Contemplate Jesus

Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Devotions: Ps 26, 28, 36, 39; Deut 6:16-25; Heb 2:1-10; Jn 1:19-28

Thank you, Lord, for helping me to walk with integrity; I want to trust in You without wavering. Keep testing and correcting my heart and mind, for Your steadfast love is constantly before me and I desire to walk in faithfulness to You. I will not sit with false men or consort with dissemblers; I will shun the company of evildoers and avoid sitting with the wicked. I cleanse my body and my soul and go about Your altar, YHWH, singing loud songs of thanks and recounting your wondrous acts. Lord, I love Your house, where Your glory dwells. Keep me from the destruction of the wicked and keep me on level ground, growing in integrity as You teach me, and I bless You! Let those who will not heed You experience Your awful judgment and wrath. YHWH is my Strength and my Shield, the Hope of my heart, the Theme of my song. YHWH is the strength of all His people; Lord, shepherd us forever! Sin lures the wicked; there is no fear of God in them. They believe they are fireproof and invisible to God. They speak lies and have departed from wisdom altogether. They plot mischief on their beds and saturate themselves with wickedness. YHWH, Your steadfast love extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds; Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, and Your judgments greater than the ocean depths. How priceless is Your steadfast love, O God! We shelter in Your shadow; we feast on Your abundance; life springs forth from You, and in Your light we can perceive light. Let Your steadfast love continue to surround me; lift me up as You thrust down the evildoers, who cannot rise again. I have tried several approaches to holiness—simple silence just builds the fire within me. So it's better to speak up: Lord, let me contemplate the measure of my days. I am mortal, a fleeting shadow. What am I waiting for? I'm certain my only hope is in You. So continue to bend me to Your will; I hate discipline, but I love life, Lord. Hasten to conform me to Your will, that I may receive the eternal life You offer, before I perish forever.

Moses continued his last messages to Israel: Don't put YHWH to the test, as you tried to do at Massah. Be diligent to keep His commands, testimonies and statutes. Do what is right and good in His sight, that it may go well with you, and that you may come into the land of promise and possess it, as YHWH swore to your ancestors, by thrusting out all your enemies before you, as He has promised. In days to come, when your children ask the meaning of the testimonies and ordinances which YHWH our God has commanded you, tell them this: 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt, and YHWH brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He demonstrated signs and wonders great and grievous against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his household, in our sight. He brought us out of there in order to bring us here and to give us the land He swore to our ancestors. YHWH has commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear YHWH our God, always for our benefit, that He might keep us alive. We will have righteousness if we keep all His commands.'

We must focus on what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. If messages declared by angels were valid, and if every sin or disobedience received a just retribution, how will we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was first declared by the Lord, and was attested to us by those who heard Him; and God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts the Holy Spirit has distributed according to His own will. It wasn't to angels that God subjected the coming world we are discussing. It is written, 'What is humankind that You are mindful of us, or the son of man that You care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels, and then You crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.' Think: in putting everything in subjection to Jesus, the Father left nothing outside His control. Here and now, we don't see everything in subjection to Him; rather, we see Jesus, Who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by God's grace He might taste death for everyone. It was fitting that He, for Who and by Whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the Pioneer of our salvation perfect through suffering.

This is John's testimony: when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, 'Who are you?' He confesed: 'I am not the Messiah.' So they pressed on: 'Are you Elijah, then?' He said, 'I am not.' They asked 'Are you the prophet Moses predicted?' And John said, 'No.' So they gave up: 'Who are you? Give us an answer to take to those who sent us. What is your story?' John replied, 'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Make straight the way of the Lord," as Isaiah wrote.' The Pharisees had sent them, and they asked, 'Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?' And John answered them: 'I baptize with water; but One stands among you, Whom you do not know—the One Who comes after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of His sandal.' All this occurred in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.