Abide in Christ and Live

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Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Devotions: Ps 101, 109, 119:121-44; Jer 18:1-11; Rom 8:1-11; Jn 6:27-40

I will be loyal and just; I will walk with integrity and shun whatever is base or licentious. I will distance myself from perversity and know nothing of evil. I will favor the faithful. We need to cleanse our land, beginning with ourselves. Lord, please speak up and take a hand in my life; free me from the malice of my enemies; deliver me in Your steadfast love. Let all know that God exists and that God acts on behalf of all who honor Him. I’m struggling, Lord—getting weary, longing and waiting for Your favor to return to me. Deal with me as Your servant, according to Your love and faithfulness. Help me understand and obey Your commands. Keep me steady, Lord; let no iniquity have dominion over me. I am small and despised, but I do not forget Your precepts. Let Your face shine on me; Your commands are my delight, despite the trouble and anguish I’m experiencing. Give me the understanding I need to live in a godly manner, I pray.

YHWH sent Jeremiah to the potter’s house. The object on his wheel was spoiled, so the potter reworked it into another vessel. God used this image: ‘O Israel, can I not do with you what this potter has done? If a nation is going badly, I can pluck it up, destroy what is evil, and start new. If such a nation repents, I will also relent from My plans. But if the nation persists in evil, I will turn from the good I intended for that nation, and bring destruction instead.’ God directed Jeremiah to warn the leaders of Israel that God was shaping a plan to do them harm in accordance with their sins—unless they repented, turning from their evil ways and actions.

For those who are in Jesus the Messiah, there is no condemnation. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death. By sending His Son into flesh, God has done for us what the law could not do: He has condemned and requited sin in human flesh—the sinless body of Jesus, so that the law’s righteous requirements are met by Him and fulfilled in us who walk according to the Spirit, with minds set on the things of the Spirit. That mind-set is life and peace to us! We are not in the flesh; we are in the Spirit. If Christ is in us, by His Spirit, our bodies are dead to sin, and our spirits are alive because of righteousness. We are raised to new life, body and spirit, by God Whose Spirit dwells in us.

Jesus taught: ‘Don’t work for things that perish; labor instead to acquire the food that endures to eternal life—what only the Son of man can give, on Whom God the Father has set His seal. The work you do to earn this lasting life is to believe in the One Whom God has sent. I Am the Bread of life; whoever comes to Me and believes in Me will not hunger or thirst. Those whom the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me, I will accept and not cast away. I have come to do the will of My Father Who sent Me—that I should preserve all He has given to Me. My Father’s will is that everyone who sees and believes in the Son should have eternal life. And I will raise those people up at the last day!’