Devotions: Ps 89; Jdg 12:1-7; Acts 5:12-26; Jn 3:1-21
Ethan the Ezrahite wrote: I will sing of Your steadfast love forever, YHWH, and proclaim Your faithfulness to all generations. You keep Your covenants, and all creation sings Your praises. None is mighty as You, and You have established Jesus as Master over all that exists. You will not remove Him, but will keep all the promises that are fulfilled in Him. Restore us to Your favor, great God, blessed for ever.
Jephthah
of Gilead judged Israel, even at the cost of his beloved daughter.
He struggled with the men of Ephraim, who had left him to face
enemies without their support. They used linguistic differences to
discover their enemies; and killed 42,000 during the years of Jephthah
judging Israel.
As
the Jerusalem church was growing, the community members met daily at
Solomon's Portico, and they were held in awe and high regard by their
neighbors. Sick people from all around came to Jerusalem and were
healed by the apostles' use of the authority and power of Jesus'
name. But the high priests and Sadducees jealously arrested the
apostles and put them in a common prison. God's angel came to them
at night and opened the prison, sending them to stand in the temple
and proclaim the Way, 'the words of this Life,' to the people there.
When the Jewish leaders sent to have the apostles brought before
them, the guards discovered that the men were no longer in the
prison. They reported this to the chief priests and their party.
Eventually, someone came and told them that the men they had
imprisoned were free, standing in the temple and teaching there. The
captain of the temple guard went and detained the apostles and
brought them before the council, but without violence, for the temple
police feared the people would stone them for interrupting the
apostles.
Nicodemus,
a Pharisee and ruler among the Jews, came to Jesus by night with
questions: 'Rabbi, we know You are a teacher sent from God—the
great deeds You do prove that God is with You.' Jesus said, 'Truly I
tell you, unless one is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of
God.' Nicodemus questioned this, and Jesus explained further:
'Unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the
kingdom of God. What flesh gives life is fleshly; what is born of
the Spirit is spirit.' Don't marvel over what I have told you.
Consider the wind: it blows where it will; you can't see it directly,
but you feel it and see its effects. It's like that with people born
and guided by the Spirit.' Nicodemus still didn't fully undestand,
and Jesus marveled: 'Are you a teacher in Israel and you cannot
understand this? I tell you solemnly, I tell you what I know, things
I have experienced directly--yet you people will not accept my
testimony. Now, if I've told you earthly things and you don't
believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly matters?
No one has ascended to heaven except the One Who descended from
heave, the Son of man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in
the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, so that whoever
believes in Him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world
that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish, but should have eternal life. God did not send
His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might
be saved through Him. Those who believe in God's Son are not
condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already,
because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
This is the judgment: Light has come into the world, but mortals
loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were
evil. For every person who does evil hates the light and avoids it,
because the light exposes his sinful acts. But those who act truly,
with integrity, come to the light, where it can be seen that their
actions have been wrought in God.'
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