A Daily Devotional

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A Matter Of Loyalty



“And Saul also went home to Gibeah; and there went with him a band of men, whose hearts God had touched. But the children of Belial said, How shall this man save us? And they despised him” (I Samuel 10:26,27a).

Saul had just been put forward to the people by Samuel, as their new king. There was instant acceptance. “All the people shouted, and said, God save the king” (v.24). At that point, a division arose among the men of Israel. One group, whose hearts God had touched, became immediately loyal and faithfully followed Saul. Our experience is much the same. If our hearts have been touched by the Lord, then we should be loyal followers of Christ and of those whom the Lord has raised up to lead us. Paul said, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1).

The second group of men in this story does just the opposite. These individuals would not even give Saul an opportunity to prove himself before they began to gripe and complain, saying, “How shall this man save us? And they despised him” (v.27). Unfortunately, even among God’s people today, disloyalty and division can persist in churches, in schools, and even on the mission field. This ought not to be. “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Corinthians 1:10). “For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” (I Corinthians 3:3). “Mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them” (Romans 16:17).

May our loyalties and allegiances be ever with those whose hearts God has touched.

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The Limited Knowledge Of Jesus



“But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32).

This verse has always been difficult to understand. If Jesus was God, how could He be ignorant of the time of His second coming? Indeed He was, and is God, but He also was, and is, man. This is a part of the mystery of the divine/human nature of Christ. In the gospel record, we see frequent evidences of His humanity (He grew weary, for example, and suffered pain), but also many evidences of deity (His virgin birth, His resurrection and ascension, as well as His perfect words and deeds).

He had been in glory with the Father from eternity (John 17:24), but when He became man, “in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren” (Hebrews 2:17), except for sin. As a child, He “increased in wisdom and stature,” like any other human (Luke 2:52). Through diligent study (as a man), He acquired great wisdom in the Scriptures and the plan of God. After His baptism and the acknowledgment from heaven of His divine Sonship (e.g., Matthew 3:16,17), He increasingly manifested various aspects of His deity, but He still remained fully human.

With respect to the time of the end, this depends in some degree on human activity. For example, He said that “the gospel must first be published among all nations” (Mark 13:10), and only God the Father could foresee just when men will have accomplished this. Although the glorified Son presumably now shares this knowledge, in His self-imposed human limitations, He did not.

In no way does this compromise His deity. In our own finite humanity, we cannot comprehend fully the mystery of the divine/human nature of Christ, but He has given us more than sufficient reason to believe His Word!

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Moses And Elijah

“And, behold, there talked with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias: Who appeared in glory, and spake of His decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem” (Luke 9:30,31).

This is a mysterious passage. Peter, James, and John watched in awe as Christ was “transfigured” before them as Christ had promised (9:2). But how could Moses and Elijah be there? Moses’ body had been buried by God in an unknown tomb in Moab some 1500 years before, and no resurrection had yet taken place (Deuteronomy 34:5,6; I Corinthians 15:22,23). Elijah had been taken alive into heaven in a chariot of fire over 900 years previously (II Kings 2:11).

The fact is that this whole experience was a remarkable vision! Jesus said, after it was over: “Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead” (Matthew 17:9). Although they had just been awakened out of sleep (Luke 9:32), the disciples knew this was not a dream. All three had seen it together and “were sore afraid” (Mark 9:6).

This vision of the future kingdom was for the disciples’ encouragement (and for ours, as well), for the Lord had just been warning them of His coming death, as well as the cross which they, themselves, must take up to follow Him (Luke 9:23). The kingdom of God would come on Earth, in all its future power and glory, but first, He must die and rise again, and they must be His witnesses of these things.

But when He did return in glory, there would be two groups of people sharing His glory with Him: Moses, representing the resurrected saints, and Elijah, the “raptured” saints. “The dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: And so shall we ever be with the Lord” (I Thessalonians 4:16,17).

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What The Creator Requires



“And now, Israel, what doth the L SIZE="-1">ORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the L SIZE="-1">ORD thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul?” (Deuteronomy 10:12).

In the final weeks before his death, Moses gathered the people of Israel together for a final look back at God’s miraculous provision for the nation and a restatement of the Law. He repeated the Ten Commandments, and reminded them of their supernatural origin (chapter 5). He charged them to remember the Law and to pass it on to their children, for God, Himself, had entrusted it to them (chapter 6). He insisted that they utterly destroy the enemies of God in the land, for their holy and special status as the people of God would be in jeopardy if they didn’t (chapter 7). The longest section of the speech consisted of a command to remember their unique history: how God had supernaturally intervened for them on so many occasions (vs. 8:1–10:11).

Finally, Moses brought them to a time of commitment, charging them, in our text, to fear, obey, love, and serve the “L SIZE="-1">ORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul.” Even the commandments were “for their good” (v.13); they were not merely petty or malicious. In fact, throughout the lengthy lecture, Moses had several times adjured the people to love their LORD with their entire being (see vs. 6:5; 7:9; 10:20; 11:1,13,22).

And why not? “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is” (10:14). The God who placed His sovereign mark on Israel (v.15) deserved their total devotion, obedience, and service.

Does not the Creator God, who has done so much more for us than He did even for Israel, deserve our total devotion, obedience, and service?

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The Transfiguration



“And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: And His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light” (Matthew 17:1,2).

This remarkable transfiguration of Christ was shown to the three disciples so that they could actually “see (Him) coming in His kingdom” (Matthew 16:28), as He will do someday, when He returns to Earth “in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30). This would ever afterward be an unforgettable experience which would strengthen the disciples for their critical future ministry.

James would become the first martyr, but his brother, John, would survive to bear the testimony far and wide for almost seventy more years. “And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). Peter also wrote of the amazing event: “For He received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him in the holy mount” (II Peter 1:17,18).

It is therefore very significant that the word “transfigured” (Greek metamorphoo) is also applied to Christian believers in II Corinthians 3:18: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed (read ‘transfigured’) into the same image from glory to glory.” That is, as we behold the glory of Christ in the mirror of the Scriptures, we, ourselves, are spiritually being metamorphosed into His own image. The marvelous transformation will be completed when He does come again and “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Philippians 3:21).

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Seven Mountains



“His foundation is in the holy mountains” (Psalm 87:1).

It is fascinating to study God’s selection of several key mountains to mark key events in human history. Mount Ararat was the first great mountain of Scripture, where God’s Ark of safety would rest (Genesis 8:4). Then, when the first nations failed and God had to form a new nation, it was on Mount Moriah that Abraham passed the great test with his son, Isaac, and became “the father of all them that believe,” testifying that “in the mount of the LORD it shall be seen” (Romans 4:11; Genesis 22:14). When the time came for God’s Law to be revealed, “the LORD came down upon Mount Sinai,” and gave Moses “upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Exodus 19:20; 31:18).

“Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion,” where the holy city was built and where Christ will reign in the great age to come. For God has promised concerning Christ: “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion” (Psalm 48:2; 2:6).

Insignificant in size, but preeminent in importance, is the small hill outside Jerusalem that has come to be called Mount Calvary. There a “stone was cut out of the mountain” which “became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Daniel 2:45,35) when Christ died there and conquered death. He arose from the grave and then ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives, to which, one day, He shall “so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

Finally, in the new earth, “every mountain and hill shall be made low” (Isaiah 40:4), and the only mountain will be “a great and high mountain,” the beautiful city of God, towering “twelve thousand furlongs” (Revelation 21:10,16) over the fruitful plains of the eternally new earth below.

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Captain Of Our Courage



“And the LORD, He it is that doth go before thee; He will be with thee, He will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:.

In the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, the transfer of leadership from Moses to Joshua is recorded. “Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee” (Joshua 1:7). Joshua could have said with confidence, “God Himself is with us for our captain” (II Chronicles 13:12) as did King Abijah when he “prevailed” (same word as “courage”) over King Jeroboam who had “forsaken” God’s commandments. Joshua’s courage was based on the fact that God was with him. So long as he obeyed God’s commandments, his adversaries would in reality be the adversaries of God, and were not to be feared. He was not to be “dismayed” by the enemy. His sacred trust, to be protected and defended, was “the law,” the commandments of God. The battle was not his, however; it was, and still is, the Lord’s.

Joab, captain of David’s mighty men, charged his troops: “Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God: and the LORD do that which seemeth Him good” (II Samuel 10:12). Joshua, Joab, and many others have found courage in the fact that God does all things well!

The word “courage” is only used once in the New Testament, when Paul saw his brethren and “took courage” (Acts 28:15). But the concept is a strong thread woven throughout the Scripture for our instruction. The “captain of (our) salvation” (Hebrews 2:10) has promised, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly (courageously) say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5,6).

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The Good Part



“But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

The two sisters, Mary and Martha, both loved the Lord Jesus and wanted to please Him. Jesus also loved them (John 11:5) and apparently was an occasional guest at their home in Bethany. Martha evidently felt that activity and service were pleasing to the Lord (and these, indeed, are good and important), whereas Mary simply “sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His Word” (Luke 10:39). To Martha’s surprise and chagrin, Jesus said that Mary had chosen the “good part”—a part more important even than service and food.

Long, long before, the patriarch Job, whom God had said was “a perfect and an upright man” with “none like him in the earth” (Job 1:, had also chosen that good part. “I have esteemed the words of His mouth,” Job said,“more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12).

We today can sit at Jesus feet and hear His Word only by reading and meditating on the Scriptures. Important as our daily responsibilities may be to meet our material needs and those of our families, we should make priority time available for this “good part.” The same surely applies especially to Christian leaders. They may have many important tasks to perform in the service of God, but it is still more important for them to take time to “hear His Word” in the Scriptures.

The unknown psalmist who wrote the grand 119th psalm had learned this truth: “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. . . . How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Through thy precepts I get understanding” (Psalm 119:97,103,104).

We today have a higher privilege than Job, or the psalmist, or even Mary, for we have all the Scriptures! If we truly desire “that good part,” the Lord will surely provide the time, as He did for Mary.

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Breaking Bread

“And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26).

This is the first of twelve specific references to the “breaking of bread” in the New Testament, each reminding the participants of Christ’s sacrificial death. Although Paul had not been present at the last supper, He had evidently received a special revelation concerning it. “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which He was betrayed (literally, ‘while He was being betrayed’) took bread: And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me” (I Corinthians 11:23,24). Similarly, drinking of the cup recalled to them His shed blood. All of this helped them remember and appreciate the great reality of eternal life imparted to them through His death, for He had said, “Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life” (John 6:54).

For a while, after His resurrection and their empowering by the Holy Spirit, “they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house” (Acts 2:46), seem to have combined each day this remembrance of the Lord’s supper with their own evening meals. Sometime later, it seems to have been “upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread” (Acts 20:7). There is no specific instruction in Scripture as to how often this breaking of bread should be observed, but when it is observed, the implied actions of “discerning the Lord’s body,” giving thanks to Him for His sacrifice for us, and “judge(ing) ourselves” (I Corinthians 11:29,31) are far more vital than the physical act of eating the broken bread.

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Settle It



“Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist” (Luke 21:14,15).

How many times have we thought or even said aloud, “I wish I had said that?” Our verses today are like that, only there is one big difference. We, too, can speak that appropriate word, and it will come out just right.

This rightness is because the message, while it forms in our minds (hearts) and emanates from our lips, originates from God. The “I” of verse 15 is further explained in Matthew 10:19,20: “But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. . . . For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” And in Mark 13:11, “for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost.”

What a formula for being right all the time! We should let the Author of all Truth speak through us. This is probably the fastest way to approach Solomon in all his wisdom. The setting for these powers, however, is one of persecution of the saints. It was an assurance by Jesus to His disciples that when they were confronted by adversaries they were to settle down, not get stirred up. They were to empty their minds of strategies, and not meditate on a great rebuttal.

Testimony to the lost is like that. It takes a committed Christian, submitted to the Lord, knowledgeable in the Word, and available to be used at a moment’s notice to make a difference in someone else’s life. John 14:26 reads: “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

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Living In The Real World


“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind” (Isaiah 65:17).

People often think they are being practical when they place material values ahead of spiritual, emphasizing that we have to “live in the real world.” The fact is, however, that we are not living in the real world at all, but in a world that is dying and will soon be gone. “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (I John 2:17).

This is not even the world that God created, for that world was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Because “sin entered into the world, and death by sin”(Romans 5:12), therefore, “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). In fact, this world is not even as it was soon after God’s curse, for “the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished” (II Peter 3:6).

The present, post-Flood world is now under the dominion of Satan, who is “the prince of this world” (John 12:31) and of “all the kingdoms of the world” (Matthew 4:. The Lord Jesus Christ came to “deliver us from this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4). As our text says, this world shall not even “be remembered, nor come into mind.” It “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God” (Romans 8:21).

Therefore, we must “be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2). We must “live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:12,13). In the meantime, our true citizenship, if we have been born again in Christ, is in the real world to come, and we are His ambassadors to an alien land (II Corinthians 5:20).

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Reclaiming Dinosaurs For Jesus


“Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee. . . . He moveth his tail like a cedar. . . . His bones are like bars of iron” (Job 40:15,17,18).

Every creature that was ever made was made by Jesus (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; etc.). Jehovah Jesus, therefore, may be thought of as the one doing the talking in today’s text. Scripture directly applies Old Testament Jehovah passages dealing with creation to the “Son” (Hebrews 1:8,10–12; cf. Psalm 102:25–27), and Jesus Himself admonished disciples for being so slow to connect Him with the Old Testament (Luke 24:25–27).

Secularists believe dinosaurs became extinct long before the first man ever came on the scene and seemingly use fossil remains and fanciful reconstructions of these awesome creatures to instill doubt into unsuspecting minds.

The creature depicted in Job 40, however, is described as “the chief of the ways of God” (v.19). Small-tailed hippopotamuses do not seem to fit this title; dinosaurs, with cedar-like tails, do! If Jesus was talking about dinosaurs, then “chief” (even “rex”) makes sense. Moreover, Job knew about these creatures—they and man lived at the same time.

These creatures should mentally be connected with their Creator, and parents should teach children to make the connection. If artists deserve credit, then Jesus, as the Creator who called into being these great creatures which the artist depicts, should receive the greater praise.

Behold the bones of these creatures in museums! They were made like “bars of iron,” but they too, like the foundations of the earth, “shall wax old as doth a garment.” The Creator who “laid the foundation of the earth” “remainest. . . . Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail” (Hebrews 1:11,12).

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God With Us


“And Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD” (Genesis 4:1).

Here is Eve’s testimony concerning the first child born to the human race. To understand it, we need to recall God’s first promise: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: (He) shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15). These words, addressed to Satan, promised that the woman’s “seed” would destroy Satan. Thus, that seed would have to be a man, but the only one capable of destroying Satan is God Himself. Eve mistakenly thought that Cain would fulfill this promise, and when he was born, she testified: “I have gotten a man—even the LORD” (literal rendering).

Over three millennia later, essentially the same promise was renewed to the “house of David,” when the Lord said: “Behold, (the) virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:13,14). The definite article reflects the primeval promise that the divine/human Savior, when He comes, would be born uniquely as the woman’s seed, not of the father’s seed like all other men. His very name, Immanuel, means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23). He is “the Word . . . made flesh” (John 1:14).

While questions have been raised about the precise meaning of almah (Hebrew word translated “virgin”), there is no question in the New Testament: “Behold, the virgin (Greek parthenos, meaning ‘virgin,’ and nothing else) shall be with child” (Matthew 1:23). “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).

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Reporting On The Parables


“And He began to speak unto them by parables. A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country” (Mark 12:1).

This parable of the vineyard had an obvious meaning, for even “the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders” to whom He was speaking (Mark 11:27) “knew that He had spoken the parable against them” (Mark 12:12). The same parable and the events surrounding it are reported in Matthew 21:33–46 and Luke 20:9–16.

But there is another question that has been raised about this parable, as well as all the other parables that have been reported in two or more different gospels. That is, if the Bible is inerrant in its very words, as Jesus taught (e.g., Matthew 5:18; John 10:35), then why did the writers often vary in their reporting of the words of the parable?

It should be remembered, however, that Jesus probably spoke in Aramaic, whereas the written accounts were in Greek. Furthermore, two of the writers (Mark and Luke) were not present at the time, so would have to obtain their accounts from someone who was there (e.g., Luke 1:1,2). Flexibility in translation and reporting is always possible with different translators and different reporters.

The doctrine of divine inspiration of the Scriptures (II Timothy 3:16), however, applies not to the process, but to the result. The Spirit of God was free to use the writer’s own research, vocabulary, and style in reporting an event, so long as there were no factual errors or irrelevancies in the final result. In fact, such minor differences often give greater depth and credence to the reported event, since they help in proving that the different writers were not in collusion, but simply telling of a real event from different perspectives.

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It Is Well With My Soul



“Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what He hath done for my soul” (Psalm 66:16).

The Bible clearly teaches that “the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). Romans 3:23 teaches that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” We are left, then, with an insurmountable condition concerning our souls. “I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul” (Psalm 142:4). Our eternal soul is our single most valuable possession: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36,37).

It is God “in whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:10) who cares for our soul. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). “For the redemption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever: That He should still live for ever, and not see corruption” (Psalm 49:8,9). The redemption of our soul cost the “precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (I Peter 1:19). The soul that disregarded the Old Testament guidelines for the Passover (portraying Christ’s atonement for the sins of the whole world) was “cut off” (Exodus 12:15). But “we are not of them who draw back into perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:39). For we “were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of (our) souls” (I Peter 2:25). “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2). It is well with my soul because of what He has done for my soul.