DONNIE DAILY GEMS FOR FRIDAY AUGUST 31:
WORD OF WISDOM
When u feel like you're drowning in life, don't worry because your Lifeguard
walks on water.
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DAILY DEVOTION
A Sacrifice with a Purpose
"All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did
not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved,
and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to
steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and
that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd: the good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
John 10:8-11
When Giuseppe Garibaldi was leading the struggle to unify the nation of
Italy in the 1800s, he faced numerous military obstacles in addition to
political foes. At the beginning of his campaign, the great general was
forced to rely on volunteers to fight for his vision of Italy. After one
rally, a young man came up and asked him what reward he might expect if he
enlisted in the fighting. Garibaldi replied, "Wounds, scars, and perhaps
death. But remember that through your bruises Italy will be free." The young
man responded, "Then I will follow to the death."
The measure of a sacrifice is not just in how much is given up, but in how
much is gained in return. The coming of Jesus into the world to provide
salvation required the greatest sacrifice in all of history. The perfect Son
of God left Heaven and exchanged His glory and wealth for poverty and scorn.
Then He took upon Himself all of our sins and died on the cross: "Looking
unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was
set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at
the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2). Just as Jesus thought
us worthy of His sacrifice, we should consider those around us important
enough to reach even at great cost.
The work of God is worthy of any sacrifice that He calls us to make.
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DAILY BIBLE READING
Ezekiel 4-6 The Message (MSG)
This Is What Sin Does
4 1-3 "Now, son of man, take a brick and place it before you. Draw a picture
of the city Jerusalem on it. Then make a model of a military siege against
the brick: Build siege walls, construct a ramp, set up army camps, lay in
battering rams around it. Then get an iron skillet and place it upright
between you and the city-an iron wall. Face the model: The city shall be
under siege and you shall be the besieger. This is a sign to the family of
Israel.
4-5 "Next lie on your left side and place the sin of the family of Israel on
yourself. You will bear their sin for as many days as you lie on your side.
The number of days you bear their sin will match the number of years of
their sin, namely, 390. For 390 days you will bear the sin of the family of
Israel.
6-7 "Then, after you have done this, turn over and lie down on your right
side and bear the sin of the family of Judah. Your assignment this time is
to lie there for forty days, a day for each year of their sin. Look straight
at the siege of Jerusalem. Roll up your sleeve, shake your bare arm, and
preach against her.
8 "I will tie you up with ropes, tie you so you can't move or turn over
until you have finished the days of the siege.
9-12 "Next I want you to take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, dried
millet and spelt, and mix them in a bowl to make a flat bread. This is your
food ration for the 390 days you lie on your side. Measure out about half a
pound for each day and eat it on schedule. Also measure out your daily
ration of about a pint of water and drink it on schedule. Eat the bread as
you would a muffin. Bake the muffins out in the open where everyone can see
you, using dried human dung for fuel."
13 God said, "This is what the people of Israel are going to do: Among the
pagan nations where I will drive them, they will eat foods that are strictly
taboo to a holy people."
14 I said, "God, my Master! Never! I've never contaminated myself with food
like that. Since my youth I've never eaten anything forbidden by law,
nothing found dead or violated by wild animals. I've never taken a single
bite of forbidden food."
15 "All right," he said. "I'll let you bake your bread over cow dung instead
of human dung."
16-17 Then he said to me, "Son of man, I'm going to cut off all food from
Jerusalem. The people will live on starvation rations, worrying where the
next meal's coming from, scrounging for the next drink of water. Famine
conditions. People will look at one another, see nothing but skin and bones,
and shake their heads. This is what sin does."
A Jealous God, Not to Be Trifled With
5 1-2 "Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a straight razor,
shaving your head and your beard. Then, using a set of balancing scales,
divide the hair into thirds. When the days of the siege are over, take
one-third of the hair and burn it inside the city. Take another third, chop
it into bits with the sword and sprinkle it around the city. The final third
you'll throw to the wind. Then I'll go after them with a sword.
3-4 "Retrieve a few of the hairs and slip them into your pocket. Take some
of them and throw them into the fire-burn them up. From them, fire will
spread to the whole family of Israel.
5-6 "This is what God, the Master, says: This means Jerusalem. I set her at
the center of the world, all the nations ranged around her. But she rebelled
against my laws and ordinances, rebelled far worse than the nations ranged
around her-sheer wickedness!-refused my guidance, ignored my directions.
7 "Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: You've been more headstrong
and willful than any of the nations around you, refusing my guidance,
ignoring my directions. You've sunk to the gutter level of those around you.
8-10 "Therefore this is what God, the Master, says: I'm setting myself
against you-yes, against you, Jerusalem. I'm going to punish you in full
sight of the nations. Because of your disgusting no-god idols, I'm going to
do something to you that I've never done before and will never do again:
turn families into cannibals-parents eating children, children eating
parents! Punishment indeed. And whoever's left over I'll throw to the winds.
11-12 "Therefore, as sure as I am the living God-Decree of God, the
Master-because you've polluted my Sanctuary with your obscenities and
disgusting no-god idols, I'm pulling out. Not an ounce of pity will I show
you. A third of your people will die of either disease or hunger inside the
city, a third will be killed outside the city, and a third will be thrown to
the winds and chased by killers.
13 "Only then will I calm down and let my anger cool. Then you'll know that
I was serious about this all along, that I'm a jealous God and not to be
trifled with.
14-15 "When I get done with you, you'll be a pile of rubble. Nations who
walk by will make coarse jokes. When I finish my angry punishment and
searing rebukes, you'll be reduced to an object of ridicule and mockery,
turned into a horror story circulating among the surrounding nations. I,
God, have spoken.
16-17 "When I shoot my lethal famine arrows at you, I'll shoot to kill. Then
I'll step up the famine and cut off food supplies. Famine and more
famine-and then I'll send in the wild animals to finish off your children.
Epidemic disease, unrestrained murder, death-and I will have sent it! I,
God, have spoken."
Turn Israel into Wasteland
6 1-7 Then the Word of God came to me: "Son of man, now turn and face the
mountains of Israel and preach against them: 'O Mountains of Israel, listen
to the Message of God, the Master. God, the Master, speaks to the mountains
and hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I'm about to destroy your sacred
god and goddess shrines. I'll level your altars, bust up your sun-god
pillars, and kill your people as they bow down to your no-god idols. I'll
stack the dead bodies of Israelites in front of your idols and then scatter
your bones around your shrines. Every place where you've lived, the towns
will be torn down and the pagan shrines demolished-altars busted up, idols
smashed, all your custom-made sun-god pillars in ruins. Corpses everywhere
you look! Then you'll know that I am God.
8-10 "'But I'll let a few escape the killing as you are scattered through
other lands and nations. In the foreign countries where they're taken as
prisoners of war, they'll remember me. They'll realize how devastated I was
by their betrayals, by their voracious lust for gratifying themselves in
their idolatries. They'll be disgusted with their evil ways, disgusting to
God in the way they've lived. They'll know that I am God. They'll know that
my judgment against them was no empty threat.
11-14 "'This is what God, the Master, says: Clap your hands, stamp your
feet, yell out, "No, no, no!" because of all the evil obscenities rife in
Israel. They're going to be killed, dying of hunger, dying of disease-death
everywhere you look, people dropping like flies, people far away dying,
people nearby dying, and whoever's left in the city starving to death. Why?
Because I'm angry, furiously angry. They'll realize that I am God when they
see their people's corpses strewn over and around all their ruined
sex-and-religion shrines on the bare hills and in the lush fertility groves,
in all the places where they indulged their sensual rites. I'll bring my
hand down hard on them, demolish the country wherever they live, turn it
into wasteland from one end to the other, from the wilderness to Riblah.
Then they'll know that I am God!'"
The Message (MSG)
Copyright C 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
