Kingdom living in a fallen world

March 19, 2014 Devotions: Ps 72, 119:73-96; Gen 42:18-28; 1 Cor 5:9-6:8; Mk 4:1-20 Bless Your anointed, Lord, with eternal life, divine glory, human favor. He delivers the needy and helpless; He shows pity to the weak and saves the endangered. He redeems us from oppression, violence, and death itself. Prosper Your people, Lord. Blessed is YHWH, God of Israel; may His glory fill the entire creation! Lord, Your hands made me; You continue to shape me day by day. Your judgments are perfect; Your mercy is so welcome, Lord—how I need You. I will meditate on Your precepts today—I long for You and for Your grace, my God. Help me endure another day in this sin-sick world. In Your steadfast love, spare me, that I may keep Your testimonies. Help me remember Your words when I am languishing; by Your word, I have eternal life. There is no limit to the goodness and might of my God. After keeping his brothers in jail for three days, Joseph confronted them: 'Here's how you can survive—I fear God and give you this opportunity. If you are honest men, let one of you remain here as hostage, while the rest carry grain to relieve your household's famine. Bring your youngest brother here to me, to verify your words, and you shall not die.' The brothers were in no position to argue; and as they conferred, they said, 'This distress comes because of the way we treated our brother Joseph; he begged for mercy, and we had none. His suffering is now visited on us, and justly so.' Reuben reinforced this, and reminded the others how he had argued for mercy for Joseph, but the rest ignored his pleas. 'So now comes a reckoning for his blood.' They had no idea Joseph could understand their conversation; there was an interpreter before him. So Joseph, deeply moved, left the room, wept, and returned when he had regained his composure. He took Simeon from among them and bound him. Then Joseph ordered that their bags be filled with grain, and he had each man's money replaced in his sack. And he gave them provisions for their journey back to Canaan. They loaded their donkeys and set forth. On the way, they discovered that their money was in the sacks, and they were appalled, trembling, and saying 'What is this that God has done to us?' Paul's letter to Corinth continued: 'I wrote you to separate from immoral members of the believing community—brothers in name only. We judge among ourselves, and leave unbelievers to God's judgment alone. Drive out the wicked from among yourselves. And forbear from going to civil court in your disputes—don't you know that we disciples will judge the world? Surely you are not incompetent to decide trivial cases. Don't you know we will judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this mortal existence! Don't bring your cases to those least esteemed by the church—this is to your shame. Surely someone among you is competent to decide your internal disputes. Instead, brother goes to law against brother, in the presence of unbelievers. It's a great defeat merely to have such lawsuits among you. Better to suffer wrong without recourse—why not be defrauded rather than putting the church to public ridicule. Yet you continue to do wrong and defraud others, even your own brothers and sisters.' Jesus got into a boat and cast offshore to teach the throngs beside the sea. He taught them many things in parables. He taught: A sower went out to sow, and cast the seed. Some fell upon the hardened path and birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground; there was little soil, and though it sprang up quickly, there was no depth of soil, and in the heat of the day, the shoots were scorched and the rootless plants withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the weeds choked out the grain, and there was no crop. But some seed fell upon good soil; it flourished and brought forth a bumper harvest, thirty, sixty and even a hundred times what was sown. Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear! Later His close disciples asked Jesus to explain the lesson. He was taken aback: 'Don't you get this? How will you understand all I teach?' The sower is spreading God's word; for the ones along the path, Satan comes and snatches the message away—and they have nothing. The 'rocky ground' folks hear the message with great joy, but they have little root in themselves, and inevitably trouble or persecution comes, and they let go of the word and fall away; and the 'thorny ground' people hear the world, but they are so stressed by the cares of the world and the struggle for material success that the word is choked out and can bear no fruit in them. Those who hear and accept the word are the good soil, and they bear fruit—thirty, sixty or a hundredfold.'