Faith fulfilled

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Devotions: Ps 34, 93, 96; 1 Sam 1:1-28; Col 1:9-20; Lk 2:22-40

I will keep praising my God; I will boast only in God my Savior, and let all God's people join in praising Him! I sought YHWH, and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Look to God and be radiant, and you will never be ashamed. This poor man cried out and YHWH heard and answered. God's mighty angels camp around those who fear Him, and they deliver us! Taste, and you'll see that the Lord is good. Happy are they who take refuge in Him. Those who pursue the Lord lack no good thing. Let the young learn to fear the Lord, to tell the truth, to shun evil and pursue peace. God watches over the righteous and hears their cries. He is against evildoers, and cuts off their remembrance from the earth. God is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. The righteous have many afflictions, but God delivers them from them all. YHWH is robed in majesty, girded with strength. His decrees are certain. Let us sing to Him a new song; let us bless His holy name and tell of His salvation all day long. Declare His glory to everyone; He is the one true and living God. Let heaven rejoice and earth be glad; let the sea roar and all that lives in it exult; let the land and its denizens rejoice. For our Lord is coming and will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with His truth.

A man of Eprhaim named Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah, though she was her husband's darling, was barren. Every year, Elkanah went up from Ramathaim zophim, his city, to God's shrine at Shiloh. He would sacrifice, then provide a feast for his family. And Peninnah would provoke Hannah, chafing her with the knowledge that the Lord had not favored her with children. Hannah wept and refused to eat or to be comforted. Finally, Hannah acted. She went to the Lord's temple and poured out her complaint to God, weeping bitterly. She begged God for a son, and promised to devote the son to God's service as a Nazirite, if God would answer her plea. Eli, the priest at Shiloh, saw Hannah praying, and thought she was drunk; so he rebuked her. But Hannah answered, 'No my lord, I am a sorely troubled woman. I have taken neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Don't think badly of me, for I have been praying oout of my great anxiety and vexation.' Eli answered, 'Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to Him.' She said, 'May your maidservant find favor in your eyes.' And she went her way, no longer sad. When Elkanah and his family returned home, Hannah conceived and bore a son, whom she named Samuel, commemorating that she had asked God for him. That year, Hannah did not go up to Shiloh with her husband; she told Elkanah, 'As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him up, that he may abide in YHWH's presence forever.' Elkanah approved her plan. When Samuel was weaned, Hannah took him up to the temple, with a t hree-year old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine. At the temple, they sacrificed the bull. And Hannah presented Samuel to Eli, saying 'O my lord! As you live, I am the woman who prayed to the Lord here in your presence. I prayed for this child, and YHWH granted my petition. Therefore, I am lending him to the Lord for as long as he lives.' And they worshiped YHWH there.

Paul and Timothy wrote to the Christians in Colossae: From the day we heard about your faith, we have been praying for you continually, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God's will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. May He strengthen you in all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father Who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is the exact icon of the invisible God, the First-born over all creation; in Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, including thrones, dominions, principalities and authorities—all created in Him and for Him. He is before all things, and all things cohere in Him. He is the Head of His body the church; the Beginning and the Firstborn form the dead, so that in everything He is pre-eminent. In Him all the fulness of God is pleased to dwell, and through Him God recocniles to Himself all things on earth and in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.

When the time came for the purification of Jesus and Mary, according to the law of Moses, Joseph and Mary brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present Him to YHWH, as the law directs and to offer the appropriate sacrifice, 'a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.' In Jerusalem lived a man named Simeon, righteous and devout, who longed after the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. The Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. Inspired by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple and encountered the party from Nazareth. When the parents brought in the child Jesus, Simeon took the baby in his arms and blessed God, saying, 'Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared before all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to Your people Israel.' And Joseph and Mary marveled at what Simeon said concerning Jesus; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, 'Behold, this Child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce your own soul also), that the thoughts coming from many hearts may be revealed.' There was a prophetess named Anna, daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher, a woman of great age. She had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity; when he died, she remained a widow to the age of 84. She seldom left the temple, worshiping with fasting and prapyer night and day. Anna came up at that very hour, and she gave thanks to God, and spoke about Jesus to all who were seeking the redemption of Jerusalem. And when Joseph and Mary had done everything according to the law of the Lord, they returned to Nazareth in Galilee, their own city. And the child Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and God's favor rested upon Him.