Devotions: Ps 102, 107:1-32; Num 20:1-13; Ro 6:1-11; Mt 20:29-34
Lord, hear and answer quickly, for my days pass away like smoke; I am exhausted and distracted, out of sorts, depressed, lonely—like an owl in the wilderness, a lonely bird on a housetop. My rivals taunt me, and I am ashamed of my sins and folly before Holy God. Lord, You are enthroned, majestic, eternal, almighty. Have pity on me, Lord, and all Your mortal servants. Let all know that the high and mighty God regards and cares for His people. My strength is spent, but my journey goes on; so I need Your love and care each moment and forever. You are the Maker and Creator, the Master and the Redeemer. By Your grace, Your servants and their offspring will live securely. Let those God has redeemed testify, for God cares for people in every extremity—wandering in desert wastes, sitting in darkness and gloom, laboring beyond endurance and hope, sick in body and mind and soul—let all thank YHWH for His steadfast love and marvelous works. Those who sojourn across lands and seas cry to God in moments of great jeopardy, and He stills the storms and quiets the tumults. Let all God's people extol Him and praise Him in our holy assemblies.
In
the first month of the Exodus, the Israelites encamped at Kadesh in
the wilderness of Zin. There, Miriam died and was buried, sister of
Moses and Aaron. The contentious people murmured against Moses,
complaining that he had led them into the desert to perish there of
hunger and thirst. Moses and Aaron came before YHWH at the door of
the tent of meeting, and there God's glory appeared to them as they
lay prostrate before Him. YHWH told Moses: 'Take the rod, assemble
the congregation, and speak to the rock before them, that it yield
its water, to quench the entire community and their livestock.
Obeying God, Moses took his stand before the people and said,
'Listen, you rebels: shall we bring forth water for you from out of
this rock?' Moses struck the rock with the rod twice, and water
gushed out abundantly, and all the people and livestock drank their
fill. Then YHWH addressed Moses and Aaron: 'Because you did not
believe in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of this assembly of the
Israelites, you will not bring them into the land I have given to
them.' These are the waters of Meribah, 'contention,' where the
Israelites contended with YHWH and He showed Himself holy among them.
Paul
continued his discourse to the church in Rome: Since our salvation
is of God's grace alone, should we continue in sin so that His grace
may abound? Of course not! We died to sin, so how could we continue
to live sinfully? Consider: all of us who have been baptized into
the Messiah Jesus were baptized into His death. We were buried with
Him into death; and just as the Messiah was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, we too are enabled thereby to walk in
newness of life. We have been united with Jesus in death, and we
shall surely be united with Him in resurrection like His. Our old
self was crucified with Him so that the sinful body might be
destroyed, and we might no longer be slaves to sin. But if we have
died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with Him. Being
raised from death, Jesus the Messiah will never die again; death has
no dominion over Him. The death He died, He died once for all to
sin; and the live He now lives, He lives unto God, forever. So you
also must reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in the
Messiah Jesus.
Jesus
and His party departed from Jericho, bound up to Jerusalem, followed
by a great throng. Two blind men were sitting beside the road they
traveled; hearing that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, 'Have
mercy on us, Son of David!' The crowd tried to hush their cries, but
they cried on even more loudly: 'Lord, have mercy on us, Son of
David!' And Jesus stopped and called the men over to Himself, saying
'What do you want Me to do for you?' They said, 'Lord, let our eyes
be opened.' In pity, Jesus touched their eyes; immediately they
received their sight, and followed Him.
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