No veils!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Devotions: Ps 131-35; Ruth 2:14-23; 2 Cor 3:1-18; Mt. 5:27-37

Lord, I am not exalting myself; I know my place, and I have stilled my soul like a weaned child near its mother's breast. I know my best chance is to depend entirely on You. David's devotion is a model for any believer; and God's faithfulness to David and his descendants shows how loyal and trustworthy God is! It is good and pleasant when brothers dwell in unity, under God's protection and benediction. Let all who serve YHWH lift hands in worship and bless the Lord! All praise to YHWH, for He is good and gracious. He does whatever pleases Him; He manages the creation. Lord, Your name endures forever. The idols of the pagans are silver and gold, the work of men's hands, the figments of human imagination. And we mortals become like what or Whom we worship. So let those who know YHWH praise and worship Him alone. Hallelu Yah!

When mealtime came in the harvest fields, Boaz invited Ruth to eat with his workers. Boaz told his workers to let her glean wherever she would, and not to reproach her—even to leave some for her to find. At the end of the day, Ruth had about an ephah of barley. She took that, and the remains of her midday meal to Naomi, who asked Ruth, 'Where did you glean today? Where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.' Ruth told Naomi she had been in Boaz's fields. Naomi told her daughter-in-law, 'May he be blessed by YHWH, Who is kind to living and and the dead. That man is a relative, one of our nearest kin.' Ruth told Naomi that Boaz had told her to stay close to his workers. Naomi recognized that this safeguard protected Ruth against being molested. So Ruth stayed with Boaz's workers through the harvests of barley and wheat, and lived with Naomi.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: I need no letter of recommendation—you are proof of my vocation; my calling is evidenced on your hearts, open to be read by anyone. You are a letter written by Christ and delivered by us, written with the Spirit of the living God on human hearts. No wonder I am totally confident through Christ toward God. I am not competent in myself to claim anything; my competence is from God, Who equips us to be ministers of a new covenant, written in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life! Now, if the dispensation of deaqth, carved on stone, came with such splendor that the Israelites could not gaze on Moses' face, even though the glory was fading, won't the dispensation of the Spirit be accompanied by greater splendor? If there was splendor in the dispensation of condemnation, the dispensation of righteousness will far exceed it in splendor. If what faded had glory, what is permanent must have much more! We are very bold because we have this enduring hope—not like Moses, who veiled his face so that the Israelites might not see the end of the fading splendor. Their minds were hardened; to this very day, when they read the old covenant, the veil remains—it can only be removed through the Messiah. To this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lays over their minds. But when a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! We all, with unveiled faces, beholding the Lord's glory, are bing transformed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another. All this comes from the Lord Who is the Spirit.

Jesus taught: You were taught not to commit adultery. But I tell you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out! It is better that you lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off; better to lose one member than for your whole body to go into hell. You have heard that if someone divorces his wife, he must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you: anyone who divorces his wife, except because of her unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. You were taught not to swear falsely, and to keep your vows made to the Lord. But I tell you, don't swear at all—not by heaven, God's throne, or by earth, His footstool, or by Jerusalem, the great King's city. Don't swear by your head, since you have no control over making even one hair black or white. Let what you say be simply Yes or No; anything more comes from the evil one.