Benefits from Faith, Penalties for Rebellion

New Guest: Most posts are devotional; those related to CAR BIZ can be found by searching for that label.

Thursday and Friday, January 8 & 9, 2009
Devotions: Ps 112, 113, 117, 118, 121-23, 131, 132; Isa 59:15-21; 63:1-5; Rev 2:8-29; Jn 4:46-5:15

Let us praise the Lord! Blessed are they who fear YHWH and greatly delight in His commands; his faithfulness blesses his offspring and descendants. To such families, God is gracious! The righteous have nothing to fear; their hearts are steady; they can be generous. Let God’s name be praised forever. YHWH is high above all other authorities, and He cares for the poor and downtrodden. Great is His steadfast love and eternal is His faithfulness! God has ministered to me when I have needed His help. He is my Strength and Song, my Salvation! Let us sing songs of victory and enter where God makes a way. Jesus is the Stone the builders rejected; today is God’s day of salvation. I will praise and obey my Lord. My help is in YHWH, Maker of heaven and earth. I rejoice to come together to worship God; I bless and pray peace for His city Jerusalem. Lord, we’ve had enough of contempt; so please have mercy, my God! I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child with its mother; I rest in faith and trust. And I pray peace and rest for God, too.

God has undertaken to lead and care for His people, since no human leaders are doing it. He comes to His own as Redeemer, and to His enemies as Destroyer. His Spirit is upon us; His words are in our mouths—forever! His wrath and redemption are come, and His will is done.

To Smyrna’s church, Jesus said: ‘I know your trouble and your poverty; you deal with the synagogue of Satan; you will have brief tribulation, but I will deliver you; be faithful even to death, and I will crown you with life.’ And to the church at Pergamum: ‘You live where Satan has his throne! Yet you hold fast to My word and testify in faith to Me. You have some who follow Balaam’s teaching, and others who follow the Nicolaitans. Repent these errors, or face My wrath. To those who overcome, I will give the hidden manna, and a white stone inscribed with a new name!’ And to the church at Thyatira: ‘I know your works; you continue to progress in love, faith, service and patient endurance. But you tolerate the woman Jezebel, self-declared prophetess who teaches and practices abomination and leads My people into immoral acts and eating food sacrificed to idols. Unless they and she repent, all will face My judgment—first sickness, then death of her children. I requite as deeds and hearts deserve. To the rest in Thyatira, I lay no further burdens: just hold fast until I come to you. To those who overcome, I will give power over the nations—the power My Father has given Me. Let all who can hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches!’

When Jesus returned to Cana, a man came from Capernaum and begged healing for a sick son. Jesus said the boy would be healed and told the man to go home—he did, and the son was well, healed at the moment Jesus had spoken—the second sign John records. The third came at the pool of Bethzatha, near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem. There, amid the porticos around the pool, the sick and infirm gathered. One of them has been paralyzed for 38 years. Jesus asked this man: ‘Do you want to be healed?’ The man replied, describing his long struggle—no one was available to put him into the pool—someone else always got the healing he had sought so long. Jesus said, ‘Get up, take your pallet, and walk.’ The man did so, and was healed. All this happened on a Sabbath, so the legalistic Jews challenged the man about the ‘work’ of carrying his pallet on that day. He replied by describing what had happened, so the legalists turned their attention to Jesus—but the man couldn’t even identify Him. Later, Jesus found the man in the temple, and told him: ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, so that nothing worse will befall you.’ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus Who had healed him.