Godly life, in Christ

Thursday and Friday, May 8 and 9, 2014 Devotions: Ps 37, 105; Ex 20:1-21, 24:1-18; Col 1:24-2:23; Mt 4:1-17 Don't fret over the apparent success of the wicked; trust in YHWH and do what is good; delight in YHWH and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust Him and He will bring forth your vindication; He will uphold your right clearly as the noonday sun. Be still before Him; wait patiently; refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Let God be Judge and Master; it won't be long before the wicked fall before Him. And the meek will possess the land and delight in His abundant prosperity. Better the small portion of the righteous than the wealth of many wicked; for YHWH upholds the righteous, but disables the wicked. The wicked hoard and covet, but they cannot repay their debts; the righteous are generous, and by God's grace, they possess the benefice of the Lord. God establishes our path and guards those who obey Him. I was young once; now I am old. But I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor their children begging for bread. They give liberally, and receive God's bounty. So: depart from evil and do good; then you will abide for ever in God's steadfast love and faithfulness. Keep His ways and He will exalt you in due time. There is a glorious future for God's instruments of peace. He saves us because we take refuge in Him. Sing His praise; glory in His name. Seek His grace and might; trust in the Lord our God, Who keeps His covenant. He chose and protects us, as He has always done. He brought Abraham and his family to Canaan; He took the Israelites to Egypt, and 430 years later, delivered them. He prospered them in Israel and Judah, so that they should keep His statutes and observe His laws. Hallelu Yah! On Mt. Sinai, God told Moses and the Israelites, 'I Am YHWH your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. And God gave them the Ten Words: 1. Have no other Gods before Me 2. Make no graven image or likeness of any creature, earthly or heavenly; don't bow to idols or serve them, for I, YHWH, Am a jealous God, punishing generations who oppose Me and blessing generations of those who serve Me 3. Do not take the name of YHWH your God in vain—those who take His name in vain, He will not forgive 4. Remember and hallow the Sabbath day; work for six days, then rest, as God did in creation—all people and domestic animals alike must refrain from work on the Sabbath 5. Honor your parents, so that your days may be long in the Land God provides you 6. Do not murder 7. Do not commit adultery 8. Do not steal 9. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor 10. Covet nothing that belongs to your neighbor—not his house, his wife, his slaves, his livestock or anything else that is his. The people kept their distance, awed by God's display, and asked Moses to be their intermediary; he reassured them that fear of God was helping them not to sin. Moses alone approached the thick darkness where God was. Paul wrote to the Christians at Colossae: I rejoice in what I suffer for your sake; in my flesh I complete in my body what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, the church, of which I became a minister by God's commission: to make known to you fully the word of God: the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now manifest to the saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery: Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Jesus the Messiah, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present every one mature in all wisdom. This is the task I labor at, striving with all the energy He mightily inspires in me. I want you to know how hard I am working for you and those in Laodicea and all who haven't yet seen my face—that the hearts of all may be encouraged as they are knit together in love, to have all the riches of assured understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this to prevent your being deluded with beguiling speech. I'm not with you physically, but I am with you in Spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. So: just as you received the Messiah Jesus the Lord, so live in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Let no one prey upon you with philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe and not according to the Messiah. In Him the entire fullness of deity dwells bodily; and you have come to fullness of life in Him Who Is the head of all rule and authority. In Him also you were circumcised without hands, putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ. And you were buried with Him in baptism, in which also you were raised with Him from the dead. You, who were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God has made alive together with Jesus, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having canceled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands, by setting it aside and nailing it to His cross. God disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in Jesus. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in matters of food and drink or festivals or feasts of Sabbaths. All these are mere foreshadowing of what is to come; but the substance belongs to the Messiah. Let no one disqualify you, insisting that you abase yourselves and worship angels, taking his stand on visions, puffed up beyond reason by his sensuous mind, not hold fast to the Head, from Whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth given by God. If you died to the elemental spirits of he universe with Christ, why live as if you still belong to the world? Why submit to religious regulations and traditions: 'Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch!'? These are merely human doctrines and precepts, but they perish even as they are employed. They look plausible, promoting rigor, devotion, self-abasement and severity to the body; but they have no real value in checking the indulgence of the flesh. Only Christ can do that. After John baptized Him, Jesus was led by the Spirit up into the Judean wilderness. He fasted forty days and nights and then was famished. The tempter came to Him and said, 'If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.' But Jesus answered: 'It is written: Man shall not love by bread alone, but rather by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' Next, the devil took Jesus to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, 'If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written: He will give His angels charge concerning you, and On their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.' Jesus said to the satan, 'Again it is written: You shall not tempt the Lord your God.' Again the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Jesus, 'All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.' But Jesus said, 'Be gone, Satan! For it is written: Worship YHWH your God and serve only Him.' So the devil left Jesus, and then angels came and ministered to Him. Jesus heard that John the Baptizer had been arrested, so Jesus withdrew to Galilee, and left Nazareth to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. This fulfilled hat Isaiah had said: 'The land of Zebulun and of Naphtali, near the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great Light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, Light has dawned.' And from that time Jesus began to preach: 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'