Devotions: Ps 66, 93, 98; Jonah 2:1-9; Acts 2:14, 22-32; Jn 14:1-14
Let all heaven and earth join in praise to our God; sing the glory of His name. YHWH, Your deeds are awesome; the enemy cringes before Your power and majesty. Come and see what God has done—creating and transforming the universe, and joining humanity in our enterprise, conquering sin and death for us! Let all the peoples bless our God! I come to You with my heart and soul; I offer myself to You, my God. Blessed is God, Who has not rejected my prayer or removed His steadfast love from me. YHWH reigns, robed in majesty, enthroned for eternity! Let the waters and winds praise Him. God, holiness befits Your house for evermore! Let us sing to YHWH a new song, for He has done marvelous things! The Lamb has won; love has conquered death and falsehood. Let all creation make a joyful noise to the Lord. He will come again to judge the earth with righteousness and with equity.
After his unsuccessful attempt to escape or evade God, Jonah prayed from the belly of the great fish: I called to YHWH in my distress, and He answered me. Lord, You cast me into the deep, surrounded by the flood, plunged beneath the waves and billows of the sea. I was dragged down to the roots of the mountains, the bottom of the oceans. Yet You brought me up from the Pit, YHWH my God! When my soul finally realized my peril, I remembered YHWH and prayed to You. I thank You, God, and devote myself to You. Deliverance belongs to YHWH. And the great fish vomited Jonah up on the land.
On the Pentecost when God birthed His church, Peter stood up among the eleven and proclaimed to all who were in Jerusalem and gathered by the uproar caused by the Spirit's advent among the believers: 'Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you; listen to me.... Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and the signs performed by God through Him in your midst. He was delivered up in accordance with God's sovereign plan and foreknowledge, and He was crucified and murdered by the hands of lawless mortals. But God raised Jesus up, freeing Him from the pangs of death, because death could not hold Him. As David wrote concerning Jesus: "I saw the Lord always before me, at my right hand, that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced, and my flesh will abide in hope. You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let Your Holy One see corruption. You have revealed to me the ways of life and fill me to overflowing with gladness by Your presence." Brothers and sisters, I can tell you confidentlyt that our ancestor David died and was buried; his tomb is among us today. But as a prophets, and believing God's promise to set one of David's descendants on the throne, David foresaw and spoke of the Messiah's resurrection, that He was not abandone to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. God has raised this Jesus up, and all of us before you are witnesses to this.'
Just before His crucifixion, Jesus sought to instruct and comfort His disciples, speaking of our relation to Him as the risen and glorified Messiah: Don't let your hearts be troubled; believe in God and in Me. In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would not have told you that I Am going to prepare a place for you, would I? When I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I Am, there you may be also. You know the Way to the place where I am going.' Thomas said that they didn't know, and asked how they could know this. Jesus said, 'I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father alswo; and from now on, You do know Him and have seen Him!' Philip said, 'Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.' Jesus replied, 'Have I been with you so long and you still don't know Me? How can you say "Show us the Father"? Don't you believe that I Am in the Father and that the Father is in Me? The words I say to you, I speak on the authority of the Father Who lives in Me and does His work through Me. Believe that I Am in the Father and He in Me—or believe on the basis of the works themselves that you have witnessed. I tell you truly: anyone who believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in My name, I will do it.'
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