DONNIE DAILY GEMS FOR THURSDAY FEBRUARY 23:
WORD OF WISDOM
There's no problem so big that whining won't make it worse.
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DAILY DEVOTION
Believing the Impossible
"Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him:
but Mary sat still in the house. Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou
hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now,
whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith unto
her, Thy brother shall rise again."
John 11:20-23
Outside of the disciples, Jesus had no closer friends on earth than Lazarus,
Mary, and Martha. They welcomed Him into their home near Jerusalem,
providing Jesus a place to rest and eat during His busy times of ministry in
that city. When Lazarus took sick, Mary and Martha immediately rushed a
message to Jesus, asking for His help. Yet the Lord delayed coming until
Lazarus was dead and all hope was lost.
At some level, however, in Martha's heart, there was a faith that even
reached beyond the grave. Even as she expressed her disappointment that
Jesus had not come to heal her brother, she expressed faith that Jesus would
do the will of God. As you read this passage, you see Martha's faith rise
and fall somewhat throughout it. But she trusted that God wanted what was
best for her and her family, and that He could deal with any problem she
faced. In the end, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and God was
glorified.
Too many Christians miss out on what God could and would do for them because
they lack the faith to ask. James wrote, "Ye lust, and have not: ye kill,
and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not,
because ye ask not" (James 4:2). Why do we not pray as we should? While
there are many reasons for prayer failure, the greatest is a lack of faith
in God. No matter what we may say out loud, in our hearts we do not believe
that God is willing or able to help.
If our faith is limited by what seems possible to us, we will never see God
work in miraculous ways.
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DAILY BIBLE READING
Deuteronomy 10-12New King James Version (NKJV)
The Second Pair of Tablets
10 "At that time the Lord said to me, 'Hew for yourself two tablets of stone
like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark
of wood. 2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first
tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.'
3 "So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the
first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. 4 And
He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten
Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the
midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me.
5 Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the
ark which I had made; and there they are, just as the Lord commanded me."
6 (Now the children of Israel journeyed from the wells of Bene Jaakan to
Moserah, where Aaron died, and where he was buried; and Eleazar his son
ministered as priest in his stead. 7 From there they journeyed to Gudgodah,
and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of water. 8 At that time
the Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the
Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister to Him and to bless in His name,
to this day. 9 Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his
brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God promised
him.)
10 "As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty
nights; the Lord also heard me at that time, and the Lord chose not to
destroy you. 11 Then the Lord said to me, 'Arise, begin your journey before
the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their
fathers to give them.'
The Essence of the Law
12 "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear
the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the
Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep
the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for
your good? 14 Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your
God, also the earth with all that is in it. 15 The Lord delighted only in
your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you
above all peoples, as it is this day. 16 Therefore circumcise the foreskin
of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. 17 For the Lord your God is
God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows
no partiality nor takes a bribe. 18 He administers justice for the
fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and
clothing. 19 Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the
land of Egypt. 20 You shall fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him,
and to Him you shall hold fast, and take oaths in His name. 21 He is your
praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome
things which your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt with
seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of
heaven in multitude.
Love and Obedience Rewarded
11 "Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His
statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. 2 Know today that I
do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen
the chastening of the Lord your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and
His outstretched arm- 3 His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of
Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4 what He did to the
army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: how He made the waters of
the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has
destroyed them to this day; 5 what He did for you in the wilderness until
you came to this place; 6 and what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of
Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them
up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was in their
possession, in the midst of all Israel- 7 but your eyes have seen every
great act of the Lord which He did.
8 "Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today,
that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over
to possess, 9 and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord
swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, 'a land flowing
with milk and honey.'[a] 10 For the land which you go to possess is not
like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed
and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11 but the land which you
cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water
from the rain of heaven, 12 a land for which the Lord your God cares; the
eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year
to the very end of the year.
13 'And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I
command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your
heart and with all your soul, 14 then I[b] will give you the rain for your
land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather
in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 And I will send grass in
your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.' 16 "Take
heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and
serve other gods and worship them, 17 lest the Lord's anger be aroused
against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the
land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the
Lord is giving you.
18 "Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your
soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets
between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, speaking of
them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie
down, and when you rise up. 20 And you shall write them on the doorposts of
your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your
children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your
fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.
22 "For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to
do-to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to
Him- 23 then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and
you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. 24 Every
place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the
wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the
Western Sea,[c] shall be your territory. 25 No man shall be able to stand
against you; the Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you
upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.
26 "Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing,
if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today;
28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God,
but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other
gods which you have not known. 29 Now it shall be, when the Lord your God
has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put
the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not
on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the
Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth
trees of Moreh? 31 For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess
the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and you will possess it and
dwell in it. 32 And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and
judgments which I set before you today.
A Prescribed Place of Worship
12 "These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to
observe in the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you to
possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall utterly
destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served
their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green
tree. 3 And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and
burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of
their gods and destroy their names from that place. 4 You shall not worship
the Lord your God with such things.
5 "But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all
your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go.
6 There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes,
the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill
offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. 7 And there you
shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which
you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God
has blessed you.
8 "You shall not at all do as we are doing here today-every man doing
whatever is right in his own eyes- 9 for as yet you have not come to the
rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when
you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is
giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round
about, so that you dwell in safety, 11 then there will be the place where
the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring all
that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the
heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow to
the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your
sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who
is within your gates, since he has no portion nor inheritance with you. 13
Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every
place that you see; 14 but in the place which the Lord chooses, in one of
your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall
do all that I command you.
15 "However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever
your heart desires, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He
has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and
the deer alike. 16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on
the earth like water. 17 You may not eat within your gates the tithe of
your grain or your new wine or your oil, of the firstborn of your herd or
your flock, of any of your offerings which you vow, of your freewill
offerings, or of the heave offering of your hand. 18 But you must eat them
before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses, you
and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant,
and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the
Lord your God in all to which you put your hands. 19 Take heed to yourself
that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land.
20 "When the Lord your God enlarges your border as He has promised you, and
you say, 'Let me eat meat,' because you long to eat meat, you may eat as
much meat as your heart desires. 21 If the place where the Lord your God
chooses to put His name is too far from you, then you may slaughter from
your herd and from your flock which the Lord has given you, just as I have
commanded you, and you may eat within your gates as much as your heart
desires. 22 Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat
them; the unclean and the clean alike may eat them. 23 Only be sure that
you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life; you may not eat the
life with the meat. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it on the earth
like water. 25 You shall not eat it, that it may go well with you and your
children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. 26
Only the holy things which you have, and your vowed offerings, you shall
take and go to the place which the Lord chooses. 27 And you shall offer
your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your
God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of
the Lord your God, and you shall eat the meat. 28 Observe and obey all
these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your
children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight
of the Lord your God.
Beware of False Gods
29 "When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go
to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, 30 take heed
to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are
destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods,
saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.'
31 You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every
abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for
they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
32 "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to
it nor take away from it.
Footnotes:
a.Deuteronomy 11:9 Exodus 3:8
b.Deuteronomy 11:14 Following Masoretic Text and Targum; Samaritan
Pentateuch, Septuagint, and Vulgate read He.
c.Deuteronomy 11:24 That is, the Mediterranean
New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James VersionR. Copyright C 1982 by Thomas
Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
