Follow God and live, or follow men and perish

Saturday, March 29, 2014 Devotions: Ps 87, 90, 136; Gen 47:27-48:7; 1 Cor 10:1-13; Mk 7:1-23 Jerusalem, God's city, stands upon and around Mt. Moriah; YHWH loves the gates of Zion—golden city, wondrous things are said about you. It is an honor to be born there, in the wellspring of song and dance! YHWH, You have been our Dwelling Place for all generations; You made the earth and the heavens; a millennium for us is a night's watch for You. If we live 70 years, or 80 if we're exceptionally hardy, our lives are but toil and trouble, soon over, and we disappear. So, eternal Lord, teach us to number our days aright. Let Your steadfast love be our food; make us glad for as many days as we have languished. Manifest Your wondrous works to Your servants. Let the favor of YHWH our God be upon us and let Him establish the work of our hands. Let us thank the Lord, for His steadfast love endures forever—He Is Lord of lords, Wonder-worker, Creator of all that is, Deliverer of His chosen people, Guide through wilderness wandering, Conqueror of every enemy, Lifter of our heads, Feeder of the hungry, Lord of heaven and earth, Whose steadfast love endures forever. Israel's tribe lived in Goshen, where they flourished and multiplied. When Israel's death approached, he called Joseph to his side, and required his son to promise not to bury him in Egypt, but to return his bones to the ancestral cemetery. When Israel was in his final illness, Joseph took his sons Manasseh and Ephraim to visit their grandfather. Israel adopted both as his own sons and heirs. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: Our ancestors all were baptized when they passed through the cloud and the sea as they followed Moses; all ate the mannah, the supernatural food; all drank supernatural water from the Rock Which followed them: and that as Christ! Yet God overthrew most of them in the wilderness, for they displeased Him. All this should warn us, not to desire evil as they did. Don't be idolaters; don't indulge in immorality—23,000 of them fell dead on one day! Don't test God—those who did that died by serpent bites. Don't grumble against him, as those did whom the Destroyer killed. Let everyone take care! No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to humankind. God Is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. The Pharisees gathered around Jesus, along with scribes from Jerusalem. They observed that Jesus' disciples did not perform ceremonial handwashing before they ate. They asked Jesus why His followers did not observe the traditions of the elders. He replied, 'Isaiah prophesied well about you hypocrites when he wrote “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.” You have a fine ay of rejecting God's commandments in favor of keeping your own human traditions. Moses commanded you to honor your fathers and mothers, but you deprive your parents because of your choice to divert their support as Corban—what you give to God, while you enforce neglect of parents, despite God's commandment—you void God's word and pass along instead your own traditions. You do lots of things in this manner!' Then Jesus called the people to Himself and taught them: 'Nothing outside a person can defile him by being taken in; people are defiled by what comes out from inside them.' His disciples asked Jesus to explain this teaching; as usual, He was surprised by their lack of understanding: 'Can't you see that what goes into a man from outside simply passes through his digestive system and what is not absorbed is excreted?' (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) He said, 'From within, from human hearts, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness—all these emerge from within, and they are what defile people.'