Do your lips and life testify to God’s greatness?

 18 Mar 26

Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One

Readings:

Deuteronomy 31

Deuteronomy 32

Luke 1:1-23

For I proclaim the name of the LORD: Ascribe greatness to our God (Deuteronomy 32:3). 

Do your lips and life testify to God’s greatness?

Jesus bears witness to the life of John the Baptist. He says, “Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11). This great man of God had a godly upbringing by Zacharias and Elizabeth. Luke describes their lives as follows: “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:6). “They were” derived from the imperfect tense, displays continuous action in past time. In other words, Zacharias and Elizabeth regularly walked with God. That is the greatest model parents can display for their children. Teach your children about the attributes of God, exalt Him greatly, and live daily for His glory! 

Employment Point: Magnify God’s awesomeness with your life and lips.

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Reflections

I was just thinking about something before I read this devotional. That we as human beings are so prone to magnify our own awesomeness instead of God’s. Like we tell people how great we are, what good we do, etc. forgetting it was all God’s grace to us. How are we awesome if God did not give us anything? Yet in our midst of feeling good, we forget about God.

I am not spare from the above as well. Very often we like to give ourselves a pat on our back but forgot the hand that lifts us up. We think it’s our own efforts but it was God’s, all these while. He kept quiet not because He acknowledges what we think is right but He is waiting for us to come to Him in humility and repentance on how proud we have become. We ought to remember, especially during this Lenten season, that we are all dust. And to dust we shall return.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.””

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭31‬:‭6‬, ‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• these two verses are repeated and in reverse order but state all the same things. His promise never fails and He has affirmed us many times that He will go before us in more verses than one. Therefore, we should be strong and courageous and be prepared to step forward when the time comes.

“When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭32‬:‭45‬-‭46‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“On that same day the Lord told Moses, “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession. There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people. This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭32‬:‭48‬-‭51‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• the stark contrast between these two parts of the bible verses do tell us something. When the Lord wants us to specifically do something, we cannot deviate. Because in that sense, we cause the outcome to be different. The Lord has used us to bring across a message that He wants to deliver. We are the messenger and the messenger cannot alter the contents of the message.
• It is the same for us. When the Lord calls us to work and given us specific tasks to do, we ought to make sure that we follow through and not do it in our way. Moses is the example that He has shown us and we are warned

“And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.””Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭20‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• There will definitely be consequences if we start to doubt our Lord. I think Zechariah had it worse because he is a priest serving the Lord. He ought to know better.
• A reminder to us too that people who has heavier responsibilities does have much more to bear than ordinary people. So if God has called us to somewhere higher, we ourselves need to be more mindful of our words and actions. Care must be taken in case we incur the wrath of God

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Perfecting Holiness

BY OSWALD CHAMBERS

March 18

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves . . . perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. — 2 Corinthians 7:1

Have I recognized that God, through his promises, has a claim on me? We delight in God’s promises to us and count on their fulfillment, and it is right that we should. But Paul reminds us that this is only the human side of the equation. The divine side is that God wishes us to become pure and holy out of reverence to him.

Have I understood that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Or do I have a habit that obviously can’t stand the light of God upon it? Through sanctification, the Son of God is formed inside me, but the story doesn’t end there. I must transform my natural, physical life into a spiritual life through obedience. God educates us down to the scruple, examining every aspect of our character. Keep yourself clean in your daily walk, and when God begins his inspection, rid yourself at once of any impurity his gaze reveals. The goal is to bring yourself, in both body and spirit, into perfect harmony with the nature of God.

Are my thoughts and outlook in perfect agreement with the Spirit inside me? Or am I intellectually defiant? Am I forming the mind of Christ and obeying God? Jesus never spoke of his right to himself. Rather, he maintained an inner watchfulness, continually submitting his spirit to his Father. I too have the responsibility of keeping my spirit in agreement with the Lord’s Spirit. If I do, then by degrees Jesus will lift me up to where he lived—in perfect consecration to his Father’s will, paying no attention to anything else.

Am I perfecting this kind of holiness in the fear of God? Is God getting his way with me? Are other people seeing more and more evidence of him in my life? Be serious with God and happily leave the rest alone. Literally, put God first.

Deuteronomy 32-34; Mark 15:26-47

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern.

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Reflections

When I read “when God begins his inspection, rid yourself at once of any impurity his gaze reveals”, it reminds me of a recent movie I watched called “war machine”. It’s basically some walking robot that scans the surface for any signs of life and eliminates any living thing, yes human beings included. So can you imagine if we were being scanned by God for impurity and gets killed if we did not pass His purity scan? It would definitely be quite scary to even think if there would be any humans left.

We ought to be thankful for His grace and mercy that is given to us, being patient with us even though we sometimes repeats our silly mistakes. We ought not to take His grace for granted, for He definitely has the ability to destroy us if He wished, but He chose to give grace. May we too remember to give others this kind of grace.

I was hoping there can be some sort of scanner that reveals to us where our shortfalls are so we can deal with it and be obedient to His commands. Or there could be a variance where we can work towards certain aspects of our life that needs improving. Perhaps that would help and make us much more mindful of where we fall short.

Well, we actually have something similar but maybe even better. We have the Holy Spirit that is able to guide every aspect of our lives. Leading us to the right paths. May we yield to this calling.

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Lent devotion Day 29/53

taken from YouVersion, Lent for Everyone

Lent for Everyone is a devotional created and written by N.T. (Tom) Wright. For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel of Matthew, plus a reflection by Wright. These readings have grown out of a project encouraging Lent reading in Northern England. This is the second in a three-volume series based on the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church of England.

Today’s reading:

Matthew 21:1-22

WEEK 4: WEDNESDAY

We reach Palm Sunday in Matthew's story ten days before we get there in our own Lenten journey. It's just as well. There is so much packed between Palm Sunday and Good Friday that it's important to get advance notice of what's in store.

It is one of the great scenes in all scripture. Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey: it could be the climax of an opera, or a Shakespeare play. For Matthew, though, it's the climax of a much longer and more complicated story: the whole story of God and Israel. And it turns out that the play, at the moment, anyway, is more of a tragedy than a comedy.

St John put it like this: he came to his own, and his own didn't receive him. All along Jesus had made it clear that his particular vocation was to present the arrival of heaven's kingdom to the people of Israel. Having prepared the way by his work up in the north, he has now arrived, with a great throng of Passover pilgrims, at the holy city itself.

Only it wasn't as holy as it should have been. Jerusalem, the city chosen by God as his own resting-place, had also been chosen by many as their place of profit. The first time I went into the Old City of Jerusalem, the first sign I saw was a money-changer's shop. I suspect it's always been like that, with people from all over the world needing now to use the local currency. In the case of the Temple, of course, pilgrims needed to buy animals for sacrifice. 

Much safer that way than bringing a lamb or a goat from far off, to risk it being savaged by predators on the way. Come with cash, change it locally, buy a pure animal on site ready for sacrifice. Simple. And the local traders did well out of it.

But Jesus' protest against the Temple wasn't just about it being, in that sense, 'a den of robbers'. He was quoting the prophet Jeremiah at that point, and Jeremiah wasn't just worried about economic exploitation. Something deeper and darker was afoot. Behind all the outward trappings of the Temple, Jesus could see that the whole place, and the whole city, had come to symbolize the determination of Israel to do things their own way; in particular, to embrace a vision of God and God's kingdom which was fundamentally different from the vision which he was announcing and living out. Their vision would have climaxed in a Messiah coming on a war-horse. Jesus' vision led him to act out the prophecy of Zechariah: your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey. This simple yet profound symbolic action continues to resonate out into the world where, even among people who profess to follow Jesus, the war-horse is still preferred to the donkey.

The third level concerns what Matthew is saying about Jesus himself. The local crowds, seeing all the commotion as Jesus came into the city, were told by the pilgrims that 'this is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee' (verse 11). But Matthew makes it clear that, though Jesus is indeed a prophet, he is much more. To begin with, he is the 'Son of David' — the royal title which so annoyed the chief priests and scribes (verse 15). They were perhaps frightened of what the Roman authorities might do to the city if it welcomed a would-be king. They may also have been frightened of what a would-be king and his followers might say about them.

Things don't stop there. The Temple was, after all, the place where the one true God was supposed to live on earth with his people. For Matthew (1.23; 28.20), Jesus himself has become that place. In this scene, we discover the great truth that the early Christians embraced and developed: that the old Temple on Mount Zion was simply a signpost, pointing forwards to the new reality of God's presence with his people.

Jerusalem, then, wasn't big enough for Jesus and the Temple together. They were bound to clash. That clash begins the sequence of events which will lead, soon enough, to Jesus' death. But, as we watch, we also see the signs of what that death might mean. If Jesus is the true Temple, we might expect that it is in him, rather than in the Temple, that healing and forgiveness are to be found. Matthew draws our attention to the odd fact that 'the blind and the lame came to him in the Temple, and he cured them'. In 2 Samuel 5.8, the blind and the lame had been excluded from the Temple, following the orders of David himself. Now the Son of David likewise keeps the Temple free from the blind and the lame — by healing them. 

It would be hard to sum up any better the difference between what Jesus was offering and what his contemporaries were wanting.

TODAY

Gracious Lord, challenge us when we distort your will and your promise, and come to dwell with us and in us now and for ever.

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Let’s pray:

Almighty and Eternal Lord, forgive us Father for we do not know what we are doing. We plead for Your forgiveness over our foolishness, over our ego and our pride and help us Lord, to recognise that it is never us and always You. May our mouths proclaim Your awesomeness and Your power and glorify You in all that we do. In Jesus’s most powerful name we proclaim. Amen 🙏🏻