A Devotional Look at the Book #543

by Jesse Abel

A Devotional Look at the Book #543

A Thought for today by Papa “J”

The coins in your pocket: How much is six pence worth in British currency? 0.11 cents American! 0.22 cents Canadian; or 0.75 cents American? There could be more than one right answer. Matthew 6:24

A DAY IN THE PAST, THE PRESENT OR THE FUTURE

As a sailor before May of 1975 I staggered from one circumstance of life to another. For example; I thought it might be nice to sell mutual funds as a part time job while stationed in Hawaii. The income was good and I was having happy times. Then I thought it might be good to own a pizza restaurant, so I bought one. Hard work but I had good help. I had some selfish ideas so I stepped on people; some were employees and some were people who invested in mutual funds. I was happy! Yet; I was also unhappy since I treated people roughly I was treated the same in return and I always thought that I was right and they were wrong… so I was miserable. Why? Because I could not get people to like MY SELFISHNESS! I reckon you could say I was miserably happy. This way of life was and is today the way of life for many people; staggering from one moment of temporal happiness to another moment of temporal misery. Words like happiness and misery are scarce in the Holy Bible since these are a temporal condition of physical life laced in sin. So every person who answers the call of God is lifted out of this temporal condition and placed into the family of God where the focus is always on Eternal Joy found only in the Person of Jesus Christ and His Righteousness. Learn to be joyful and stop being miserably happy forever. Matthew 7:7-14

2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 3:7-12 – I am encouraged and I hope you are as well. The paragraph above was not intended to parallel with these verses in Second Corinthians; but do! Well the LORD always has His way and I am so thankful for that. The question that I find myself asking here is: Does the Old Covenant have no hope? It seems to me that the apostle is saying that the Commandments of God written on stone; even as glorious as it is to Moses and the people of Israel is a ministry of death as in passing away. A no hope covenant: Please note: Romans 7:10; Exodus 34:1

We also know that the presence of God speaking with Moses; gave Moses a holy countenance because of the LORD’s glory and as time moved forward that countenance would fade away. Exodus 34:29-35 so the picture of the countenance of the Old Covenant had from the beginning a temporal overcast and I believe that this is good for us to know. The New Covenant is the final Covenant because it has eternal Promise and joy. Placing both covenants face to face we can easily see that one is temporal and one is eternal: One is the ministry of death; written and engraved on stone. No one can fully obey the Law of God except God Himself. The other is the ministry of the Spirit promising and fulfilling eternal life to all who believe.

I see that Acts 4:5-12 answers any questions I might have. There is a lot more to this thought in these final verses of chapter three and we will be covering these in the next day or two. I just would like to mention that we should be meditating on this section of scripture for more insight and blessing. I do love the Word of God and I hope you do too; because if you love the Word; you are loving Him who spoke it into existence. 1 John 1:1-4. Joy exceeds happiness by an eternity.