Truth For Life Program
Alistair Begg Devotional
C. H. Spurgeon Devotional
One-Year Bible Reading Plan
Goliath’s victory over Israel appeared certain. He was massive, fully armored, and equipped. The only willing opponent was David, a young shepherd with a slingshot and five stones—but he had a secret weapon! Hear more on Truth For Life with Alistair Begg.
From the Sermon
From Victory on to Victory
1 Samuel 17:40–58 Sermon • Includes Transcript • 45:34 • ID: 3397
Living Water
When Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well and asked her for a drink, she assumed that she would be providing what He needed: a literal drink of water. Instead, she discovered that actually she needed what only this stranger was able to provide: a spiritual drink of living water.
Jesus helped her to see this need with one simple command: “Go, call your husband, and come here” (John 4:16). He asked her to do what she couldn’t do, because although she had been married five times she was now living with a man who was not her husband. He helped her see how her ongoing search for satisfaction had left her wanting. Famed mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that we have within each of us a God-shaped void.[1] She was no exception.
Every one of us digs figurative wells all over the place that will never truly satisfy (Jeremiah 2:13)—our careers, our marriages, our friendships, our families, our wealth, our next vacation, or whatever experiences give us a high. But they all leave us thirsty for more. We will keep digging and drinking until we are confronted by our real need: that our sin needs to be cleansed and forgiven, our desires need to be transformed, and our hearts need to be filled with Jesus. He is the only one able to hold the weight of all our hopes and longings.
This woman arrived at the well empty, searching, and desperate. In Christ she met God—the same God who created our inmost being, who knows the words we’ve yet to speak, who can tell us everything we’ve ever done (John 4:19; see also Psalm 139: 4, 13). She brought her empty life to this wonderful source of living water: Christ Himself. She brought her sinful past to the cleansing supply that only Jesus provides. She brought her hopes for the future to the one who knew everything about her and loved her still, enough to quench her thirst forever.
On what are you tempted to hang your hopes, other than God? Where do you look for satisfaction, other than to Jesus? He has offered you the drink that will quench your thirst forever and become a spring that can never run dry. He has taken what He doesn’t deserve—the punishment for your sin—so that He can give you what you don’t deserve: salvation, forgiveness, freedom, hope. Draw from this saving well moment by moment, today and every day, and thirst no more.
How is God calling me to think differently?
How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?
What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?
Jesus and the Woman of Samaria
1Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and bbaptizing more disciples than John 2(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3he left Judea and departed cagain for Galilee. 4dAnd he had to pass through Samaria. 5So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field ethat Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, fwearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.1
7A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, f“Give me a drink.” 8(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (gFor Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you hliving water.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12iAre you greater than our father Jacob? jHe gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but kwhoever drinks of the water that I will give him lwill never be thirsty again.2 The water that I will give him will become min him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15The woman said to him, “Sir, ngive me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16Jesus said to her, “Go, ocall your husband, and come here.” 17The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that pyou are qa prophet. 20rOur fathers worshiped on sthis mountain, but you say that tin Jerusalem is uthe place where people ought to worship.” 21Jesus said to her, v“Woman, believe me, wthe hour is coming when xneither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22yYou worship what you do not know; zwe worship what we know, for zsalvation is afrom the Jews. 23But bthe hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father cin spirit and dtruth, for the Father eis seeking such people to worship him. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25The woman said to him, “I know that fMessiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, ghe will tell us all things.” 26Jesus said to her, h“I who speak to you am he.”
Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, published by The Good Book Company, thegoodbook.com. Used by Truth For Life with permission. Copyright © 2021, 2022, The Good Book Company.
I Know
I know that my Redeemer lives.
The essence of Job’s comfort lies in the little word “my”—“my Redeemer”—and in the fact that the Redeemer lives. Oh, to get hold of a living Christ. We must get a share in Him before we can enjoy Him. What is gold to me while it is still in the mine? It is gold in my possession that will satisfy my necessities by purchasing the things I need. So a Redeemer who does not redeem me, an avenger who will never stand up for my blood, what benefit is there in that?
Do not rest content until by faith you can say, “Yes, I cast myself upon my living Lord; and He is mine.” You may hold Him with a feeble hand and half think it presumption to say, “He lives as my Redeemer.” But remember, if you have faith even as a grain of mustard seed, that little faith entitles you to say it.
But there is also another word here, which expresses Job’s strong confidence: “I know.” To say, “I hope so, I trust so” is comfortable, and there are thousands in the fold of Jesus who hardly ever get much further. But to reach the essence of consolation you must say, “I know.” Ifs, buts, and maybes are sure destroyers of peace and comfort. Doubts are dreary things in times of sorrow. Like wasps they sting the soul! If I have any suspicion that Christ is not mine, then there is vinegar mingled with the gall of death. But if I know that Jesus lives for me, then darkness is not dark: Even the night is light about me.
Surely if Job, in those ages before the coming of Christ, could say, “I know,” we should not speak less positively. God forbid that our positiveness should be presumption. Let us make sure that our evidences are right, in case we build upon an ungrounded hope; and then let us not be satisfied with the mere foundation, for it is from the upstairs rooms that we get the panoramic views. A living Redeemer, truly mine, is unspeakable joy.
Devotional material is taken from Morning and Evening, written by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and updated by Alistair Begg. Copyright © 2003, Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org. Used by Truth For Life with written permission.
Daily Bible Reading for April 21
The Sabbath Year
1wThe Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into xthe land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. 5yYou shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. 6The Sabbath of the land1 shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves2 and for your hired worker and the sojourner who lives with you, 7and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: zall its yield shall be for food.
The Year of Jubilee
8“You shall count seven weeks3 of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9Then you shall sound athe loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. bOn the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and cproclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of dyou shall return to his clan. 11That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it eyou shall neither sow nor reap ywhat grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. fYou may eat the produce of the field.4
13d“In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, gyou shall not wrong one another. 15hYou shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. 16If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17iYou shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God.
18j“Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then kyou will dwell in the land securely. 19lThe land will yield its fruit, and myou will eat your fill kand dwell in it securely. 20And if you say, n‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if owe may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21I will pcommand my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22qWhen you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of rthe old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives.
Redemption of Property
23“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for sthe land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me. 24And in all the country you possess, you shall allow a redemption of the land.
25“If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, tthen his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27let uhim calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. 28But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall vbe released, and whe shall return to his property.
29“If a man sells a dwelling house in a walled city, he may redeem it within a year of its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. 30If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house in the walled city shall belong in perpetuity to the buyer, throughout his generations; vit shall not be released in the jubilee. 31But the houses of the villages that have no wall around them shall be classified with the fields of the land. They may be redeemed, and vthey shall be released in the jubilee. 32As for xthe cities of the Levites, the Levites may redeem at any time the houses in the cities they possess. 33And if one of the Levites exercises his right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city they possess shall be released in the jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the people of Israel. 34But the fields yof pastureland belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their possession forever.
Kindness for Poor Brothers
35“If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, zyou shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you. 36aTake no interest from him or profit, but bfear your God, that your brother may live beside you. 37aYou shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. 38cI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.
39d“If your brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave: 40he shall be with you as a hired worker and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. 41vThen he shall go out from you, ehe and his children with him, and go back to his own clan and return fto the possession of his fathers. 42For they are gmy servants,5 whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves. 43hYou shall not rule over him iruthlessly but jshall fear your God. 44As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. 45kYou may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. 46You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel lyou shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly.
Redeeming a Poor Man
47“If a stranger or sojourner with you becomes rich, and myour brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you or to a member of the stranger's clan, 48then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, 49or his uncle or his cousin may nredeem him, or a close relative from his clan may redeem him. Or if he ogrows rich he may redeem himself. 50He shall calculate with his buyer from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of jubilee, and the price of his sale shall vary with the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be prated as the time of a hired worker. 51If there are still many years left, he shall pay proportionately for his redemption some of his sale price. 52If there remain but a few years until the year of jubilee, he shall calculate and pay for his redemption in proportion to his years of service. 53He shall treat him as a worker hired year by year. lHe shall not rule ruthlessly over him in your sight. 54And if he is not redeemed by these means, then qhe and his children with him shall be released in the year of jubilee. 55For it is rto me that the people of Israel are servants.6 They are my servants whom I brought out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
Blessed Are the Forgiven
A Maskil1 of David.
1jBlessed is the one whose ktransgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2Blessed is the man against whom the Lord lcounts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit mthere is no deceit.
3For when I kept silent, my nbones wasted away
through my ogroaning all day long.
4For day and night your phand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up2 as by the heat of summer. Selah
5I qacknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I rwill confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
6Therefore let everyone who is sgodly
offer prayer to you at a time when you tmay be found;
surely in the rush of ugreat waters,
they shall not reach him.
7You are a vhiding place for me;
you preserve me from wtrouble;
you surround me with xshouts of deliverance. Selah
8I will yinstruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will zcounsel you with my eye upon you.
9aBe not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bbit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.
10cMany are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who dtrusts in the Lord.
11eBe glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
Keep the King's Command
1Who is like the wise?
And who knows the interpretation of a thing?
zA man's wisdom makes his face shine,
and athe hardness of his face is changed.
2I say:1 Keep the king's command, because of bGod's oath to him.2 3Be not hasty to cgo from his presence. Do not take your stand in an evil cause, for he does whatever he pleases. 4For the word of the king is supreme, and dwho may say to him, “What are you doing?” 5Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way.3 6For there is a time and a way efor everything, although man's trouble4 lies heavy on him. 7For he fdoes not know what is to be, for gwho can tell him how it will be? 8No man has power to hretain the spirit, ior power over the day of death. There is no jdischarge from war, nor will wickedness deliver those who are given to it. 9kAll this I observed while applying my heart to all that is done under the sun, when man had power over man to his hurt.
Those Who Fear God Will Do Well
10Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to go in and out of lthe holy place and were mpraised5 in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity.6 11Because nthe sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, othe heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. 12Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and pprolongs his life, yet I know that qit will be well with rthose who fear God, because they fear before him. 13But it will snot be well with the wicked, neither will he prolong his days like ta shadow, because he does not fear before God.
Man Cannot Know God's Ways
14There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people uto whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people vto whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity. 15And I commend joy, for man whas nothing better under the sun but to xeat and drink and be joyful, for this will go with him in his toil through the days of his life that God has given him under the sun.
16When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see ythe business that is done on earth, how neither zday nor night do one's eyes see sleep, 17then I saw all the work of God, that aman cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, bhe cannot find it out.
Preach the Word
1hI charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, iwho is to judge the living and the dead, and by jhis appearing and his kingdom: 2preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; kreprove, rebuke, and lexhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3mFor the time is coming when people will not endure nsound1 teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4and owill turn away from listening to the truth and pwander off into myths. 5As for you, qalways be sober-minded, rendure suffering, do the work of san evangelist, tfulfill your ministry.
6For uI am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my vdeparture has come. 7wI have fought the good fight, xI have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8Henceforth there is ylaid up for me zthe crown of righteousness, which the Lord, athe righteous judge, will award to me on bthat day, and not only to me but also to all cwho have loved his appearing.
Personal Instructions
9dDo your best to come to me soon. 10For eDemas, fin love with gthis present world, hhas deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia,2 iTitus to Dalmatia. 11hLuke alone is with me. Get jMark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. 12kTychicus I have sent to Ephesus. 13When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. 14lAlexander the coppersmith did me great harm; mthe Lord will repay him according to his deeds. 15Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message. 16At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. nMay it not be charged against them! 17But othe Lord stood by me and pstrengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and qall the Gentiles might hear it. So rI was rescued sfrom the lion's mouth. 18The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. tTo him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Final Greetings
19Greet uPrisca and Aquila, and vthe household of Onesiphorus. 20Erastus remained at Corinth, and I left wTrophimus, who was ill, at Miletus. 21xDo your best to come before winter. Eubulus sends greetings to you, as do Pudens and Linus and Claudia and all the brothers.3
Get the Program, Devotional, and Bible Reading Plan delivered daily right to your inbox.