your fickle mind?

God will create a new thing in this land:

A transformed woman will embrace the transforming God!”

23–24  A Message from Israel’s God-of-the-Angel-Armies: “When I’ve turned everything around and brought my people back, the old expressions will be heard on the streets: ‘God bless you!’ … ‘O True Home!’ … ‘O Holy Mountain!’ All Judah’s people, whether in town or country, will get along just fine with each other.

25  I’ll refresh tired bodies;

I’ll restore tired souls.

26  Just then I woke up and looked around—what a pleasant and satisfying sleep!

27–28  “Be ready. The time’s coming”—God’s Decree—“when I will plant people and animals in Israel and Judah, just as a farmer plants seed. And in the same way that earlier I relentlessly pulled up and tore down, took apart and demolished, so now I am sticking with them as they start over, building and planting.

29  “When that time comes you won’t hear the old proverb anymore,

Parents ate the green apples,

their children got the stomachache.

30  “No, each person will pay for his own sin. You eat green apples, you’re the one who gets sick.

31–32  “That’s right. The time is coming when I will make a brand-new covenant with Israel and Judah. It won’t be a repeat of the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant even though I did my part as their Master.” God’s Decree.

33–34  “This is the brand-new covenant that I will make with Israel when the time comes. I will put my law within them—write it on their hearts!—and be their God. And they will be my people. They will no longer go around setting up schools to teach each other about God. They’ll know me firsthand, the dull and the bright, the smart and the slow. I’ll wipe the slate clean for each of them. I’ll forget they ever sinned!” God’s Decree.

If This Ordered Cosmos Ever Fell to Pieces

35  God’s Message, from the God who lights up the day with sun and

brightens the night with moon and stars,

Who whips the ocean into a billowy froth,

whose name is God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

36  “If this ordered cosmos ever fell to pieces,

fell into chaos before me”—God’s Decree—

“Then and only then might Israel fall apart

and disappear as a nation before me.”

37  God’s Message:

“If the skies could be measured with a yardstick

and the earth explored to its core,

Then and only then would I turn my back on Israel,

disgusted with all they’ve done.” God’s Decree.

38–40  “The time is coming”—it’s God’s Decree—“when God’s city will be rebuilt, rebuilt all the way from the Citadel of Hanamel to the Corner Gate. The master plan will extend west to Gareb Hill and then around to Goath. The whole valley to the south where incinerated corpses are dumped—a death valley if there ever was one!—and all the terraced fields out to the Brook Kidron on the east as far north as the Horse Gate will be consecrated to me as a holy place.

“This city will never again be torn down or destroyed.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Friday, May 10, 2024

Today's Scripture

Ephesians 2:1-10

He Tore Down the Wall

1–6  2 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

7–10  Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Insight

A helpful acronym to describe the grace of God is GRACE—God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense. This phrase summarizes and magnifies the reality that salvation—rescue from our sin (forgiveness, being made right with God)—is the work of God to be received by faith, not something that we achieve. Another acronym that succinctly captures this truth is GFFG—God’s Favor Freely Given. The Greek word cháris, translated “grace,” is used broadly in the New Testament (twelve times in Ephesians) with a range of meanings, including “goodwill,” “lovingkindness,” and “favor.” Ephesians 2:7 describes “the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” It’s also used in this sense in Luke 1:30: “The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.’ ” God’s kindnesses are manifold for “the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people” (Titus 2:11). By: Arthur Jackson

Trying to Save Ourselves

It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. 

Ephesians 2:8

Many years ago, New York City launched a “Stay Safe. Stay Put” ad campaign to educate people on how to stay calm and be safe when trapped in an elevator. Experts reported that some trapped passengers had died when they tried to pry open the elevator doors or attempted exiting by some other means. The best plan of action is to simply use the alarm button to call for help and wait for emergency responders to arrive.

The apostle Paul spelled out a very different type of rescue plan—one to help those trapped in the downward pull of sin. He reminded the Ephesians of their utter spiritual helplessness—being truly “dead in [their] . . . sins” (Ephesians 2:1). They were trapped, obeying the devil (v. 2), and refusing to submit to God. This resulted in them being the subject of God’s wrath. But He didn’t leave them trapped in spiritual darkness. And those who believe in Jesus, the apostle wrote, “by grace . . . have been saved” (vv. 5, 8). A response to God’s rescue initiative results in faith. And faith means we’ll give up on trying to save ourselves and call on Jesus to rescue us. 

By God’s grace, being rescued from sin’s trap doesn’t originate with us. It’s “the gift of God” through Jesus alone (v. 8). By:  Marvin Williams

Reflect & Pray

Why can’t you save yourself from sin’s trap? How has God provided what you need to be saved?

Dear God, I’m so grateful that when I was trapped in sin and tried to save myself, You initiated my rescue and sent a Savior to free me. 

Learn more about having a personal relationship with God.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Friday, May 10, 2024

Take the Initiative

Add to your faith goodness. — 2 Peter 1:5

“Add” indicates something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God won’t do what we can. We cannot save or sanctify ourselves; God will not give us good habits or character. We have to develop habits and character on our own, working out the salvation God has worked in.

“Add” suggests we have to get into a habit. Habits are difficult to establish. To take the initiative is to make a beginning, to instruct yourself in the way you have to go. Beware of asking for directions when you know the way perfectly well. Take the initiative; stop hesitating; be decisive. Whenever God speaks, act in faith immediately on what he says, and never go back on your decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you endanger your position in grace. Will yourself to take the first step—I will write that letter; I will pay that debt—then burn your bridges behind you. Make it impossible to go back.

We can only take initiative where we are, not where we aren’t. We have to get into the habit of seeking the mind of God about anything and everything. If when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to him, we will know the habit has been formed.

2 Kings 10-12; John 1:29-51

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.

Disciples Indeed

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Friday, May 10, 2024

Are the Children All In? - #9740

Over the years, one of my areas of giftedness has been in the area of sleeping. Well, I mean, the Bible says you do whatever you do with all your heart, right? And that should apply to sleeping. Right? Now, I'd give our kids a time to be in, but I didn't always remain conscious that long. And they could ring the doorbell because they forgot their key, they could stomp upstairs, they could stomp over our bed, for that matter, and I would probably barely stir. Oh, but not my wife. Oh, no, no! I think there's something about the way many mothers are wired. They sleep real light - if at all - until everybody's home safe. It's a mother thing. They just can't rest until all the kids are in.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Are the Children All In?"

Even though you're all grown up now, your mother might still be like that today. Or you had a mother who was like that. You see, you may have been blessed with a mom who was a praying mother, who wanted or who wants more than anything else for her kids to be in - in God's family...including you.

Our word for today from the Word of God is from an encounter Jesus had with a hurting mother. It's about the miracle He did for her. It's in Luke 7:12-15. "As Jesus approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out - the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, His heart went out to her and He said, 'Don't cry.' Then He went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!' The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his Mother." Oh, man! What great words!

Well, He's still doing that today. Jesus is doing something supernatural to give a son or a daughter back to a mother, not with a physical resurrection, but with a spiritual rescue. In fact, it may be that the prayers of your mother for you have kept God in pursuit of you all these years. More than anything else on earth, she has wanted for you to know the Savior whose love changed her life.

My wife's grandfather, Bill Hadley, was a great guy with a deadly weakness - he was an alcoholic. Alcohol cost him his job, his family, his freedom, and his hope. One night he was making his way down State Street in Chicago to end his life in Lake Michigan. We never knew until recently the prayers that saved him that night.

We found this old photograph of the man his mother called Will. And on the back is this inscription in her handwriting: "This new year 1908. Oh, God, bring him back into the fold. Oh, Will, every night when I read my Bible, I look at your picture and ask God to give you grace to keep you from falling and to fill your heart with His love. You may see this after I am gone from this world and know that I never ceased to pray for you, Mother."

Will never did see that inscription until after his mother was gone. But the power of her prayers reached beyond her grave. That night he was going to end his life, he walked by an old rescue mission and heard a song his mother used to sing. He wandered in and he ended up giving his broken life to Jesus Christ. He never touched alcohol again, and he spent the rest of his life living for that Savior that had meant so much to his mother.

There may be - or there may have been - a dear mother who never gave up praying for you to know Jesus as your Savior. He died for every sin you've ever committed. He waits to forgive you and give you eternal life in heaven. Isn't it finally time for you to open your heart to Jesus?

Let the battle be over right now. As John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace prayed, "My Mother's God saved me." I've put some great information at our website so you can be sure you belong to Him. Go to ANewStory.com.

This is all about a mother who prayed for you. But it's more importantly about a Savior who died for you. It will be your mother's question in heaven some day, "Are the children all in?" I hope you will be.

Hebrews 7, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: GOD MAKES REASSIGNMENTS - May 9, 2024

If only we could order life the way we order gourmet coffee. “Give me a tall, extra-hot cup of adventure, cut the dangers, with two shots of good health.” Truth is, life often hands us a concoction entirely different from the one we requested. None of us pass through this life surprise free. So, embrace it. Accept it.

Change is not only a part of life; change is a necessary part of God’s strategy. To use us to change the world, he alters our assignments. God transitioned Joseph from a baby brother to an Egyptian prince. Over time, we discover that the thing we thought we wanted is far less satisfying than what God has prepared for us.

Hebrews 7

Melchizedek, Priest of God

1–3  7 Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of the Highest God. He met Abraham, who was returning from “the royal massacre,” and gave him his blessing. Abraham in turn gave him a tenth of the spoils. “Melchizedek” means “King of Righteousness.” “Salem” means “Peace.” So, he is also “King of Peace.” Melchizedek towers out of the past—without record of family ties, no account of beginning or end. In this way he is like the Son of God, one huge priestly presence dominating the landscape always.

4–7  You realize just how great Melchizedek is when you see that Father Abraham gave him a tenth of the captured treasure. Priests descended from Levi are commanded by law to collect tithes from the people, even though they are all more or less equals, priests and people, having a common father in Abraham. But this man, a complete outsider, collected tithes from Abraham and blessed him, the one to whom the promises had been given. In acts of blessing, the lesser is blessed by the greater.

8–10  Or look at it this way: We pay our tithes to priests who die, but Abraham paid tithes to a priest who, the Scripture says, “lives.” Ultimately you could even say that since Levi descended from Abraham, who paid tithes to Melchizedek, when we pay tithes to the priestly tribe of Levi they end up with Melchizedek.

A Permanent Priesthood

11–14  If the priesthood of Levi and Aaron, which provided the framework for the giving of the law, could really make people perfect, there wouldn’t have been need for a new priesthood like that of Melchizedek. But since it didn’t get the job done, there was a change of priesthood, which brought with it a radical new kind of law. There is no way of understanding this in terms of the old Levitical priesthood, which is why there is nothing in Jesus’ family tree connecting him with that priestly line.

15–19  But the Melchizedek story provides a perfect analogy: Jesus, a priest like Melchizedek, not by genealogical descent but by the sheer force of resurrection life—he lives!—“priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek.” The former way of doing things, a system of commandments that never worked out the way it was supposed to, was set aside; the law brought nothing to maturity. Another way—Jesus!—a way that does work, that brings us right into the presence of God, is put in its place.

20–22  The old priesthood of Aaron perpetuated itself automatically, father to son, without explicit confirmation by God. But then God intervened and called this new, permanent priesthood into being with an added promise:

God gave his word;

he won’t take it back:

“You’re the permanent priest.”

This makes Jesus the guarantee of a far better way between us and God—one that really works! A new covenant.

23–25  Earlier there were a lot of priests, for they died and had to be replaced. But Jesus’ priesthood is permanent. He’s there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them.

26–28  So now we have a high priest who perfectly fits our needs: completely holy, uncompromised by sin, with authority extending as high as God’s presence in heaven itself. Unlike the other high priests, he doesn’t have to offer sacrifices for his own sins every day before he can get around to us and our sins. He’s done it, once and for all: offered up himself as the sacrifice. The law appoints as high priests men who are never able to get the job done right. But this intervening command of God, which came later, appoints the Son, who is absolutely, eternally perfect.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Thursday, May 09, 2024

Today's Scripture

Isaiah 35:1-7

The Voiceless Break into Song

1–2  35 Wilderness and desert will sing joyously,

the badlands will celebrate and flower—

Like the crocus in spring, bursting into blossom,

a symphony of song and color.

Mountain glories of Lebanon—a gift.

Awesome Carmel, stunning Sharon—gifts.

God’s resplendent glory, fully on display.

God awesome, God majestic.

3–4  Energize the limp hands,

strengthen the rubbery knees.

Tell fearful souls,

“Courage! Take heart!

God is here, right here,

on his way to put things right

And redress all wrongs.

He’s on his way! He’ll save you!”

5–7  Blind eyes will be opened,

deaf ears unstopped,

Lame men and women will leap like deer,

the voiceless break into song.

Springs of water will burst out in the wilderness,

streams flow in the desert.

Hot sands will become a cool oasis,

thirsty ground a splashing fountain.

Even lowly jackals will have water to drink,

and barren grasslands flourish richly.

Insight

To the Israelites, the “day of Lord” was the day when God would judge all the foreign nations who are Israel’s enemies (Isaiah 13; Jeremiah 46; Ezekiel 30; Joel 3:1-16). At that time, God would pour out His blessings on Israel as His covenant nation (Isaiah 61; Joel 2:18-32; 3:17-21). Isaiah 35:4 encapsulates this twin mindset: “Your God is coming to destroy your enemies. He is coming to save you” (nlt). Prophesying about God’s judgment against the nations, the prophet warned, “The Lord is angry with all nations . . . . He will totally destroy them” (34:2). Then Isaiah assured God’s people about the glories that would await them when He comes to rescue and restore them (35:3-7). Jesus referred to verses 5-6 when he confirmed His messianic identity to encourage a disheartened John the Baptist in prison (Luke 7:18-23). By: K. T. Sim

Blooming Deserts

The desert will bloom with flowers. Isaiah 35:2 nirv

A century ago, lush forest covered roughly 40 percent of Ethiopia, but today it’s around 4 percent. Clearing acreage for crops while failing to protect the trees has led to an ecological crisis. The vast majority of the remaining small patches of green are protected by churches. For centuries, local Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido churches have nurtured these oases in the midst of the barren desert. If you look at aerial images, you see verdant islands surrounded by brown sand. Church leaders insist that watching over the trees is part of their obedience to God as stewards of His creation.

The prophet Isaiah wrote to Israel, a people who lived in an arid land where bare desert and brutal droughts threatened. And Isaiah described the future God intended, where “the desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom” (Isaiah 35:1). God intends to heal His people, but He intends to heal the earth too. He’ll “create new heavens and a new earth” (65:17). In God’s renewed world, “the desert will bloom with flowers” (35:2 nirv).

God’s care for creation—including people—motivates us to care for it too. We can live in sync with His ultimate plan for a healed and whole world—being caretakers of what He’s made. We can join God in making all kinds of deserts bloom with life and beauty. By:  Winn Collier

Reflect & Pray

Where do you see some part of creation barren or suffering? How will you be part of seeing deserts bloom?

Creator God, please show me how to help heal and restore what’s broken in the world.

Click to discover God’s creative purpose for nature and a nation.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Thursday, May 09, 2024

Grasp without Reach

Where there is no vision, the people perish. — Proverbs 29:18

There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision does. People who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. People who have vision are constantly inspired to go above and beyond.

    Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

    Or what’s a heaven for? 

    —Robert Browning

An idealistic notion of God may be used to justify a neglect of duty. Jonah argued that because God was a God of justice and mercy, everything would be all right, no matter what Jonah did (Jonah 4). Jonah’s idea about God was correct—God is just and merciful—yet this was the very idea that stopped Jonah from doing his duty.

If we have a vision of God, we will lead a life of virtue, because the vision brings with it a moral incentive. Ideals, on the other hand, may lull us into ruin by causing us to lose sight of God. When we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless. We stop exercising self-control; we stop praying; we no longer look for God in the little things. If we are eating out of our own hand—doing things on our own initiative, never expecting God to come in—we have lost vision and are on a downward path.

Is your attitude today one that springs from a vision of God? Are you expecting him to do greater things than he has ever done? Is there freshness and energy in your spiritual outlook? Take stock of yourself spiritually and see whether you have vision or merely ideals.

2 Kings 7-9; John 1:1-28

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. 

My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Thursday, May 09, 2024

How the Bible Builds a Wall Between You and the Sharks

They call it the shark tunnel. Yeah, that has to make you think twice about going in. It's an attraction, if you want to call it an attraction, at some of the aquariums and theme parks in America.

The tourists walk through this tunnel that's surrounded by glass above them and on both sides there's water all around them. And on the other side in that water are huge sharks swimming menacingly in their tank, and occasionally bumping into the glass. I think just about everyone has this primeval fear of sharks. Now I can't speak for everyone, but I do. And suddenly there they were all around me, and I was paying to see them - one wall between me and those monsters! But that wall made all the difference.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How the Bible Builds a Wall Between You and the Sharks."

When David writes his seventeenth Psalm, he is under attack; or so it feels as you begin to read it. He's asking for safety, for protection for his reputation, and you can tell as you read this psalm that he's feeling the urge to strike back. In a sense, the sharks are circling around him.

Now we go to our word for today from the word of God in Psalm 17, and I'll begin reading at verse 3. He says to the Lord, "Though you probe my heart and examine me at night, though you test me you'll find nothing. I have resolved that my mouth will not sin. As for the deeds of men, by the word of Your lips, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent." Now, David's saying here, "I feel like responding in the same way I've been treated, lashing out, striking back. And all that's keeping me from responding sinfully is," what he calls, "the word from your lips, Lord." Well, I can relate to that.

We don't just have sharks around us; we've got sharks inside us. You know what yours is. Maybe it's that temper that seldom if ever does anything that's really right. Maybe it's wrong thoughts about the opposite sex that keep trying to take over your mind, or the capacity you have for put downs, for criticism, negativity, for cutting sarcasm. Maybe it's that dark feeling of depression that you know very easily could win in your life.

Oh, we've got different sharks, but we all have them. And there's one wall that holds them back, that keeps the evil from winning, and it's the words that come from God. When a sinful response wells up inside, you've got to have something supernatural to suppress it with like that glass wall that holds back the sharks. That's the gut-level, practical reason why we must not start a day without taking a bath in God's Word. During the day I know that my wall between the sharks that swim around inside me - that sin that wants to take over - and the guy that I want to be and that God wants me to be, that wall starts to crack.

So as each new day begins, you open God's Word and you apply it to your struggles, your weaknesses, your failures. I need to rebuild my biblical wall every new day. It's also vital that key verses become a part of you; part of your personality. That means committing to memory verses that directly address your shark. For example, if you struggle with your temper winning, then you memorize Ephesians 4:26 and 27 about not letting the sun go down on your anger. And James 1:20, "The wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God."

So many days my time in the Word, and the Word that I've put in me, have literally been the margin of difference. You read it to get it "from His lips" as if God is sitting in the chair across from you, saying it to you directly. That's what David said.

So, when you feel the sharks inside you starting to attack, you use the wall of God's words to hold them back.

Jeremiah 30, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily:  THE IF ONLY RIVER - May 8, 2024

The widest river in the world is a body of water called If Only. Are you standing on its shore? Does it seem the good life is always one if only away?

According to the apostle Paul, the good life begins, not when circumstances change, but when our attitude toward them does. “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV). Paul embedded two essential words that deserve special attention: with thanksgiving. Sprinkled among the phrases Help me…, Please give me…, If only… should be two wonderful words: Thank you.

Jeremiah 30

Don’t Despair, Israel

1–2  30 This is the Message Jeremiah received from God: “God’s Message, the God of Israel: ‘Write everything I tell you in a book.

3  “ ‘Look. The time is coming when I will turn everything around for my people, both Israel and Judah. I, God, say so. I’ll bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors, and they’ll take up ownership again.’ ”

4  This is the way God put it to Israel and Judah:

5–7  “God’s Message:

“ ‘Cries of panic are being heard.

The peace has been shattered.

Ask around! Look around!

Can men bear babies?

So why do I see all these he-men

holding their bellies like women in labor,

Faces contorted,

pale as death?

The blackest of days,

no day like it ever!

A time of deep trouble for Jacob—

but he’ll come out of it alive.

8–9  “ ‘And then I’ll enter the darkness.

I’ll break the yoke from their necks,

Cut them loose from the harness.

No more slave labor to foreigners!

They’ll serve their God

and the David-King I’ll establish for them.

10–11  “ ‘So fear no more, Jacob, dear servant.

Don’t despair, Israel.

Look up! I’ll save you out of faraway places,

I’ll bring your children back from exile.

Jacob will come back and find life good,

safe and secure.

I’ll be with you. I’ll save you.

I’ll finish off all the godless nations

Among which I’ve scattered you,

but I won’t finish you off.

I’ll punish you, but fairly.

I won’t send you off with just a slap on the wrist.’

12–15  “This is God’s Message:

“ ‘You’re a burned-out case,

as good as dead.

Everyone has given up on you.

You’re hopeless.

All your fair-weather friends have skipped town

without giving you a second thought.

But I delivered the knockout blow,

a punishment you will never forget,

Because of the enormity of your guilt,

the endless list of your sins.

So why all this self-pity, licking your wounds?

You deserve all this, and more.

Because of the enormity of your guilt,

the endless list of your sins,

I’ve done all this to you.

16–17  “ ‘Everyone who hurt you will be hurt;

your enemies will end up as slaves.

Your plunderers will be plundered;

your looters will become loot.

As for you, I’ll come with healing,

curing the incurable,

Because they all gave up on you

and dismissed you as hopeless—

that good-for-nothing Zion.’

18–21  “Again, God’s Message:

“ ‘I’ll turn things around for Jacob.

I’ll compassionately come in and rebuild homes.

The town will be rebuilt on its old foundations;

the mansions will be splendid again.

Thanksgivings will pour out of the windows;

laughter will spill through the doors.

Things will get better and better.

Depression days are over.

They’ll thrive, they’ll flourish.

The days of contempt will be over.

They’ll look forward to having children again,

to being a community in which I take pride.

I’ll punish anyone who hurts them,

and their prince will come from their own ranks.

One of their own people shall be their leader.

Their ruler will come from their own ranks.

I’ll grant him free and easy access to me.

Would anyone dare to do that on his own,

to enter my presence uninvited?’ God’s Decree.

22  “ ‘And that’s it: You’ll be my very own people,

I’ll be your very own God.’ ”

23–24  Look out! God’s hurricane is let loose,

his hurricane blast,

Spinning the heads of the wicked like dust devils!

God’s raging anger won’t let up

Until he’s made a clean sweep

completing the job he began.

When the job’s done

you’ll see it’s been well done.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Wednesday, May 08, 2024

Today's Scripture

2 Kings 6:15-23

Early in the morning a servant of the Holy Man got up and went out. Surprise! Horses and chariots surrounding the city! The young man exclaimed, “Oh, master! What shall we do?”

16  He said, “Don’t worry about it—there are more on our side than on their side.”

17  Then Elisha prayed, “O God, open his eyes and let him see.”

The eyes of the young man were opened and he saw. A wonder! The whole mountainside full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha!

18  When the Arameans attacked, Elisha prayed to God, “Strike these people blind!” And God struck them blind, just as Elisha said.

19  Then Elisha called out to them, “Not that way! Not this city! Follow me and I’ll lead you to the man you’re looking for.” And he led them into Samaria.

20  As they entered the city, Elisha prayed, “O God, open their eyes so they can see where they are.” God opened their eyes. They looked around—they were trapped in Samaria!

21  When the king of Israel saw them, he said to Elisha, “Father, shall I massacre the lot?”

22  “Not on your life!” said Elisha. “You didn’t lift a hand to capture them, and now you’re going to kill them? No sir, make a feast for them and send them back to their master.”

23  So he prepared a huge feast for them. After they ate and drank their fill he dismissed them. Then they returned home to their master. The raiding bands of Aram didn’t bother Israel anymore.

Insight

In 2 Kings 5, Elisha’s servant Gehazi attempted to acquire clothing and silver from the Aramean commander Naaman by lying (vv. 19-24). Because of this, Gehazi was stricken with leprosy (v. 27). Because Mosaic law required those with contagious skin diseases to live apart from others to prevent the spread of illness (Leviticus 13:45-46), Gehazi would’ve had to leave. Therefore, unless God healed Gehazi, the servant in 2 Kings 6:15 was likely new and his alarm was understandable. He hadn’t yet had much opportunity to observe God’s power demonstrated through Elisha, whose prayers here had both spiritual and physical impact (vv. 17-20). By: Tim Gustafson

Eyes to See

Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” 2 Kings 6:17

Joy was concerned for her relative Sandy, who for years had struggled with alcoholism and mental-health issues. When she went to Sandy’s apartment, the doors were locked, and it appeared vacant. As she and others planned their search for Sandy, Joy prayed, “God, help me to see what I’m not seeing.” As they were leaving, Joy looked back at Sandy’s apartment and saw the tiniest movement of a curtain. In that moment, she knew that Sandy was alive. Although it took emergency assistance to reach her, Joy rejoiced in this answered prayer.

The prophet Elisha knew the power of asking God to reveal to him His reality. When the Syrian army surrounded their city, Elisha’s servant shivered in fear. Not the man of God, however, for with God’s help he glimpsed the unseen. Elisha prayed that the servant too would see, and “the Lord opened the servant’s eyes” to see “the hills full of horses and chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17).

God lifted the veil between the spiritual and physical worlds for Elisha and his servant. Joy believes God helped her see the tiny flicker of the curtain, giving her hope. We too can ask Him to give us the spiritual vision to understand what’s happening around us, whether with our loved ones or in our communities. And we too can be agents of His love, truth, and compassion. By:  Amy Boucher Pye

Reflect & Pray

How could you ask God to open your eyes to His truth concerning situations that weigh you down? How has He revealed His reality to you previously?

Father of all mercies, please open my eyes to see Your love and grace that I might share it with others.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, May 08, 2024

The Patience of Faith

We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised. — Hebrews 6:12

Patience is more than endurance. Our lives are in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something we cannot see. He stretches and strains, and every now and again we say, “I can’t take it anymore.” God doesn’t waver. He goes on stretching until his purpose is in sight. Then he lets the arrow fly.

“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15). Trust yourself in God’s hands. Maintain your relationship to Jesus Christ through the patience of faith. Faith is not a pathetic sentiment. It is vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. It is the heroic effort of your life.

A mental poise comes from being established on the eternal truth that God is holy love. Is there something you need patience for just now? Maybe you can’t see God, can’t understand what he’s doing. But you know him. God has given everything in Jesus Christ to save you. Now he wants you to give everything for his sake. He wants you to fling yourself out in reckless abandonment to him.

There are parts of us that this kind of abandoned faith hasn’t reached yet, places that remain untouched by the life of God. There were no such places in Jesus’s life, and there must be none in ours. “Now this is eternal life: that they know you” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything without wavering. If we take this view, life becomes a great romance, an opportunity for seeing marvelous things all the time. God is disciplining us to bring us to this central place of power.

2 Kings 4-6; Luke 24:36-53

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ. 

Biblical Ethics, 111 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Wednesday, May 08, 2024

Your Situation...Your Assignment - #9738

Many of my friends in law enforcement don't really know what they're doing. On any given day, that is. Because no two days are the same. Their days are made up of responding to situations they can't predict. There's this voice that goes with them in their patrol car. It's the dispatcher. They will tell them where a crime or emergency is unfolding and dispatch them to go there. Suddenly, a situation becomes their assignment. Sounds a lot like following Jesus.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Situation...Your Assignment."

You might call God's Holy Spirit "heaven's Dispatcher." There's something God wants done and He uses your situation to position you to do it. One of Jesus' disciples, Philip, found himself hearing from heaven's Dispatcher - with an unusual assignment. Philip had been dispatched to a city in Samaria to introduce the people there to Jesus. The results were amazing. Demons cast out, the lame and paralyzed healed and many turning to Jesus.

And that's when the Dispatcher suddenly - and curiously - changed Philip's situation. It's in our word for today from the Word of God in Acts 8, beginning with verse 26. "Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road - the desert road." Leave the revival to go to the desert? Really? He went!

"So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official." The man was sitting in a chariot reading from the Book of Isaiah." Now the Dispatcher says, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." Philip does it. "Philip heard the man reading Isaiah." Eventually the man invited Philip to come up in his chariot to explain what he's reading. Ultimately, it says, Philip told him the good news about Jesus." The Ethiopian official comes to Jesus. And Philip, following the urgings of heaven's Dispatcher, is part of sending the Gospel to Africa through this influential man.

This is the kind of supernatural availability God wants you to look for and live for. I was on a trip with my son and family a couple weeks ago. Our situation: stopping at a truck stop for gas. Well my son went in the store and met a very frustrated truck driver who could not get his truck started. He had asked around to find some jumper cables - finally he found some. But he had struck out getting anyone who would help him use them to start his truck. I think my son was listening to the Dispatcher when he said he'd give it a try.

Well, they tried for 15 or 20 minutes. Nothing. The driver said, "You've done all you could. Thank you." At which point, Doug said, "Do you mind if I pray with you?" And Doug prayed for this young driver, in a prayer that expressed how much Jesus loved him. Then one more try. Nope.

As we got ready to pull away, suddenly that engine leaped to life with one deliriously happy driver shouting, "It started! It started!" That day, that truck driver had an encounter with Jesus. Because a believer realized a dead truck and a hurting driver were a divinely ordained situation. And his situation was his assignment.

It is for you, too. We just finished a video series that includes so many examples of this. It's called Your Hope Story. Believers positioned by their business... their cancer... their piano teaching... their tennis... their loss of a loved one - believers who realize that they are always Christ's ambassador. Wherever He assigns them.

So are you. Your days take on a new, eternal meaning... a new excitement - when you realize your situation is your assignment. That places you right in the middle of a life God wants to touch. Through you.

Jeremiah 51, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: COMING CLEAN WITH GOD - May 7, 2024

Confession is not complaining. If I merely recite my problems, I’m not confessing. Confession is not blaming. Pointing fingers at others without pointing any at myself does nothing to remove the conflict within me. Confession is coming clean with God.

King David did. As if the affair with Bathsheba wasn’t enough. As if the murder of her husband wasn’t enough. Somehow David denied his wrongdoing for at least nine months until the child was born. It took a prophet to bring the truth to the surface, but when he did, David did not like what he saw. And he waved the white flag. David said, “I confessed all my sins to you and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, ‘I will confess my rebellion to the Lord.’ And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone” (Psalm 32:5 NLT).

Jeremiah 51

Hurricane Persia

1–5  51 There’s more. God says more:

“Watch this:

I’m whipping up

A death-dealing hurricane against Babylon—‘Hurricane Persia’—

against all who live in that perverse land.

I’m sending a cleanup crew into Babylon.

They’ll clean the place out from top to bottom.

When they get through there’ll be nothing left of her

worth taking or talking about.

They won’t miss a thing.

A total and final Doomsday!

Fighters will fight with everything they’ve got.

It’s no-holds-barred.

They will spare nothing and no one.

It’s final and wholesale destruction—the end!

Babylon littered with the wounded,

streets piled with corpses.

It turns out that Israel and Judah

are not widowed after all.

As their God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, I am still alive and well,

committed to them even though

They filled their land with sin

against Israel’s most Holy God.

6–8  “Get out of Babylon as fast as you can.

Run for your lives! Save your necks!

Don’t linger and lose your lives to my vengeance on her

as I pay her back for her sins.

Babylon was a fancy gold chalice

held in my hand,

Filled with the wine of my anger

to make the whole world drunk.

The nations drank the wine

and they’ve all gone crazy.

Babylon herself will stagger and crash,

senseless in a drunken stupor—tragic!

Get anointing balm for her wound.

Maybe she can be cured.”

9  “We did our best, but she can’t be helped.

Babylon is past fixing.

Give her up to her fate.

Go home.

The judgment on her will be vast,

a skyscraper-memorial of vengeance.

Your Lifeline Is Cut

10  “God has set everything right for us.

Come! Let’s tell the good news

Back home in Zion.

Let’s tell what our God did to set things right.

11–13  “Sharpen the arrows!

Fill the quivers!

God has stirred up the kings of the Medes,

infecting them with war fever: ‘Destroy Babylon!’

God’s on the warpath.

He’s out to avenge his Temple.

Give the signal to attack Babylon’s walls.

Station guards around the clock.

Bring in reinforcements.

Set men in ambush.

God will do what he planned,

what he said he’d do to the people of Babylon.

You have more water than you need,

you have more money than you need—

But your life is over,

your lifeline cut.”

14  God-of-the-Angel-Armies has solemnly sworn:

“I’ll fill this place with soldiers.

They’ll swarm through here like locusts

chanting victory songs over you.”

15–19  By his power he made earth.

His wisdom gave shape to the world.

He crafted the cosmos.

He thunders and rain pours down.

He sends the clouds soaring.

He embellishes the storm with lightnings,

launches the wind from his warehouse.

Stick-god worshipers look mighty foolish!

god-makers embarrassed by their hand-made gods!

Their gods are frauds, dead sticks—

deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.

They’re nothing but stale smoke.

When the smoke clears, they’re gone.

But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing;

he put the whole universe together,

With special attention to Israel.

His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

They’ll Sleep and Never Wake Up

20–23  God says, “You, Babylon, are my hammer,

my weapon of war.

I’ll use you to smash godless nations,

use you to knock kingdoms to bits.

I’ll use you to smash horse and rider,

use you to smash chariot and driver.

I’ll use you to smash man and woman,

use you to smash the old man and the boy.

I’ll use you to smash the young man and young woman,

use you to smash shepherd and sheep.

I’ll use you to smash farmer and yoked oxen,

use you to smash governors and senators.

24  “Judeans, you’ll see it with your own eyes. I’ll pay Babylon and all the Chaldeans back for all the evil they did in Zion.” God’s Decree.

25–26  “I’m your enemy, Babylon, Mount Destroyer,

you ravager of the whole earth.

I’ll reach out, I’ll take you in my hand,

and I’ll crush you till there’s no mountain left.

I’ll turn you into a gravel pit—

no more cornerstones cut from you,

No more foundation stones quarried from you!

Nothing left of you but gravel.” God’s Decree.

27–28  “Raise the signal in the land,

blow the shofar-trumpet for the nations.

Consecrate the nations for holy work against her.

Call kingdoms into service against her.

Enlist Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.

Appoint a field marshal against her,

and round up horses, locust hordes of horses!

Consecrate the nations for holy work against her—

the king of the Medes, his leaders and people.

29–33  “The very land trembles in terror, writhes in pain,

terrorized by my plans against Babylon,

Plans to turn the country of Babylon

into a lifeless moonscape—a wasteland.

Babylon’s soldiers have quit fighting.

They hide out in ruins and caves—

Cowards who’ve given up without a fight,

exposed as cowering milksops.

Babylon’s houses are going up in flames,

the city gates torn off their hinges.

Runner after runner comes racing in,

each on the heels of the last,

Bringing reports to the king of Babylon

that his city is a lost cause.

The fords of the rivers are all taken.

Wildfire rages through the swamp grass.

Soldiers desert left and right.

I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, said it would happen:

‘Daughter Babylon is a threshing floor

at threshing time.

Soon, oh very soon, her harvest will come

and then the chaff will fly!’

34–37  “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon

chewed up my people and spit out the bones.

He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair,

and belched—a huge gluttonous belch.

Lady Zion says,

‘The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!’

And Jerusalem says,

‘The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!’

Then I, God, step in and say,

‘I’m on your side, taking up your cause.

I’m your Avenger. You’ll get your revenge.

I’ll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.

Babylon will be a pile of rubble,

scavenged by stray dogs and cats,

A dumping ground for garbage,

a godforsaken ghost town.’

38–40  “The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs,

ravenous, roaring for food.

I’ll fix them a meal, all right—a banquet, in fact.

They’ll drink themselves falling-down drunk.

Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep, and sleep …

and they’ll never wake up.” God’s Decree.

“I’ll haul these ‘lions’ off to the slaughterhouse

like the lambs, rams, and goats,

never to be heard of again.

41–48  “Babylon is finished—

the pride of the whole earth is flat on her face.

What a comedown for Babylon,

to end up inglorious in the sewer!

Babylon drowned in chaos,

battered by waves of enemy soldiers.

Her towns stink with decay and rot,

the land empty and bare and sterile.

No one lives in these towns anymore.

Travelers give them a wide berth.

I’ll bring doom on the glutton god-Bel in Babylon.

I’ll make him vomit up all he gulped down.

No more visitors stream into this place,

admiring and gawking at the wonders of Babylon.

The wonders of Babylon are no more.

Run for your lives, my dear people!

Run, and don’t look back!

Get out of this place while you can,

this place torched by God’s raging anger.

Don’t lose hope. Don’t ever give up

when the rumors pour in hot and heavy.

One year it’s this, the next year it’s that—

rumors of violence, rumors of war.

Trust me, the time is coming

when I’ll put the no-gods of Babylon in their place.

I’ll show up the whole country as a sickening fraud,

with dead bodies strewn all over the place.

Heaven and earth, angels and people,

will throw a victory party over Babylon

When the avenging armies from the north

descend on her.” God’s Decree!

Remember God in Your Long and Distant Exile

49–50  “Babylon must fall—

compensation for the war dead in Israel.

Babylonians will be killed

because of all that Babylonian killing.

But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death,

get out! And fast!

Remember God in your long and distant exile.

Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory.”

51  How we’ve been humiliated, taunted and abused,

kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are!

And we hardly know what to think—

our old Sanctuary, God’s house, desecrated by strangers.

52–53  “I know, but trust me: The time is coming”

—God’s Decree—

“When I will bring doom on her no-god idols,

and all over this land her wounded will groan.

Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moon

and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her,

That wouldn’t stop me.

I’d make sure my avengers would reach her.”

God’s Decree.

54–56  “But now listen! Do you hear it? A cry out of Babylon!

An unearthly wail out of Chaldea!

God is taking his wrecking bar to Babylon.

We’ll be hearing the last of her noise—

Death throes like the crashing of waves,

death rattles like the roar of cataracts.

The avenging destroyer is about to enter Babylon:

Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed.

Indeed, God is a God who evens things out.

All end up with their just deserts.

57  “I’ll get them drunk, the whole lot of them—

princes, sages, governors, soldiers.

Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep and sleep …

and never wake up.” The King’s Decree.

His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

58  God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:

“The city walls of Babylon—those massive walls!—

will be flattened.

And those city gates—huge gates!—

will be set on fire.

The harder you work at this empty life,

the less you are.

Nothing comes of ambition like this

but ashes.”

59  Jeremiah the prophet gave a job to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when Seraiah went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon. It was in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign. Seraiah was in charge of travel arrangements.

60–62  Jeremiah had written down in a little booklet all the bad things that would come down on Babylon. He told Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, read this out in public. Read, ‘You, O God, said that you would destroy this place so that nothing could live here, neither human nor animal—a wasteland to top all wastelands, an eternal nothing.’

63–64  “When you’ve finished reading the page, tie a stone to it, throw it into the River Euphrates, and watch it sink. Then say, ‘That’s how Babylon will sink to the bottom and stay there after the disaster I’m going to bring upon her.’ ”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Tuesday, May 07, 2024

Today's Scripture

Romans 12:4-8

In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.

6–8  If you preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy; if you’re put in charge, don’t manipulate; if you’re called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don’t let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

Insight

Romans 12 marks a turning point in Paul’s letter. Previously, the apostle had been explaining the work of God in salvation, describing Jesus as the second Adam who came to redeem what had been lost through our first parents’ disobedience in Eden (5:12-20). Now he turns his attention to the way this salvation is to be lived out by those bought by Christ’s sacrifice. It starts with the redeemed becoming a “living sacrifice” (12:1), whose focus is on being useful to God in the lives of others. This is followed by a list of spiritual gifts to equip God’s children in service to others (vv. 3-8). Another list of spiritual gifts appears in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11, and a list of leadership roles (gifts to the church) is found in Ephesians 4:11. Through these provisions, the Spirit enables us to fulfill our function in our spiritual service. By: Bill Crowder

God-Given Gifts

We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. Romans 12:6

Decades ago, I went to a college retreat where everyone was talking about a personality test. “I’m an ISTJ!” one said. “I’m an ENFP,” another chirped. I was mystified. “I’m an ABCXYZ,” I joked.  

Since then, I’ve learned a lot about that test (the Myers-Briggs) and others such as the DiSC assessment. I find them fascinating because they can help us understand ourselves and others in helpful, revealing ways—shedding light on our preferences, strengths, and weaknesses. Provided we don’t overuse them, they can be a useful tool God uses to help us grow.

Scripture doesn’t offer us personality tests. But it does affirm each person’s uniqueness in God’s eyes (see Psalm 139:14-16; Jeremiah 1:5), and it shows us how God equips all of us with a unique personality and unique gifts to serve others in His kingdom. In Romans 12:6, Paul begins to unpack this idea, when he says, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.”

Those gifts, Paul explains, are not for us alone but for the purpose of serving God’s people, Christ’s body (v. 5). They’re an expression of His grace and goodness, working in and through all of us. They invite each of us to be a unique vessel in God’s service.

By:  Adam Holz

Reflect & Pray

What gifts has God given you to serve others? If you’re not sure what your gifts are, who might help you get a better sense of those God-given gifts?

Father, thank You for the gifts You’ve given me. Please help me to embrace the ways You’ve equipped me to love and serve others in Your kingdom.

Find out how you can understand yourself and others.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, May 07, 2024

Building for Eternity

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? — Luke 14:28

In Luke 14:26–33, our Lord isn’t referring to a cost we need to plan for; he’s referring to a cost he planned for, for our sake. What did it cost Jesus to redeem the world? Thirty years in Nazareth; three years of popularity, scandal, and hatred; the deep, unfathomable agony in Gethsemane; and, finally, the onslaught at Calvary—the pivot upon which the whole of time and eternity turns. Jesus Christ planned for this cost, so that in the final reckoning no one could say of him, “This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish” (v. 30).

Have you anticipated the cost of discipleship? Jesus states the cost clearly: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother … such a person cannot be my disciple” (v. 26). The only people the Lord will use in his mighty building projects are those who have been entirely remade by him: men and women who love him personally, passionately, and devotedly, above any of their closest family or friends on earth. His conditions are stern, but they are glorious.

Everything we build will be inspected by God. Will he find that we have built something of our own on the foundation of Jesus, something for our selfish gain? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when many people are striving mightily to work for God—and therein lies the trap. We can never work for God. We can only give ourselves to Jesus and let him take us over for his work. We have no right to dictate to our Lord where we will be placed or what we will do.

2 Kings 1-3; Luke 24:1-35

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

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

The Highest Good, 548 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Tuesday, May 07, 2024

My Child, My Mirror - When a Parent Looks Up - #9737

One of the more lovable guys on TV, I think, is the weatherman named Al Roker. He's even got a book about his battle with losing weight.

At one point Al was quoted as saying that he weighed in at 340 pounds at 5'8". Notice I said weighed in. That was past tense. After carrying around all those pounds for a while, one day he suddenly goes out to a gym and asked them to put him on a diet and an exercise program that will radically reduce his size. He lost 140 pounds.

And what was it that suddenly got him wanting to do something about weight that he'd carried around for a long time? His young daughter came up to him one day when he had his shirt off and she made the kind of blunt, off-the-cuff observation about how he looked that only a child can make in all innocence and get away with it. Well that was it! Hello gymnasium! Goodbye fat.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "My Child, My Mirror - When a Parent Looks Up."

Our word for today from the Word of God takes us way back to nearly the beginning of the human race to a man named Enoch. Now, God has some especially complimentary things to say about Enoch. In Genesis 5:21-24, he reveals a change that took place in this man's life that could change the course of your life too.

The Bible says, "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah." Then it says, "After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God." Now, did you notice the math here? Not just the longer life they enjoyed back then. Enoch lived the first 65 years of his life with no mention of a relationship with God.

Then suddenly he starts walking with God, and continues to have this intimate relationship with his Creator through the rest of his life. What was the catalyst that changed Enoch? The same thing that changed an overweight TV personality - his child. After he became a father, it says, is when Enoch walked with God.

There's something about having a child that makes you start thinking about yourself in ways you've never thought of yourself before. They're mirrors to us. As a dad or a mom, trying to shape this life that we've been entrusted with, we begin to see things we may have never seen fully before. Like our own incompleteness, our inadequacies, our weaknesses that can now do serious damage to this vulnerable life in our hands.

Suddenly we consider looking up as we maybe have never have done before and saying, "Help!" Well, the good news is that God stands ready to answer our cry for help big time. In fact, He may have been waiting a long time for you to finally recognize that you are incomplete. You are inadequate and you've always been in need of what only He can do for you - a Savior.

Ultimately, our children show us the real weight we've been carrying all these years. They help us see the weight of our own self-centeredness, our unresolved issues, our dark side, our sin. We can never walk with a perfect God as long as we're carrying all this. And being a mom or dad shows us like nothing else how deep our need is for this personal relationship we were made for and how much we need a rescue.

In spite of our sin, God loves us and He wants to walk with you for the rest of your life. But that walk can only begin one place - at the cross where God's one and only Son died to pay the death penalty for what you and I deserve. We did the sinning, but Jesus did the dying. The Bible says, "You who were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ."

Your walk with God begins when you say, "Jesus, I'm putting all my trust in You to be my Savior from my sin." If you've never done that, let this be the day you say, "Jesus, I'm yours." I'd love to help you begin that relationship and that's why our website is there. It's ANewStory.com.

If you're a mom or dad, there are feet now following you wherever you walk. For their sake and for yours, be sure you're walking with God.