M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Samuel anoints Saul
10 Then Samuel took a jar of oil and he poured the oil on Saul's head. He kissed Saul. He said:
‘The Lord has anointed you as the leader of his people.[a] You will rule over them and you will rescue them from the power of their enemies. This is how you will know that the Lord has chosen you to be the leader of the Israelite people:
2 After you leave me today, you will meet two men at Zelzah on the border of Benjamin's land. They will be near the grave where Rachel is buried. The men will say to you, “Someone has found the donkeys that you were looking for. Your father is no longer thinking about his donkeys. Now he is upset because he does not know where you are. He continues to ask, ‘What can I do about my son?’ ”
3 After you leave there, you will reach the big tree at Tabor. Three men will meet you there. They are going to Bethel to worship God there. One of the men will have three young goats with him. One of them will have three loaves of bread. The third man will have a bag full of wine. 4 They will say “hello” to you and they will offer you two loaves of bread. You must accept the bread. 5 Then you must go to God's special hill at Gibeah. Some Philistine soldiers have their camp there. When you reach the town, you will meet a group of prophets. They will be coming down from the hill where people worship God. They will be making music with their harps, tambourines, flutes and lyres. They will be prophesying as they go along. 6 Then the Lord's Spirit will come to you with power. You will start to prophesy too. You will change to become like a different person. 7 After you see these things happen, you must do whatever seems right to you. God will be with you.
8 You must go to Gilgal and then I will come there. I will join with you there to offer burnt offerings and peace offerings to God. You must wait for seven days until I come. When I arrive at Gilgal, I will tell you what you should do.’
9 Saul turned away to leave Samuel. At that moment, God gave Saul a new nature. Everything that Samuel had said to Saul happened that day. 10 When Saul and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a group of prophets met them. God's Spirit came on Saul with power. He started to prophesy as the prophets were doing. 11 People who already knew Saul could not understand what was happening. When they saw him prophesying along with the prophets, they asked each other, ‘What has happened to this son of Kish? Has Saul himself become a prophet?’
12 A man who lived in Gibeah asked, ‘Do you know who is the father of all these prophets?’ Because of what happened, it became a proverb to say, ‘Has Saul himself become a prophet?’ 13 When Saul had finished prophesying, he went up to the hill where people worship God.
14 When Saul's uncle saw Saul and his servant, he asked them, ‘Where have you been?’ Saul said, ‘We went to look for the donkeys. We could not find them so we went to visit Samuel.’
15 Saul's uncle said, ‘What did Samuel say to you?’
16 Saul replied, ‘He told us that someone had found the donkeys.’ But Saul did not tell his uncle that Samuel had said that he would become the king.
Saul becomes the first king of Israel
17 Samuel sent a message to all Israel's people. He told them to come to Mizpah to meet with the Lord. 18 He said to them, ‘This is a message from the Lord, Israel's God: “I led you Israelites out from Egypt. I saved you from the power of the Egyptians. I also saved you from other kingdoms that were cruel to you. 19 I am the one who saves you from all your pain and troubles. But now you have turned against me, your God. You have said, ‘No! We want a king to rule over us instead.’ So now come and stand in front of the Lord. Stand together in your tribes and in your clans.” ’
20 So each tribe came forward to Samuel, tribe by tribe. God chose Benjamin's tribe. 21 Then each family from Benjamin's tribe went forward. God chose the family of Matri. Then God chose Kish's son Saul from the family of Matri. They looked for Saul but nobody could find him. 22 So they asked the Lord, ‘Has Saul arrived here yet?’ The Lord said, ‘Yes, but he is hiding among the luggage.’
23 So they ran to find Saul. They brought him out from there. When Saul stood among the people, you could see his head above everyone else. 24 Samuel said to all the people, ‘Look! Here is the man that the Lord has chosen. There is nobody like him among all the people.’ Then the people shouted, ‘May the king live for a long time!’
25 Then Samuel explained to the people all the rules about a king. He wrote everything in a book. He put the book in a special place where they worshipped the Lord. Then Samuel told all the people to go to back to their homes. 26 Saul himself went back to his home at Gibeah. A group of brave men went with him. God had caused them to want to do that. 27 But some wicked men were complaining. They said, ‘This man will never be able to save us.’ They did not respect Saul. They did not bring him any gifts. But Saul did not say anything against them.
We can live by God's Spirit
8 Now we know this: God has forgiven those people who are united with Christ Jesus. God will never say that they are guilty. 2 If you belong to Christ Jesus, God's Spirit has given you a new life. God's Spirit now rules in your life and he has made you free. Sin and death no longer have authority over you.
3 The Law that God gave to Moses could not make us free like that. We were too weak to obey his Law because we are human. But God has done what his Law could not do. He sent his own Son to become a person like us. His human body was like the body of people who do wrong things. God's Son died as a sacrifice to take away the punishment for our sins. In that way, God destroyed the power of sin over people who are weak and human. 4 God did this so that we could become right with him. God's Law showed us how to be right with him. And now we can be right with God, if we live with God's Spirit as our guide. We do not do what our weak human thoughts want us to do.
5 Some people do what their weak human thoughts want them to do. They think about the things that will make themselves happy. But people who live with God's Spirit as their guide think about what will make God's Spirit happy. 6 People who let their human thoughts rule them will die. But people who think about what God's Spirit wants will have life with God. They will have peace inside themselves. 7 If our weak human thoughts rule us, we become God's enemies. People like that do not want to obey God's Law. They are not even able to obey it. 8 People who let their human thoughts rule them cannot make God happy.
9 But you are not like that. You no longer obey your weak human thoughts. Instead, you obey God's Spirit as your guide. That is true if God's Spirit is really living in you. But if anyone does not have Christ's Spirit in them, that person does not belong to Christ. 10 But, if Christ lives in you, you have a new life because of his Spirit. Your body will die one day because of the power of sin. But your spirit lives because Christ has made you right with God. 11 God raised Jesus, to make him alive again after his death. Now God's Spirit lives in you. So God, who raised Christ from death, will also cause your human bodies to live again. He will do that by his Spirit who lives in you.
12 So, my Christian friends, we must not obey what our weak human thoughts tell us to do. We no longer have to live like that. 13 If you agree to live in that way, you will die. Instead, you should let God's Spirit help you with his power. Then you can stop doing the wrong things that your bodies want to do. As a result, you will have life with God.
14 All those people who live with God's Spirit as their guide are God's children. 15 The Spirit that you have received from God does not make you serve him like slaves. That would make you afraid again. No. The Spirit that God has given to you causes you to become God's children. Now he takes care of you. God's Spirit makes us call God: ‘Abba, our Father.’ 16 God's Spirit himself causes us to know that we are God's children. God's Spirit and our own spirits agree that this is true. 17 Because we are God's children, we also know that we will receive good things from him. Those are the things that he has promised to give to his children. Together with Christ, we will receive the things that God has kept for him. That is true if we agree to have troubles like Christ did. Then we will also enjoy life in heaven like Christ does.
God has prepared great things for his people
18 During this time now, we have troubles and pain. But I am sure that these troubles are not really very great. One day God will show us all the great things he has prepared for us. That will make the troubles that we have now seem very small. 19 The whole universe that God has made now waits for something great to happen. Everything is waiting with hope to find out who God's children really are.
20 God has caused everything in the universe to lose its purpose. It did not choose to be like that. It was God who decided that it should be like that. Then it could hope for something better in a future time. 21 At that time, the universe will not continue to become worse and worse, as it does now. It will become free from that power. It will be free to enjoy great things from God, as God's children are also free.
22 We know that everything in the universe is still in great pain now. Everything cries together in pain, like a woman who is ready to have a baby. 23 It is the same for us who are believers. We have received God's Spirit as the first of his gifts to us, but we also cry inside ourselves. We are waiting for the time when God will finish his great work. Then we will belong to him completely as his children. Our bodies will be free from the power of sin.
24 Ever since God saved us, we have continued to wait for this to happen. One day, we will receive what we have hoped for. Then we will not need to hope for it any more. Nobody continues to hope for something that he has already. 25 But we continue to hope for what we do not yet see. And so, we wait for it patiently.
26 God's Spirit also helps us to do this. Because we are weak, we do not know how we ought to pray. But God's Spirit himself prays for us. He cries to God on our behalf in a way that nobody could say with words. 27 God sees deep inside us, and he knows our thoughts. He understands what is in the mind of his Spirit. When the Holy Spirit prays on behalf of God's people, he prays as God wants him to pray.
28 We know that God works to help those people who love him. He uses everything that happens to them to bring something good. He does this for those people that he has chosen to serve him. 29 God already had those people in his thoughts from the beginning. He decided that they should become like his Son. So then, his Son would have many younger brothers and sisters. 30 God had already chosen those people to be his children. Because of that, he called them to come to him. He accepted those people as right with himself. And those that he accepted, he also caused them to become great.
God loves us very much
31 So, because of all the things that God does for us, we can say this: If God is working on our behalf, nobody can really do anything against us. 32 God did not even keep his own Son safe. Instead, he gave his Son to die on behalf of all of us. So certainly, God will continue to be kind to us. As well as his Son, he will give to us all things that we need. 33 Nobody can say that God's people are guilty. God himself has accepted us as right with him. 34 So nobody can say that God should still punish us. Nobody can say that, because Christ Jesus himself died on our behalf. And God raised him so that he became alive again after his death. Now Christ is sitting at God's right side in heaven.[a] He himself is praying to God on our behalf.
35 Christ will always continue to love us. Nothing can stop that! We may have troubles. Things may make us sad or afraid. People may do bad things to us. We may have no food or no clothes. There may be great danger. People may even try to kill us. But none of these things can stop Christ from loving us. 36 As it says in the Bible:
‘Because we are your people, God,
people try to kill us all the time.
They think that we are like sheep,
and we are ready to be killed.’[b]
37 Because God loves us, none of these troubles can ever beat us. He makes us win against them. 38-39 I am sure of this. Nothing can stop God from loving us. Death cannot do that. Life cannot do that. Angels cannot do that, nor can demons do that. Nothing that happens to us now, or that will happen in a future time can do that. No powerful spirits can do that. Nothing that is high above the world can do that, nor anything that is deep down below the ground. Nothing else in the whole universe can stop God from loving us. Because of our Lord Christ Jesus, we know how much God loves us.
The Lord's message about the Philistines
47 The Lord gave this message to the prophet Jeremiah before Pharaoh and the army of Egypt attacked Gaza. The Lord said this about the Philistines:
2 ‘Look at what is happening!
Armies in the north are rising like a flood of water.
They will pour out from there like a great river.
They will cover the whole land and everything in it.
They will destroy the cities and the people who live in them.
People will shout for help.
Everyone who lives there will cry with pain.
3 They will hear the sound of their enemies' horses
and the loud noises of their chariots.
Fathers will not turn back to save their children,
because fear has made them weak.
4 The time has come when the Lord will destroy all the Philistines.
None of them will remain to give help to Tyre and Sidon.
The Lord is ready to destroy the Philistines who remain.
Those are the people who came from the island of Crete.[a]
5 The people of Gaza will cut the hair off their heads
because they are so upset.
In Ashkelon, nobody will say a word.
You Philistines who live near the sea and are still alive,
will you continue to cut your bodies?[b]
6 You shout to the Lord, “How long will you attack us with your sword?
Please stop killing us! Put your sword away!”
7 But the Lord has commanded his sword to kill.
So it cannot rest!
The Lord has commanded his sword to attack Ashkelon
and the people who live on the coast of the sea.’
This is a song that David wrote.
God takes care of his people[a]
23 The Lord takes care of me,
like a shepherd with his sheep.
I have everything that I need.
2 He takes me to green fields where I can rest.
He leads me to streams of water where I can drink.
3 He gives me new strength in my life.
He is my guide to the right paths.
He does this to give honour to his name.
4 I may walk through a valley that is as dark as death.
But I will not be afraid of any danger.
This is because you are with me, Lord.
Your stick and your shepherd's pole protect me from danger.
5 You prepare a big meal for me while my enemies watch.
You put olive oil on my head.
You bless me so much that my cup is completely full.
6 I am sure that you will always be good to me.
You will love me all the days of my life.
That will never change.
I will live in the Lord's house for as long as I live.
This is a song that David wrote.
The great King[b]
24 The whole earth belongs to the Lord.
Everybody who lives in the world
and all the things in it belong to him.
2 The Lord built the foundation of the earth.
He built it on the seas and the rivers.[c]
3 Who may climb up the hill of the Lord?[d]
Who can stand in his holy place?[e]
4 Only the person who does what is right,
and who has pure thoughts.
He does not worship idols
and he does not make false promises.
5 The Lord will bless people who are like that.
God will save them.
He will say that they are not guilty of wrong things.
6 People like that come to God.
They want to please him.
They like to pray to the God of Jacob.
Selah.
7 Old gates of the city, wake up!
Open now, to leave a wide path!
Then the great king will come in.
8 Who is this great king?
He is the Lord,
who is strong and powerful.
He is the Lord,
who wins against his enemies.
9 Be ready, you old gates of the city!
Be ready to open wide!
Then the great king will come in.
10 Who is this great king?
He is the Almighty Lord.
Yes, he is the great king!
Selah.
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