Beginning again

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Devotions: Ps 103, 148; Gen 17:1-16; Col 2:6-14; Jn 16:23b-30

Let my soul and all that is in me bless YHWH and His holy name; may I always remember Your blessings, God. For God is merciful; He forgives my iniquity, heals my diseases, redeems me from the Pit, and crowns me with steadfast love and mercy. He renews my youth and blesses me with all good things. God works vindication and justice for the oppressed. He revealed His ways to Moses and Himself through Jesus the Messiah. God does not deal with us as our sins deserve; the wages of our sins is eternal death! As the heavens are high above the earth, so is God's steadfast love to those who fear Him. He knows our limitations, our mortality. We are like grass, springing forth in the morning and drying to dust by nightfall. Let all angels and mortals bless His name, YHWH Sabaoth. Let all creation bless our Master and Maker; bless the Lord, my soul! All praise to You, Lord most high! 

Abram was 99 years old when God appeared to him, saying, “I Am El Shaddai; walk before Me and remain blameless. I will make My covenant between you and Me; I will multiply you exceedingly.' Abram fell facedown before God, and God said, 'You will father a multitude of nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham meaning father of a multitude. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; nations and rulers will spring from your loins, and I will sustain My covenant with your descendants throughout their generations, to be your God forever. And I will give you and your descendants the land of Canaan as an everlasting possession. This is your part in My covenant: Circumcise every male, on the eighth day of the infant boy's life, or immediately if the male is older. Uncircumcision breaks My covenant. And Sarai your wife will hereafter be called Sarah; I will give you a son with Sarah, and she will become the mother of nations and kings.' 

As you received the Messiah Jesus the Lord, so abide, living in Him, rooted and built up in Him, established in faith, abounding in thanksgiving—as you have been taught. Be vigilant, that no one takes you as prey by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition and 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, the Head of all rule and authority. And in Him you were circumcised—a circumcision made without hands—but putting off the body of flesh through the circumcision that is of the Messiah. You were buried with Him in baptism, through which also you were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, Who raised Jesus from the dead. And you, though you were dead in trespasses and uncircumcision, God made alive together with Jesus, having forgiven us all our trespasses and having canceled the bond standing against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the Messiah's cross.

Jesus told His disciples: I tell you truly, if you ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My name. Until now, you have asked nothing in My name; now ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be complete. Previously, I spoke to you in figures of speech; but the hour is coming when I will tell you of the Father plainly. In that day, you will ask in My name; I'm not saying that I will petition the Father for you, for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from the Father. So it is: I came from the Father and have come into the world; now, I Am leaving the world and going to the Father.' To this, His hearers answered, 'Ah, now You speak plainly. Now we know that You know all things and need none to question You; and by this we believe that You came from God.'