Read To Me Daily Semester 4Sample

NEHEMIAH 5-6:
Yesterday Nehemiah gave a listing of the people who rebuilt the wall. This included Shallum and his daughters, and two named goldsmiths, plus merchants, priests and Levites. The residents of the land opposed to the construction were threatening violence, so the people armed themselves and had men on guard at all times. Nehemiah and his men stayed fully armed at all times, and in the last verse of chapter 4 NLT says ‘even when they went for water’— which I take as a euphemism for going potty. That little phrase is very obscure in Hebrew, and GNT translates it in a different way.

ISAIAH 36:
It was interesting to find this prayer near the beginning of Isaiah’s beautiful chapter 35:

35:3 GNT Give strength to hands that are tired
and to knees that tremble with weakness.

This verse was probably in the mind of the writer of Hebrews in chapter 13. And in fact, the Holy Highway and its destination in Isaiah 35 is very much like the ‘place’ we ‘come to’ in Hebrews 13!

Today we start on the prose portion of Isaiah from chapters 36-39.

PHILIPPIANS 4:
I personally have found deep meaning and great spiritual help from the portion around verse 13 in chapter 3 of Philippians. And I am certainly not alone in that. Here are some of the most quoted verses in this letter:

Php. 3:13 NLT No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved [perfection//it], but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
15 Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things... 

I would like to point out that twice in this chapter Paul points us to heaven. One is in the verses I just quoted, and the other in verse 20, where he says, “We are citizens of heaven.” Note that he calls all of us to keep our focus forward and lengthen our stride as we run toward heaven. All of us! There is no other destination for believers ever mentioned in the Bible. Wherever Jesus is, that’s where we’ll be. And that’s why Paul says repeatedly, dying is better and would simply bring him nearer Christ. If as Revelation portrays, the New Jerusalem comes down to earth, then that is heaven and that’s where we will be. There is no such thing as a Purgatory. And neither is there a separation of believers, where the really holy ones get to go to heaven and the not so good ones stay on earth. There is only hell and heaven. And if you are a believer in Christ, you are a citizen of heaven and you will be right where Jesus is.

Let’s pray.
Our heavenly Father, we are the blind who now see. We are the deaf who now hear. We are the lame who now leap and dance. We are the dumb who can now speak. You have brought streams in our desert. You have provided a highway, and it leads to the life above. We are no longer citizens of this world, but citizens of heaven. So let us forget what lies behind, especially sinful thoughts or pridefully trusting in ourselves. Let us lengthen our stride as we run straight for the goal. 

So I quote a worship song that was popular a few years back:

All I once held dear, built my life upon
All this world reveres and wars to own
All I once thought gain I have counted loss
Spent and worthless now compared to this:

Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing
You're my all, You're the best
You're my joy, my righteousness
And I love You Lord!

Now my heart's desire is to know You more
To be found in You and known as Yours
To possess by faith what I could not earn—
All surpassing gift of righteousness.

Oh to know the power of Your risen life
And to know You in Your sufferings
To become like You in Your death, my Lord,
So with You to live and never die.