Cleave to God alone

January 31, 2015

Devotions: Ps 55, 138, 139:1-17; Isa 51:1-8; Gal 3:23-29; Mk 7:1-23

Hear my prayer, YHWH! Answer me now, for I am overcome by trouble, distracted, with anguish within, and trembling in my feeble weakness. Confuse and confound my enemies, Lord, lest I perish before them. I trust in God alone. I cast my burden on God, and He sustains me. Lord, I will trust in You! I thank You with my whole heart. Though I walk through troubles, You preserve my life and protect me from all enemies. Lord, don't forsake the work of Your hands, I pray! For you know me inside and out; You made me; You understand my thoughts and my ways better than I can! I could not escape You if I wanted—and I do not, Father. I want to be in Your care. Your consideration is precious to me, far beyond my understanding. Thank You, great Lord!

Let all who seek the Lord consider this: look to the Rock from which you were hewn. Consider Abraham and Sarah, your spiritual ancestors: YHWH cares for His own: He calls, sends, guides, protects and prospers His people. He is our Comforter. Keep alert! Watch! Pray! Trust! Obey! He Is our salvation, and our life in Him is everlasting and blessed. Those who follow other gods, or none, will perish; only the people of my God will endure. 

Before faith came to us, we were confined under the law, kept in constraint until faith could be revealed. Torah was our custodian until Christ came; and once He came, we are justified by faith in Him alone. In the Messiah Jesus, we are sons of God through faith and His faithfulness. Baptized into Christ, we have put Him on, so that there is now neither slave nor free, male nor female—all are one who are in the Messiah Jesus. As such, we are also Abraham's offspring and heirs in God's promises to him.

Gathered to Jesus, the scribes and Pharisees observed that His disciples ate without ritually washing their hands—just one of the mortal traditions they kept rigorously and with piety. So they questioned Jesus: 'Why do your followers eat with defiled hands, defying the elders' traditions?' Jesus replied, 'Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, writing “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. In vain they worship Me, while teaching as doctrines the precepts devised by men.” You neglect the commands of God, and devote yourselves instead to the tradition of men. You have a fine way of rejecting God's commands to keep your own traditions. Moses told you to honor your parents, and that anyone speaking evil of father or mother should die. But you say that if a person designates as Corban what otherwise should have been given to his parents, he must neglect his parents to keep this religious vow. In this, you make void the world of God and instead follow your own tradition, handing it down as mandatory. You do a lot of things like this.' Then Jesus called the people to Him, saying, 'Listen to Me, everyone, and understand: nothing outside a person can defile the person by going inside him; people are defiled by what comes out from inside.' Later, His disciples asked Jesus to explain. He said, 'Can't you understand? What people take in goes to their stomachs, not their hearts, and after digestion, it passes out of the body again.' [And saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.] He continued, 'What comes out of a person is what defiles. From the heart emerge evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.'