Bible in One Year: Numbers 20-22; Mark 7:1-13
Monday, February 28, 2022
“Do You Now Believe?” / Chambers
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God Is Sovereign over Delays / Charles Stanley
God Is Sovereign over Delays
No one likes to wait, but have you ever wondered why? It's because delays show us that we are not in control. Someone or something else is calling the shots. Although we may be able to identify the immediate cause--like a traffic light or the long checkout line--ultimately the One who controls all our delays is the Lord. Since He is sovereign over everything in heaven and on earth, even our time and schedules are in His hands.
This means that in every delay, we are actually waiting for God in one way or another. You might have thought that the expression "waiting upon the Lord" applies only to seeking guidance from Him or an answer to prayer. But it can mean so much more when you remember that He controls all your day-to-day inconveniences and frustrations.
In the Christian life, learning to wait is vitally important because until you do, you'll never be able to walk in obedience to God, have an effective prayer life, or experience the peace of resting in His loving sovereignty. We must learn to trust His judgment--about not just the big events in our lives, but also the trivial ones which cause us to become irritated, impatient, or even angry. If we're sensitive to His instruction, each delay has a lesson.
The next time you face an unexpected or unwanted wait, remember that it comes as no surprise to God. He wants to teach you patience and increase your faith. He's more interested in developing godly character than He is in making sure your schedule runs according to your plans.
Choosing Celebration / ODB
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Why Did You Get Married? / Adrian Rogers
Why Did You Get Married?
Sermon: 1569 – Tuning Up Tired Marriages
Pray Over This
“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Ponder This
It is not your love that sustains your marriage, it is your marriage that sustains your love. Marriage is a commitment. The Bible says you are to be joined. A “no-fault” divorce is an impossibility. What happens many times is that 10 percent of a marriage is in trouble and the other 90 percent goes down the drain because of a lack of commitment.
Somebody says, “I owe it to myself to be happy.” What do you mean you owe it to yourself to be happy? When you were at the marriage altar, you made a vow. You owe it to God to keep your vow. You owe it to your spouse, and you owe it to your children. The one-flesh union of marriage must go beyond our personal preferences.
- If you are married, what kinds of sacrifices have you had to make for the sake of your spouse? If you are not married, how have you witnessed married couples make these types of sacrifices?
- How are all followers of Jesus called to sacrifice for the sake of others?
Practice This
Consider an area in which you need to lay down your rights and preferences this week. Take steps to sacrifice to serve someone else.
God’s Infinite Mercies / Alistair Begg
God’s Infinite Mercies
The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah.
Consider the faithfulness of divine love. It is clear that this woman had daily necessities. She had to feed her son and herself in a time of famine; and now, in addition, the prophet Elijah was also to be fed. But though the need was threefold, the supply was not spent, for it was constant. Each day she made withdrawals from the jar, but each day it remained the same.
You, dear reader, have daily necessities, and because they come so frequently, you are apt to fear that the jar of flour will one day be empty, and the jug of oil will fail you. Rest assured that, according to the Word of God, this shall not be the case. Each day, though it bring its trouble, it shall also bring its help; and though you should live longer than Methuselah, and your needs should be as many as the sands of the seashore, yet God’s grace and mercy will last through all your necessities, and you will never know a real lack.
For three long years, in this widow’s days, the heavens never saw a cloud, and the stars never wept a holy tear of dew upon the wicked earth: famine and desolation and death made the land a howling wilderness, but this woman was never hungry but always joyful in abundance. So it will be with you. You will see the sinner’s hope perish, for he trusts in himself; you will see the proud Pharisee’s confidence crumble, for he builds his hope upon the sand; you will even see your own plans blown apart, but you will discover that your daily needs are amply supplied. Better to have God for your guardian than the Bank of England for your possession. You might spend the wealth of the nations, but you can never exhaust the infinite mercies of God.
Connecting yourself with the body of Christ / Senior Living
Connecting yourself with the body of Christ
For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. - Romans 12:4-5
A churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. The letter read as follows:
“I've gone to church for 30 years now. In that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time, and the pastors are wasting their time.”
This started a real controversy in the Letters to the Editor column. It went on for weeks until someone wrote the following clincher:
“I've been married for 30 years now. In that time, my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!”
Quite often, people downplay the importance of church attendance simply because it doesn’t give them the “spiritual high” they’re looking for each and every week. But church doesn’t exist to make you feel good. It exists to glorify God!
Stay in church; learn and grow with other believers. While you might not remember everything, you can be sure that if you have a willing heart, you’re being transformed into Christ’s likeness!
Prayer Challenge
Pray that God would give you the resolve to remain connected with other believers when you’re tempted to do life alone.
Questions for Thought
Have there been times when you’ve had feelings of isolation? What brought those feelings on?
How can staying connected to other believers encourage you in your daily walk with Christ?
February 28 / Wisdom from the Psalsm
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
I had a friend who thought some boys were trying to mug him. In his efforts to run away, he fell down a flight of stairs and landed in a pile of garbage. He suffered many broken bones and scrapes, and required a large number of stitches. As he lay in pain and refuse, he heard the boys draw close. He prayed to God for help. He heard the boys getting steadily closer, and as his prayers increased, the boys moved out of the alley and across to the top of the steps. IN the light that shined there, the man saw that the boys were scouts. IN a wave of relief and embarrassment, my friend sank back into the garbage and passed out.
It is good to know that even in our own foolishness we can turn to the Lord for help. Often we are our own worst enemies, but that doesn't matter to the Lord. In our brokenness, God reaches out to us and love us.
Prayer: Lord, I often am guilty of doing foolish things. I hurt myself in so many needless ways. Protect me from myself, and in my times of greatest suffering and pain, be the source of my comfort. Amen.
Like a Love Letter / David Jeremiah
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Committed and Consistent / Alistair Begg
Committed and Consistent
I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’
Many people get off to a flying start in life only to later lose whatever it was that once made them successful. Perhaps they were well known as a young man or woman. At the age of 40, their life was one of prominence, influence, and status. In the church, we can see such individuals—indeed, we can see ourselves—as supremely useful to God. But too often we are then tempted to become masters of yesterday, frequently looking back to the “good years” and grumbling about the way things have become.
Although it’s true of so many, this was not at all true of Caleb, who fled from potential apathy and kept on in faith. He spent his middle years in a less than desirable environment. From the age of 40, he was stuck wandering around the wilderness for four decades because the people around him had failed to have faith in God. Yet during this time of frustration and wanderings, Caleb remained free of embitterment and disgruntlement.
In fact, things eventually got so bad that the people began to look for a leader to take them back to the good old days (Numbers 14:4). Yet no one really needs a leader to go backward; you can just go back! We need leaders to push us forward. There is a tomorrow. There are generations yet to come. There are purposes yet to be unfolded in God’s plan for our world.
Caleb reveals this spirit. The apparent commitment of his early life was matched by his consistency in the middle years. He was committed and consistent not only at 40 but also at 50 and 60 and 70. Throughout the decades, he “wholly followed the LORD.”
For many, marriage, the establishment of a home, business concerns, health issues, and so on are often accompanied by a loss of spiritual ardor and effectiveness. Many are those who have great resources, energy, and wisdom to offer but who decide instead to chill out, leaving the work of ministry to the next generation. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, they settle for disinterest, criticism, and cynicism, failing to see the disintegration in their own spiritual lives.
What about your commitment, your conversations, and your spiritual edge? Are they the same as they once were? There is a great need in the church today, as there was in Israel’s wilderness generation, for experienced men and women of faith who live lives marked by consistent commitment, in good times and bad, in season and out, as through the years they walk toward the inheritance that the Lord has promised His faithful followers. What will that look like for you today—and in ten years?
Judges 1:1-20
February 28 / Daily Blessings
Daily Blessings
“And enlarge my coast.” - 1 Chr 4:10
A coast means a boundary line such as divides one territory from another, or terminates a country, as the sea coast is the boundary of our island. Every quickened soul has a coast; that is, a territory of inward experience, which is limited and bounded by the line that the Holy Spirit has drawn in his conscience. As the Lord divided the tribes, to cast their inheritance by line (Psalm 78:55), so has he cast the lot for every vessel of mercy, and his hand has divided it unto them by line (Isaiah 34:17). This is as it were the tether which fastens down every quickened soul to his own appointed portion of inward experience. Within this tether he may walk, feed, and lie down. It is “the food convenient for him,” the strip of pasture allotted him. He cannot, he dare not break this tether, which is fastened round a tender conscience, and every stretching forth beyond his measure to boast in another man’s line of things, cuts into and galls this tender conscience. But the living soul cannot but earnestly desire to have his coast enlarged. He wants more light, more life, more feeling, more liberty, more knowledge of God in Christ, more faith, hope, and love, and to have his narrow, contracted, shut-up heart enlarged in prayer, in meditation, in communion, in affection to the people of God.
He is not satisfied with the scanty pasture allotted him, but wants a larger measure of heavenly teaching, to be indulged with more filial confidence in, and access unto God, and be more delivered from that fear which has torment. “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem” (Gen. 9:27). “I will run the way of your commandments, when you shall enlarge my heart” (Psalm 119:32).
This enlargement of their border the Lord had sworn to Israel, and to give them all the land which he had promised unto their fathers; and therefore when he had said, “Sing, O barren, you that did not bear,” he adds, “enlarge the place of your tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of your habitations; spare not, lengthen your cords, and strengthen your stakes” (Isaiah 54:1, 2).
Have you any of these fervent desires after light, love, and liberty, that the world, pride, lust, unbelief, covetousness, and carnality may not shut up your heart, but that you may know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, so as to be filled with all the fullness of God? These are good desires, and very different from rushing presumptuously forward, and chattering about liberty while you are slaves of corruption. It is one thing to look through the park gates, and another to enjoy the estate; but it is far better to look through the gates with wishful desires, than to break down the fence as a trespasser. To look upon the coffer is not to be put into possession of the writings, but it is better to wait and cry for the key of David than break it open, and steal the deeds. And he that is kept in the narrow, narrow path between sloth and presumption will be at solemn seasons crying out with Jabez, “O that you would enlarge my coast!”
Tolerance at Its Best / Chuck Swindoll
Tolerance at Its Best
In the best Christian sense of the term, tolerance is an important aspect of grace. Tolerance provides “wobble room” for those who struggle to measure up. Tolerance allows growing room for young and restless children. It smiles at rather than frowns on the struggling new believer. Instead of rigidly pointing to the rules and rehearsing the failures of the fallen, tolerance stoops to help the fallen and reaches out to offer fresh hope and enduring acceptance. In my book The Grace Awakening, I called tolerance “the grace to let others be,” which I further explained this way:1
- Accepting others is basic to letting them be.
- Refusing to dictate to others allows the Lord freedom to direct their lives.
- Freeing others means we never assume a position we’re not qualified to fill.
- Loving others requires us to express our liberty wisely.
Intolerance is the antithesis of all that I have just described. It is an unwillingness to “overlook a transgression” (Proverbs 19:11); it tightens the strings of guilt and verbalizes a lot of shoulds and musts. The heart of the intolerant—their heart of stone—remains unbreakable, impenetrable, judgmental, and without compassion.
This lack of tolerance is not overt, but subtle. You may detect it in a look; it is not usually spoken. To draw upon Solomon’s saying, instead of delivering those who are going under, those “staggering to slaughter,” the intolerant excuse their failure to help by saying, “We did not know this” (24:11–12). But the Lord knows better. The Lord is well aware of even the slightest spirit of partiality hidden in our hearts.
Potholes by Anna Kuta
Potholes
by Anna Kuta
“As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.”Joshua 1:5b
I was driving home late the other night, rolling down the winding, two-lane country road I’ve been down so many thousands of times I could probably drive it in my sleep. I had the radio turned up and one hand on the wheel, and then — CLUNK!Before I knew what was happening, my front right tire thudded through a gigantic pothole that came out of nowhere. The whole car jolted and I just knew a noise like that had to have done some damage.
“Oh, please don’t let me have a flat tire,” I said out loud. Cringing, I pulled over at the next road and worked up the courage to get out and look … and to my surprise, my tire was still intact. I stared at it for a few minutes, waiting until I was sufficiently assured that it wasn’t going to deflate in front of my eyes, and then I breathed a sigh of relief and continued my drive, albeit a good bit slower and more cautious this time.
Isn’t life just like that? You’re going along smoothly, and all of a sudden something turns your world upside down. A loved one gets a cancer diagnosis. You lose your job. Your best friend moves halfway across the country. Someone dies too young. You’re making your way down the road just fine and then you crash into a pothole that almost derails you. We all know the feeling all too well.
I was having one of those weeks where every single thing seemed to be going wrong, and then I heard a sermon illustration that stuck with me. It was the story of a gravel lane leading to a farm and a huge pothole that appeared after a rainstorm. Before anyone had a chance to fill it in, though, a bird laid her eggs in the pothole. She hatched her chicks there and stayed with them until they left the nest. All the locals warned their families and friends to avoid the pothole, and everyone drove slowly by to see for themselves the little birds thriving in a place that no one would expect.
How often do we look at the potholes in our lives and curse them? Yet, from a rocky, ugly place, little birds sang and took flight.
God did not promise that our Christian walk would be easy, but he did promise he would never leave us. His presence, His love and His peace are the only things that can fill in the holes in our lives. He smoothes out the roughest of roads with His strength and comfort. And above all, He grants us grace sufficient to make it through whatever may come. The Lord will never leave our side.
If not for the pothole on that gravel farm lane, the travelers would never have been able to witness a small miracle taking place there. If not for the pothole on my drive home the other night, I probably wouldn’t have slowed down and I might have had an even worse encounter around the next bend – with a herd of deer in the middle of the road.
In the midst of a week where I thought my world might crash down, I cried out to God to help me through, and it was only when I had nothing left to rely on but Him that I felt His presence more clearly than I had in a long time – and it was exactly what my heart had been yearning for. “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you,” as James 4:8 says. Only God can fill our potholes, and he fills them with Himself. May we never miss the little blessings hidden along a bumpy road.
Intersecting Faith and Life
When you hit a pothole, pray for God to give you strength and remind you of His presence. Seek a closer relationship with Him and remember that He is your refuge and strength.
Further Reading
God Our Comforter / Billy Graham
God Our Comforter
There is also comfort in mourning, because in the midst of mourning God gives a song. His presence in our lives changes our mourning into song, and that song is a song of comfort. This kind of comfort is the kind which enabled a devout Englishman to look at a deep dark hole in the ground where his home stood before the bombing and say, “I always did want a basement. Now I can jolly well build another house, like I always wanted.” This kind of comfort is the kind which enabled a young minister’s wife in a church near us to teach her Sunday school class of girls on the very day of her husband’s funeral. Her mourning was not the kind which had no hope—it was a mourning of faith in the goodness and wisdom of God; it believed that our heavenly Father makes no mistakes.
Daily Prayer
Oh heavenly Father, who knows what agony and grief are because of the sacrifice of Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ—I thank You for the comfort which embraces all those who love You.
““I, I am he who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, of the son of man who is made like grass,”
Isaiah 51:12
What About Healing? / Greg Laurie
What About Healing?
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5 NKJV).
Does God still heal people today? I believe the answer is yes.
Does He heal everyone? The answer is no.
God has the ability to heal, and He has the desire to heal. Isaiah 53 says of Jesus, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (verse 5 NKJV).
Peter, commenting on the same verse, wrote, “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed” (1 Peter 2:24 NLT). In the original language, the word Peter used for “healed” always speaks of physical healing.
Can God heal, then? Yes. So why are some still sick? It may be because they haven’t asked Him for healing. James 4:2 says, “Yet you do not have because you do not ask” (NKJV).
Jesus said, “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Luke 11:9 NKJV). In the original language there’s an ascending intensity to those verbs. Jesus was saying, “Keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking, and keep praying.”
Of course, the apostle Paul prayed three times that God would remove his thorn in the flesh. However, God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9 NKJV).
So there are times when God will say no. But there are also times when He will say yes, and it’s a glorious thing when He does.
Maybe you're praying for one thing, but God wants to do something above and beyond that. God is at work. He knows what He’s doing. So wait on His timing.
Praise in the Midst of Trouble / Streams
Praise in the Midst of Trouble
Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually - Heb 13:15
A city missionary, stumbling through the dirt of a dark entry, heard a voice say, “Who’s there, Honey?” Striking a match, he caught a vision of earthly want and suffering, of saintly trust and peace, “cut in ebony”—calm, appealing eyes set amid the wrinkles of a pinched, black face that lay on a tattered bed. It was a bitter night in February, and she had no fire, no fuel, no light. She had had no supper, no dinner, no breakfast. She seemed to have nothing at all but rheumatism and faith in God. One could not well be more completely exiled from all pleasantness of circumstances, yet the favorite song of this old creature ran:
“Nobody knows de trouble I see,
Nobody knows but Jesus;
Nobody knows de trouble I see—
Sing Glory Hallelu!
“Sometimes I’m up, sometimes I’m down,
Sometimes I’m level on the groun’,
Sometimes the glory shines aroun’
Sing Glory Hallelu!”
And so it went on: “Nobody knows de work I does, Nobody knows de griefs I has,” the constant refrain being the “Glory Hallelu!” until the last verse rose:
“Nobody knows de joys I has,
Nobody knows but Jesus!”
“Troubled on every side, yet not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.” It takes great Bible words to tell the cheer of that old negro auntie.
Remember Luther on his sick-bed. Between his groans he managed to preach on this wise: “These pains and trouble here are like the type which the printers set; as they look now, we have to read them backwards, and they seem to have no sense or meaning in them; but up yonder, when the Lord God prints us off in the life to come, we shall find they make brave reading.” Only we do not need to wait till then. Remember Paul walking the hurricane deck amid a boiling sea, bidding the frightened crew “Be of good cheer,” Luther, the old negro auntie—all of them human sun-flowers. —Wm. G. Garnett
Sunday, February 27, 2022
The Impoverished Ministry of Jesus / Oswald Chambers
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