Exhortations...

Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Devotions: Ps 5, 6, 10, 11; Deut 4:15-24; 2 Cor 11:1-21a; Mt 6:16-23

Lord, hear my words and heed my deep groaning. You hate wickedness; evil and boastfulness cannot abide in Your presence. I come to You through the outpouring of your steadfast love. Make me a straight path through the minefield of opposition I face. I'm surrounded by liars bent on destruction. Let them fall by their own counsels. Let all who take refuge in You rejoice. You bless the righteous and cover us with favor as with a shield. Save me, Lord; turn me around and draw me to Yourself. Let evil-doers depart from me, for YHWH has heard my supplications and accepts my prayer. He watches the wicked seek to destroy the innocent; but at the proper time, God steps in and vindicates His own and destroys the wicked. God hears the meek and strengthens our hearts, that the earthy man may strike terror no more. YHWH sustains His own, and rains coals of fire and brimstone upon the wicked. YHWH is righteous and the upright will come to behold His face.

Moses' final exhortations to the Israelites continue: Take good heed for yourselves. You have stood in God's presence, and there you saw no form or figure. So make no images for yourselves, in any likeness. Don't begin to worship the creation, the sun, the moon or the stars—for YHWH your God has made and mastered all these. YHWH, no other, has brought you out of bondage, to be His own special treasure. God became angry with me because of you, and consequently I will not cross Jordan into the land God has promised us. I must die in this land—within sight of our goal for the past forty years. But you will go over, and by God's grace, you will possess that good land. So take heed, lest you forget YHWH's covenant with you and make a graven image of anything YHWH your God has forbidden you. He is a devouring fire, a jealous God!

Paul exhorts the Corinthians: Bear with a little more of my foolishness. I am divinely jealous over you, for I betrothed you to Christ, to present you as a pure bride to her one Husband. But I fear that as the serpent deceived Eve, so your thoughts may be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to the Messiah. If someone comes to you and preaches another Jesus from the one we preached, of if you receive a different spirit from the One Whom you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you seem easily swayed to go along. I am not in the least inferior to these superlative apostles. Even if I am unskilled as an orator, I am not inferior in godly knowledge. And I have made this evident to you in every way, in every thing. Did I sin by abasing myself so that you might be exalted? Was it sin that I preached to you without demanding material support? I robbed other churches by accepting their support so that I could serve you without cost to you. When I was with you and experienced want, I burdened none among you; instead, the brothers who came from Macedonia provided for my needs. So I have refrained and will continue to refrain from burdening you in any way. Christ's truth is in me, and I will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. Why is that? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do! And I will continue as I have begun, to undermine the false claim that these false proclaimers wokr on the same terms as I do. Such men are false prophets, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. It's no wonder—even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange that his servants do the same, seeking to appear as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. Let no one think me a fool; but if you must, accept my foolish boasting—since many boast of worldly things. You gladly bear with other fools, being wise youselves. You accept someone who seeks to enslave you, or to prey upon you, or if he takes advantage of you or puts on airs or strikes you in the face! To my shame, I admit, we were too weak to do those things.

And Jesus exhorts those who look to Him for teaching: When you fast, don't look dismal, like the hypocrites who disfigure their faces, intending that everyone should know that they are fasting. That cheap notice is their only reward. No, when you fast, clean up well, so that mortals cannot perceive that you are fasting, but your Father Who is in secret will see and reward you. Don't store up treasures on earth—it can so easily be destroyed or lost or stolen; instead, invest your efforts to establish treasure in heaven, where nothing decays, gets lost, or is stolen. Where your treasure is, there your hearts will be also. Your eyes are your bodies' lamps; if what you focus on is sound, your whole being is suffused with light. But if your eyes are not sound, your whole being is f ull of darkness. If the light in you is darkness, how profound is that darkness!