From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] daily devotional
Evening...
Mark 14:14
The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover
with My disciples?
Jerusalem at the time of the passover was one great inn; each householder had
invited his own friends, but no one had invited the Saviour, and He had no
dwelling of His own. It was by His own supernatural power that He found Himself
an upper room in which to keep the feast. It is so even to this day-Jesus is
not received among the sons of men save only where by His supernatural power
and grace He makes the heart anew. All doors are open enough to the prince of
darkness, but Jesus must clear a way for Himself or lodge in the streets. It
was through the mysterious power exerted by our Lord that the householder
raised no question, but at once cheerfully and joyfully opened his
guestchamber. Who he was, and what he was, we do not know, but he readily
accepted the honour which the Redeemer proposed to confer upon him. In like
manner it is still discovered who are the Lord's chosen, and who are not; for
when the gospel comes to some, they fight against i! t, and will not have it,
but where men receive it, welcoming it, this is a sure indication that there is
a secret work going on in the soul, and that God has chosen them unto eternal
life. Are you willing, dear reader, to receive Christ? then there is no
difficulty in the way; Christ will be your guest; His own power is working with
you, making you willing. What an honour to entertain the Son of God! The heaven
of heavens cannot contain Him, and yet He condescends to find a house within
our hearts! We are not worthy that He should come under our roof, but what an
unutterable privilege when He condescends to enter! for then He makes a feast,
and causes us to feast with Him upon royal dainties, we sit at a banquet where
the viands are immortal, and give immortality to those who feed thereon.
Blessed among the sons of Adam is he who entertains the angels' Lord.
a..
ion
Proverbs 26:28
(28) A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it;
and a flattering mouth worketh ruin.
One could assume that the intent of this verse could be
paraphrased, "Only a person who hates another would deliberately wound or hurt
someone by lies." However, this verse really suggests, upon closer reading,
that the very act of saying something negative about another will automatically
reinforce this belief.
In explaining this principle of reinforcement, psychologist
George Weinberg states, "Every time you act, you add strength to the motivating
idea behind what you've done." Weinberg describes graphically how hatred and
resentment can be built from scratch:
At a party Ralph makes an offhand remark critical of a
certain movie. When he first makes his remark, his attitude toward the movie is
actually mild. He may even have liked it on the whole, and his remarks merely
to display his cleverness. But he gets a surprise. Instead of just smiling at
the gibe, someone at the party contradicts it. Ralph answers back. The other
man rebuts again. Ralph attacks another aspect of the movie. The man is
unmoved. Ralph tears into the other man's notorious bad taste. Ralph's basic
attitude toward the movie has changed. Now he really hates it. At the next
party he goes to, almost the first subject he brings up will be the movie, to
attack it thoroughly.
As the hatred grows, Ralph's personality and character
become sullen and ugly. His own tongue contaminates his very being. James 3:6
reveals, "[The tongue is a] world of wickedness set among our members,
contaminating and depraving the whole body" (The Amplified Bible). Verse 8
continues, "It is a restless (undisciplined, irreconcilable) evil, full of
deadly poison."
David F. Maas
From Purging the Rumor Bug from the Body of Christ
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daily devotional
Evening...
Isaiah 33:16
His place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him;
his waters shall be sure.
Do you doubt, O Christian, do you doubt as to whether God will fulfil His
promise? Shall the munitions of rock be carried by storm? O Shall the
storehouses of heaven fail? Do you think that your heavenly Father, though He
knoweth that you have need of food and raiment, will yet forget you? When not a
sparrow falls to the ground without your Father, and the very hairs of your
head are all numbered, will you mistrust and doubt Him? Perhaps your affliction
will continue upon you till you dare to trust your God, and then it shall end.
Full many there be who have been tried and sore vexed till at last they have
been driven in sheer desperation to exercise faith in God, and the moment of
their faith has been the instant of their deliverance; they have seen whether
God would keep His promise or not. Oh, I pray you, doubt Him no longer! Please
not Satan, and vex not yourself by indulging any more those hard thoughts of
God. Think it not a light matter to doubt Jehovah. Remember, it is a sin; and
not a little sin either, but in the highest degree criminal. The angels never
doubted Him, nor the devils either: we alone, out of all the beings that God
has fashioned, dishonour Him by unbelief, and tarnish His honour by mistrust.
Shame upon us for this! Our God does not deserve to be so basely suspected; in
our past life we have proved Him to be true and faithful to His word, and with
so many instances of His love and of His kindness as we have received, and are
daily receiving, at His hands, it is base and inexcusable that we suffer a
doubt to sojourn within our heart. May we henceforth wage constant war against
doubts of our God-enemies to our peace and to His honour; and with an
unstaggering faith believe that what He has promised He will also perform.
"Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief."
Matthew 8:3
(3) And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou
clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.
Knowing the gruesome details of leprosy, one can easily imagine the crowd
hastily parting as this man worked his way toward Jesus. Yet, He, in contrast,
reaches out to touch the leper, signaling His willingness and power to heal. In
Exodus 15:25-26, God reveals Himself as Yahweh Ropheka, or "the
Eternal-Who-Heals," at the incident at Marah. Nathan Stone writes in his book,
Names of God, that this name means "to restore, to heal, to cure . . . not only
in the physical sense but in the moral and spiritual sense also" (p. 72). Dying
to sin and living for righteousness are a kind of healing through Jesus Christ.
Ordinarily, uncleanness is transferred among men, but holiness is not (
Haggai 2:10-14). This scene of the leper coming to Christ pictures divine
reconciliation, since what is holy and what is profane usually do not mix. This
is overcome through the work of our Savior. Jesus stretches out His hand and
commands the leper to be cleansed, showing God in action as the
Eternal-Who-Heals. This is why the leper's uncleanness does not transfer to
Jesus-at first.
Later, however, the death penalty for sin was transferred to Jesus. A
price had to be paid for the leper's cleansing. "Clean" has a sense of purity
and holiness, so to be cleansed was to be made pure. Proverbs 20:9 says, "Who
can say, 'I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin'?" The leper could
no more pronounce himself clean than we can pronounce ourselves sinless ( I
John 1:10). Proverbs 20:30 adds, "Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, as do
stripes the inner depths of the heart." Comparing these two verses from
Proverbs suggests that a certain chastening is required for cleansing.
Isaiah 53:4-5 adds another piece to the picture:
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed
Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our
peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
These verses place the emphasis of our cleansing from spiritual impurity
on Christ: He paid the price to heal us and restore us to fellowship with God.
Thus, when Jesus Christ became sin for us, on Him was transferred all
uncleanness. For those who have repented and accepted His sacrifice, there is
increasingly more responsibility to continue this cleansing process in
cooperation with and submission to Him. Peter summarizes this idea in I Peter
2:24, "[He] Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we having
died to sins, might live for righteousness-by whose stripes you were healed."
Benjamin A. Wulf
From The Gift of a Leper
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