Devotions: Ps 89; Jer 16:10-21; Rom 7:1-12; Jn 6:1-15
YHWH, I will sing of Your steadfast love forever, telling each generation about Your faithfulness. You made and keep Your covenant with David and his descendants. None is as mighty as You, Lord of Lords, feared by all spiritual beings. You rule the raging seas; you crushed Rahab, and scattered Your enemies with a mighty arm. The mountains give You praise; Your throne rests on righteousness and justice; You are heralded by steadfast love and faithfulness. Your people glory in Your strength, and in Your goodness and love. You are our Father, our Rock and our Salvation. You keep Your covenant and Your word. But Your people waver; and in our times of unfaithfulness, You bring judgment upon us, casting us down, and shortening our days, covering us with shame. Bring forth Your steadfast love, Lord; remember how scorned we are, Your servants, as Your enemies mock the footsteps of Your anointed ones.
YHWH told Jeremiah: 'When this people ask why I Am punishing them, tell them: your ancestors forsook Me and worshiped other gods; they have not kept My law. And you are worse than your ancestors; each of you follows his own stubborn evil will; so I will cast you out from the land I gave you, into a strange land you do not know, where you will be slaves to strange gods. The days are coming when people will speak about the days when YHWH brought the people out of the dispersion in the north and all the countries of the world. I wll bring them back to their own land, where their ancestors lived. Many fishers and hunters will find them and bring them back; neither their sins nor their struggles are beyond My sight. I will double repay their iniquity and sin; they have polluted My land with the carcasses of their detestable idols and filled My inheritance with their abominations.' The prophet responded: 'O Lord, my Strength, my Stronghold, my Refuge in days of trouble: to You the nations will come from the ends of the earth. They will acknowledge their fathers' sins and unfaithfulness and their own. And God will say: 'Therefore, see this: I will make them know My power and might, and they will know that My name is YHWH!'
Paul discusses the law with the Romans: Don't you know, brothers and sisters, that the law pertains only while one lives. A married woman is bound by law to her husband while the two live; but she is discharged from that obligation when her husband dies. She will be named an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive; but if her husband dies, she is free and if she marries another man, she is not an adulteress before the law. In the same way, my brothers and sisters, you have died to the law through the body of the Messiah—so that you may belong to Another, to Him Who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. While we lived in the flesh, our sinful passions, enflamed by the law, were are work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive; we serve not under the old written code, but in the new life of the Spirit. Shall we argue that the law is sin? Absolutely not! But if not for the law, I should have known nothing about sin. The law that says, 'Don't covet' made me aware of my coveting. Sin makes the most of the law by working all kinds of covetousness in me. Apart from the law, sin lies dead; and I too was once alive apart from the law. But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. The very commandment that promised life turned out to be death to me. Sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it, sin killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is hold, just and good.
Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee, followed by a great multitude who had witnessed His signs worked on those who were diseased. Jesus went up on a mountain and sat down with His close disciples; and the Jewish Passover was at hand. Jesus lifted up His eyes and saw the multitude coming to Him. He said to Philip, 'How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?' He asked to test Philip, because Jesus already knew what He was going to do. Philip replied, 'Two hundred denarii—eight months' wages—would not buy enough bread to give each of them a little.' Andrew said to Jesus, 'There is a boy here who had five barley loaves and two fish. But what are these among so many?' Jesus said, 'Have the people sit down.' There was much grass there; and the people sat, numbering five thousand men, plus women and children. Jesus took the five loaves, and when He had given thanks, He broke and distributed them to these who were seated; He did the same with the fish. And everyone had as much as they wanted. When the crowd were fully satisfied, Jesus had His disciples gather up the fragments, and they gathered twelve baskets full of leftovers from the five barley loaves. Seeing all this, the people declared, 'This is indeed the Prophet Who is to come into the world!' Perceiving that the people were about to come to Him and make Him king by force, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain, alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment