Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Psalms 97:7-12
Ps. 97:7-12
7 All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols--worship him, all you gods! 8 Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments, O LORD. 9 For you, O LORD, are the Most High over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. 10 Let those who love the LORD hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and delivers them from the hand of the wicked. 11 Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. 12 Rejoice in the LORD, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name.
Col. 2:13-15
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
How do we know that God is really God? How do we know that Jesus is really Lord of heaven and earth? The ways are many. We know first of all because of creation and the order that is seen in our universe. The only reasonable answer for how it got here is a divine intelligence with infinite power. We understand that our God is the only true God because of his righteousness. He always loves what is right and what is good and at the same time abhors that which is evil.
The holiness and righteousness of God brings order into our world. James says that the wisdom of this world produces bitter envy, selfish ambition and denies the truth of God which brings disorder and every kind of evil practice. Paul says that when God is rejected it produces sexual immorality, disrespect for authority and every kind of wickedness along with greed and depravity as well as envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. God made us to be like him in holiness.
We die to sin when we put our faith in Jesus Christ and confess him as the Son of God, turn from our sinful ways to serve him as Lord and then submit to him by being baptized into his death, burial and resurrection. It is then that our sins are forgiven as we are raised from baptism a new person and made alive in Christ.
