Follow, trust and glorify God

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 record any reflections or comments you may have. The devotions written here are only the first utterance of a conversation.

Blessings and best wishes,
Dr. Will

Thursday, March 25, 2010
Devotions: Ps 131, 132, 140, 142; Exod 7:25-8:19; 2 Cor 3:7-18; Mk 10:17-31

O Lord, my heart is not haughty, and my eyes are not raised too high. I have calmed my soul like a child near its mother’s breast. I abide, trusting in the Lord. God remembers all my hardships; my present and future are in His care. And I am at ease only when I am in His house, worshiping our God. He has chosen us as His possession and His Spirit abides in us. He defeats our enemies and glorifies Himself in us. Lord, deliver me from evil and violent adversaries. The arrogant seek my ruin; let burning coals fall on their heads. Drive slanderers from Your land. The Lord maintains the cause of the afflicted; the upright will abide in Your presence. YHWH, You are my Refuge and my Portion in this life. Deliver me from the strength of my persecutors, and place me amid Your righteous community.

God said to Moses, ‘I Am YHWH. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by My name YHWH I did not make Myself known to them. I established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, in which they sojourned. And I have indeed heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold in bondage. And I have remembered My covenant. Therefore say this to the people of Israel: ‘I Am YHWH, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver you from otheir bondage and redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. And I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I Am YHWH your God, Who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I Am YHWH.’ Moses carried this message to the people of Israel, but they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel bondage. God exhibited His power before Pharaoh, but the king would not relent—rods into serpents, the Nile turned to blood, a plague of frogs across the nation—because the magicians of Egypt could conjure similar effects, Pharaoh would not relent. The fourth plague was stinging gnats, and the court magi could not perform this transformation: ‘This is the finger of God,’ they told Pharaoh, but his heart remained adamant, and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as YHWH had foretold.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: ‘If the covenant of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not abide the shining face of Moses, though the glory was fading, how much greater will be the glow of the Spirit’s dispensation of righteousness and life—a surpassing splendor, indeed! What is lasting is greater than what is passing. Since we have such hope, we are very bold; we don’t veil ourselves like Moses—our glory is increasing, not fading. None of this helped the Israelites, for their minds were hardened—even when they read the old covenant today, they cannot fully understand, because the veil is removed only through the Messiah, Whom they deny. But when someone turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness, from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, Who is the Spirit.

As Jesus was setting forth, a man ran up to Him and kneeled at His feet, and asked Jesus, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus answered, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commands: don’t kill, don’t commit adultery; no theft; no false witnessing; no fraud. Obey your parents.’ The man said, ‘Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.’ As Jesus looked on the man, He loved him, and He said: ‘You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor. Then you’ll have treasure in heave; and come, follow Me.’ But the man’s countenance fell, and he went away in sorrow, for he had great possessions. Jesus looked around and said to the onlooking disciples, ‘How hard it will be for the rich to enter God’s kingdom.’ This amazed the disciples, but Jesus went on. ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were astonished, and asked Him, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them, and said [in His love], ‘With humans this is impossible; but not with God: for all things are possible with God.’ Peter spoke up: ‘Lord, look: we have left everything to follow You.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for My sake and for the gospel will fail to receive a hundredfold now—houses, siblings, parents, children and lands, along with persecution, and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.’ Later, in the house and privately, the disciples questioned Jesus further about this matter. Jesus said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another is committing adultery against her; and if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’ People were bringing children to Jesus, that He might touch and bless them, and His disciples rebuked the people. But this made Jesus indignant: ‘Let the children come to Me; do not hinder them. For to such as these belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God in the manner of a little child will not enter it.’ And He took the children in His arms and blessed them, laying His hands on them.