Daily Devotion by Ray Stedman

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 17th​

Dealing with the Discharges of Life​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 15

When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean. On the eighth day he must take two doves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord to the entrance to the tent of meeting and give them to the priest.

Leviticus 15:13-14

The unavoidable diseases, afflictions, and discharges mentioned in this chapter are of a much less serious nature than the leprosy with which we have been dealing in previous chapters. You remember that when the leper was cleansed he had to go through a much more rigorous ceremony which included several offerings. But here the very simplest of the offerings is prescribed — two turtledoves or two young pigeons: one for a sin offering, one for a burnt offering — the cheapest, the most available of the offerings. Yet God never once sets aside the requirement for the blood of an innocent substitute to be shed in the place of one who is defiled for any reason whatsoever. By this means he underscores the great fact that human nature needs to be dealt with by blood. It is a deep and complicated problem. It cannot be solved by a mere rearrangement of surface symptoms. God is constantly underscoring that for us in these offerings.

So God has provided a way, a remedy. First, a person who is defiled shall bathe. Washing is always a picture of the action of the Word of God. The person's defiling thought, his statement, his tone of voice, his attitude of heart, he shall take to the Word and see what the Word has to say about it. The washing of the Word is the beginning of cleansing.

And then he shall be unclean until the evening. Uncleanness is what we call being out of fellowship. It means to revert somehow for the moment from rest and dependence upon the Spirit of God to a momentary manifestation of the flesh, the old life, the old nature. There is a break in communion with the Spirit of God so that the flow of the life of Christ in the believer is temporarily arrested. Although Christ doesn't forsake him for one moment, nevertheless, there is, for the moment, no enjoyment of his life. That is to be unclean, and it is to go on until evening.

The third element in the cleansing is the offering of blood. All through this book you find that God's cleansing agents are always water and blood. The blood, of course, speaks of the death of Jesus on our behalf, which frees God to love us without any restraint whatsoever. But the water, again, represents the Word. It cleanses our conscience. You can say, Yes, God has forgiven me. But what many people do is to go on and not forgive themselves. They don't allow their conscience to be cleansed. But when we read in the Word of God that he has washed away our sins and has forgiven us all unrighteousness — if we believe that Word then our own conscience is clear, and we are cleansed by the Word. Therefore there is no reason for me to be beating myself on the back about this sin any longer. God has cleansed me. I am not dirty nor defiled any longer. I am clean. That is the effect of the water.

Father, I do need the cleansing of your Word, the purifying of your blood. Thank you that it is available to me. I pray that I will be honest about these matters and will not let them go unattended. Help me to keep short accounts with you and to let your Holy Spirit cleanse away all the defilement of my life.

Life Application​

What three stages are indicated for cleansing of the defilement of sin? What are the two essential prerequisites for exposing and addressing these issues?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

https://www.raystedman.org/old-testament/leviticus/the-trouble-with-nature

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 18th​

The Day of Atonement​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 16

When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites — all their sins — and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry all their sins on itself, to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.

Leviticus 16:20-22

All the iniquities, all the transgressions, all the sins were placed upon the head of this goat. The goat is a picture of Jesus: He is represented as satisfying the heart of God for us and rendering God free to love us without any restraint at all by his justice. God's justice has been satisfied. He is free to forgive us at any time and to love us. Christ also bears the whole weight and load of our guilt, all that which the Devil tries to use as a basis upon which to ground his accusations against us. All this is to be sent back to him from whence it comes. When our Lord died he went into the wilderness of death like this goat, and returned to Satan all the accusations which he has against any believer at any time.

This passage is teaching us what we are to do with these accusations. In Ephesians 6:16, Paul calls them the fiery darts of the wicked one, i.e., all those little suggestions to us that we really aren't accepted and loved by God. They tell us that he still has a reservation about us and that we still aren't able openly and boldly to come before his presence. These are all the haunting memories of our past shame, our feelings of unworthiness, our filthy thoughts, and the flashes of fear that come upon us. What are we to do with them? We are simply to put them right on the head of Jesus and say, Lord, take them back to Satan. They don't belong to me. They belong to him. That is where they came from and I am sending them back.

Do you want to worship God? Well, how do you do it? Simply by believing that he has accepted you the way you are and has already dealt with everything that is wrong — everything — and is now ready to use you without any hesitation whatsoever. Say to the Lord, Here I am. I am counting on it. Thank you for it. What are you going to do through me today? What are you going to do this next moment in the relationship I am entering into with this person? How are you going to handle it? And your mind and heart can be at peace.

Father, thank you for this promise, and for the beauty of this ceremony which in Israel of old could only occur once a year, but which for me is to be momentary, daily, over and over again. I come boldly into your presence with joy, with a heart washed from an evil conscience, and with gladness and thanksgiving, not on my merit but on the merit of Another. How I give thanks for this and pray that it may be my experience, not only this moment but every day of my life!

Life Application​

Does this incredibly awesome picture of Jesus -- as the 'scapegoat' bearing our sin and guilt--cause us to worship, with unending gratitude? Have we even begun to grasp the magnitude of this gift of pure Grace?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 19th​

Handling Life​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 17

This is so the Israelites will bring to the Lord the sacrifices they are now making in the open fields. They must bring them to the priest, that is, to the Lord, at the entrance to the tent of meeting and sacrifice them as fellowship offerings.... They must no longer offer any of their sacrifices to the goat idols to whom they prostitute themselves. This is to be a lasting ordinance for them and for the generations to come.

Leviticus 17:5,7

The object of this whole requirement is to teach that all life belongs to God and that he alone is capable of handling it rightly. Only God understands life. That is the basis for all proper behavior. If you don't understand this fact you are not going to behave properly. You can't. You must understand that your life belongs to God, and that all other life around you, even animal life, must be brought before God and related to him, with the understanding that life is a mystery which we cannot handle ourselves, in which man is incapable of properly directing his own affairs.

This is set against the pagan practice of offering animals to demons, called goat idols here. A goat idol is a mythological figure, half-goat and half-man. It is really just an objectified form of demon worship. God is saying that they are not to try to placate the spirits, as though man could manipulate the unseen spirit world and run life according to his own desires by some kind of abracadabra, hocus-pocus, or other form of magic. It is amazing what a grip this idea has upon people's minds! It is becoming more and more fashionable in our own day, with the rise again of interest in the occult. All of this is motivated by people's desire in some way to manipulate and control the world of the spirits so that man thus handles life by himself. But that is what God wants to get us away from. We cannot handle life by ourselves. This whole matter of bringing every bit of life and offering it to God was designed to teach people that fundamental fact.

There is a basic lie which is widespread, both in primitive cultures and in civilized nations such as ours, that man is somehow capable of handling life by himself. In our day we are witnessing a revival of this ancient lie that, even though there are powers greater than man, man can control them, can manipulate them, and make them work for him.

God answers all that by commanding his people to cease these practices and to recognize that he alone is sovereign in life, that he runs the world, and that he controls our lives. We live in his universe, and we cannot handle life ourselves. Therefore, the fundamental truth underlying all behavior everywhere is that we must first recognize that life belongs to God — our own life and every other person's life — and that God is sovereign in these affairs.

Father, thank you that life belongs to you and you alone. Help me to cease to look to my own ways to handle and even manipulate life.

Life Application​

Do we fail to trust the power and wisdom of our Sovereign Lord to guard and guide our lives? What is the alternative? Do we need to relinquish control of both our lives and others'?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 20th​

The Truth about Sex​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 18

No one is to approach any close relative to have sexual relations. I am the Lord.

Leviticus 18:8

Next to the preservation of life the most powerful human drive is sex. Sex, as we are beginning to understand these days, is like a great river which, when it flows quietly between its banks, is a boon and a blessing to us. But when it is raging in full flood, inundating the landscape in permissiveness and promiscuity, it is terribly destructive and hurtful. God's Word is careful to regulate us and help us in this area. It is amazing that God takes the risk of letting us have this fantastic power in our lives. He doesn't take sex away from us if we misuse it. He takes that risk with us, with a plea to us that we learn to keep it within its banks.

You can see how God underscores the purpose of these instructions. They are to make you live, not die — not be restricted, not narrowed and hemmed in and prohibited from expressing yourself. No, quite the contrary! They are there so that you might live, might enjoy life to the fullest degree, might find it whole and rich.

So God instructs us, now, in this area of sex and here we learn truth about sex that you will never learn by reading a secular book. Here in Scripture you get the truth about sex. All through the Scriptures we are taught that sex is to be a total union of a man and his wife, expressing physical, emotional, and spiritual oneness. That is what sex is all about. It is a total union. Therefore marriage is its only possible expression — anything else immediately becomes abortive and hurtful because the union cannot be total outside of marriage.

Sex with the wrong person is always harmful. And the most harmful of all, according to this passage, is sex with those who are near of kin. That is what God goes on to warn his people about. When a proper regard for the sexual limitations prescribed by God is broken down, the barrier which protects us from the unseen forces of darkness which surround us is vitiated and demonic invasion can then occur very easily. This is what destroys a race. A nation begins to fall apart at that point. Society comes apart at the seams. You only need to read the first chapter of Romans to see how inevitable is the decay and the decline.

Father, thank you for the revelation of your truth. How it goes below the shallow thinking of my day and ties together things that I would think are quite disparate. Lord, help me to understand this, and enable me to be an island of righteousness in the midst of a sea of iniquity.

Life Application​

The Bible is our Creator's handbook for His creation, with instructions specific to our full enjoyment of life. Are we heeding His wisdom, seeking His guidance and honoring His Presence in all aspects of our lives?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 21st​

What Not to Mix Together​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 19

Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

Leviticus 19:19

How many of you are observing that last law? Almost all garments today are made of mixed stuff, of blends of natural and synthetic fibers. A literal adherence to this stricture is no longer of any significance, because it is dealing with substances which never were inherently wrong. Whenever God employs things symbolically and says that something connected with them is wrong, they are no longer tended to be taken literally but are meant to illustrate attitudes of mind and heart which are dangerous. The Israelites had to obey these literally, because that is how they learned what these attitudes were. But we need to understand that God is teaching in a graphic way here that there are certain unmixable principles which are unalterably opposed to one another and that we are not to try to put the two together.

As an example, a believer in Christ should not marry an unbeliever, the New Testament says. To do so is to mix two ways of life which are categorically separated and this only creates confusion and hardship and pressure and problems. Therefore it is very important that a believer not marry an unbeliever. This is an application of the teaching of this kind of truth in our present life.

Similar prohibitions are found in verses 26-28. They were not to eat flesh with blood in it, because the blood is the life of the flesh, and the life belongs to God. Life can never be handled properly unless it is related to God. Everything in life must relate to God. That is the great truth illustrated here. The New Testament tells us that these restrictions on food are shadows which have passed away, but the meaning abides.

The meaning of the rest of the section is given in verse 31, Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. The practices which follow were simply part of the pagan ceremonies which accompanied their witchcraft. They cut their hair and beards in certain ways, and cut and tattooed their bodies. These things are not wrong in themselves today unless, of course, they are connected with practices which lead into pagan worship and control by demons. That is eternally wrong, because it exposes you to demonic powers which can influence your mind and, though you may be unwitting of what is happening, can gradually seize your personality and possess it. Therefore God warns against this.

The same standard of life is proclaimed in the Old Testament as in the New. God's character is to be revealed through his children, by the power of an available God, ready to live through us to do these things. We can't do them by ourselves. But God stands ready to do them in us, as we draw upon his grace and strength.

Thank you, Lord, that your word provides me with a trustworthy guide to life. Thank you that you never ask me to do something, or not to do something, that is not for my own good. You are the Author of life and I pray that I could live according to your instructions by the power of your Spirit within me.

Life Application​

God clearly loves purity and holiness, and has taught its importance both symbolically and practically in His Word. How is God's character revealed or confirmed in honoring these truths?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries. For permission to use this content,

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 22nd​

Power To Do​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 20

I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations. You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground — those that I have set apart as unclean for you. You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.

Leviticus 20:24b-26

Note how carefully God identifies himself with each one of these instructions. He signs his name, as it were, after each one. He gives us a practical admonition and then says, I am the LORD your God. The name he uses here is his covenant name: I am Jehovah. That is, I am the Living One, the Eternal One, the Sufficient One. I am the God who is Enough. That is what Jehovah means.

What is God trying to impart to us by this format? Two things are involved. The first is authority. This underscores something very important. It is that we must discover how to distinguish between right and wrong, truth and error, on the basis of what God says — if we are in relationship to him. There is a different standard for the people of God.

This is very practical, because God is reality. What God says and what he sees and how he looks at life is the way life is. If you look at it in some other way, then you are being unrealistic. You are out of step with reality and are trying to live according to an illusion, a fantasy, a figment of your imagination. Such ideas and standards may be widespread. There may be lies which are believed sincerely and devotedly by people around you and which govern their way of living. But God is saying, Not for you. Not for my people. I am your God, and I am telling you the truth, the way life is, what will hurt you and what will not. So believe me, because I am the LORD your God.

But he is not only authority; he is also resource. This is the second reason why he gives his name right along with each command. He says, Do this, or don't do that: I am the LORD your God. What does he mean? He means, I am available to you. I am the strength by which you can do what I command. I never tell you to do something without making available to you the power to do it.

Have you discovered what Paul discovered and recorded for us in Romans 7 — that you cannot do all the things you'd like to do and know you ought to do, that you want to but somehow cannot? This is the way Paul puts it, from his own experience: I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... (Romans 7:18-20) If you feel that way, God understands that. It is the most common problem of life. What you are lacking is power, the power to respond. You must learn that there is another source of power, that you can reckon on the God who is there, the God who is available to you. And that is why God signs his name this way several times. Here is something to do, or not to do: I am the LORD your God — standing here, available to you, ready for you to draw upon my strength. When you start drawing on it you can do, or not do, what I command by the power of an available God, the God who is Enough. I am Jehovah.

Father, help me to see that simply being moral, being fair to someone else and treating them as they treat us, is not the level of life upon which you expect me to live. Your level is much higher. I am to be loving in return for evil. I can do that only by the grace that is in you, Lord Jesus. Help me to obey you in this and to expect to see your life at work in me.

Life Application​

What are two important and essential ways in which Jehovah God is made available to His people, so that we may live by His realistic Truth about life? Are we trusting His Authority and the Resource of His indwelling Presence and Power?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries

Message: Power to Do (Leviticus 19 - 20)

This week someone expressed to me a little disappointment that we are still studying Leviticus. He suggested that perhaps we might move on soon to more captivating portions of Scripture. I would like to say two things about that. One is that I understand the feeling. I often feel that way myself...

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[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 24th​

Enjoying our Priesthood​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 22

Keep my commands and follow them. I am the Lord. Do not profane my holy name, for I must be acknowledged as holy by the Israelites. I am the Lord, who made you holy and who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord.

Leviticus 22:31-33

What tenderness and compassion there is in those verses! I am the LORD, he says, who brought you out of bondage, out of slavery. I set you free. And I want to heal your life and bring you into a land of abundance and promise, of excitement and blessing and fruitfulness, with a sense of worth and power, and to be your God, to be available to you to teach you how to live as men were ordained to live in the beginning — in dominion over all the earth, over all the powers and principalities that exist in the universe, and to walk as free people, healed and whole. That is why I speak to you this way, the LORD says. That is why at times I will not allow you to exercise ministry even though you want to, until you deal with the blemishes of your life. When they are healed, then your ministry can begin.

When we submit to this, we discover that our priesthood begins to be rich and fulfilling and exciting. God begins to enlarge our borders. A sense of worthwhileness comes into our life — beyond anything that we ever dreamed. We discover that God is not so much interested in our activity as he is in our attitudes — our being rather than our doing — and that we can please God while we are washing the dishes, by the right attitude of heart, that we can please God and be used of God when we are spading in the yard or working in the shop. His life begins to flow through us so that we are effective in applying the death of Christ to the disease and heartbreak of humanity around us and are effective in encouraging and building up and feeding and enriching by the bread of God the lives of those with whom we come in contact. There is an entire world around us waiting to be ministered to, hundreds and thousands of people with whom we are in touch each day and who need to be helped, need deliverance.

Thank you, Lord, because deep in my heart I don't want to be phony. I want to be real and to be genuine. I want to be whole and able to help others to wholeness. Thank you for that possibility, Father, and thank you for the privilege of my priesthood.

Life Application​

Are we continually mindful that our actions and attitudes reflect on our High Priest whom we are called and privileged to serve? What is His purpose in calling us to a lifestyle distinctly different from the world's values?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 25th​

The True Sabbath​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 23:1-3

There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a day of sabbath rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a sabbath to the Lord.

Leviticus 23:3

The weekly sabbath had begun at Creation. God worked six days and then he rested on the seventh day. God did no work on the sabbath. This was reinstated and renewed in the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai when God reminded his people that the sabbath was at the heart of all his work.

I often hear Sunday referred to as the sabbath. And perhaps you think that is just an old-fashioned word for Sunday. But that is completely wrong. Sunday is never the sabbath, and never was the sabbath! A transference is made of these ideas which is totally unbiblical. The seventh day was Saturday. The first day was Sunday. And Saturday was to be observed as the sabbath, as it still is in Israel today.

Some Christians feel that Christians still ought to observe the seventh day as God's day of appointed rest. They tell us that we should be worshipping on Saturday, not on Sunday. In their contention that God has never diminished the importance of the sabbath they are absolutely right. For the point of it was that it was a day of rest, and there was to be no labor done on that day. But this was but a shadow, a symbol, and the symbol is never all-important. This observance of a day of rest is a picture of something else that God wants, which is of great significance to him.

In the book of Colossians Paul specifically tells us that the observance of a day is one of those shadows which, for the believer, ended at the coming of Christ (Col 2:16-17). But then what is it that God is after? It does no good to do away with an observance if you don't find what it is pointing toward and begin to fulfill that. For the reality of the sabbath has always continued. It is given to us, among many other places in Scripture, in Hebrews 4, where the apostle reminds us that sabbath means rest, and that this is a reference to the secret of life. Humans were made to operate out of rest, not out of tension, not out of anxiety, out of pressure. We are to operate in activity which proceeds out of rest.

What is that rest? Again Hebrews 4 tells us. In Verse 10 it says, For anyone who enters God's rest also rests from their works, just as God did from his... (Heb 4:10). That is, on the seventh day of creation, God ceased from all work. He who enters into rest has stopped his own work and is resting on the work of another. So if you learn the principle of operating out of dependence upon God at work in you, and if you don't try to do it all yourself — but instead learn to rest on what God is ready to do in you and through you and around you, and expect him to do it — then you are observing the sabbath as God intended it to be observed.

Father, thank you for this picture of the Sabbath as a symbol of rest, not just for one day a week, but for every day. Teach me to rest in the finished work of Christ and the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.

Life Application​

High energy performance is standard in our everyday world where rest is considered a luxury. How does this compute in God's economy? Are we learning the true Sabbath principle, of work out of rest?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

Message: God's Calendar (Leviticus 23)

The chapter of Leviticus to which we come this morning is to me one of the most remarkable in the Scriptures because in it is a list of the appointed feasts of Israel. These feasts were observed by the nation each year, year after year. There were seven of them, plus the weekly Sabbath. They...

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[Obadiah]

No Leaven​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 23:4-44

On the fifteenth day of that month the Lord's Festival of Unleavened Bread begins; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast.

Leviticus 23:6

Linked with the Passover was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It began on the fifteenth day, lasted seven days, then ended. This feast again looked back to Egypt, to the command God gave then that the Israelites clear all leaven from their houses. To this day, orthodox Jews meticulously do this in preparation for the Passover season.

Leaven is yeast. It is an apt symbol of that which in human lives tends to puff us up. That is what yeast does in bread — it makes it swell. There is something at work in us which makes us swell up, puff up. A doctor once told me, The strangest thing about the human anatomy is that when you pat it on the back, the head swells up.

Why is that? There is a principle at work in us which drives us to be self-sufficient. You know how universal that tendency is. Mother, please, I'd rather do it myself! We don't want any help. We don't even want to tell people our problems, to let them know that we are not sufficient in ourselves. We all have this tendency within us to want to protect our images and to look as if we've got it made and don't need help. If someone makes us mad by offering aid we tell them to: Get lost! Drop dead! I don't need you! That is leaven. It can take all kinds of forms. Jesus often spoke of leaven. He said, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy (Luke 12:1), i.e., pretending. We Christians do so much of that, don't we? Pretending we don't have any problems when we do. Pretending we're spiritual when we're not. Pretending we're joyful when we're unhappy and filled with misery inside. Pretending we tell the truth when we don't. That is hypocrisy, leaven which comes from this detestable aversion to admitting that we need some help.

Jesus spoke of the leaven of the Sadducees, which was rationalism, the denial of the supernatural, the feeling that everything can be explained by what you can see, taste, touch, smell, and feel, that there is no power beyond man and that man is sufficient to himself (Matt 16:5-12).

Our Lord spoke of the leaven of the Herodians (Mk 8:14-21), who were materialists. They lived for pleasure, for comfort and luxury, and for status and prestige and the favor of people. They had their ear to the ground to be able to manipulate and maneuver politically and thus to advance themselves.

That is what this feast is all about. Preceding it, through the Passover, God begins his work with the blood of the Lamb to protect us from his just wrath in order that we might learn to be freed from leaven.

Father, thank you that you are working in me through the death of Jesus, the Passover lamb, to rid me of leaven.

Life Application​

Leaven is symbolic of attitudes which are antithetical to every aspect of a God-pleasing, fruitful discipleship. Are we open to identifying them, eager for renewal of mind and heart?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 27th​

The Pattern of Man​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 24

Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite.

Leviticus 24:10

Here is a story of a young man who was half Egyptian and half Israelite. There must have been hundreds of young men and women in the camp of Israel who had that background. This doesn't mean there is anything inherently wrong with that. But this person is picked out and highlighted for us because his life typifies a spiritual conflict.

In the Scriptures, Israel is a picture of the Spirit at work within us, of the new life, the redeemed life, while Egypt is always a picture of the world, of the old life. Here is someone who, in type, is trying to mix the two — trying to live halfway between. He pictures someone who is still trying to conduct his business affairs, perhaps, by the laws of Egypt, by the ways of the world, and is also trying to mix in the world view and outlook of God. This always gets you into trouble.

This young man had gotten into a quarrel with somebody in the camp and, in the heat of anger and passion he blurted out what was deep down within his thoughts but which he had hidden before. Someone stirred him up — we don't know what the quarrel was about — and he got mad. He didn't merely get angry at the man he was quarreling with; he cursed the Name of God. That represented the settled conviction of his heart that it was all God's fault and he didn't want anything to do with God.

There is the judgment of God in this case. This not because he has been offended by this man, not because he is vindictive and retaliates. God is not that kind of person. He is a patient, loving God who could have borne this affront for centuries, as he has our cursing and bitterness. But he prescribes immediate death because this sentence is designed to teach a truth that a man who curses God, who rejects God, has denied himself the very basis of life.

Thus we know that this is what happens to us, spiritually. We don't need to point the finger at this young man, do we? How often do we do this very thing! We get angry with God and we shake our fists at him. We say, It's your fault! Get lost, God, I don't need you anymore. And when we take that attitude, God says, our life has come to an end. Our spiritual life is stopped right there. We are not lost. This doesn't mean that we have lost our salvation; it means that his supply of life to us, to live day by day is ended — until we see what is wrong — and his grace restores us. Then we can begin again.

Teach me, Father, how to live by the power of your Spirit within me. Help me to be single minded in my dependence on you rather than the flesh.

Life Application​

When we compromise godly principles with worldly concepts the consequence is a form or a degree of spiritual death. Do we then blame God? Is it rather time to launch out into His grace of forgiveness?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 28th​

The True Basis for Social Concern​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 25

Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property, their nearest relative is to come and redeem what they have sold.

Leviticus 25:24-25

As you read this chapter you can see that these are God's instructions on how to deal with poverty. This is an issue which seethes and throbs beneath the surface in every land on earth today. What is causing the sense of injustice and inequity among peoples all over the world? It is the fact that they face a system which, at least in their view, does not permit them to recover out of poverty. They have no way of breaking the stranglehold upon them and of improving their economic lot. God says, You must do something about that. You must help your brother.

The passage goes on to outline specific circumstances: First, in verses 25-34 God says you must give a person the right to redeem his own land. The next division, Verses 39-46, takes up the case of slavery. No Israelite was to be a slave. Finally, Verses 47-55, there must be the right to redeem slaves, to buy a person back and restore him to his dignity as a human being.

What a commentary this is, and what a correction of the way we usually operate. We are always rushing around and putting Band-Aids on the cancerous sores of society. But God never does that. He strikes at the root of the problem. He says, If you will deal with it at this level, then over time it will gradually work out. In the meantime you must take care of those in need.

History is full of illustrations of this fact: William Wilberforce, in the English Parliament, pleaded with great passion for an end to the African slave trade. He was motivated by the Christian concern of his heart and by his conviction that this was not God's choice for human beings. Florence Nightingale, whose work gave birth to the Red Cross, was motivated by Christian compassion, and by the recognition that God can do something to alleviate human misery. In the civil rights movement of our own land, led by people who gathered together, there was a recognition that God is concerned with human affairs, and that he could and would work when people expected him to do so and gave him the opportunity. Behind most of the beneficial social movements of history has been Christian compassion and concern.

Father, help us as a people to repent, to humble ourselves and seek your face, to cry out in prayer unto you, that you may heal our land. I thank you for that promise.

Life Application​

Worldwide media makes it impossible to ignore the heartbreaking issues of poverty, injustice and inequity. Are we content to leave the root problems at the mercy of political wonks?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for April 29th​

Blessed Promises​

Read the Scripture: Leviticus 26

If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.

Leviticus 26:3-4

What a beautiful passage! What a beautiful array of promises. When he asked them to observe his commandments he wasn't referring to the Ten Commandments alone. He knew that fallen human nature, with its inbuilt tendency to self-sufficiency, would never be able to keep them. He meant not only the Ten Commandments but all the provisions for redemption which were provided with them — the offerings, the sacrifices, the cleansings, the healings, and all the other provisions which point to Jesus Christ. In other words, If you walk before me, he said, using the provision which I have made available to you to deal with the sin and rebellion of your heart, then these blessings will be yours.

The blessings are six-fold. There is a counterpart for each of these in the spiritual life today. God meant this materially for his people Israel, but it is also a picture of the spiritual blessings which are ours in our lives today. So this passage has direct application to us. The first promise is fruitfulness. God said, Your land will bring forth its fruit. Your life will be fruitful. It will be a blessing to others. Second, there will be full supply: Your threshing shall last to the time of vintage, and the vintage to the time of sowing; and you shall eat your bread to the full. You will have all you need, every resource will be provided for you. Third, you will have security: I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. No enemy that will come against you shall be able to overwhelm you or take you captive. God will protect you.

The fourth blessing is increase: I will have regard for you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and will confirm my covenant with you. Your life will affect others. You will find the extent of your influence moving out, reaching out to larger dimensions. Fifth, you will have a divine sense of God's presence, of fellowship with the Living God. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. You will have an intimate sense of communion with God. All of this is guaranteed by the character of God, the One who delivered Israel from the land of Egypt, the One who is able, sixth, to deliver and to dignify, to make people walk erect, as men and women ought to walk and to live. That is the kind of God he is and that is what he says he will do.

These blessings find their counterparts in our own lives in terms of the spiritual effectiveness and fruitfulness which God will produce if we lay hold of the provision that he has made for us in Jesus Christ, and if we deal honestly and openly with him. That is all God asks. He doesn't ask us to be sinless; he asks us to be honest. He asks us not to kid ourselves, not to try to pretend, not to erect a facade, a wall that we hide behind, not to put on a mask which is not real, but to be honest and open and to avail ourselves of the resources that he has given in Jesus Christ.

Father, thank you for your relentless love, and for all the blessings you have provided as I abide in Jesus Christ.

Life Application​

The beautiful physical promises God makes have a six-fold spiritual counterpart to us in the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Life. Are we claiming them by faith in Him, for His glory, and also for our Joy?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for May 2nd​

The Birthday of the Church​

Read the Scripture: Acts 1:15-2:4

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

Acts 2:1

Here is the story of the birth of the body of Jesus Christ, the church. Notice the day on which this occurred — the day of Pentecost. Pentecost is a Greek word that means fifty. The day was called that because it was fifty days after the Passover feast. Pentecost was a Jewish feast which is given to us in the Old Testament under the title, the Feast of Weeks. It is called also the Feast of the Wave Loaves because it consisted of two loaves of bread that were baked of grain from the new harvest. Pentecost came at the end of the wheat harvest in Palestine, and they were to take this new wheat, the first fruits of the harvest, and bake of it two loaves.

All of this shows how the New Testament has its roots in the Old. These two loaves were symbols of the two bodies from which the church was to be formed: the Jews and the Gentiles. Jesus said he came first to the lost sheep of the house of the Israel, the Jews. But he said, I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen, (John 10:16). He was referring to the Gentiles. Here, on the day of Pentecost, God took the Jews and the Gentiles and brought them together and baptized them into one.

These loaves of the Old Testament were to be baked with leaven. Leaven is yeast, and is a symbol of sin. The wave loaves is the only sacrifice in all the Old Testament that ever had leaven included in it. This is God's wonderful way of telling us that the church is not made up of perfect people. It is made up of saints, but they are sinful saints. They yet have sin in them. It is not made up of those who have reached perfection, but of those who are in the process of becoming what God wants them to be, who have a divine authority and life at work within them changing them. Thus the loaves are baked with leaven.

In that beautiful symbolism lies the heart of the church. On the day of Pentecost, right in line with this Old Testament prediction, the Holy Spirit came. He took one hundred and twenty people who were gathered into one place, and made one out of them. Here were one hundred and twenty isolated individuals who had been living their lives quite separately, held together only by a mutual interest in Jesus Christ. But now they are baptized by the Spirit into one body. The baptism of the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with any outward demonstration. It is not necessarily associated with tongues, or fire, or wind. These were the incidentals. The essential was the making of a body, one body. This was the birthday of the church.

Father, thank you for your word which clarifies, which opens our eyes to make us see things the way they are. Help me to understand your church, and my part in it as a member of your body.

Life Application​

Do we continue to acknowledge the weakness and sin of our independent efforts to build Christ's Body, His Church? Are we steadfastly relying upon His Word and the power of His Presence for wisdom and strength?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for May 3rd​

All People​

Read the Scripture: Acts 2:4-21

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

Acts 2:17

Notice how alert Peter was, led by the Holy Spirit. He immediately began to speak. Seminary students are taught that there are three basic rules for public address: stand up, speak up, then shut up. Peter never got to the shut up. The crowd broke in upon him before he reached the conclusion and gave the altar call. He never got the chance to finish his message. That is a wonderful thing to have happen. When a crowd responds as positively as this, it is an amazing thing.

It occurred because Peter stated the truth. That is all his message was, simply an explanation of reality. That is what the preaching of the gospel is. It is an explanation of what things are really like. It is to seize the occasion to make clear what lies behind what occurs. That is what Peter does. His message consists of three things: An explanation concerning the event, the phenomenon of tongues; a declaration concerning Jesus of Nazareth; and an application concerning the crowd.

First, he explains to them that it is not what they think. Literally what the Greek said was, He stood up and said to them, Not as you suppose are these men drunk. In other words, they are drunk, but not from what you suppose. It is not new wine that makes them drunk; it is what Joel said would happen — the Spirit of God has come upon them. It is true that to be controlled by the Holy Spirit does affect one somewhat like alcohol does. Paul implies the same thing in Ephesians, Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18 KJV).

When this crowd looked at these men and women they noted they were excited and voluble, speaking freely and easily, and acting rather strangely. It was not, therefore, unusual that they should conclude that they were drunk. But Peter says, No, you have the wrong explanation. The reason you're wrong is because it is only nine o'clock in the morning. Everyone knows that hardly anyone drinks before eleven o'clock! So it can't be that they are drunk with new wine; they are drunk with the Spirit.

Peter then quotes an amazing passage from the prophet Joel in vv. 17-21. His explanation is very simple. This, he said, is what Joel declared would happen. The key to this passage from Joel is the phrase, all people. I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. If you read the prophecy as it occurs in Joel, you will find that, before this passage, the prophet had predicted that the Lord would visit his people. He would come to them and would live in their midst. Then, after this visitation, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. The contrast is between the visitation of God to Israel, and the pouring out of the Spirit upon all peoples everywhere — Gentiles as well as Jew. The good news about Jesus Christ is to go out to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Up to this point it had been confined to the Jewish nation. Now Peter announces that the time has come when God would pour out his Spirit upon Jews and Gentiles alike. Not only all people everywhere, but all kinds of people — young men, young women, male and female. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions. Note the emphasis upon youth. God is saying that in this age of the Spirit, leadership, effectiveness, and power will not be limited to grey hairs, but also young men and young women shall speak and lead. Even servants, menservants and maidservants, obscure people, insignificant people, upon them God would pour out his Spirit; and they would prophesy. All classes are affected by this.

Thank you, Father, for this amazing phenomenon of the Spirit and for the fact that I still live in the age of the Spirit when all that you are doing today is done by the might and power of the Holy Spirit. Grant that I may understand and experience this.

Life Application​

The Holy Spirit is not discriminatory in choosing His vessels for service. Do we place limitations upon His work in others or ourselves because they or we do not fit our human categories of eligibility?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.