God Judges and Saves

Saturday, March 28, 2015
Devotions: Ps 42, 43, 137:1-6, 144; Jer 31:27-34; Rom 11:25-36; Jn 12:37-50

My soul longs for God with a thirst like that of a parched stag in a desert.  I weep as I remember days of grace and joy.  But I question my soul:  why be downcast?  Just trust God.  His depths call to my own; His steadfast love compels me; day and night, God's constant love reassures and blesses me, and I pray to the God of my life.  Don't forget me, Lord.  Vindicate me and deliver me from the ungodly, and from my own sinful habits and tendencies.  Send forth Your light and truth, and let them guide me to Your holy presence, where I may worship at Your altar and find the peace and joy for which I thirst and hunger.  We weep in exile, recalling sweet days of fellowship with God.  May I never forget God and His blessings!  Happy are all whose God Is YHWH.  Lord, I sing a new song to You, Who give me succor, hope, and victory.  Amen.

The days are coming, YHWH declares, when I will sustain and build up Israel and Judah, as I have torn them down in times of their rebellion.  I will make a new covenant with My people Israel and Judah.  I will put My law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God and they will be My people.  Each one will know me, and I will forgive their sins and iniquities, and remember them no more. 

To keep Gentile believers and inquirers from sins of presumption, Paul wrote this:  Lest you become conceited, understand this: a hardening has come upon part of Israel until the full number of the Gentiles has come into God's kingdom.  And so all Israel will be saved--God will take away their sins in His own time and manner.  As regards the gospel, they are God's enemies, for your sake; but they are beloved for the sake of their ancestors and are thereby elect of God.  God's gift and call are irrevocable.  Their disobedience and exile open the way for you Gentiles to be saved. God has consigned all mortals to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all.  O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are His judgments; how inscrutable His ways!  No one can comprehend the Lord's mind; no one can be His counselor; and no one possesses such a gift that it would obligate God in return.  All things are from Him, and through Him, and to Him.  And to God alone be glory forever.  Amen.

Jesus had exhorted inquirers and crowds around Him to believe in and walk in the Light, that they might become sons and daughters of light.  Then He hid Himself from them.  But they persisted in unbelief, despite the many signs and wonders Jesus had accomplished before them--as Isaiah had written: 'Lord, who has believed our report?  To whom has the Lord's arm been revealed?' They could not believe because 'God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see and perceive and turn for God to heal them.'  Isaiah said this because he perceived God's glory and spoke of Him.  Some of the Jewish authorities also saw and believed in Jesus, but they kept their perceptions to themselves, fearing excommunication from the synagogue by the unbelieving Pharisees--for they loved the praise of mortals more than the praise of God.  And so Jesus cried out: 'Those who believe in Me, actually believe in the One Who sent Me.  Those who see Me also see Him Who sent Me.  I have come as light into this world, so that whoever believes in Me need not remain in darkness.  If any one hears what I say and does not keep My sayings, I do not judge them; I came to save the world, not to judge it.  But these rejecters do have a Judge--the word I have spoken will be their Judge on the last day.  I have not spoken on My own authority; the Father Who sent Me has Himself commanded Me what to say and to speak.  And I know that His commandment is eternal life.  What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden Me.'