Daily Devotions from Lutheran Hour Ministries by Pastor Ken Klaus, Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour "Faithful Until Death" for Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Revelation 2:10 - (Jesus said) "Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life."Up until this week, the only Zsa Zsa I had ever heard of was one of the Gabor sisters. (If you don't know anything about the Gabor sisters, the only explanation I can give is that they were very pretty, often married, and appeared in a few movies.)
My new Zsazsa is a nine-year-old Havanese dog who lives in Budapest. Quite unexpectedly, Zsazsa made the news this past week. No, it wasn't because she, like the rest of her breed, is uncommonly intelligent and had learned a new trick. That would have been nice.
No, Zsazsa made the news because when the animal protection officials in Budapest found her, she was incredibly malnourished. Their report added that she wasn't able to stand, and if Zsazsa hadn't been found, she would have died in the next few days.
Now it is important that you know that Zsazsa's condition was not because of a cruel and uncaring owner. Nothing could be further from the truth. Zsazsa was malnourished and dehydrated because she and her 60-year-old owner had been inseparable.
I say "had been" because it appears Zsazsa's mistress died a number of weeks ago.
When the neighbors realized the lady hadn't been seen for a while, they called the police. When the officers entered the woman's apartment, they found she had passed away from natural causes. They found her and Zsazsa was by her side. Even though there was dry dog food available, Zsazsa had stayed at her post. Rescuers say she had to be dragged away from her dead owner.
Now before I go any further, I am obliged to tell you that Zsazsa is doing just fine now. She is eating and drinking, and she has even been wagging her tail. Now, with that out of the way, I can point out why an entire Daily Devotion is being dedicated to a Hungarian dog. The reason can be summed up in one word:
Faithfulness.
Faithfulness is a grand thing when it comes to a dog; it is a righteous thing when it comes to a Christian, and it is a saving thing when that quality is seen in our Savior. How did the book of Revelation say it ... "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life."
As Christians we rejoice that our Lord never shirked or strayed from the appointed work of offering Himself as our ransom price. Because Jesus was faithful unto death and was able to say, "It is finished" (John 19:30b), all who believe on Him are forgiven and granted eternal life.
They are also offered the opportunity to be faithful to the Lord with their own lives. Like Zsazsa, the example of the Lord's love and grace should make us faithful and willing to stand by the Lord's side. Unlike Zsazsa, our Master is alive and because He is, we will live forever.
THE PRAYER: Dear Lord, I give thanks for my faithful and ever-living Savior. May my greatest joy in life be to remain by His side. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.
The above devotion was inspired by a number of sources, including one written and carried by the BBC on Jan 5, 2018 Those who wish to reference that article may do so at the following link which was fully functional at the time this devotion was written, click here.
In Christ I remain His servant and yours,
Pastor Ken Klaus
Speaker Emeritus of The Lutheran Hour
Lutheran Hour Ministries
Today's Bible in a Year Reading: Job 22-24; Matthew 12:1-23
Job 22:1 Next Elifaz the Teimani replied:2 “Can a human be of advantage to God?
Can even the wisest benefit him?
3 Does Shaddai gain if you are righteous?
Does he profit if you make your ways blameless?
4 “Is he rebuking you because you fear him?
Is this why he enters into judgment with you?
5 Isn’t it because your wickedness is great?
Aren’t your iniquities endless?
6 “For you kept your kinsmen’s goods as collateral for no reason,
you stripped the poorly clothed of what clothing they have,
7 you didn’t give water to the weary to drink,
you withheld food from the hungry.
8 As a wealthy man, an owner of land,
and as a man of rank, who lives on it,
9 you sent widows away empty-handed
and left the arms of orphans crushed.
10 “No wonder there are snares all around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you,
11 or darkness , so that you can’t see,
and a flood of water that covers you up!
12 “Isn’t God in the heights of heaven,
looking [down even] on the highest stars?
13 Yet you say, ‘What does God know?
Can he see through thick darkness to judge?
14 The clouds veil him off, so that he can’t see;
he just wanders around in heaven.’
15 “Are you going to keep to the old way,
the one the wicked have trodden,
16 the ones snatched away before their time,
whose foundations a flood swept away?
17 They said to God, ‘Leave us alone!
What can Shaddai do to us?’
18 Yet he himself had filled their homes with good things!
(But the advice of the wicked is far away from me.)
19 The righteous saw this and rejoiced;
the innocent laughed them to scorn —
20 ‘Indeed, our substance has not been not cut off,
but the fire has consumed their wealth.’
21 “Learn to be at peace with [God];
in this way good will come [back] to you.
22 Please! Receive instruction from his mouth,
and take his words to heart.
23 If you return to Shaddai, you will be built up.
If you drive wickedness far from your tents,
24 if you lay your treasure down in the dust
and the gold of Ofir among the rocks in the vadis,
25 and let Shaddai be your treasure
and your sparkling silver;
26 then Shaddai will be your delight,
you will lift up your face to God;
27 you will entreat him, and he will hear you,
and you will pay what you vowed;
28 what you decide to do will succeed,
and light will shine on your path;
29 when someone is brought down, you will say, ‘It was pride,
because [God] saves the humble.’
30 “He delivers even the unclean;
so if your hands are clean, you will be delivered.”
23:1 Then Iyov answered:
2 “Today too my complaint is bitter;
my hand is weighed down because of my groaning.
3 I wish I knew where I could find him;
then I would go to where he is.
4 I would state my case before him
and fill my mouth with arguments.
5 I would know his answering words
and grasp what he would tell me.
6 Would he browbeat me with his great power?
No, he would pay attention to me.
7 There an upright person could reason with him;
thus I might be forever acquitted by my judge.
8 “If I head east, he isn’t there;
if I head west, I don’t detect him,
9 if I turn north, I don’t spot him;
in the south he is veiled, and I still don’t see him.
10 Yet he knows the way I take;
when he has tested me, I will come out like gold.
11 My feet have stayed in his footsteps;
I keep to his way without turning aside.
12 I don’t withdraw from his lips’ command;
I treasure his words more than my daily food.
13 “But he has no equal, so who can change him?
What he desires, he does.
14 He will accomplish what is decreed for me,
and he has many plans like this.
15 This is why I am terrified of him;
the more I think about it, the more afraid I am —
16 God has undermined my courage;
Shaddai frightens me.
17 Yet I am not cut off by the darkness;
he has protected me from the deepest gloom.
24:1 “Why are times not kept by Shaddai?
Why do those who know him not see his days?
2 There are those who move boundary markers;
they carry off flocks and pasture them;
3 they drive away the orphan’s donkey;
as collateral, they seize the widow’s ox.
4 They push the needy out of the way —
the poor of the land are forced into hiding;
5 like wild donkeys in the wilderness,
they have to go out and scavenge food,
[hoping that] the desert
will provide food for their children.
6 They must reap in fields that are not their own
and gather late grapes in the vineyards of the wicked.
7 They pass the night without clothing, naked,
uncovered in the cold,
8 wet with mountain rain,
and hugging the rock for lack of shelter.
9 “There are those who pluck orphans from the breast
and [those who] take [the clothes of] the poor in pledge,
10 so that they go about stripped, unclothed;
they go hungry, as they carry sheaves [of grain];
11 between these men’s rows [of olives], they make oil;
treading their winepresses, they suffer thirst.
12 Men are groaning in the city,
the mortally wounded are crying for help,
yet God finds nothing amiss!
13 “There are those who rebel against the light —
they don’t know its ways or stay in its paths.
14 The murderer rises with the light
to kill the poor and needy;
while at night he is like a thief.
15 The eye of the adulterer too waits for twilight;
he thinks, ‘No eye will see me’;
but [to be sure], he covers his face.
16 When it’s dark, they break into houses;
in the daytime, they stay out of sight.
[None of them] know the light.
17 For to all of them deep darkness is like morning,
for the terrors of deep darkness are familiar to them.
18 “May they be scum on the surface of the water,
may their share of land be cursed,
may no one turn on the way of their vineyards,
19 may drought and heat steal away their snow water
and Sh’ol those who have sinned.
20 May the womb forget them,
may worms find them sweet,
may they no longer be remembered —
thus may iniquity be snapped like a stick.
21 They devour childless women
and give no help to widows.
22 “Yet God keeps pulling the mighty along —
they get up, even when not trusting their own lives.
23 However, even if God lets them rest in safety,
his eyes are on their ways.
24 They are exalted for a little while;
and then they are gone,
brought low, gathered in like all others,
shriveled up like ears of grain.
25 “And even if it isn’t so now,
still no one can prove me a liar
and show that my words are worthless.”
Matthew 12:1 One Shabbat during that time, Yeshua was walking through some wheat fields. His talmidim were hungry, so they began picking heads of grain and eating them. 2 On seeing this, the P’rushim said to him, “Look! Your talmidim are violating Shabbat!” 3 But he said to them, “Haven’t you ever read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? 4 He entered the House of God and ate the Bread of the Presence!” — which was prohibited, both to him and to his companions; it is permitted only to the cohanim. 5 “Or haven’t you read in the Torah that on Shabbat the cohanim profane Shabbat and yet are blameless? 6 I tell you, there is in this place something greater than the Temple! 7 If you knew what ‘I want compassion rather than animal-sacrifice’[Matthew 12:7 Hosea 6:6] meant, you would not condemn the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of Shabbat!”
9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue. 10 A man there had a shriveled hand. Looking for a reason to accuse him of something, they asked him, “Is healing permitted on Shabbat?” 11 But he answered, “If you have a sheep that falls in a pit on Shabbat, which of you won’t take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore, what is permitted on Shabbat is to do good.” 13 Then to the man he said, “Hold out your hand.” As he held it out, it became restored, as sound as the other one. 14 But the P’rushim went out and began plotting how they might do away with Yeshua. 15 Aware of this, he left that area.
Many people followed him; and he healed them all 16 but warned them not to make him known. 17 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Yesha‘yahu the prophet,
18 “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,
my beloved, with whom I am well pleased;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will announce justice to the Gentiles.
19 He will not fight or shout,
no one will hear his voice in the streets;
20 he will not snap off a broken reed
or snuff out a smoldering wick
until he has brought justice through to victory.
21 In him the Gentiles will put their hope.”[Matthew 12:21 Isaiah 42:1–4]
22 Then some people brought him a man controlled by demons who was blind and mute; and Yeshua healed him, so that he could both speak and see. 23 The crowds were astounded and asked, “This couldn’t be the Son of David, could it?”
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Can even the wisest benefit him?
3 Does Shaddai gain if you are righteous?
Does he profit if you make your ways blameless?
4 “Is he rebuking you because you fear him?
Is this why he enters into judgment with you?
5 Isn’t it because your wickedness is great?
Aren’t your iniquities endless?
6 “For you kept your kinsmen’s goods as collateral for no reason,
you stripped the poorly clothed of what clothing they have,
7 you didn’t give water to the weary to drink,
you withheld food from the hungry.
8 As a wealthy man, an owner of land,
and as a man of rank, who lives on it,
9 you sent widows away empty-handed
and left the arms of orphans crushed.
10 “No wonder there are snares all around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you,
11 or darkness , so that you can’t see,
and a flood of water that covers you up!
12 “Isn’t God in the heights of heaven,
looking [down even] on the highest stars?
13 Yet you say, ‘What does God know?
Can he see through thick darkness to judge?
14 The clouds veil him off, so that he can’t see;
he just wanders around in heaven.’
15 “Are you going to keep to the old way,
the one the wicked have trodden,
16 the ones snatched away before their time,
whose foundations a flood swept away?
17 They said to God, ‘Leave us alone!
What can Shaddai do to us?’
18 Yet he himself had filled their homes with good things!
(But the advice of the wicked is far away from me.)
19 The righteous saw this and rejoiced;
the innocent laughed them to scorn —
20 ‘Indeed, our substance has not been not cut off,
but the fire has consumed their wealth.’
21 “Learn to be at peace with [God];
in this way good will come [back] to you.
22 Please! Receive instruction from his mouth,
and take his words to heart.
23 If you return to Shaddai, you will be built up.
If you drive wickedness far from your tents,
24 if you lay your treasure down in the dust
and the gold of Ofir among the rocks in the vadis,
25 and let Shaddai be your treasure
and your sparkling silver;
26 then Shaddai will be your delight,
you will lift up your face to God;
27 you will entreat him, and he will hear you,
and you will pay what you vowed;
28 what you decide to do will succeed,
and light will shine on your path;
29 when someone is brought down, you will say, ‘It was pride,
because [God] saves the humble.’
30 “He delivers even the unclean;
so if your hands are clean, you will be delivered.”
23:1 Then Iyov answered:
2 “Today too my complaint is bitter;
my hand is weighed down because of my groaning.
3 I wish I knew where I could find him;
then I would go to where he is.
4 I would state my case before him
and fill my mouth with arguments.
5 I would know his answering words
and grasp what he would tell me.
6 Would he browbeat me with his great power?
No, he would pay attention to me.
7 There an upright person could reason with him;
thus I might be forever acquitted by my judge.
8 “If I head east, he isn’t there;
if I head west, I don’t detect him,
9 if I turn north, I don’t spot him;
in the south he is veiled, and I still don’t see him.
10 Yet he knows the way I take;
when he has tested me, I will come out like gold.
11 My feet have stayed in his footsteps;
I keep to his way without turning aside.
12 I don’t withdraw from his lips’ command;
I treasure his words more than my daily food.
13 “But he has no equal, so who can change him?
What he desires, he does.
14 He will accomplish what is decreed for me,
and he has many plans like this.
15 This is why I am terrified of him;
the more I think about it, the more afraid I am —
16 God has undermined my courage;
Shaddai frightens me.
17 Yet I am not cut off by the darkness;
he has protected me from the deepest gloom.
24:1 “Why are times not kept by Shaddai?
Why do those who know him not see his days?
2 There are those who move boundary markers;
they carry off flocks and pasture them;
3 they drive away the orphan’s donkey;
as collateral, they seize the widow’s ox.
4 They push the needy out of the way —
the poor of the land are forced into hiding;
5 like wild donkeys in the wilderness,
they have to go out and scavenge food,
[hoping that] the desert
will provide food for their children.
6 They must reap in fields that are not their own
and gather late grapes in the vineyards of the wicked.
7 They pass the night without clothing, naked,
uncovered in the cold,
8 wet with mountain rain,
and hugging the rock for lack of shelter.
9 “There are those who pluck orphans from the breast
and [those who] take [the clothes of] the poor in pledge,
10 so that they go about stripped, unclothed;
they go hungry, as they carry sheaves [of grain];
11 between these men’s rows [of olives], they make oil;
treading their winepresses, they suffer thirst.
12 Men are groaning in the city,
the mortally wounded are crying for help,
yet God finds nothing amiss!
13 “There are those who rebel against the light —
they don’t know its ways or stay in its paths.
14 The murderer rises with the light
to kill the poor and needy;
while at night he is like a thief.
15 The eye of the adulterer too waits for twilight;
he thinks, ‘No eye will see me’;
but [to be sure], he covers his face.
16 When it’s dark, they break into houses;
in the daytime, they stay out of sight.
[None of them] know the light.
17 For to all of them deep darkness is like morning,
for the terrors of deep darkness are familiar to them.
18 “May they be scum on the surface of the water,
may their share of land be cursed,
may no one turn on the way of their vineyards,
19 may drought and heat steal away their snow water
and Sh’ol those who have sinned.
20 May the womb forget them,
may worms find them sweet,
may they no longer be remembered —
thus may iniquity be snapped like a stick.
21 They devour childless women
and give no help to widows.
22 “Yet God keeps pulling the mighty along —
they get up, even when not trusting their own lives.
23 However, even if God lets them rest in safety,
his eyes are on their ways.
24 They are exalted for a little while;
and then they are gone,
brought low, gathered in like all others,
shriveled up like ears of grain.
25 “And even if it isn’t so now,
still no one can prove me a liar
and show that my words are worthless.”
Matthew 12:1 One Shabbat during that time, Yeshua was walking through some wheat fields. His talmidim were hungry, so they began picking heads of grain and eating them. 2 On seeing this, the P’rushim said to him, “Look! Your talmidim are violating Shabbat!” 3 But he said to them, “Haven’t you ever read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? 4 He entered the House of God and ate the Bread of the Presence!” — which was prohibited, both to him and to his companions; it is permitted only to the cohanim. 5 “Or haven’t you read in the Torah that on Shabbat the cohanim profane Shabbat and yet are blameless? 6 I tell you, there is in this place something greater than the Temple! 7 If you knew what ‘I want compassion rather than animal-sacrifice’[Matthew 12:7 Hosea 6:6] meant, you would not condemn the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of Shabbat!”
9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue. 10 A man there had a shriveled hand. Looking for a reason to accuse him of something, they asked him, “Is healing permitted on Shabbat?” 11 But he answered, “If you have a sheep that falls in a pit on Shabbat, which of you won’t take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore, what is permitted on Shabbat is to do good.” 13 Then to the man he said, “Hold out your hand.” As he held it out, it became restored, as sound as the other one. 14 But the P’rushim went out and began plotting how they might do away with Yeshua. 15 Aware of this, he left that area.
Many people followed him; and he healed them all 16 but warned them not to make him known. 17 This was to fulfill what had been spoken through Yesha‘yahu the prophet,
18 “Here is my servant, whom I have chosen,
my beloved, with whom I am well pleased;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will announce justice to the Gentiles.
19 He will not fight or shout,
no one will hear his voice in the streets;
20 he will not snap off a broken reed
or snuff out a smoldering wick
until he has brought justice through to victory.
21 In him the Gentiles will put their hope.”[Matthew 12:21 Isaiah 42:1–4]
22 Then some people brought him a man controlled by demons who was blind and mute; and Yeshua healed him, so that he could both speak and see. 23 The crowds were astounded and asked, “This couldn’t be the Son of David, could it?”
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Use these devotions in your newsletter and bulletin! Used by permission; all rights reserved by the Int'l LLL (LHM).
CHANGE THEIR WORLD. CHANGE YOURS.
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.
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