Love God, and everything else follows!

Saturday, April 5, 2014 Devotions: Ps 33, 107:33-43; 108:1-6; Ex 2:23-3:15; 1 Cor 13; Mk 9:14-29 It is fitting to extol YHWH; the universe is full of His steadfast love. He created the heavens and the earth, mountains and seas and plains, and all forms of life, simply by speaking. He spoke, and all that is came to be; He commanded, and it stood forth. Blessed are all whose God is YHWH, the people whom He has chosen as His special possession. His eye is on those who fear and revere Him; my soul, Lord, waits for You alone. Let Your steadfast love be upon me, O Lord. Our God transforms—rivers to deserts, orchards to salty wastes, because the residents are wicked; deserts to pools, wastelands to water parks, because He favors the hungry and weak. By His grace, we so fields, plant vineyards, and reap a fruitful harvest; our livestock multiply. He raises up the needy; let the upright witness how God works, and be glad. Let all who would be wise pay attention and consider the steadfast love of YHWH our God. Lord, be exalted in my praises; all the world belongs to You; by Your grace and power, we are victorious as You tread down our enemies. The Israelites cried out to God from their affliction, and when the oppressing Pharaoh died, He moved to help them. Meanwhile, Moses was tending Jethro's flocks in Midian, and he led them into the outback near Horeb, God's mountain. There, God's angel appeared to Moses in a flame of fire in the midst of a desert bush; Moses noticed that the fire was not consuming the bush, and he decided to investigate. When he approached, God called out to Moses from the bush: 'Moses, Moses!' He replied, 'Here I am.' And God said, 'Don't come closer. Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground.' Then God said, 'I Am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' Moses hid his face, for he feared to gaze upon God. Then the Lord said, 'I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt, and have come to deliver them from their taskmasters and their suffering; I will bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, flowing with milk and honey—the place of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Their cry has come to me from their oppression in Egypt. So, Moses: come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring forth My people, the offspring of Israel, out of Egypt.' But Moses demurred: 'Who am I to do these things?' And God answered: 'But I will be with you; and this will be a sign for you that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will serve God on this very mountain.' Then Moses said to God, 'If I bring the people this message, and they ask me “What is God's name?”, what will I say to them?' God said to Moses, 'I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: “I AM has sent me to you.' And God said, 'YHWH, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you” - this is My Name for ever, and thus I Am to be remembered throughout all generations. Paul wrote of the 'most excellent way': If I speak in tongues of men and of angels but have no love, I'm a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers, understand all mysteries, and have such faith as moves mountains, but have no love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and deliver my body to flames as a sacrifice, but have no love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind, not jealous or boastful. Love does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful; love does not rejoice at wrong, but only in what is right. Love bears, believes, hopes and endures all things. Love never ends, whereas prophecy, tongues and knowledge will pass away—for among mortals all these are imperfect, and pass away when perfection is manifest. When I was a child, I spoke, thought and reasoned like a child; as I matured, I gave up childish ways. For now, we see as in a mirror, dimly; but then, we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So: faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. When Jesus, Peter, Paul and John returned to the other disciples from the Mount of Transfiguration, they found a great crowd, and a heated argument between the followers of Jesus and some Torah scribes. Seeing Jesus, the crowd flocked to Him and He asked what was being discussed. A man addressed Jesus: 'Teacher, I brought my son to You, for he is possessed by a dumb spirit, and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked Your disciples to cast out the spirit, but they could not.' Jesus said to them, 'O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you? Bring the boy to Me.' When the spirit saw Jesus, immediately it convulsed the boy; he fell to the ground, rolling around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, 'How long has he had this?' The man answered, 'From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire or water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have pity on us.' Jesus said to him, 'If you can! All things are possible to one who believes.' Immediately the father exclaimed, 'I believe; help my unbelief!' And when Jesus saw the crowd running toward them, He rebuked the unclean spirit, and said, 'You dumb and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.' The spirit cried out and convulsed the boy terribly, and then came out; the boy lay still, like a corpse; most onlookers thought he was dead. But Jesus took him by the hand, and lifted the boy up, erect, alive and delivered. Later, when they were in the house together, the disciples asked Jesus why they had failed to cast out the spirit; He said, 'This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.'