Daily Archives: February 23, 2023

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Water of Life

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Bible in a Year:

You would have asked him and he would have given m, m ,Today’s Scripture & Insight:

John 4:4–14

Andrea’s home life was unstable, and she left at fourteen, finding a job and living with friends. Yearning for love and affirmation, she later moved in with a man who introduced her to drugs, which she added to the alcohol she already drank regularly. But the relationship and the substances didn’t satisfy her longings. She kept searching, and after several years she met some believers in Jesus who reached out to her, offering to pray with her. A few months later, she finally found the One who would quench her thirst for love—Jesus.

The Samaritan woman at the well whom Jesus approached for water found her thirst satisfied too. She was there in the heat of the day (John 4:5–7), probably to avoid the stares and gossip of other women, who would have known her history of multiple husbands and her current adulterous relationship (vv. 17–18). When Jesus approached her and asked her for a drink, He bucked the social conventions of the day, for He, as a Jewish teacher, would not normally have associated with a Samaritan woman. But He wanted to give her the gift of living water that would lead her to eternal life (v. 10). He wanted to satisfy her thirst.

When we receive Jesus as our Savior, we too drink of this living water. We can then share a cup with others as we invite them to follow Him.

By:  Amy Boucher Pye

Reflect & Pray

How do you think the woman at the well felt when Jesus asked her for some water? What does it mean to you to receive His living water?

Father God, You welcome all who are thirsty to come to the waters and drink. Satisfy my thirst through Your living water.

http://www.odb.org

John MacArthur

Grace to You; John MacArthur – God’s Wrath

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 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18).

God hates sin and will judge unrepentant sinners.

We now come to a topic that is perhaps unpleasant to discuss, but it is essential if we are to have a right understanding of God: His wrath. The idea of a wrathful God goes against the wishful thinking of fallen human nature. Even much evangelism today speaks only of the joys and blessings of salvation without mentioning that those who are without God are under His wrath (Eph. 2:3).

God’s attributes are balanced in divine perfection. If He had no righteous anger, He would not be God, just as He would not be God without His gracious love. He perfectly loves righteousness and perfectly hates evil (Ps. 45:7).

But God’s wrath isn’t like ours. The Greek word used for God’s wrath in the New Testament refers to a settled, determined indignation. God does not “fly off the handle,” whereas we tend to be emotional and uncontrolled in our anger.

Many times God expressed His wrath to sinful mankind in past ages. He destroyed all mankind except Noah and his family in the great Flood (Gen. 6—7). He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins (Gen. 18—19). The Lord told unfaithful Israel, “Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on man and on beast and on the trees of the field and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched” (Jer. 7:20).

Some people today foolishly think the God of the Old Testament was a God of wrath and the New Testament God was a God of love, but His wrath is just as clearly taught in the New Testament. Jesus says, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36). In the end-times Jesus will return “dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:8). God is the same God, and He will always hate sin.

Suggestions for Prayer

Praise God for His righteous hatred of sin.

For Further Study

Read more about God’s wrath in Romans 1:18—2:16.

  • What specifically causes His wrath?
  • How does He display His wrath to the unrighteous?

From Strength for Today by John MacArthur 

http://www.gty.org/

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Don’t Shrink

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But the just shall live by faith [My righteous servant shall live by his conviction respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, and holy fervor born of faith and conjoined with it]; and if he draws back and shrinks in fear, My soul has no delight or pleasure in him.

— Hebrews 10:38 (AMPC)

Self-doubt causes a person to shrink back in fear. God’s Word states in Hebrews that the just shall live by faith and if he shrinks back in fear, God’s soul has no delight in him. That does not mean God is angry with us, but it does sadden Him that we are living so far below the confident life He provided through Jesus Christ.

Faith is being confident in God and His Word. Perhaps you have a good relationship with God and have no problem trusting Him, but when it comes to trusting yourself to do the right thing, you shrink—you allow fear to control you and pull you back.

God once told me that if I didn’t trust myself, then I didn’t trust Him. He said He was living in me and directing, guiding, and controlling me because I asked Him to do so. I needed to believe God’s promises, not my feelings or thoughts. Of course, any one of us can miss God and we can make mistakes. We can think we are going in the right direction and then discover we are wrong, but it’s not the end of the world, nor is it anything to become excessively concerned about. If our hearts are sincere and we are honestly seeking God’s will, even if we do make a mistake, He will intervene and get us back on track. Quite often, He does it without us even knowing.

Instead of always assuming you are wrong and living in the agony of self-doubt, I encourage you to believe you are being led by God unless He shows you otherwise. Just as God has promised in His Word, you can trust Him to lead you by His Holy Spirit into all truth (see John 16:13). If we are on the wrong track, God will help us get back on the right one.

Prayer of the Day: Father, I am so thankful that You can take even my mistakes and turn them into something good. I pray that You will help me put doubt aside and trust You completely. Thank You that in Christ I have everything I need; I can be confident in You, and I never have to doubt again.

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Alistair Begg

Truth for Life; Alistair Begg – Religious Formalism

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They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind.

John 9:13

The great tragedy of John 9 is not that a man had been blind for years until he met Jesus, but that a group of men were left spiritually blind despite having seen the work of Jesus.

The healing and transformation of the life of the man born blind caused a great stir in his community. Presumably he had been so much a part of people’s surroundings that it was easy to disregard him. Yet suddenly their normal daily experience was disrupted. The man who was once blind could now see perfectly well, and he was no longer asking for money (John 9:8-10).

Unable to solve this mystery, they presented the formerly blind man to the religious leaders, the Pharisees, to see if they could shed some light on what had occurred. What followed was not a conversation between the man and the Pharisees so much as an interrogation. Instead of rejoicing in his story, they challenged his testimony.

The reason for the Pharisees’ harsh reaction, at least on the surface, was that the man had been healed on the Sabbath (John 9:14-16). The religious leaders were unable to rejoice in the restoration of his sight because they were blinded by their religious formalism. The forms and structures of religion that they boasted in were the very things that proved to be a barrier to their faith in Jesus. They kept their lists of what was acceptable, and so they were unable to recognize the work of the God they claimed to worship, even when the evidence was quite literally (and miraculously) looking them in the face.

Religious formalism cannot face the dramatic impact that Jesus makes when He takes a person and turns him or her upside down—which is actually to turn them the right way up! Unwilling to acknowledge their own need for transformation—and the truth that only a radical internal transformation gives significance to the religious life—religious formalists hide behind maintaining appearances. Nothing challenges the religious formalist more than coming face-to-face with someone who has had their eyes opened to the salvation that is found in Jesus.

The Pharisees’ reaction to the blind man’s healing teaches us, then, to beware of the dangers of religious formalism. A blind commitment to religion has the potential to keep us from Jesus, just as it did with them.

Have your eyes been opened to the salvation found only in Jesus? Or has your focus on religious performance prevented you from rejoicing in the wonder of God’s amazing grace? Are you weighed down by religion’s burden or rejoicing in the awesome, often surprising work of the Lord Jesus? Look to Him alone for salvation and accept that He will not be constrained by your assumptions, for then you’ll find a joy, a transformation, and an excitement in the gospel that no amount of rule-keeping could ever provide.

GOING DEEPER

Philippians 3:1-11

Topics: Jesus Christ Judgmentalism Legalism

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotional by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org

Kids 4 Truth

Kids4Truth Clubs Daily Devotional – God Heals Broken Hearts

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“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)

What is a “broken heart”? Have you ever had one? We use the expression when we talk about the deepest kind of grief a heart can feel. Broken hearts are often caused by a hurtful change in a relationship with another person. If someone you love dies, or if you have to say good-bye to a friend, or if someone close to you does something to hurt you deeply, you might say that you have a broken heart. But those are just the surface causes for a broken heart. Do you know what really causes broken hearts? All of the grief, death, and sadness we experience came into our world as the result of human sin.

Jesus’ heart was broken once too. Psalm 69:20 looks ahead to the time when Jesus died on the cross for our sins. “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness.” Jesus’ heart was not broken because of His own sin; He never sinned. It was broken because of ours. All the sins of the whole world were laid on Him when He suffered and died. During those hours on the cross, He endured the awful wrath of God the Father in our place. The precious relationship Jesus had with His Father, closer and more satisfying than anything we could know, was broken while He bore our sin.

Does your God understand what your broken heart feels like? He not only understands, but He also knows how to heal it. Through Jesus Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, He made a way for you to come directly to Him with your broken heart. Your grief may be the result of your own sin or someone else’s. Or it may be the result of sin’s effects on our fallen world. Whatever the cause, God promises to gently care for your hurting heart.

The God whose heart was broken for sin will heal your broken heart.

My Response:
» Have I brought my broken heart to God for healing?

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John Hagee

Hagee Ministries; John Hagee –  Daily Devotion

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James 4:2

You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.

You know that God can do more for you in a moment than you could do for yourself in ten lifetimes. But what if He is waiting on you to participate in the process? You may know exactly what you want God to accomplish in your life and believe that He has the power to do it. The problem is not that the provision isn’t made. The problem is you’re not reaching for the provision and doing what God has asked you to do.

Here’s what I mean. God will not answer prayer until you pray. God “will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it” until you are giving (Mal. 3:10). God will not “forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” until we confess our sins (1 John 1:9). But the moment that you do, the moment you reach out to Him in faith believing, suddenly all of heaven and earth begin to move on your behalf because that’s just how much God truly wants to bless you. Take the step that God is asking you to take, and you’ll move in the faith that overcomes the world.

Today’s Blessing: 

And now may the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face to shine upon you. And may the Lord be gracious unto you and give you His peace. May you celebrate in the joy and the peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May He remove the pain of the failures in your past. May He remove the criticisms in your life that have scarred you by persons of influence. May you walk with divine victory because heaven is on your side, and God has given you all things for your life to be totally blessed. Go with this blessing and live a life of victory rejoicing in Jesus Christ. And all of God’s children said, “Praise the Lord.”

Today’s Bible Reading: 

Old Testament

Leviticus 14:1-57

New Testament 

Mark 6:30-56

Psalms & Proverbs

Psalm 40:1-10

Proverbs 10:11-12

https://www.jhm.org

Turning Point

Turning Point; David Jeremiah – He Waited Too Long

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Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you.
Acts 24:25

 Recommended Reading: Acts 24:22-27

When we procrastinate in an endeavor or decision, we’re yielding to sluggishness at the expense of change. It sometimes seems impossible to make ourselves move forward. But we must, especially in terms of the Gospel. We learn that from Felix in Acts 24.

Billy Graham once preached, “There never was a more convenient season for Felix. We never read that he ever responded to the Gospel of Christ. He procrastinated too long, and Felix tonight, as far as we know, is in hell.”

Graham continued, “I spoke to a man in Moody Church one Monday night…. He was trembling as he stood there under mighty conviction. And I said, ‘Sir, won’t you give your heart to Christ?’ He said, ‘Not tonight. I’ll give my life to Christ on Friday night’…. On Friday morning, a stray bullet from a policeman’s gun went through that man’s head, and he died and never came to Christ.”4

Don’t allow procrastination to impact your spiritual life. Today is the day of salvation!

To procrastinate the business of salvation is the real madness.
Timothy Dwight

https://www.davidjeremiah.org

Greg Laurie

Harvest Ministries; Greg Laurie – It’s Time for Another Jesus Revolution

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Tell your children about it in the years to come, and let your children tell their children. Pass the story down from generation to generation. 

—Joel 1:3

Scripture:

Joel 1:3 

Some years ago, I was having a conversation with Pastor Chuck Smith, who has been called the father of the Jesus Movement. He was a man whom God used, someone who was willing to take a risk. And he was at the epicenter of this Great Awakening.

I asked Pastor Chuck if he thought we would ever see another Jesus Movement.

“Greg,” he said, “I’m not sure if we’re desperate enough.”

That was awhile ago. And I think we now may be desperate enough to start seriously praying about it. The psalmist prayed, “Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:6 NLT).

Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, that was then. This is now.”

It’s our responsibility to pass our faith on to the next generation. Speaking through the prophet Joel, God said, “Tell your children about it in the years to come, and let your children tell their children. Pass the story down from generation to generation” (Joel 1:3 NLT).

Our prayer should be “Lord, do it again.” My generation has had its day, and now it’s time for the next generation to have their own spiritual awakening.

Amazingly, the Jesus Movement was not a political revolution, although some called for that (and some are calling for it today). It was not a moral revolution. It was a Jesus Revolution, as Time magazine called it. They recognized it was more than a movement.

The word revolution means “upheaval,” “change.” It means “turning around.” And what are we returning to? We’re returning to New Testament Christianity, to the faith the Lord gave us, practiced by the early church.

To his eternal credit, Pastor Chuck Smith stepped out of his comfort zone, and it was an explosive result. Today we need another spiritual awakening. We need another Jesus Revolution.

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie