The Daily Lectionary for SATURDAY, January 18, 2020

Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Kings 19:19-21; Luke 5:1-11

The Daily Lectionary

SATURDAY, January 18, 2020

(Revised Common Lectionary Year A)

Psalm 40:1-11

Doing the will of God

1  I waited patiently for the Lord;
     he turned to me and heard my cry.
2  He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
     out of the mud and mire;
   he set my feet on a rock
     and gave me a firm place to stand.
3  He put a new song in my mouth,
     a hymn of praise to our God.
   Many will see and fear the Lord
     and put their trust in him.

4  Blessed is the one
     who trusts in the Lord,
   who does not look to the proud,
     to those who turn aside to false gods.
5  Many, Lord my God,
     are the wonders you have done,
     the things you planned for us.
   None can compare with you;
     were I to speak and tell of your deeds,
     they would be too many to declare.

6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire—
     but my ears you have opened—
     burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.
7  Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—
     it is written about me in the scroll.
8  I desire to do your will, my God;
     your law is within my heart.”

9  I proclaim your saving acts in the great assembly;
     I do not seal my lips, Lord,
     as you know.
10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
     I speak of your faithfulness and your saving help.
   I do not conceal your love and your faithfulness
     from the great assembly.

11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord;
     may your love and faithfulness always protect me.

1 Kings 19:19-21

Elijah calls Elisha to follow him

19:19 So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. 20 Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”

“Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”

21 So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.

Luke 5:1-11

Jesus calls the first disciples

5:1 One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. 2 He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

5 Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” 9 For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, 10 and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” 11 So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

Optional parts of the readings are set off in [square brackets.]

The Bible texts of the Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel lessons are from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Daily Lectionary is a three-year cyclical lectionary. We are currently in Year A. Beginning with the first Sunday of Advent in 2020, we will be in Year B. The year which ended at Advent 2019 was Year C. These readings complement the Sunday and festival readings: Thursday through Saturday readings help prepare the reader for the Sunday ahead; Monday through Wednesday readings help the reader reflect and digest what they heard in worship. Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings, copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts. www.commontexts.org
The Daily Lectionary for SATURDAY, January 18, 2020
Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Kings 19:19-21; Luke 5:1-11

The Daily Prayer for SATURDAY, January 18, 2020

The Daily Prayer

SATURDAY, January 18, 2020

In 1893 Lorrin Thurston, the grandson of Christian missionaries, convinced US President Benjamin Harrison of the urgent need to annex Hawaii in order to protect American lives and property. When US troops arrived on Hawaiian soil, Queen Liliuokalani surrendered her throne to prevent bloodshed. One hundred years later, US President Bill Clinton apologized to Native Hawaiians, calling the overthrow of Hawaii’s monarchy an illegal act.

Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, wrote, “We want no revolution; we want the brotherhood of men. We want men to love one another. We want all men to have what is sufficient for their needs. But when we meet people who deny Christ in His poor, we feel, ‘Here are the atheists.’ They turned first from Christ crucified because He was a poor worker, buffeted and spat upon and beaten. And now—strange thought—the devil has so maneuvered that the people turn from Him because those who profess Him are clothed in soft raiment and sit at well-spread tables and deny the poor.”

Holy Spirit, guide us in the imprint of Christ’s footsteps to pursue justice, counting our neighbors’ welfare to be as important as our own. Amen.

Verse of the Day for SATURDAY, January 18, 2020

1 Corinthians 10:13

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

Read all of 1 Corinthians 10

Listen to 1 Corinthians 10

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Un dia a la Vez - Sábado 18 de enero de 2020

Deja el pasado y mira el futuro

Olvidando lo que queda atrás y esforzándome por alcanzar lo que está delante, sigo avanzando hacia la meta para ganar el premio que Dios ofrece mediante su llamamiento celestial en Cristo Jesús.

—Filipenses 3:13-14 (NVI)

Estamos comenzando un nuevo año y es tiempo de dejar atrás nuestros errores. Es tiempo de comenzar con nuevas actitudes. Dios te quiere feliz y desea que puedas alcanzar tus metas en este nuevo año. No se trata solo de dejar de fumar, comenzar una nueva dieta, ni iniciar una temporada en el gimnasio. Nuestras metas deben ir más allá de esto, aunque todo lo que mencioné antes es clave para un cambio. Esas propuestas para este año deben ir acordes a lo que Dios espera de nosotros.

He experimentado en mi andar con Cristo que lo mejor en la vida es hacer la voluntad de Dios. La obediencia trae bendición. Es una fórmula que no falla.

Cuando hacemos la voluntad de Dios, vemos que todo sale bien. Vemos un respaldo en cada plan que desarrollamos. Las puertas se abren y nos sorprendemos porque sabemos que Él va delante. Y algo muy especial… sentimos paz.

Si para este nuevo año aún no tienes metas o sigues pegado a las cosas del pasado que te restan felicidad, pídele en oración a Dios que te muestre su plan perfecto para ti. Y dile: «Señor, quiero hacer tu voluntad y no la mía. Ayúdame a comenzar una nueva vida. Amén y amén.

Un Día a la Vez Copyright © by Claudia Pinzón
Estamos comenzando un nuevo año y es tiempo de dejar atrás nuestros errores.…

Standing Strong Through the Storm - Saturday, January 18, 2020

SATAN’S TACTICS

Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

—James 4:7 (NIV)

Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his evil angels, he said, “We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from family values. But we can do something else. We can keep them from forming an intimate, abiding experience in Christ.

“If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time so they can't gain that experience in Jesus Christ.

“This is what I want you to do, angels. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day.”

“How shall we do this?” shouted the evil angels.

“Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent unnumbered schemes to occupy their minds,” he answered.

“Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, then borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work and the husbands to work six or seven days a week, ten to twelve hours a day, so they can afford their lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their family fragments, soon their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work.

“Overstimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. Entice them to keep the TV, the DVD, and their CD’s going constantly in their homes. Tempt them to spend more time on their computers, especially watching internet pornography.

“Fill their coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news twenty-four-hours-a-day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogs, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering, free products, services, and false hopes.

“When they meet for fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions. Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength.”

RESPONSE: Today I will live in awareness of Satan’s subtle tactics to keep me from victory. I will stand against him and he will flee.

PRAYER: Lord, help me remain close to You today and not allow the “things” and “busyness” of life to crowd You out.

Standing Strong Through The Storm (SSTS), a daily devotional message by SSTS author Paul Estabrooks. © 2011 Open Doors International. Used by permission.

The NIV Couples Devotional - Saturday, January 18, 2020

When God Hides

Psalm 13:1–6

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?

—Psalm 13:1 (NIV)

There are benefits to pastoral ministry. Recently a woman wrote about how thrilled her family was to receive their green cards for permanent residency in this country. We had prayed consistently for this family and supported them through their many struggles and setbacks. Now she shared her joy with her church family.

Of course, pastoral ministry also has tough times. Once I stood with a newly married wife as her husband yelled at her, calling her every name possible. He ripped her house keys out of her hands. Later, he replaced the locks on their house and boarded up the windows to prevent her from getting back in.

The ups and downs of pastoral ministry are echoed in Psalm 13. Among the delights of praise, we hear a litany of despair. Where is God when one of us gets a bad report from the doctor? Where is God when a marriage breaks under the stress of unemployment? Where is God when a spouse dies?

One of the hardest challenges I’ve faced is finding God in loss. I remember sitting with a mother in a hospital, praying for the recovery of her daughter. The daughter had been married only a year. While delivering the woman’s baby, the doctor nicked something with his knife. Now the young woman was fighting for her life.

Her mother was inconsolable. When we prayed, she felt no peace. Within hours, her daughter was gone. After that, the mother stopped going to church. The young husband was angry and didn’t know how to care for his baby alone. Where was God?

That question is often asked in suffering or loss. And often the only answer appears to be silence. The promises of Scripture fade in the agony of sorrow. The Holy Spirit seems to withdraw from hearts that grow chilly. Where is God when airplanes crash? Where is God when a spouse is unfaithful? Where is God when a baby dies? Where is God?

Psalm 13 echoes those concerns. In verse 1, the psalmist David asks God, “How long will you hide your face from me?” But this isn’t the end of the psalm. Rather, the psalmist goes on to assure us that our God, who is enthroned on high, stoops low to see and hear and know us—even when we can’t see his face and his words are like a foreign language to us.

“I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation,” said David (Psalm 13:5). Likewise, we continue to love and trust God, not for what we get out of it right now, but because it is the only way to make sense of this life. We trust in God, not because we always feel the wonder of his divine presence, but because there is truly no one else to turn to but God. And in time we will live to say, “He has been good to me” (Psalm 13:6).

Wayne Brouwer

Let’s Talk

• What suffering have we known? How did it affect us? What was our relationship with God like at the time?
• How do we know that God cares for us today? What would we say as a testimony if asked to share our stories?
• What do we need from each other during stressful times? How can we best echo back to one another the confident testimonies of Psalm 13?

Where is God when one of us gets a bad report from the doctor? Where is God when a marriage breaks under the stress of unemployment? Where is God when a spouse dies?

LHM Daily Devotions - January 18, 2020 - Clear Indicators

"Clear Indicators"

Jan. 18, 2020

As he (an official) was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering. So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him." The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." And he himself believed, and all his household. This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

—John 4:51-54 (ESV)

Jesus used His healing miracles as signs, directing you and me to where He wants us to be. In other words, Jesus' healing miracles were not the goal any more than a sign is the destination. That goal, that destination, was so people would believe in Him as their Savior. The official we just heard about did.

When Jesus said, "Your son will live" the Bible reports, " The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way" (John 4:50b). Then John reported, "And he himself believed, and all his household." Jesus' healing miracles are signs pointing to Him as the Savior sent into the world by God the Father.

Since there is something even greater than health, Jesus' healing miracles are signs pointing to Him. We might expect to find times when Jesus did not heal the sick because He was more concerned to get the message out that He is the Savior sent into the world by God the Father. For instance, after Jesus cured Peter's mother-in-law and several others, He was ready to move on; though others were looking for Him (presumably, in part, for their own healing). He told Peter and some others, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out." And He went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons" (Mark 1:38-39).

Jesus' signs point to Himself. His healings, as wonderful as they were, pointed beyond the merely physical. John 20:30-31 says, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His Name."

"Life in His Name"—that's what can be yours through faith in the Savior. Jesus Christ came into the world to die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. He rose on Easter morning as Victor over the powers of sin, death, and devil, and to grant us life forevermore.

THE PRAYER: Heavenly Father, by Your Holy Spirit, open our eyes to the signs You give us that point to Your Son, our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Reflection Questions:

• Why do you think Jesus healed some people but not others?
• How does a miracle trigger faith in someone?
• How does the Holy Spirit work through signs and miracles when it comes to someone's faith?

From "Healing Miracles by Jesus," a sermon excerpt from Rev. Dr. Dale A. Meyer, former Speaker of The Lutheran Hour. Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin! Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).
Why do you think Jesus healed some people but not others?

Хліб Наш Насущній - Замість помсти

Замість помсти

Читати: Римлян 12:17-21 | Біблія за рік: Буття 43–45 ; Матвія 12:24-50

Завантажити MP3

Як твій ворог голодний, – нагодуй його. — Римлян 12:20

Після вбивства в 1956 році Джіма Елліота і чотирьох інших місіонерів жителями племені Хуаорані, ніхто не очікував того, що сталося потім. Елізабет, дружина Джіма, їхня маленька дочка і сестра іншого місіонера вирішили оселитися серед тих людей, які вбили їхніх рідних. Вони декілька років жили в громаді Хуаорані, вчили їхню мову і перекладали для них Біблію. Свідоцтво прощення і доброти цих жінок переконало тубільців у Божій любові і багато з них прийняли Ісуса, як свого Спасителя.

Вчинок Елізабет та її подруги є неймовірним прикладом відповіді на зло добром, а не злом (Рим. 12:17). Апостол Павло закликав віруючих у римській церкві своїми вчинками показувати те, як Бог змінив їхні життя. Що Павло мав на увазі? Віруючим треба подолати природне прагнення помсти; натомість їм треба виявляти любов до ворогів, задовольняючи їхні потреби, наприклад, забезпечуючи їжею або водою.

Навіщо це робити? Апостол Павло цитує уривок зі Старого Завіту: “Як твій ворог голодний, – нагодуй його; як він прагне, – напій його” (Рим. 12:20; Пр. 25:21-22). Апостол показував, що вияв доброти віруючих до ворогів може їх підкорити і запалити у їхніх серцях вогонь каяття.

Як Ісус Христос виконував заповідь любити своїх ворогів? Що ви зробите сьогодні, аби виявити Божу любов до своїх кривдників?

Прочитайте брошуру “Що є справжнім прощенням?”

Авва Отче, нам складно, навіть неможливо любити інших власними зусиллями. Допоможи нам через Твого Духа по-справжньому любити своїх ворогів і використовуй нас, щоб привести їх до Тебе.

Автор Естера Піроска Ескобар

© 2020 Хліб Наш Насущні

Після вбивства в 1956 році Джіма Елліота і чотирьох інших місіонерів жителями племені Хуаорані, ніхто не очікував того, що сталося потім.