Be steadfast

Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Devotions: Ps 12-14; 119:1-24; Deut 4:25-31; 2 Cor 11:21b-33; Mt 6:24-34

Lord, send help! I can find no one who is godly; the faithful have disappeared. Everybody lies to others; with flattering lips and hidden purpose, they speak from double heart. May YHWH cut off all flattering lips and boasting tongues. God arises to protect the powerless and poor. He keeps His word; His promises are like silver seven times refined. Protect us, Lord, for the wicked prowl and exalt vileness. God, don't forget us forever! I will trust in Your steadfast love and rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, Who has dealt bountifully with me. Only fools deny God's existence; they are corrupt and act abominably. YHWH looks down from heaven, seeking someone who does good. But He finds few if any who have knowledge. Let the evildoers shake in terror, for God is with the generation of the righteous. The wicked seek to confound the poor, but the Lord protects them. Let deliverance come down from God's throne; and when YHWH restores the fortunes of His people, we shall rejoice! Blessed are the blameless who walk by YHWH's law. They keep His testimonies; God means for us to obey His words, not just remember them. I will be steadfast and obedient, that I may triumph. Lord, I will praise You with an upright heart. How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your word. I seek You with all my heart; do not let me stray from Your commands. I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You! Lord, deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may see wondrous things from Your law. I am a pilgrim on earth; put Your commands before me to guide my sojourn. Your testimonies counsel and delight me, Lord.

Moses preaches to the Israelites: When your generations multiply in the Land, if you begin to worship graven images and sin against YHWH your God, provoking His anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you right now: you will soon thereafter perish from the land you are crossing Jordan to possess. You will be utterly destroyed, if you forsake your God. YHWH will scatter you among the nations; you will be a tattered remnant among foreigners where the Lord will exile you. In those places, you will be forced to worship gods of wood and stone, senseless and powerless human artifacts! But from that exile, you will seek YHWH your God, and you will find Him if you search with all your heart and soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these misfortunes befall you in latter days, return to YHWH your God and heed His voice, for He is merciful; He will not fail you or destroy you; He will never forget or break His covenant with your ancestors.

Paul continues his letter to the Corinthian church: As a fool, I I can boast in the same way as any of these imposters. Are they Hebrews? Me, too! Do they descend from Abraham? So do I! Do they serve Christ? I serve Him better, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, countless beatings, more often near death. Five times the Jews gave me the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; once I drifted on the sea a night and a day. I've traveled incessantly, in danger from rivers, from robbers, from my own Jewish people and from Gentiles—danger in cities, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from all these is the daily pressure on me of my deep anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not made weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of what demonstrates my own weakness. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus, blessed be He forever, knows that I do not lie. At Damascus the governor under King Aretas guarded the city to seize me, but friends let me down in a basket through a window in the wall, and I escaped his hands.

And Jesus teaches: No one can serve two masters—you must love one and hate the other: you cannot serve both God and mammon. So I tell you: don't be anxious about your life, what you will eat or drink, or what you will wear. Life is more than food or clothing. Consider the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor harvest; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren't you of greater value than they? Why be anxious about raiment? Consider the flowers of the field; they neither toil nor spin, but not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. So, if God so wonderfully clothes the grass of the field, which lives for one day and the next is tossed into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, people of little faith? So don't be anxious about what you will eat or drink or wear. The Gentiles seek all these, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be yours, too. So don't be anxious about tomorrow; tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient to the day!