Devotional studies

[irenemcg]

This thread is for us to share short devotional studies.

I'll start with looking at Anna I posted this on our website earlier today.

ANNA THE PROPHETESS


Luk 2:36 And there was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old, having lived with her husband seven years from her maidenhood,
Luk 2:37 And as a widow even for eighty-four years. She did not go out from the temple
enclosure, but was worshiping night and day with fasting and prayer.
Luk 2:38 And she too came up at that same hour, and she returned thanks to God and talked of [Jesus] to all who were looking for the redemption (deliverance) of Jerusalem. (Amplified Bible)

Can you picture this very elderly lady over a hundred years of age sitting in the temple daily worshiping and praising God in anticipation of her coming King- the birth of the Christ child? She bore witness to Jesus by telling all who sought redemption that the Messiah had come, that the child as had been prophesied by the prophets was indeed born and their redemption was nigh.
How often do we make excuses for why we cannot fast and pray, “I am not too well, that’s alright for the young ones, I’m fifty now you know.” Does that sound familiar? Yet here we have Anna who was over a hundred years of age and she was so devoted to God that she spent time daily fasting and praying. Oh my, that means she was double my age or more and she did not waiver but had waited patiently for the Lord’s birth to set her eyes on the Messiah.
It is possible that after her husband’s death, Anna would have been encouraged to get married again and have children. Anna, chose to stay single and to share her faith with as many people as she could. This woman was strong she did not get lost in self pity, instead she drew strength from God. She chose to serve the Lord. She chose to fast and pray, worshiping the Lord day and night. She chose to tell them the news of the Saviour that was coming, no matter how long it might be before he came. She knew her purpose in God and she didn't let anyone's opinions or comments keep her from it. Anna's choice would not only affect her life in an abundant way, but also the lives of others ever since. This woman was really the first Christian evangelist, okay she looked forward to the cross, but she knew when she set her eyes on Jesus that He was the one who would die for her sins and those of all mankind and she bore witness to this.
Anna was told by God what to do and she did it. How about you and I? Has God told us to do something but we are afraid? Are we in some ways lazy and disobedient? The blessings of being obedient to God surely far outweigh the blessings of us staying safe.
Are we going to be like Anna totally obedient to the Lord and have her type of boldness? She was a woman in a culture where women had no voice and a widow of a great age who was a great witness in the temple to the coming Messiah and acknowledged the wonder of the birth of Jesus and just had to tell others. There was no way she could keep quiet about the good news of Jesus, she just had to tell others.
What an example this old woman is to us, it’s time for us to proclaim the truth of the gospel to so many people who are hungry for truth, who are discontent with what the world has to offer, who are disheartened by the political scene, rumors of wars, financial pressures, those who are feeling lost and lonely.
Friends won’t you tell someone about Jesus today? Your witness and example of Godly living and His loving compassion demonstrated through you, can affect the lives of many too.
My prayers are that I will be obedient like Anna to God and show even half of her devotion. Is this your prayer?

 

[irenemcg]

Isa 7:14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel



Eight hundred years before the birth of Jesus, things were pretty grim for the Jewish people. Judah had been invaded by the king of Syria and the king of Israel. Jerusalem hadn’t been conquered, but king Ahaz had been taken captive and then released. He had suffered such losses that he was about to appeal to the Assyrian king for help. This would take Ahaz and his nation further and further away from God, because the king was lacking in faith in the plans and power of God.
The Lord offered to give Ahaz a sign of his plans and power. But Ahaz refused. So the Lord gave a sign anyway – not just to the king for his immediate comfort, but to the whole nation as part of the meaning of their history – the sign of the virgin and her Son. “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel”
So the coming of the Messiah was prophesied hereto give a sign of future hope..
Mat 1:23 "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us."


G1694
Ἐμμανουήλ
Emmanouēl
Thayer Definition:
Emmanuel = “God with us”
the title applied to the Messiah, born of the virgin, Mat_1:23, Is. Mat_7:14, because Jesus was God united with man, and showed that God was dwelling with man (Thayer)

Joseph was somewhat troubled, here he was engaged to be married to Mary and she had just told him that she is pregnant. This was not like today’s western society, their rules and practice were very strict – no sexual intimacy between the betrothed couple was permitted before marriage. It was expected that a young woman would be a virgin at the time of her marriage. Engagement was to be a time of faithfulness as well as celibacy. To break an engagement required a divorce procedure.
Mary’s was visited by the angel the angel Gabriel who announced that she would bear a son who would be the very Son of God. Her pregnancy would result, not from the act of a man, but from the direct work of the Holy Spirit. But how could Joseph believe that, can you imagine the scenario? This complicated all their plans.
Joseph believed there must be some man involved, .he still loved Mary and didn’t want to make trouble for her. He decided to divorce her quietly.
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name
Mat 1:20 But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.
Mat 1:21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins."
Mat 1:22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying:
Mat 1:23 "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us."
Mat 1:24 Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife,
Mat 1:25 and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS.
So Joseph took Mary as His wife and as we know the baby Jesus was born, God with us. He who was and is God became a man and dwelt among us.

Joh 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And this same Immanuel went all the way to the cross for you and I, oh how He loves us, that God could come into this world, have a lowly birth and die the most excrutiating of deaths, a death on the cross for us, but hallelujah he rose again on the third day and He now sits at the Father’s right hand.

But He did not leave us on our own when He returned to His Father.

Joh 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever--
Joh 14:17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
Joh 14:18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
Joh 14:19 "A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.
Joh 14:20 At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
Joh 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."

He sent us His Spirit and He indwells us as believers, the Holy Spirit reveals the Father and the Son to us. God is with us, His presence is with us at all times. Jesus lives within us, the fullness of the Godhead indwells us. Hallelujah! Give praise and thanks this day to Immanuel – God with us. Let His presence linger with us in such a real way this day and every day for He is our Lord and our Saviour. Give praise to His Name

 

[irenemcg]

Post devotional studies here, your thoughts on a verse or two here, this is not my thread, it's for all of us. Let's lift the name of Jesus High!

 

[irenemcg]

Luk 5:33 They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking."

Luk 5:34 Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?

Luk 5:35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast."

Luk 5:36 He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.

Luk 5:37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.

Luk 5:38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.

Luk 5:39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "





Some people would fast regularly week by week. the Pharisees criticized the disciples here. We learn from this passage that regular fasting was the practice of John's disciples (5:33). The Prophetess Anna fasted regularly (Luke 2:37).

But the Pharisees did practice fasting, often proudly.



Mat 6:16 "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.

Mat 6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,

Mat 6:18 so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.


It is possible that there were other sincere Pharisees that fasted and obeyed the oral law as unto the Lord, such as Nicodemus. They were sincere, but encumbered by a great weight of legalism which composed much of their religious practice.



Jesus answers their question with an illustration. "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?" (5:34). For the wedding in Jesus' day, the bridegroom and his family were expected to put on the celebration (John 2:9-10), not the bride's family as is today’s western custom. The groom would go to the bride's home to fetch her and her attendants and friends, and the couple would lead them in a procession to the groom's house (reflected in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, Matthew 25:1-13) where the celebration would take place. Though the consummation would take place that night, the party sometimes went on for as long as a week with friends and family who had travelled a distance to attend.

Jesus is saying, just as you don't fast while the bridegroom's hosts the wedding celebration, neither should my disciples fast while I am ushering in the Kingdom of God.



In the heat of Palestine, grape juice began to ferment very quickly and there was no easy way to prevent fermentation. After the first state of fermentation had taken place in the winevat, the wine was separated from the lees (that is, sediment of dead yeast, tartar crystals, small fragments of grape skins, etc.) and strained through a sieve or piece of cloth (cf. Matthew 23:24). After four to six days it was poured into clay jars lined with pitch or animal skins for storage and further fermentation.

Wineskins were made of whole tanned goatskins where the legs and tail were cut off and had been sealed.


nebel

a skin bag for liquids (from collapsing when empty); hence, a vase (as similar in shape when full); also a lyre (as having a body of like form): - bottle, pitcher, psaltery, vessel, viol.


This was not glass bottles but rather whole goatskins, with nubbins bulging out where the legs once were, the neck would be tied off where the wine has been poured in, the whole large skin bulging almost to bursting as the carbon dioxide gas generated by the fermentation process stretched it to its limit. This image is described by Job.

Job 32:18 For I am full of words,

and the spirit within me compels me;

Job 32:19 inside I am like bottled-up wine,

like new wineskins ready to burst.

By the time it is fully fermented 3 or 4 months later the skin's ability to contract and stretch again was lost.



Although we aren't familiar with the details of wineskins, those listening to Jesus were. He didn't have to explain fermentation and the aging of leather.

As in the parable of the patched garment. Jesus makes the same point, you can't join the new to the old or you'll ruin both the new wine and the old skin. The gas pressure from the fermentation is eventually so great that the inflexible old skin ruptures, and the new wine gushes out onto the ground and is wasted. The people all know not to use old skins with new wine and they understand the parable.

The point Jesus is making is it is easier to fall back to what is familiar and comfortable, and justify that, rather than launch out into a life guided not by laws and regulations but led by the Voice of the Spirit of God., The two are opposites. Jesus, insists, the Gospel of the Kingdom must not be hindered by the legalistic man -made rules of the Pharisees' religion. The New Wine may not be as smooth to the tongue, and finely aged as old wine. It may seem a bit sharp and unrefined. But it is alive. You can't contain it in old structures. You must find new wineskins for it or none at all. Jesus told us he did not come to dispense with the law but to fulfil it (Matthew 5:17-20)



The Holy Spirit now fulfils the law within us (Romans 8:1-4; Galatians 5:16-23).

"New wine must be poured into new wineskins," not accommodated to those comfortable things in our lives with which it is basically incompatible. The message for us as disciples of Jesus Christ is to be uncompromising about our faith and the work of the Spirit in our lives. So let us this coming year be prepared to drink new wine from new wineskins, allowing the Holy Spirit to do a fresh work within all of us.


Lord, as we enter 2009 fill us full again, with your fresh New Wine. This time help us to contain it and grow with it, rather than lose it through out stubbornness and inflexibility. Help us, Lord, to recognize the powerful new ways you want to work in our own lives and not miss it. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

NKJIV used throughout

 

[MyLordIsMyLife]

I've thought about Prophetess Anna too, and I often wonder what type of love must have been in her heart to do nothing but fast and pray every day, all day. She was truly blessed by our Lord. And to have the sight of our most lovely Jesus as her dearest goal- and to see Him in her earthly life when she was already a hundred years old must have been her reward for her ceaseless devotion. O Lord, I pray we may all have the strength to live for You so that we may see Your beauty in Heaven and worship and adore You forever there.