Today’s Podcast
Today’s Scriptures
Today’s Bible reading plans include:
Ready – Joel 2:12–32
Set – Joel 2; 2 Timothy 1
Go! – Joel 1–3; 2 Timothy 1
Joel 2:12-32
12 Eternal One: Even now, turn back your heart and rededicate yourselves to Me;
Show Me your repentance by fasting, weeping, and mourning.
13 Rip the wickedness out of your hearts; don’t just tear your clothing.
Now return to the Eternal, your True God.
You already know He is gracious and compassionate.
He does not anger easily and maintains faithful love.
He is willing to relent and not harm you.
14 Who knows? Perhaps He will turn and relieve you of this threat,
and leave behind some blessing as He goes—
Maybe enough grain and wine to offer
to the Eternal, your True God?
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; set apart a time for fasting;
tell everyone to be still and stop working.
16 Assemble the people. Consecrate the congregation.
Gather the elders and other leaders,
The young children, and even the nursing babies.
Let the bride and groom leave their chambers on their wedding night.
17 Let the priests, the Eternal’s servants, stand between the porch and the altar
and weep as they intercede. Let them say,
Priests: Have pity on Your people, O Eternal One!
And do not let Your legacy—Your covenant people—
Be taunted and mocked by the nations,
who ask, “Where is their God?”
18 But wait—the Eternal One has become possessive of His land;
He will restore us in compassion, His people!
19 In response to our prayers, the Eternal will answer:
Eternal One: Listen! I am sending you a great harvest of grain, wine, and oil.
You will be completely satisfied and no longer
Will I make you a people held in contempt by the nations.
20 I will remove My armies who attack from the north far from your borders,
driving them into a parched and lonely desert.
Then I will separate them: the front line to the Dead Sea,
the rear guard into the Mediterranean Sea
with the vile stench of their rotting corpses rising up.
Surely the Eternal One has done great things!
21 Do not fear, O land. You have been revived.
Celebrate and rejoice, for the Eternal One has done great things!
22 Do not fear, you wild beasts: You will eat again,
for the desert pastures are green again!
And so will we: the trees bear their fruit;
the fig trees and the vines produce their bounty once again.
23 People of Zion, shout with joy
and happiness in the Eternal, your God;
The drought is over; He has sent the early autumn rain as a sign of His faithfulness.
He has poured down heavy rain, autumn and spring, as before.
24 The threshing floors will be covered in grain;
the vats will spill over with new wine and fresh oil.
25 Eternal One: I will compensate you for the years
that the locusts have eaten—the swarming locusts,
The creeping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts—
My great army that I unleashed against you.
26 In that day, you will eat plenty of food and always have enough,
so you will praise My name,
The Eternal One, your God who is merciful to you.
Never again will My people be shamed among the nations.
27 Return to Me and you will know that I live among My people Israel
and that I, the Eternal One, am your God and there is no other.
Never again will My people be shamed among the nations.
28 Then in those days I will pour My Spirit to all humanity;
your children will boldly and prophetically speak the word of God.
Your elders will dream dreams;
your young warriors will see visions.
29 No one will be left out. In those days I will offer My spirit
to all servants, both male and female.
30 In the heaven above and on the earth below,
I will give signs of My intervention: blood, fire, and clouds of smoke.
31 The sun will become a void of darkness, and the moon will become blood
just before the great and dreadful day of the Eternal One arrives.
32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Eternal One will be liberated.
Mount Zion and Jerusalem will shelter those who survive exile,
Just as the Eternal says, “Among those who survived, He will call them.”
Today’s Devotional
From today’s background scripture God might say:
Many have tried to assign the words of Joel to different times in history. For Joel, much of the prophecy would take place in the distant future. He saw the destruction of the locust, but didn’t see Me pour out My Spirit on the men and women assembled together at Pentecost.
Like many of the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, the passage in Joel has both short-term fulfillment and end-time fulfillment. Many work hard today to figure out when I will come. What the end-times will look like. How I will return. What to look for and so many other signs to make last minute preparations.
What I want you to know is that I will come when I decide to come. I’ve told you time after time that no one knows when I will return. Just be ready. I might decide today is the day or I might wait another 2,000 years. Your responsibility isn’t to figure out when I’ll come to get you, but to be ready when I get there. If I decide to come today are you ready? That’s the question for every person on the earth.
Enough of the prophecies have already been fulfilled that I can make the dominoes fall in no time at all. Or like many generations have experienced, I can withhold My coming for a few more years. I’ll decide. You stay prepared. I am coming back. I promised and I never break My promises.
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