Pressing in, pressing forward

Monday, April 18, 2011

Devotions: Ps 51, 69:1-23; Jer 12:1-16; Phil 3:1-16; Jn 12:9-19

Lord, have mercy on me and cleanse me from all my sins. I have sinned against You, Lord, and that sets me at odds with my Master and Maker. I know that You desire truth in my inmost being; so purge me with hyssop and wash me clean. Fill me with joy and gladness and blot out all my iniquities. Create a clean heart and upright spirit within me and restore to me the joy of my salvation. I will serve others gladly when I an rehabilitated myself, Lord. I am opposed at every turn; hostile enemies multiply their accusations against me. You know my sins and folly, Lord, and I am truly sorry for my grave misdoings. Answer me when You are ready, Lord; Your steadfast love is wonderful. Let me see Your face and do Your will, to Your glory. That's all I truly want or need. There is no mercy or kindness among mortals for me, no pity or sympathy. They try to poison me and give me bitterness for food and drink. So I turn them over to Your judgment, and throw myself on Your mercy, YHWH.

I know that You are righteous, Lord, but I need some answers. Why do the treacherous seem to thrive so? You seem to establish and care for them; they bear fruit, yet You are far from their hearts, and they seldom speak of You, and never with gratitude or respect. How long must the land and Your people mourn? How long will the drought affect land and spirit alike? All my relations, all my neighbors, and even total strangers ignore or attack me. My heritage turns against me, like a lion or a preying raptor. The wild beasts seek to tear and devour me and all that I hold dear. They desolate God's vineyard; they lay bare the heights and ruin the fields. The Lord's fierce anger scalds us all. I await the justice and mercy of YHWH, Who has promised compassion and restoration to His people. Let abide in Him and trust His word and covenant, our Mighty One, YHWH the Lord.

Finally, brothers, rejoice in the Lord. Shun those who would mutilate your flesh and abuse your faith. The true circumcision are those who worship the true God in wisdom and truth, who glory in the Messiah Jesus, and have no confidence in ethnicity or sect. I, Paul, have plenty of reason to be confident in piety: circumcised on the eighth day, an Israelite from Benjamin's tribe, and Hebrew born to Hebrew parents, a Pharisee and zealous persecutor of the church of Jesus, blameless before the law. But whatever gain I might have had from these distinctives, I account as loss for the sake of the Messiah. I count everything so, as loss, for the surpassing worth of knowing the Messiah Jesus as my Master. For His sake I have suffered the loss of everything I once valued; I consider them worthless and revolting, the dung of dogs, so that I may gain the Messiah and be found in Him, without righteousness of my own, in accord with the law, but that true righteousness which is received due to faith in the faithful Messiah—a righteousness form God that is founded on faith. My settled goal and intention is to know Him and the power of His resurrection; I aim to share in His sufferings and become like Him in His death, so that if possible, I may also attain the resurrection of the dead, which Jesus alone has experienced already. I can't say I have already obtained all this, or have achieved full maturity—what the Spirit calls perfection. But I press on to make all this my own, because the Messiah Jesus has claimed me as His own. Brothers and sisters, I don't consider that I have somehow earned or grasped all this; what I can do is forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in the Messiah Jesus. Let all who are mature think in this way; and if you think otherwise in any of these matters, I believe that God will enlighten you, too. Let us hold true to what we have attained!

When the great crowds who were in Jerusalem for the Passover got word that Jesus was coming, they took palm branches and went out to meet Him, crying 'Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!' Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the propechy, 'Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.' [Zech 9:9] At the time, the disciples were mystified; but after Jesus was glorified, they remembered and understood that this had been written of Him and had been done to Him. The crowd who had seen Him raise Lazarus from death also testified. The people flocked to meet Jesus because of this testimony and the mighty sign Jesus had done. And the Pharisees were vexed: 'You see that you can do nothing; the world has gone after Him'