Patience and simplicity

Friday, May 23, 2014 Devotions: Ps 40, 51, 54; Ex 34:18-35; 1 Th 3:1-13; Mt 5:27-37 I must wait patiently for the Lord; then, He inclines to me and listens to my prayers and supplications. He puts a new song of praise in my mouth. He lifts me from the bog to a solid rock and a straight path! Blessed are they who make YHH their trust, who turn from the proud and shun false gods. God, You have multiplied Your wondrous deeds to me, and I am blessed. I delight to do Your will; Your law is in my heart. I have not concealed my testimony about You, Lord—merciful, steadfast, loving, faithful. Lord, deliver me again today; may all who seek You rejoice and find mercy; You, Lord, Are my help and deliverer. So, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner in Your sight. Blot out my transgressions and cleanse me from all sin. I know You seek truth in the inner parts; teach my heart Your wisdom; give me a voice to praise and to proclaim. Fill me with joy and gladness. Create in me a clean heart and establish a new and upright spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of my salvation, and uphold me with willing spirit. Then, I will be a voice, a teacher for You. Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will show forth Your praise! Save me by Your name—for God Is my Helper. I will thank You, Lord, for You Are good, and my eye will look in triumph over all my enemies. God continued His instructions for the community life of His people: Keep the feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days in the month of Abib—the month you came out of Egypt. Every first-born among you, human and livestock, is mine and must be sacrificed or redeemed. Work hard six days; rest and reflect on the sabbath days. Observe the first of weeks, the feast of harvest, and the feast of ingathering. All your males must appear before Me three times each year. I will cast out nations and enlarge your borders. Offer no leaven with the blood of My sacrifices; consume the paschal feast completely—no leftovers! Bring the first fruits of all your crops to Me at My temple. Don't boil a kid in its mother's milk. I have expressed My covenant precisely to you. Moses was with YHWH forty days and nights, and wrote down all that the Lord told him, and inscribed on the stone tablets the Ten Words of YHWH. When Moses descended from the mountain, carrying the tablets of the testimony, he did not know that his face was shining because of his conversation with God. Aaron and the people were afraid when they saw Moses' shining visage, but Moses called them to himself and spoke with them. After that, all the people drew near and Moses told them all God had said on Mount Sinai. When Moses finished speaking, he veiled his face. His practice was to remove the veil when he went to speak with YHWH; he'd come out, face shining, and share the messages of God, and then veil his face again until the next time he spoke with the Lord. Paul to the Thessalonians: When the suspense was unbearable, I stayed alone in Athens and sent Timothy, my brother and God's servant in the gospel of Christ, to establish you in your faith and to exhort you. You all know that we ministers of the gospel face trouble and hardship and affliction. And I always worry that these troubles will shake your faith in God, fearing that the tempter will tempt you and our labor will be in vain. But Timothy has returned and brought us the good news of your faith and love and kind memories and longing to see us. So we are comforted, despite afflictions and distress: your faith is my comfort. We pray for you earnestly, night and day; my desire is to see you face to face and to supply whatever is lacking to make your faith mature and complete. Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you; may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all people, just as we abound in love toward you, so that He may establish your hearts blamless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. On the mountainside, Jesus taught: You have heard it said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I tell you that one who looks upon a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your eye or hand leads you to sin, remove it—better to live maimed and go to heaven than to live whole and sinfully, and be cast into the flames of Gehenna. It has also been said that one who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you, unless you divorce her for the cause of unfaithfulness, you commit adultery and make her an adulteress; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery. And you have heard it said from of old, 'Don't swear falsely; perform all that you have sworn before the Lord.' But I tell you, don't swear at all. Just say 'yes' and 'no' and mean what you say, and do it. Anything more than this comes from the evil one.