Holy love edifies; all else desolates

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

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Devotions: Ps 81, 82, 119:97-120; Gen 45:16-28; 1 Cor 8:1-13; Mk 6:13-29

Sing aloud to God; shout praise to Him! Make music and song for our Lord, and keep His festivals. Here’s what God said to me: ‘I relieved you of great burdens, and set you free from bondage. When you called, I have answered to deliver you. My power saves you. But you recurrently turn from Me. I Am YHWH, the one God, and I have made you free. Why not listen and obey? If you’d simply do that, I could provide for you more wonderfully than you can imagine.’ God chastises the other spiritual powers on our behalf; He demands justice and protects the weak and solitary. Let God judge the earth, for all the nations, all the universe, are His. Lord, I love Your law, and it counsels me all day and all night. You make me wiser than my foes, wiser than my teachers, wiser than the elders in my worship community. You help me hold back from besetting sins; I will conform to Your ways, and seek to grow in Christlikeness. Your word lights my way and guides me through complications and difficulties. I am sorely afflicted, Father; give me life according to Your word. Accept my praise and thanks, as I seek to incline my heart and hands to do Your will. Uphold me according to Your promise, that I may live. Let me not fail in hope or suffer shame. Keep me safe, for I tremble in fear of You, Holy One!

The report reached Pharaoh that Joseph’s brothers had come to Egypt. Pharaoh directed Joseph to send them back to fetch their father and all his household and estate, and bring them to Egypt, where the king would settle them in prime land. He added ‘Give no thought to your goods, for the best of all Egypt is yours!’ A rich supply of provisions was sent, and the brothers returned to Canaan to their father Jacob. At first, he could not believe the news, but presently his spirit revived, and he said, ‘My son Joseph is alive! I will go and see him before I die.’

Paul addressed the issue of eating food sacrificed to idols: Knowledge alone is not enough; love is what truly edifies. We know that idols are nothing, and for us there is one God, the Father, Creator of everything including ourselves, and one Lord, Jesus the Messiah, through Whom are all things and through whom we exist. But not everyone possesses this knowledge. So some, when they eat this food, believe they are truly submitting to another god, and their conscience is thereby defiled. Neither eating nor abstinence will commend us to God. So take care lest the exercise of your liberty becomes a stumbling block to the ignorant or weak in faith. Your presence at the table of an idol can destroy someone who is ignorant or weak in faith—a brother or sister for whom Christ died. If you sin thus against other people, wounding their weak consciences, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never eat meat, lest I cause them to fall.

The Twelve, whom Jesus had commissioned to go out in pairs, were very successful in preaching repentance, casting out demons, and anointing and healing the sick. King Herod heard of all this. He was convinced that Jesus was John the Baptizer returned to life after Herod had beheaded him. Herod had unlawfully taken in marriage Herodias, his own niece and the erstwhile spouse of his brother Philip. John had warned Herod against this incestuous and unlawful union, so Herodias nursed a grudge against the prophet. For a long time, Herod’s superstition and fear of the prophet trumped her fury, so Herod kept John safe. But on Herod’s birthday, at a banquet for his courtiers and for officers and leaders in Galilee, Herodias’ daughter danced for the assembly. She so enflamed Herod and his guests that the king offered the girl anything she might ask, up to half his kingdom. She asked her mother what to request, and Herodias had her daughter demand the head of John the Baptizer on a platter. And Herod complied with this murderous request, and the girl gave her mother the head of the man she hated. John’s disciples, when they heard of the execution, came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.