Benefits of a pure heart

Friday, January 12, 2018 - Daily Office: Ps 16, 17, 22; Gen 6:1-8; Heb 3:12-19; Jn 2:1-12

Lord, preserve me--I have no good apart from You!  I delight in Your saints, but those who choose other gods multiply their own sorrows, and I have nothing to do with them or with their religion.  YHWH Is my chosen portion and my cup, and I have a goodly heritage.  YHWH gives me counsel day and night, and by His grace, I will not be moved.  My heart and soul rejoice in God, Who shows me the path of life; in my God are fullness of joy and eternal pleasures.  Lord, vindicate me; purge me of all wickedness; incline to me and protect me; keep me as the apple of Your eye, and save me from  the malice of the wicked, deadly enemies all around!  Deliver me from men whose portion is the life of the world; as for me, God Is my portion forever, and I am content.  Jesus faced uttermost desolation--separation from God His Father; He was mocked, deserted, and murdered unjustly; the punishment that I deserve fell upon Him.  So God exalted Him to the highest place, and the afflicted can rejoice in the goodness and mercy of our God; let us join to proclaim His deliverance, for God has done it!

As humankind multiplied on the earth, mighty Nephilim were born as the sons of God married daughters of men.  YHWH saw that wickedness was great in the earth, and human hearts were only wicked continually.  So He said, 'I will blot out humanity whom I have created, along with the beasts and creeping things and birds.'  But among the living, Noah found favor in God's eyes, a righteous man blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. 

The Hebrew writer counsels:  Take care, brothers and sisters, lest any of you harbor an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God!  Exhort one another continually, so none is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.  We share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end.  Don't harden your hearts, as those did who in times past rebelled against God--like those who left Egypt following Moses, but fell away and died in the wilderness before the Israelites came into Canaan.  God does not welcome the disobedient and unbelieving!

Jesus began His public ministry, according to John, by attending a wedding in Cana of Galilee.  His disciples accompanied Him, and Mary, Jesus' mother, was also a guest.  When the supply of wine gave out, Mary said to her Son, 'They have no wine.'  Jesus replied, 'Woman, what have you to do with Me?  My hour has not yet come.'  But his mother, undeterred, said to the servants nearby, 'Do whatever He tells you.'  Standing there were six stone jars, normally used for Jewish rites of purification, each capable of holding twenty or thirty gallons.  Jesus told the servants to fill the jars with water, and they did so.  Then He said to them, 'Draw some out, and take it to the steward of the feast.'  When the steward tasted the water, now become wine, he called to the bridegroom and said to him, 'Every man serves the good wine first; and when the guests have drunk freely, they serve the poorer wine.  But you have kept the good wine until now.'  This was the first sign that Jesus worked, at Cana in Galilee, and thus manifested His glory; consequently, His disciples believed in Him.  After this, Jesus went down to Capernaum, with His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and there they stayed for a few days.