Today's Soul Food — October 13

 

Golden Words

      


Don't be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father's home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.

John 14:1-3 New Living Translation

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Truly, there is no place like home. Jesus has promised us eternal life. We cannot see this eternal life, but we know it exists. We know that it is secure. We have the promise of Jesus to assure us of this reality. We don’t really know very much about this eternal life. These verses tell us that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us. We don’t have all of the details of this place, but we have the promise of Jesus that the place is specially prepared for us. Even more importantly Jesus will be there with us. We can trust Jesus for a happiness to come when this body and this world shall be no more, and for a happiness to last as long as the immortal soul and the eternal world shall last. This will truly be our home. Our home with Jesus for all of eternity.

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To rest in God eternally is the supreme joy of Heaven.

— Bede Jarrett, 1915

 


Daily Meditations by  Pat Nordman ©

 


October 13

Moses had a temper. He crashed the Ten Commandments and later on he twice struck the rock he had been com-manded to only speak to. Moses was the moral authority who represented God and, when he disobeyed, God told both him and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them" (Numbers 20:12).

Moses and Aaron paid a terrible price for a moment of weak-ness and anger. Moses spoke in bitterness to the people and smote the rock, com-pletely contrary to what God said to do. Let us not think that our sins are minor.

Pat Nordman ©

 

 


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Excerpts from today's Spurgeon's Devotions

With links to the entire devotion

Spurgeon's Morning for October 13

Spurgeon's Evening for October 13
 

Godly sorrow worketh repentance."


- 2 Corinthians 7:10

  

"Love is strong as death."


- Song of Solomon 8:6

Genuine, spiritual mourning for sin is the work of the Spirit of God. Repentance is too choice a flower to grow in nature’s garden. Pearls grow naturally in oysters, but penitence never shows itself in sinners except divine grace works it in them.

Why should I despair of loving Jesus with a love as strong as death? He deserves it: I desire it. The martyrs felt such love, and they were but flesh and blood, then why not I?

 

 

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October 13   Mr 1:1 - 3:35



365 days of Bible Readings Linked to Bible Gaitway TM 

 

Current Bible Question



       To whom did the Lord say, "No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I have been with Moses, I will also be with you"?          
 

Previous question and Answer:

Jesus stayed at the home of what leper in Bethany? It was at this man's home that the woman anointed the head of Jesus with a costly perfume.

Simon (Matthew 26:6-13)

 
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Today's  Devotion
 

 

But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.

Job 16:5 (NIV)

 

Who is Indispensible?

by Cathy Vinson 

 

 

"It's good for us to be here..."

(Luke 9:33)

Certainly we have said this. We were either implying "It's good for my well-being to be here," or "It's good for the others present that I am here." Peter in this verse is conveying the latter. An assumed need at the Mount of Transfiguration can be "helped" by him.

"Master, it's good for us to be here - let us put up these shelters...(He did not know what he was saying)." As Jesus, Moses, and Elijah came into view, Peter was enthralled by glory as he'd never seen. As Moses and Elijah began to leave, Peter had to think quick. If he could conjure up something, he'd keep them AND the glory from departing. Building each of them a dwelling seemed a good idea.

Why, Peter, is it good for you to be here? so you can build with your human strength and know you are indispensible to the moment? Or, is it for YOUR good, so you can stand amazed in worship of the One of God's choice and pleasure, the One whose single presence has remained with you day in and day out?

Like Peter, we may well have thought "It's good I'm here to pray, to be concerned, to straighten people out, etc." We are going to put things right. Ironically we may be just in God's timing to rest in the worthiness of Jesus, unmixed from our attempts to keep God's glory alive.

Did Peter get the message? "The next day, when they came down..." (Lk 9:37). The remainder of the day apparently passed before they returned to their duties in the valley, a day we can assume realized one focus: "This is My Son, Whom I have chosen; listen to Him" (Lk 9:35).

Cathy Vinson©

Send a note to Cathy Vinson , the writer of this devotion.
 

Like Peter, we may well have thought "It's good I'm here to pray, to be concerned, to straighten people out, etc."

 


Other Whispers from the Wilderness Devotions are found HERE

 

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~ A Model of Christ ~ 

Boris Cornfeld was a Jew who lived in Russia. And for some reason, no one really knows why (maybe a slip of the tongue where he referred to Stalin as finite), but for some reason he was dumped in the Gulag and was to live there the rest of his life. Since he was a medical doctor, he was to keep practicing medicine and keep the slaves alive so they could die with all the right things said on their records. Dr. Cornfeld was to rewrite the records and say, "This person is healthy," whether it was true or not. The slave was then put back into the slave block and expected to do the work. If slaves died of starvation out there, that was fine--but they were not to die in the hospital.

Slowly, the physician began to see through all of his misapplied politics and philosophy of life. He finally decided there must be another way. And through the influence of a fellow inmate, he heard of Jesus Christ and ultimately came to know the Messiah--Dr. Boris Cornfeld personally received Jesus Christ into his life. The transformation was slow but steady. On one occasion he did surgery on the very guard who had beaten slaves. He had a chance to tie an artery loosely so the man could bleed to death and no one would know it. But now that Christ lived in his life he found himself unable to kill. He even mumbled to himself on occasions, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Strange words to come from the lips of a Jew in a Russian camp! I'm sure he didn't realize what a model he was and I'm sure he didn't think very much about the cycle. But on one occasion he was working with another inmate who had cancer of the intestines. The man looked like he wouldn't live.

Boris Cornfeld was so concerned for that man's faith that he leaned over and spoke quietly to him as the patient drifted in and out of the anesthesia. He told the man about Christ and explained God's love which was demonstrated in the Savior's death and resurrection. When the man would come to, he would tell him more. At one point, the patient awoke, and in his groggy state, he heard a noise down the hall. His surgeon, Dr. Cornfeld, was being brutally murdered.

When the patient finally did regain consciousness, he realized all that it meant for Dr. Cornfeld to have given his life for a cause, and the patient himself personally received Christ as well. Because Boris Cornfeld had a vision of the cycle, he used his influence to shape a life that did not die, but lived on to challenge and exhort the thinking of prosperous and materialistic Western America. His patient's name: Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

pps 233-234 Living on the Ragged Edge by Charles Swindoll
(p27-28 Loving God by Charles Colson) 

 

Today's Religion News
From Goshen Web News Service

 

 

 


All the Rest October 13


Today in History for October 13