Live under Jesus, or drown like demon-crazed pigs

Wednesday, June 4, 2014 Devotions: Ps 101, 109; Isa 4:2-6; Eph 4:1-16; Mt 8:28-34 David wrote: I will sing of loyalty and justice; I will consider the blameless path; I will walk in integrity of hear; I will not set before my eyes anything that is base. I hate the deeds of the faithless; let perversity of heart, perversion of thought and action, be far from me! Let me know nothing of evil. Let me favor the faithful and encourage the blameless. Let me make war on the evil in myself, and in others. Now let my God arise and help me withstand the attacks of my enemies. I leave them to God's judgment and His justice. And may God deal on my behalf for His blessed Name's sake. I am an unworthy mortal, like a shadow at evening, weak and wavering. Save me, YHWH, according to Your steadfast love and faithfulness. Clothe my accusers with dishonor, and deliver me from evil and from the evil one. I will praise God with great praise! In God's day, the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. The godly remnant who endure will be called holy, those written in God's book of life, when God has washed away our filth and cleansed us of all guilt. Holy God acts in judgment and a spirit of burning. God will overshadow His won with a cloud by day and by smoke and flame at night—shade by day and refuge and shelter by night. Paul wrote from prison to the faithful saints: as a prisoner for the Lord, I beg you to lead a life worthy of God's calling to you, with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love. Be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one Body and one Spirit; as you were all called to one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who Is above all and through all and in all. And yet grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ's gift—Who ascended from earth to heaven, from death to eternal life, just as He earlier descended from heaven to earth, from spirit to flesh—so that He might fulfill all things. He gave His body apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature humanness, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Messiah, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and shaken by every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of mortals, by their craftiness and deceitful plots. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up into Him Who Is the Head, into the Messiah, from Whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and in love builds itself up. When Jesus and His party arrived in the country of the Gadarenes, on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, two demoniacs met Him, coming out of the tombs. They were so fierce that no one else could pass that way. They began to cry out, 'What have You to do with us, O Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the appointed time?' There was a large herd of pigs grazing on a slope nearby, and the demons begged Jesus , 'If You cast us out, send us away into the herd of swine.' Jesus did this; the unclean spirits left the two men and entered into the pigs; and immediately the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the water, and drowned. The swineherds fled into the city and reported all they had witnessed. And in response, nearly everyone in the city came out to meet Jesus; and when they saw Him, they begged Him to leave their neighborhood.