Meet Him, follow Him, work with Him

Monday and Tuesday, January 24 & 25, 2011
Devotions: Ps 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 52; Isa 48:1-21; Gal 1:1-2:10; Mk 5:21-6:13

Blessed are they who consider the poor; YHWH delivers them in their days of trouble; He sustains them in sickness and heals all their infirmities. I confessed my sins to God, and though the gossips were sure I was finished, God raised me up and requited my enemies for their malice toward me. God is my Helper. Pass the word along to the coming generations; make them aware of God's role in creating and sustaining their nation and their family. YHWH, You are my God and my victories are all from You. Don't cast me away; revive my love and strengthen my faithf, I pray. Jesus is the fairest of men, the majestic King and High Priest, and Bridegroom of the church, His bride. God has placed all things under His reign, and we will celebrate His goodness for ever. Let all peoples celebrate and sing to God with shouts of joy and songs of praise. He is our great King, and our God reigns over all creation. Great is our God and greatly to be praised. We meditate on Your steadfast love, my Lord; we walk around Zion and ponder her ramparts and citadels. God is our Guide and our Refuge forever! God will bring down the haughty, and the righteous will learn from witnessing this judgment. I am like a green olive tree in God's arbor; I trust in God's steadfast love forever, and give You thanks, my Lord. I will proclaim Your wonderful name in the presence of the godly.

Let all descended from Jacob, all Israel's sons and daughters, hear and consider. You are stiff-necked and obstinate, and God tolerated your rebelliousness. But God will not defer His anger forever. Turn, or perish; be refined and purified, that you may survive the fire of God's judgment. God says, 'I Am He, the First and the Last. I laid the foundations of the world and spread out the heavens. God calls and sends His own to do His will. God is our Redeemer; He leads us in the way we must go. Let us hearken and obey Him, so that the Holy One can prosper us. For there is no peace for the wicked!

Paul, called to be an apostle by Jesus the Messiah and God the Father, with his companions, wrote to the churches of Galatia: Grace and peace to you fromGod the Father and our Lord Jesus the Messiah. He gave Himself for our sins, to deliver us from the present evil age, as God wills, to Whom be glory forever! How it amazes me that you are already falling away from Him Who called you in the grace of the Messiah, and are following another gospel! There are no other gospels, of course; but there are many who seek to trouble you and to pervert the true gospel of the Messiah. If any being—an apostle, an angel even—should present you a different message than that we preached to you, let that messenger be cursed! I make no attempt to please mortals; my mission is to obey and please my Master, the Messiah. What I told you is not some human tale; it came to me through direct revelation from Jesus the Anointed. You know how I was living prior to that—I violently persecuted God's church and tried to destroy it. I was a rising star in Judaism, beyond many of my age, surpassing in zeal for the Jewish traditions. But God had set me apart for His service even before I was born, and He had called me in His grace—so when He was pleased to reveal His Son to me, so that I might proclaim Him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any other human being; neither did I go up to Jerusalem to check in with those who were apostles before me. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later returned to Damascus, where Jesus transformed me. Three years after that, I went up to Jerusalem to visit with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. Beyond Peter, I saw only the Lord's brother James. Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. I was still not known by sight to the churches of the Messiah in Judea; they only heard it said of me, 'He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.' And they glorified God because of His ministry in me. After fourteen more years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along. I went because of a revelation, and laid before the leaders in private the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running in vain. Titus was not compelled to be circumcised, though he is a Greek. But some false brothers who slipped in to spy on our freedom in the Messiah Jesus challenged me, seeking to bring us believers into bondage. But I refused to yield to them in any particular, determined to preserve the integrity of the gospel for you. And from those held to be most important in the Jerusalem church—and I care only about God's judgment, since He is perfect and shows no partiality—nothing was changed or added in my fundamental message. James and Cephas and John gave the right hand of fellowship to me and to Barnabas, and agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the Jews. They urged us to remember the poor—the very thing I was already eager to do!

Jesus returned to the Galilean shores and a great crowd surrounded Him on the shore. A synagogue ruler named Jairus came and fell before Jesus, begging Him to come and lay hands on Jairus' daughter, who was sick and dying. And Jesus set out with him. The crowd followed and thronged around Jesus. Among them was a woman who had suffered from a chronic hemorrhage for 12 years. She had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all her substance seeking relief, but her condition simply continued to worsen. She had heard about Jesus, and steeled her will to find Jesus. She came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment, for she had determined that she would be cured if she merely touched Jesus' garments. Immediately her hemorrhage ceased; she felt in her body that she was healed. And Jesus perceived that power had gone forth from Him; He turned immediately and said, 'Who touched My garments?' His disciples pointed out that a crowd was pressing upon Him; many had touched Jesus. But He continued His search. The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before Jesus and told Him the whole truth. And He said, 'Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.' As Jesus was saying this, some people came from Jairus' house; they told Jairus, 'Your daughter is dead. No reason to trouble the Teacher any longer.' Jesus ignored them, and said to Jairus, 'Do not fear; just believe.' And He continued, allowing no one to accompany Him except Peter, James and John. When they came to Jairus' house, there was a tumult, with people wailing and weeping. Jesus went in and said to the mourners, 'Why do you make a tumult and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.' They laughed at Jesus, but He put them all outside, and took the child's parents and His three apostles and went into the room where the child was. Jesus took her by the hand and said, 'Talitha, cumi!' This means, 'Little girl, I say to you, arise!' Immediately the girl got up and walked; she was twelve years old. The witnesses were overcome with amazement. Jesus strictly charged them to tell no one what they had witnessed; and He told them to give the girl something to eat. Jesus returned to His own home, and His disciples followed Him. On the Sabbath, He began to teach in the synagogue. The listeners said, 'Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are done by his hands! Isn't this the carpenter, son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here among us?' And they were offended bt Jesus. He said to them, 'A prophet is honored, except in his own country and among his own kin and in his own house.' He could do no might works there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And Jesus marveled at the unbelief of those in His own home town and family.