Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Eternal truths beyond transient appearances

Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - Devotions: Ps 45, 47, 48; Wisdom 3:1-9; Col 1:15-23; Lk 6:12-26

The court poet wrote this ode for a royal wedding:  My heart overflows with this good theme: You Are fairest of men, blessed by God forever.  Gird on Your sword; in glory and majesty, ride forth!  Defend the right; establish the truth; let Your mighty right hand perform dread deeds; may your sharp arrows find your enemies' hearts!  Your divine throne endures forever; your scepter ministers royal equity; You love righteousness and hate wickedness.  And so Your God has anointed You with the oil of gladness; Your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.  Stringed instruments serenade You from ivory palaces; Your ladies in waiting are daughters of kings; and at Your right hand stands the queen, robed in gold of Ophir. Let the royal consort turn fully toward her liege Lord; O queen, leave your family of origin behind, and take up the role of royal spouse.  The King Is your Lord; bow to Him alone.  The princess is decked in gold-woven robes; in joy she enters the royal palace.  Great Lord, Your sons will be princes on the earth; Your name will resound in the praises of all peoples for ever!  Let all peoples applaud and show to God loud songs of joy!  YHWH, God Most High, Is terrible--great sovereign over all the earth.  Sing praises to our God, Who reigns over all the nations; He Is highly exalted.  Great Is our Lord and greatly to be praised in God's holy city!  His holy mountain is the joy of all the earth.  All other kings blanch before Him; He alone Is ruler.  O God, we have meditated on Your steadfast love; Your fame and praise encircle the globe.  You Are Victor; Judah's daughters rejoice in Your judgments.  Tell the next generation: This Is our eternal God; He will be our Guide for ever!

The souls of the righteous are in God's hand; no torment can touch them.  Fools think that the righteous perish--that their decease is an affliction.  But in truth they are at peace, and they have assurance of immortality.  God has tested them like gold in a furnace, and in the time of their visitation, they will shine forth and run like sparks through stubble.  God rules them, and His righteous ones govern nations and rule over the peoples of His creation.  All who trust in our God will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with Him in love--His grace and mercy abide on His elect, and He watches over His holy ones.

Jesus Is the image of the invisible Creator; He Is Firstborn over all creation.  In Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible--including every spiritual power: thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities--all things were created through Him and for Him.  He Is before all creatures; in Him all creation coheres.  He Is Head over the body of believers, the church; He Is the beginning, Firstborn from the dead--so Jesus Is pre-eminent in all things.  In Him all God's fullness is pleased to abide; through Him God reconciles to Himself all things on earth and in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.  And we, once estranged and hostile in our minds, doing evil deeds, He has reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present us holy and blameless and irreproachable before God, provided that we continue in the faith arising from His faithfulness--stable and steadfast, not shifting away from the hope in the gospel we have heard and accepted, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, of which Paul became a minister.

Jesus spent all night praying on a mountain; when day came, He called His disciples and chose twelve of them, whom He named apostles: Peter and Andrew, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who became His betrayer.  Jesus came down with these and stood on a level place; He was surrounded there by a great multitude of people from all over Judea and Jerusalem and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon.  They came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases.  Those troubled by unclean spirits, He cured.  All the crowd sought to touch Him, for power came forth from Him and healed them all.  Jesus lifted up His eyes on His disciples, and said:  'Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.  Blessed are you when mortals hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil on account of the Son of man!  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for look:  your reward in heaven is great--for their ancestors did the same things to God's prophets in days past.'

No comments: