Pray, believing

Friday and Saturday, December 3 and 4
Devotions: Ps 16, 17, 20-22, 110:1-5, 116, 117; Amos 5:1-27; Jude; Mt 22:1-22

I take great delight in YHWH and in His people. YHWH is my chosen Portion, and He has blessed me abundantly. He gives me counsel day and night, and I will not be moved—so my heart is glad and my soul rejoices. Lord, judge me rightly, with an eye toward the righteousness of my Savior Jesus. Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under Your wings. Overthrow my implacable enemies. I will behold Your face in righteousness. May God grant me the desires of my heart; may I shout for joy in Your victories and in the name of our God. May YHWH fulfill all my petitions. I will boast in the name of YHWH my God. Jesus the King rejoices in God, Who has given Him the desire of His heart—eternal life, majestic glory, and total victory over His enemies. God has not forsaken me: Jesus bore that reproach and awful burden. He was mocked, tortured, beaten and crucified; they gambled for His clothing and laid Him in a buried tomb. But God raised Him from death, and He lives to testify to God's power and faithfulness. Let all the earth attend to this great story, and bow to the Chosen of the Lord. God sets Jesus at His right hand; He will make all enemies the footstool for His chosen One. Jesus is eternal King, Priest, and Master. Our Lord is gracious and merciful; He preserves the simple and raises up the downtrodden. Let me soul abide in His peace. God has delivered my soul from labor. I walk before YHWH in the land of the living. Our lives and deaths are precious before Him. YHWH, I am Your servant, and I praise You before all Your people. Let us praise YHWH!

Amos laments over Israel: Fallen to rise no more is virgin Israel, forsaken and helpless. Her troubles decimate her. Seek YHWH and live, for His wrath will break forth and consume. The Maker turns darkness to morning and light to nightfall. YHWH is His name, might Master of all creation. He sees your sins and hates your oppression of the powerless and poor. Seek good, not evil, and live—or God will strike you down to rise no more. Hate evil; love good; establish justice, and abide under His grace. God's day of judgment comes; wail in despair, you who are His enemies. God hates and despises your empty sacrifices, feasts and assemblies. Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, and let God's enemies perish in exile!

Jude, brother of Jesus the Messiah, wrote to the called, beloved in God the Father and preserved for Jesus the Messiah: mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you! I wanted to write encouragement, but I must urge you to contend for the faith once delivered to all the saints. For imposters have broken in among the saints—long ago designated for condemnation. They are ungodly and pervert God's grace and liberty into licentiousness. They deny our only Lord and Master, Jesus the Messiah. God Who saved the people out of Egypt later destroyed those who would not believe and obey. Angels that deserted their appointed service now abide in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the great day of God's judgment. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah and sourrounding cities perished in eternal fire as a consequence of their immoral and unnatural lusts and immorality. These latter-day imposters defile the flesh, reject authority, and revile the glorious ones. Consider: the archangel Michael, contending with the devil over Moses' body, did not take authority to himself, but declared 'The Lord rebuke you!' These men revile all that they don't understand; they operate on animal instinct, irrationally, and they will be destroyed. Woe to them! They are in the way of Cain and Balaam and rebellious Korah. They blemish your love feasts, carousing together, caring only for themselves. They are waterless clouds, wind-blown; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice-dead and uprooted; wild sea-waves casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars bound for the nether gloom reserved for them eternally. Enoch spoke of these in the seventh generation after Adam: 'Behold, the Lord came with His holy myriads, to execute judgment on all, and to convict the ungodly of their sins, and to punish their ungodly speech against our Lord.' These are grumblers, malcontents, driven by their own passions, loud-mouthed boasters, flattering people to manipulate for their own gain. Remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus the Messiah: 'In the last times there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.' They set up divisions; they are worldly, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, edify yourselves in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in God's love; waith for the mercy of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, that issues in eternal life. Convince some who doubt; save some, snatching them from the first of sin and judgment; have mercy on some, with awe; hate even the garments spotted by the flesh. I commend you now to Him Who is able to keep you from falling and present you without blemish before the presence of His glory with rejoicing: to the only God, our Savior through Jesus the Messiah our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

When Jesus and His disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two disciples: 'Go to this village and you will find an ass tied and a colt with her. Bring them to Me. If some asks what you are doing, tell them, "The Lord needs them," and they will not hinder you.' All this took place to fulfill what the prophet spoke: 'Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your King comes to you, humble, mounted on a donkey and on a colt, a donkey's foal.' They brought the ass and the colt; some disciples put their garments on them as a cushion and Jesus mounted. Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road before Him, and others cut tree branches and spread them on the road. The crowds shouted: 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!' When Jesus came to Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred, saying, 'Who is this?' And the crowds answered, 'This is Jesus from Nazarath of Galilee, God's prophet.' Jesus went into God's temple and drove out all who sold and bought there. He overturned the monechangers' tables and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He told them, 'It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer," but you have made it into a den of brigands!' The blind and lame came to Jesus at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and heard the children calling out, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!', they were indignant and asked Jesus if He heard what they were saying. He said, 'Yes; have you naver read, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings You have brought perfect praise"?' And leaving them there, Jesus went out of the city to Bethany, where He lodged for the night. The next morning, Jesus was returning to the city; He was hungry, and seeing a fig tree by the wayside, He went up to it, but found nothing but leaves. He said to the tree, 'May no fruit ever come from you again!' And the fig tree withered at once. The disciples marveled and asked how the tree had withered so rapidly. Jesus answered them: 'Truly I tell you: if you have faith and never doubt, you will not only do what has been done to this fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, "Be taken up and cast inot the sea," it will be done for you. Whatever you ask in prayer you will receive, if you have faith.'