The Reading Plan Daily Devotions

God is completely truthful. His nature demands that such is true. It is impossible for a perfect God to see the future imperfectly and predict falsely what is going to happen.   AN ANCIENT ILLUSTRATION Look at the living illustration in Joseph's life. God gave young Joseph a dream that one day all his brothers would bow down before him. This so enraged them that they captured him and sold him into slavery. Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had; for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.” (Genesis 37:5-7) Fast forward multiple decades. Joseph has been sold into slavery, exalted in his master’s house, falsely accused and put into prison, then miraculously raised as second in command to Pharaoh Himself. His brothers came to him (not knowing it was Jos...

How important is it to clear your conscience with others? And what will be the results? Jacob had cheated his brother and in Genesis 33 he approaches his brother Esau to clear his conscience for what he had done in the past. The last time he had been with Esau, Esau wanted to kill him. Jacob expected that this anger had not subsided.   But he was wrong, as we often are.   Then Esau ran to meet him and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept." (Genesis 33:4)    HOW OTHERS RESPOND   This is not always the response we receive when we go back to clear our conscience, but it is OFTEN the case. I've had to go to others hundreds of times (often my own family) to seek forgiveness for what I've done or how I've done something. Almost always that has been met with forgiveness and understanding.    The enemy would love to get us to delay the clearing of our conscience, telling us that the results will be terrible and hard. Here is Jacob a...

Those who understand realize that God’s presence is the greatest of all treasures. If you have His presence, you have everything you need—wisdom, joy, power, peace, direction, love, life itself. But if you do not have His presence—if He is not with you—you have nothing that is valuable or that lasts. GOD’S PROMISES The greatest promises God has ever made are the promises of His presence. Jacob was being mistreated by his deceitful father-in-law, Laban. One night, God came to his servant with a command and a promise.   Then the LORD said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.” ( Genesis 31:3 )   This was not the first time God had made such a promise. If you read further in Genesis, you will discover that Jacob followed God’s directives and received God’s promised presence. God’s presence delivered him from Laban and protected him from his brother who could have been a mighty enemy.   HIS PROMISE TO YOU The omnipresence...

And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the LORD.” Therefore she named him Judah. ( Genesis 29:35 )   We are sinful. Not hard to illustrate, is it? When Christ comes to live in us through His work of salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, all the capacity for transformation from our sinfulness is there. We have Christ in His fullness within us. The issue is learning to let Him lead from the inside out.   NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE But the problem is our will. This is the part of us that decides. For years we have been self -willed. Without Christ, there is nowhere else to turn so we have decided what to do at every spot on our own. We have become accustomed to doing what we want to do, not deferring to Another.   This will must be progressively broken, like a horse is broken, and brought more and more into submission to the will of God once we become true followers of Christ. But this problem is humbling and painful at tim...

Jacob was the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham. Abraham had been given the great, covenantal promise from God that God would bless him and make of him a great nation that would bless the world. God repeated and confirmed this promise to Abraham at least 6 times ( Genesis 12:1-7 ; 13:14-17 ;  15:1-6 ; 17:1-8 , 15-16 ; 22:16-18 ). And Abraham believed God. On several of those occasions, upon receiving the promise Abraham built an altar and called upon the Lord. Once, he gave a tithe (10%) to the priest, Melchezidek.   ISSAC   Later, God would revisit that same promise, very personally to Abraham's son, Isaac ( Genesis 26:3-4 , 24 ). Isaac built an altar at the spot where this occurred.   JACOB Now, we come to Isaac's son, Jacob in Genesis, Chapter 28. He is traveling to Haran to find an Israelite wife. He lays his head down to sleep and has an extraordinary dream of a ladder to heaven with angels going up and down. The Lord was standing above the ladde...

God always holds true to what He has promised. He gave a generational promise to Abraham. “In you,” God said, “All the families of the earth will be blessed” ( Genesis 12 ). After his death, his son, Isaac, takes over. God now comes to Isaac, confirming the promise He had given to his father. At two critical faith junctures, God appears to Isaac.   THE NEEDED CONFIRMATIONS When Isaac was tempted to head to Egypt and leave Canaan …   The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants, I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed ( Genesis 26 :2-4 ).   Later, when Isaac found a place that had room for him...

Everybody wants to be successful. Thousands of books have been written and bought by people hungry to prosper in their endeavors. The dictionary describes success as “the favorable or desired outcome.” Who would not want success as a man or woman, husband or wife, parent, ministry leader, business person?   But is there a recognizable, simple path, and who is the real author of success?   AN ANCIENT ILLUSTRATION   Abraham, the father of our faith, desired to find a wife for his only son, Isaac. He charged his servant to go back to Abraham’s native land to find this wife. This was a risky, daunting, and seemingly impossible task for this servant.   The wise leader did what was necessary to be successful. He prayed. And his prayer brought God into the equation.   “O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham.” ( Genesis 24:12 )   Through an amazing set of God-designed circumstances, the se...

  Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” and he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” ( Genesis 22:1-2 ) It would seem that the propensity of God to test His children is unloving. But, in reality, it is one of the greatest demonstrations of his love for us.   God is not out to always give us the most comfortable life. If He was, we would grow soft, unusable, and inherently self-absorbed. God made us in His image and He is bound by His nature and purpose to return us there—to conform us (back) to the image of His Son.   THE PROCESS There is much to be done in this work. He calls us, blesses us, loves us, saves us, comforts us. But He also stretches us to try His glory out. The greatest attribute that must be developed in us is faith. It is the way in which ...

The basis for our relationship with God is His absolute integrity. God is who He says He says, therefore, we can trust Him.   Nowhere is this seen and experienced more clearly than His complete faithfulness to what He has promised. The 7,000 promises in God’s Word form the basis for His operating system with man. He tells us what we are to do and what He will do in response. Then, He looks to see if we will believe Him.   Our faith is not mere head knowledge, but is “walking and talking like what God says is really true” as one of my mentors, Manley Beasley used to say. Real faith is always accompanied by an action verb: Noah prepared an ark; Abraham obeyed God and went out as the Lord instructed; Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Daniel continued to pray against the world’s commands.   If we will take Him at His word, we will find Him always faithful to His Word. Our faith will grow and the world will see continued demonstrations of th...

 "I anything too difficult for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son." ( Genesis 18:14 )   It was impossible. God was telling Abraham, aged 99, that his 90-year-old wife would bear a child. When Sarah laughed at this proposal, the Lord asked them this foundational question.   EXTRAORDINARY The word "difficult" literally means, "wonderful, extraordinary." Is there anything beyond the ordinary, the natural, the normal that is beyond God's reach and ability?   It's the heart of it, isn't it? Whether or not we believe that there are no impossibilities with God? Whether we are going to live in only the realm of the rational and natural, or will we believe that God exists and loves to do that which is beyond normality? That which is impossible to man in his humanity, but completely doable to God?   Do we believe that ... God can save anyone? Can perform any miracle? Can bring prodiga...