God creates, sustains and saves

Saturday, September 11 (9-11), 2010

Devotions: Ps 55, 138, 139:1-17; Job 38:1-17; Acts 15:22-35; Jn 11:45-54

Lord, hear and answer my prayer to You. I am distracted and attacked by the adversary, and anxiety threatens me. Destroy and confuse their plans, Lord. I depend on You alone. I cast my burden on YHWH and He will sustain me; He will not let me be moved. Lord, cast our enemies down, and preserve my life, by Your grace and power. I give You thanks with my whole heart, God; help me to accept the bounty You provide, not the fantasies my flesh or the evil one dangle before me. Let all that breathes praise God; You preserve my life in the midst of danger and hardship. YHWH will fulfill His purpose for me; Lord, Your steadfast love endures forever. Do not forsake the work of Your hands. You know me completely, Lord—everything I am, everything I do, everything I think. You watch over my path day and night; You're ahead of me in every word I speak. Your understanding is beyond my comprehension. You are everywhere I can go, YHWH; You are altogether wonderful, and I am Your handiwork, made by Your will, formed by Your love, wisdom, mercy and grace.

YHWH began to address Job at last: 'Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge. Gird yourself like a man; I will question you, and you answer Me! Where were you when I laid earth's foundations? Who desifned and formed and made the cosmos? Who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all God's sons shouted for joy? Who constrained the wild seas and set their limits? Do you command the dawn and dark? Do you know the springs of the seas or the recesses of the deeps? Do you know about death's gates and the abyss? Where is the source of all light? What is the heart of darkness?'

After the Jerusalem Council, the apostles delegated Judas Barsabbas and Silas to accomplany Paul and Barnabas in delivering their decree and judgment to the church in Antioch. The letter they sent read: 'The brethren, apostles and elders, to the Gentile brethren in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting. Since we have heard that some persons from us have troubled you, unsettling your minds, though we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord in the matter, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have rised their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themseves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. It has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: abstain from what has been sacrified to idols and from blood and from what is strangled, and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.' They went to Antioch, assembled the church and delivered the letter, and all rejoiced at the exhortation. Judas and Silas, themselves prophets, exhorted the brethren at length and strengthened them. After spending some time together, the messengers were sent off in peace by the brothers to return to those who sent them. Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the Lord's word, as did many others.

When Lazarus returned alive from the tomb at Jesus' command, many Jewish witnesses put their faith in Him. But some reported to the Pharisees all that Jesus had done. They gathered the Jewish council and asked, 'What shall we do? This man performs many miracles. If we let him continue in this, everyone will believe in him, an the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.' But Caiaphas, the high priest that year, replied, 'You know nothing at all! It is expedient that one man should die for the people, so that the whole people do not perish.' Caiaphas didn't know this of his own accord—he prophesied through his office as high priest that Jesus would die on behalf of the people, and not for the Jews only, but to gather into one all the children of God scattered around the world. From that day, the Jews took counsel how to put Jesus to death.