Walk in faith, and live

New Guest: Like this one, most posts are devotional; those related to CAR BIZ can be found by searching for that title. You might start with 'Welcome,' the first post in the archives, dated November 12, 2008, where I introduce myself and the blog. As you read, I encourage you to add in any reflections or comments you may have.

Blessings and best wishes,
Dr. Will

Monday, February 1, 2010
Devotions: Ps 56, 57, 64, 65; Gen 19:1-29; Heb 11:1-12; Jn 6:27-40

Lord, be gracious to me; I am the object of oppression. I am a sinner, surely, but I put my trust in You. Only You can save me and protect me. I face a united front of opposition from unbelieving humans and arrayed forces of spiritual wickedness. I know that You care and keep track of my laments; I know that God is for me, and I ask for Your help to do all I can for myself and my family as well—not to put impediments before the blessings You would wish to provide to me and my loved ones. Help me to walk in a godly manner this day. Let God fulfill His purposes for me and through me. May He send forth His steadfast love and faithfulness. My heart is steadfast, O God; I praise You to the heavens and on the earth. Let God be glorified! Hide me from the plots of the wicked and determined evildoers. Let God’s arrow find them, and let the righteous rejoice in God. Praise is due to YHWH, Who hears and answers prayers. By dread deeds You answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation! Your power rules over all creation. How well You care for Your universe; let nature praise Her Master!

God’s two angels arrived in Sodom at evening, and met Lot at the city gate. Lot rose and greeted them with a bow; ‘My lords, turn aside, I pray you, and spend the night at your servant’s house.’ At first, the angels demurred, but at Lot’s strong urging, they entered his house. Lot made a feast for them. But before they retired, the men of Sodom, old and young, assembled and surrounded Lot’s house, demanding that he bring his two male guests out, that the mob might have sex with them. Lot came out and begged the crowd not to act so wickedly. He even offered his two virgin daughters as substitutes for his two guests. But the surly crowd refused and pressed hard, threatening Lot: ‘Stand back! This fellow came to sojourn, and he would play the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them!’ But the angels helped Lot back into his house and shut the door. And they struck blind the men who were at the door of the house, so that they wearied themselves groping for the door. The men asked Lot if there were others in his household, and told him to lead them out of the city, because God was about to destroy Sodom for its great wickedness. Lot warned the men betrothed to his daughters to leave, but they took his warnings as a joke, and ignored them. At dawn, the angels urged Lot, ‘Get up and take your wife and two daughters, lest you also be consumed in the holocaust to come.’ Lot dawdled, but the men took Lot and his wife and daughters and set them outside the city, and told them, ‘Flee for your lives; do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Flee to the hills, lest you be consumed!’ Lot begged them, ‘Let us escape to yonder small settlement and my life will be saved.' The name of the hamlet was Zoar, and God granted Lot’s request: ‘Make haste and escape there, for I can do nothing until you arrive there.’ The sun was up by the time Lot came to Zoar. Then YHWH rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, and overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants. But Lot’s wife looked back, and was turned to a pillar of salt. Early in the morning, Abraham went out to the overlook where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and saw that all the land was smoking like a furnace! And so it was that God destroyed the cities of the valley, but delivered Lot from the destruction of the cities where he had sojourned.

Faith is the assurance of what we hope for, the conviction of things we do not see. By faith men of old earned God’s approval. By faith we understand that God created the physical universe by His word—what is seen was made from things unseen. By faith Abel offered a sacrifice more acceptable to God than that of his brother Cain; he died, but by faith his example still instructs us. By faith Enoch was taken alive up to God and did not die, having been attested as pleasing to God. Without faith it is impossible please God, for everyone who would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. By faith, Noah, warned by God about events unprecedented and unseen, took heed, built the ark, saved his household, and condemned the world, becoming a heir of the righteousness which comes by faith. By faith, Abraham obeyed when God called him to a place he was to inherit, going out without knowing where he was heading. By faith, he sojourned in a land of promise, living in tents as an alien with Isaac and Jacob, his co-heirs of the same promise. Abraham was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God. By faith, Sarah conceived by God’s power, even when she was past the normal childbearing age, because she consider Him Who had promised to be worthy of faith. And so, as a result of faith in action, from one man as good as dead were born descendants innumerable as heaven’s stars or the grains of sand on the seashore.

Jesus told the crowds who pursued Him along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, ‘Do not labor for food which perishes; labor for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of man will give you; for on Him has God the Father set His seal.’ They asked what they must do to perform the works of God. Jesus said, ‘Believe in Him Whom God has sent to you.’ They said, ‘What sign do you perform, that we may see and believe you? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness, the bread of heaven.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly, truly I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread of heaven; My Father gives you the true bread form heaven. God’s bread is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said, ‘Lord, give us this bread always!’ And Jesus said, ‘I Am the Bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger; and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst. But I told you that you have seen Me and still do not believe. All those whom the Father gives Me will come to Me; and whoever comes to Me, I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven to do the will of Him Who sent me, not My own will. And this is His will: that I should lost nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is My Father’s will, that every one who sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life; and I will raise each of those up at the last day!’