Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "Daylight Savings Time" Sunday, 9 March 2014

Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "Daylight Savings Time" Sunday, 9 March 2014
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.--Galatians 4:4-5
Please don't be offended when I say this Saturday, March 9, A 2014 D, most of us are supposed to set our clocks forward. 
Just for the record, that date above isn't a typo.
Now if you're reading this devotion for yourself, that date should sound like this: March Ninth, A (Anno), 2014 D, (Domini), or March ninth in the year 2014 of our Lord. Before Jesus was born, the Western world marked everything from the most important event it could think of: the year the city of Rome was founded. Indeed, if Jesus hadn't come, our calendars might be carrying the date: 2767 and not 2014.
The calendar change took place when early Christians compared the importance of the Savior's birth with the founding of a man-made city. Quite frankly, there was no contest. Jesus won hands down and from then on, our calendars proclaim the Savior's birth and remind us He will come again.
Truly, Jesus is the one extraordinary individual in history who has had an impact so thorough and complete that people agree even the calendar needed to be changed. Make that most everybody.
I say, most everybody because, as you know, there is a movement to change "BC" or "Before Christ" to "BCE," that is, "Before the Current Era." Those same folk want to scrap "AD" and replace it with "CE" or "Current Era." And if you're wondering if they are taking a shot against Jesus, there is no doubt some of them are. The others, well, the others are just trying to make it so they don't offend anybody by giving preference to Christ and the religion the Holy Spirit has brought into being.
I've noticed a lot of Christians object to that change.
Every time they see BCE or CE, they go ballistic. Me, I don't get all frustrated and flustered. That's because when people try to banish Jesus from the calendar, it gives me a chance to witness. Eventually, I end up saying something like, "Go ahead, change the words; come up with any kind of abbreviation you want. No matter what you do, you can never ignore the fact that the life of Jesus has changed the world. You cannot deny that Jesus is the One who has made the current era current. It is His coming, and His coming alone, which separates all of human history.
Although Paul never heard any of this "CE" and "AD" stuff, he most certainly did understand the importance of Jesus and how the Savior has changed things. That is why the apostle wrote that at the right time, when all was ready, God sent His Son to be born of a woman to rescue us from the Law's condemnation and allow forgiven souls to be adopted into the family of faith.
You see, it's not just our calendars that are separated by Jesus' life, death and resurrection. To those who are given faith, He also separates us from our transgressions and the punishment our sins had earned.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, we talk about Daylight Savings Time, but none of us can save time. The clock is ticking, and the years on the calendar are marking the time before You come again. When that day comes, may we be prepared and thankful we have been given a Savior whose blood has separated us from our sin. In Your Name I ask it. Amen.
In Christ I remain His servant and yours, 
Pastor Ken Klaus 
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour®
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Through the Bible in a Year
Today Read:
Leviticus 26:1 “‘You shall make for yourselves no idols, and you shall not raise up an engraved image or a pillar, and you shall not place any figured stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am Yahweh your God.
2 “‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am Yahweh.
3 “‘If you walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall reach to the vintage, and the vintage shall reach to the sowing time. You shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.
6 “‘I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one will make you afraid. I will remove evil animals out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand; and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
9 “‘I will have respect for you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall move out the old because of the new. 11 I will set my tent among you, and my soul won’t abhor you. 12 I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, and made you go upright.
14 “‘But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; 15 and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; 16 I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18 “‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19 I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass. 20 Your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won’t yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 “‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. 22 I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.
23 “‘If by these things you won’t be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me; 24 then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. 25 I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
27 “‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me; 28 then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. 31 I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. 32 I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. 34 Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. 35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths, when you lived on it.
36 “‘As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword. They will fall when no one pursues. 37 They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues. You will have no power to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up. 39 Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.
40 “‘If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me, 41 I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; 42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. 43 The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. 44 Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God; 45 but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’”
46 These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
27:1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them, ‘When a man consecrates a person to Yahweh in a vow, according to your valuation, 3 your valuation of a male from twenty years old even to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel[a] of the sanctuary. 4 If she is a female, then your valuation shall be thirty shekels. 5 If the person is from five years old even to twenty years old, then your valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 6 If the person is from a month old even to five years old, then your valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female your valuation shall be three shekels of silver. 7 If the person is from sixty years old and upward; if he is a male, then your valuation shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels. 8 But if he is poorer than your valuation, then he shall be set before the priest, and the priest shall assign a value to him. The priest shall assign a value according to his ability to pay.
9 “‘If it is an animal, of which men offer an offering to Yahweh, all that any man gives of such to Yahweh becomes holy. 10 He shall not alter it, nor change it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good: and if he shall at all change animal for animal, then both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy. 11 If it is any unclean animal, of which they do not offer as an offering to Yahweh, then he shall set the animal before the priest; 12 and the priest shall value it, whether it is good or bad. As you the priest values it, so shall it be. 13 But if he will indeed redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of it to its valuation.
14 “‘When a man dedicates his house to be holy to Yahweh, then the priest shall evaluate it, whether it is good or bad: as the priest shall evaluate it, so shall it stand. 15 If he who dedicates it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall be his.
16 “‘If a man dedicates to Yahweh part of the field of his possession, then your valuation shall be according to the seed for it. The sowing of a homer [b] of barley shall be valued at fifty shekels[c] of silver. 17 If he dedicates his field from the Year of Jubilee, according to your valuation it shall stand. 18 But if he dedicates his field after the Jubilee, then the priest shall reckon to him the money according to the years that remain to the Year of Jubilee; and an abatement shall be made from your valuation. 19 If he who dedicated the field will indeed redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of your valuation to it, and it shall remain his. 20 If he will not redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more; 21 but the field, when it goes out in the Jubilee, shall be holy to Yahweh, as a devoted field. It shall be owned by the priests.
22 “‘If he dedicates a field to Yahweh which he has bought, which is not of the field of his possession, 23 then the priest shall reckon to him the worth of your valuation up to the Year of Jubilee; and he shall give your valuation on that day, as a holy thing to Yahweh. 24 In the Year of Jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land belongs. 25 All your valuations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs[d] to the shekel.[e]
26 “‘Only the firstborn among animals, which is made a firstborn to Yahweh, no man may dedicate it; whether an ox or sheep. It is Yahweh’s. 27 If it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back according to your valuation, and shall add to it the fifth part of it; or if it isn’t redeemed, then it shall be sold according to your valuation.
28 “‘Notwithstanding, no devoted thing, that a man shall devote to Yahweh of all that he has, whether of man or animal, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy to Yahweh.
29 “‘No one devoted, who shall be devoted from among men, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.
30 “‘All the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is Yahweh’s. It is holy to Yahweh. 31 If a man redeems anything of his tithe, he shall add a fifth part to it. 32 All the tithe of the herds or the flocks, whatever passes under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to Yahweh. 33 He shall not search whether it is good or bad, neither shall he change it. If he changes it at all, then both it and that for which it is changed shall be holy. It shall not be redeemed.’”
34 These are the commandments which Yahweh commanded Moses for the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.
Footnotes:
a. Leviticus 27:3 a shekel is about 10 grams or about 0.35 ounces
b. Leviticus 27:16 1 homer is about 220 liters or 6 bushels
c. Leviticus 27:16 a shekel is about 10 grams or about 0.35 ounces
d. Leviticus 27:25 a gerah is about 0.5 grams or about 7.7 grains
e. Leviticus 27:25 a shekel is about 10 grams or about 0.35 ounces
Mark 11:19 When evening came, he went out of the city. 20 As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away from the roots. 21 Peter, remembering, said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away.”
22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 For most certainly I tell you, whoever may tell this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is happening; he shall have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I tell you, all things whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them. 25 Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father, who is in heaven, may also forgive you your transgressions. 26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your transgressions.”
27 They came again to Jerusalem, and as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders came to him, 28 and they began saying to him, “By what authority do you do these things? Or who gave you this authority to do these things?”
29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 The baptism of John—was it from heaven, or from men? Answer me.”
31 They reasoned with themselves, saying, “If we should say, ‘From heaven;’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 If we should say, ‘From men’”—they feared the people, for all held John to really be a prophet. 33 They answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Jesus said to them, “Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.”
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