Devotions: Ps 78; Isa 59:1-15a; 2 Tim 1:1-14; Mk 9:42-50
Let the people attend to this teaching, and let our children and grandchildren benefit from their ancestors' experience. Consider the glorious deeds of YHWH: He established His testimony among the offspring of Jacob; He gave the Torah to Israel. He commanded that we not forget Him, but keep His commands. But many ignored His directions. The Ephraimites turned back in a day of battle and broke God's covenant—despite the marvels God had worked in delivering them from Egyptian bondage, guiding them through the sea and across the wilderness. But still they rebelled against Him repeatedly! They tested God in their hearts; and though God continued to preserve and protect them, His heart was wroth, and His anger grew, even as the people enjoyed quail in the desert, water from the rock, and the bread of angels. God slew their strongest, laying low the picked men of Israel. When they repented, God relented; yet their hearts were not steadfast toward God. He brought the people to His holy land and drove out the nations before them, to the mountain where He placed His earthly footstool. Even settled in the Land, the children of Israel rebelled against the Most High God, treacherous and unfaithful, like their ancestors. They sinned with other idols. So God rejected Israel and forsook His temple at Shiloh; He sent His ark and His might into captivity, and gave His people over to the swords of conquerors. But God again relented, and chose the tribe of Israel and Mount Zion, where He established His sanctuary. He chose David as His servant, taking him from the sheepfolds and exalting him as king over Judah and Israel. And David led the people with a skillful hand and a faithful heart.
YHWH's hand is not shortened; He can save; He can see and hear. The separation we experience is our doing, not God's. Our sins hide His face from us; we are defiled by our iniquities. How prone we are to sin and rebellion. So justice remains far from us; we seek like, but grope in darkness. We stumble at noon; we growl like bears and moan like doves. Our transgressions are multiplied before holy God. Justice and righteousness are at an arm's length, and those who seek to live in a holy manner become the objects of persecution and oppression.
Paul, the apostle of the Messiah Jesus, wrote to Timothy: grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and our Lord the Messiah Jesus. I thank God when I remember you constantly in my prayers; I have a clear conscience as I serve God. I recall your tears and long to see you night and day, that I may be filled with joy. I remember your sincere faith—like that of your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice. I remind you: rekindle the gift of God that lives in you through the laying on of my hands: for God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power and love and self-control. Don't be ashamed to testify concerning our Lord, nor of me as His prisoner; share in suffering for the gospel, and do this in the power of God, Who saved us and called us with a holy calling—not in virtue of our works, but in the virtue of His own purpose and in the grace He gave us in the Messiah Jesus ages ago. Now this power is manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a preacher, apostle and teacher, and I suffer as I do for these reasons. But I am not ashamed; I know Whom I have believed, and I am certain that He is able to guard until that Day what He has entrusted to me. Follow the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me; in the faith and love which are in the Messiah Jesus. Guard the truth that God has entrusted to you through me, by the Holy Spirit Who dwells within us.
Jesus told His apostles: Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin: it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea! If your had causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to live maimed than to go to hell with both hands. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better to live lamed than to be cast into hell with both your feet. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, where the worms never die and the fire never goes out. Everyone will be salted with fire; salt is good, but if it loses it saltisness, how can you restore its savor? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
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