Obedience bears fruit; idolatry leads to the pit

New Guest: Like this one, most posts are devotional; those related to CAR BIZ can be found by searching the blog archives for that title. You might start with 'Welcome,' the first post, 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, for the entries here serve best as the first remarks in a conversation.

Blessings and best wishes,
Dr. Will

Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Devotions: Ps 81, 82, 119:97-120; Num 11:24-33; Ro 1:28-2:11; Mt 18:1-9

Make a joyful noise before YHWH our God. He tells me, ‘I relieved you of your burden; I freed you from drudgery. You called in distress, and I have rescued you. I have tested you—and if you would simply abide faithfully, how I would bless you! I Am YHWH your God—just open your mouth, and I will feed you.’ But God’s people so often have spurned Him—starving when He offers the finest and sweetest of fare! God presides over all the spiritual beings and demands justice and assistance for the mortals in our need. Let YHWH be our Judge, Who is fair and faithful. Lord, how I love Your law! You give me more understanding than my teachers, more knowledge than the elders of my community. You encourage me to live in an ethical and godly manner; real sweetness is in knowing and doing Your will, my God. Your word lights my path; my afflictions come from failing to obey or to do as Your Spirit directs. Accept my praise, Lord, and take me in hand. I love You and Your law; let me not be put to shame. I know You are holy, and spurn all who stray from Your statutes—their living, their cunning is in vain. How I fear offending You, Lord!

Moses obeyed YHWH, and collected seventy elders of Israel. He called them to assemble around the Tent of Meeting, and YHWH descended in a cloud and put His Spirit on them all, and they prophesied. Eldad and Medad also prophesied within the camp. When word was brought, Joshua asked Moses to forbid the men, but Moses said to Joshua, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? I wish all YHWH’s people were prophets, and everyone were anointed with His Spirit.’ So Moses did not interfere with the prophesies of Eldad and Medad. When the elders returned to the camp, YHWH fulfilled His promise of meat for the community: a strong wind blew in flocks of quail from the direction of the Mediterranean, and deposited the flocks all around the damp—a day’s journey on every side, and three feet from the ground up. The people harvested quail for two full days, then spread them out to cure. While this meat was still in their mouths, God’s fiery anger was aroused, and He struck the people with a very great plague, for their unfaith, disrespect and disobedience.

Paul’s description of human sins and their consequences continued: God gave up idolaters, in the lusts of their hearts, to impurity, and they dishonored their bodies with one another. They exchanged God’s truth for a lie; they worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever. Amen! For this reason, God surrendered them to dishonorable passions. Women engaged in unnatural relations; men were consumed with passion for other men, committing shameful homosexual acts and receiving in their persons the due penalty for their error. They did not see fit to acknowledge God, so God gave them up to a base mind and improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, and malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malignity; they gossip, slander, hate God; they are insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil. They disobey their parents, and are foolish, faithless, heartless and ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do these things deserve death, they not only continue to practice them, but approve those who do likewise. So, mortals, you have no excuses, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. In passing judgment on another, you also judge yourself, because you are doing the same things. God’s judgment rightly falls on all who do such things. You can’t weasel out on God: if you choose to sin, you face His judgment. He is kind and merciful, but you can’t presume on the kindness, forbearance and patience of the Holy One! His kindness is for the purpose of bringing you to repentance; but if you presume on God’s goodness, by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. God will render to everyone according to our works: He will give eternal life to those who by patience in well-doing seek glory and honor and immortality; and He will wreak wrath and fury, tribulation and distress, on all who do evil—Jew first and then Gentile. And glory and honor and peace He will give all who do good, Jew first and also Gentile. God shows no partiality.

Some disciples came to Jesus with the question: ‘Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ In reply, Jesus called a child to Him, and put the child in their midst: ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you repent and become like a child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever receives once such child in My name receives Me. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for that person to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin. It is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom temptation comes. If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away: it’s better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands and feet, only to be thrown into the eternal fire. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it’s better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into the hell of fire.’