Tues.’s Devo - Let’s Be a Forerunner

Read Lev. 16:29-30, Mark 7:24-8:10, Ps. 41:1-13, Pr. 10:15-16 Today we get a hodgepodge of information. The Day of Atonement is the highest holiest day for the Jew. It was the tenth day of the seventh month in the religious calendar, but the tenth day of the first month of the civil holiday. It was the day the High Priest went into the Holy of Holies and offered up prayers and atonement for the people of the nation. Jesus will do that in the end of time. He will do that once and for all for all the people that have lived during the space of time. Next we have a number of rules about mixing fluids. God hates mixture. He is a holy God who wants his creation to stay holy so, for example, when we mix unclean conversation with a holy vessel, God is not honored. Verse 25 of Lev. 18 speaks of the land vomiting out its inhabitants. What we do effects the land. If a particular culture is full of pagan practices, then their sacrifices pollute the land and eventually the land vomits them up in the form of a volcano or an earthquake. Indonesia is a great example of that. Indonesia is often racked by volcanoes. It has a long history of Hinduism, Budhism, animalism, and Islam. Its land is full of sin and having to vomit it up. In Mark we read about the woman who was Greek, coming to Jesus to deliver her daughter from demons. When Jesus told her that he had come to help the Jews, not the Gentiles, she gave Jesus an answer that changed his heart. She, like many others Gentiles in the Bible were forerunners of the future ministry of Christ - the world. For now, he was there for the lost house of Israel. She had such faith to see that it would only take a crumb of Jesus power to defeat the devil. Jesus was moved and acted on her faith, and her daughter was delivered. Lord, may our faith move you to miracles and great works. May we be a forerunner of what you are doing.