Submitted to Grace

Monday and Tuesday, September 20 and 21, 2010

Devotions: Ps 77, 78, 80; Esth 4 & 5; Acts 18; Lk 1:1-4; 3:1-22

I cry out loud to God, when trouble wearies me and my soul refuses comfort. When I think of God, I moan with longing; I can't sleep and, wordy as I am, I cannot speak. So I meditate and search my spirit. I recall the deeds of the Lord. Father, Your way is holy, and Your might is awesome! Let all God's people ponder His glorious deeds and immeasurable kindness. He has established His testimony among a hard-hearted, stiff-necked people. Despite our sins and willfulness, God continues to affirm His covenant and to reach out to us in mercy and steadfast love. He fed the Israelites with the bread of heaven; He showered them with succulent quail in the wasteland; He sent His only Son to die for us—and He continues to forgive us. Let us cease in our testing of God's love and power! Let us bow to His majesty and His mercy—our God Who tends us as a tender Shepherd! Restore us, O God! Shine Your countenance upon us. Revive and save us. Your vine is ravaged by the boars of the forest! Let Your hand rest on the man and woman of Your right hand. And let us be saved by Your grace.

Queen Esther tried to console her cousin and patron Mordechai, and sent her most trusted eunuch to find out why Mordechai was mourning inconsolably. Mordechai provided the eunuch with the information about Haman's plot against the Jews. He told the messenger to charge Esther to go to the king and make supplication for her people. Esther protested that she had not been summoned, and that she faced death unless the king would pardon her when she appeared before him. Mordechai replied, in part: 'Don't think your position in the palace can protect you. If you keep silence, God will deliver His people by some other means, but you and your father's house will perish. What if you have come to the kingdom for just this purpose and just this crisis?' Esther responded to Mordechai: 'Have the Jews of Susa fast for me three days; I and my maids will join in this fast. Then I will go to the king, contrary to the law; and if I perish, so be it.' On the third day, Esther robed herself and stood in the inner court across from the king's hall. When Xerxes saw her, he was moved and held out the golden scepter to her. He asked, 'What is it, Queen Esther? Whatever you ask I will give, even to the half of my kingdom.' Esther simply invited the king and Haman to dine with her that evening. And the king accepted. As they were eating, the king again asked Esther what he could do for her. She asked the king to come again with Haman the following day, and then she would comply with the king's wishes. Haman was puffed up by the royal attention; but when he noticed Mordechai mourning in the king's gate, Haman was filled with wrath. He went home and talked with his wife and closest confidants. Haman told them about his riches and the honors the king had bestowed upon him, advancing Haman ahead of all others in his court. He mentioned his two invitations to dine with the emperor and the queen. But he complained, 'All this does me no good, as long as I see that Jew Mordechai sitting at the king's gate.' Haman's wife and friends told him, 'Build a tall gallows; have Mordechai hanged on it in the morning, then go rejoicing with the king to dinner.'

Paul departed from Athens to Corinth, where he found a Jewish couple, Aquila and Priscilla, who had recently arrived from Rome, after fleeing that city when the emperor Claudius commanded all Jews to leave Rome. Like Paul, these two were tentmakers; so he stayed with them and they all worked together. Meanwhile, Paul argued in the synagogue eery Sabbath, persuading both Jews and Greeks. He was doing all this when Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia. When the Jews began to revile and oppose him, Paul shook out his garments against them, saying 'Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent; from now on, I will go to the Gentiles.' So he continued his preaching in the house of Titius Justus, a God-fearers who lived right next to the synagogue. One of the synagogue rulers, Crispus, put faith in Jesus, with his entire household; so did many of the Corinthians. The Lord came to Paul in a night vision, and said to him, 'Do not be silent; for I Am with you, and no man shall attack you to harm you; for I have many people in this city.' Paul stayed in Corinth, teaching God's word, for 18 months. But when Gallio was proconsul in Achaia, the Jews organized a united attack against Paul. They brought him before the tribunal and charged that he was persuading people to workship God in a manner contrary to law.' Gallio replied to them, 'If this were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, I would have reason to bear with you Jews. But this is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law; so see to it yourselves. I refused to be a judge in these matters.' And Gallio drove them all out. The mob seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue and beat him right in front of the tribunal, but Gallio paid no attention. Paul stayed many more days, then took leave of the Corinthian Christians and sailed for Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. At Cenchreae, Paul cut his hair as part of a vow. When they came to Ephesus, Paul left them there; he himself entered the synagogue and argued with the Jews. They wanted Paul to stay on, but he took his leave and told them he would return if God willed it, and he set sail from Ephesus. He landed at Caesarea, greeted the church there, and then went down to Antioch. He spent some time there, then traveled through Galatia and Phrygia, encouraging all the disciples. Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos comem to Ephesus, an eloquent man well versed in the scriptures. He was of fervant spirit, and had been taught some things about the way of the Lord. He spoke effectively about the things concerning Jesus, but he knew only the baptism of John. When they heard him, Priscilla and Aquila took Apollos aside and expounded God's way to him more accurately. When he wanted to cross to Achaia, the Ephesian Christians encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there, urging that they welcome Apollos. When he arrived, he greatly helped the believers in that place, for he powerfully confuted the Jewsin publilc, showing by the scriptures that the Messiah was Jesus.

The physician Luke, who was a companion of Paul's on some of the apostle's missionary travels, compiled an orderly narrative based on eyewitness accounts, so that his reader Theophilus (and others) might know the truth concerning the things they had been told. God's word came to John, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate served as governor of Judea, his brother Philip as tetrach of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias as tetrach or Abilene, and when Annas and Caiaphas served as high priests in Jerusalem. John immediately went into the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This fulfilled Isaiahs prophecies: 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ethe Lord's way; make His paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.' John addressed the multitudes who came out to him: 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits befitting repentance; don't even begin to say you have Abraham as father—for I tell you, God can raise up chilldren for Abraham from these very stones! Even now, the axe is laid to the root of the trees; every tree that fails to bear good fruit will be hewn down and thrown into the fire!' The crowds asked John, 'They waht shall we do?' He answered, 'Whoever has two coats should share with one who has none. Anybody who has food should share with the hungry in the same way.' Tax collectors came to be baptized, and asked John what they should do. He said, 'Collect only what the state appoints you to collect.' To inquiring soldiers, John said, 'Rob no one by violence or false accusations; be content with your wages.' Many longed intensely, and hoped that John was the promised Messiah, but he told them, 'I baptize you with water; but He is coming Who is mightier than I; I am not worthy to untie His sandals. And He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, to clear His threshing floor, and to gather the wheat into His granary; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.' In this manner, John preached the good news to the people. But Herod the tetrarch was reproved by John for Herodias, his brother's wife, and for many other evil things that Herod had done; and Herod added this to all his other offenses: he shut up John in prison. When John had baptized all the inquirers and Jesus also was baptized and was praying, the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form as a dove; and a Voice came from heaven, saying, 'You are My beloved Son; with You I AM well pleased.'