Celebrate God's victory

Monday, April 21, 2014 Devotions: Ps 66, 93, 98; Ex 12:14-27; 1 Cor 15:1-11; Mk 16:9-20 Make a joyful noise to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of His name, give him glorious praise! Recount His awesome deeds, His mighty power; consider what God has done, Who inundates dry land, drains swamps, opens pathways through seas and rivers, and raises the dead! Let all people praise our God. Lord, I come before You, bowed to the ground; I am a sinner in Your sight, worthy of any penalty You might levy. Yet, You welcome and forgive, heal and deliver me. If I had cherished iniquity, YHWH would note listen; but God listens, and He has neither rejected my prayer nor removed His steadfast love from me. YHWH reigns, robed in majesty, girded with power. Your decrees, my God, are certain; holiness befits Your household for ever. Let us sing a new song to our God, for He has done marvelous things. He has won the final victory; let all creation sound His praises; let the seas roar and the mountains echo with His praises; let waters and seas, lands and skies hymn His goodness, His power, His holy love. For He comes to judge the earth and skies, with righteousness and equity for all people. God told Moses, concerning the Passover: This day will be an everlasting memorial for you and all My people Israel. Keep it as an annual feast; eat unleavened bread for seven days. Hold a holy assembly the first day and the seventh day, and do no work on those days. Thus remember how I delivered you from slavery in Egypt. In the first month, on the fourteenth day, at evening, eat unleavened bread; continue through the twenty-first day. For seven days, let no leaven be found in your houses; anyone who eats leaven in that time will be cut off from the people of God. Moses assembled the elders and passed along God's ordinance; he told them to select a lamb without blemish for each household; to kill the lamb; to daub its blood on the doorposts and lintels of their doorways, using a bunch of hyssop. And no one should venture out from the houses until the morning. During that night, the Lord would pass through Egypt, killing every first-born, child or animal, throughout the land, but passing over those houses where the lamb's blood was on the doorway. Moses warned the elders to keep this rite as an everlasting ordinance, specifically in the land to which God would lead His people. He told them: when your children ask the meaning of this ritual, tell them: 'It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, for He passed over the houses of our people in Egypt; He slew the Egyptians, but spared our households. And the people bowed and worshiped. Paul reminded the Corinthians: This is what I preached to you, brothers and sisters: the gospel by which you are saved, if you hold it fast. First in order and in importance: The Messiah died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures; He was buried; God raised Him on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures; and He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, then to more than 500 believers at one time—and most of those are still alive as I write this, though some have fallen asleep. Then Jesus appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And finally He appeared to me, as if to one born at the wrong time. I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle because I persecuted God's church. Yet by God's grace, I am what I am; and His grace toward me was not in vain, for I worked harder than any of them—though it was the grace of God that is with me, not my own virtue, that did the work. Whoever the human agent was who proclaimed all this to you, we preached and so you believed. When the Sabbath had passed, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, to use to anoint the body of Jesus. Very early on the first day of the week, at sunrise, they hurried to the tomb, wondering as they went how they'd get past the stone that sealed the tomb. But on arriving, they saw that the stone had been rolled away. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. He said: 'Don't be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here; see the place where they laid Him. Now go and tell His disciples and Peter that He Is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.' The women fled from the tomb, overcome with trembling and astonishment; and they said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.