Mon.’s Devo - Forgiveness

Read: Exodus 5:22-7:24; Matthew 18:23-19:12; Psalm 23:1-6; Proverbs 5:22-23
Moses complained to the Lord that since he told the people what God had said, everything had gotten worse instead of better. God explained to Moses that he had been Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s God but these descendants didn’t know him as their God, so he was going to redeem them in a way that they would know who he was and what he could do. He would do this with his outstretched arm and his mighty acts of judgment.
When Moses told this to the people they couldn’t hear it because of their discouragement and the heavy oppression they were under.
God told Moses he would make him like God to Pharaoh and Aaron would be his prophet. He was to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country, then God would harden Pharoah’s heart. After that, God would come to their rescue with judgment on the land.
Moses went to Pharaoh and showed him the sign of the staff turning to the snake. God chose a sign that they would be able to duplicate, then he had his snake swallow all of theirs. The judgment against Egypt was against Egypt’s gods. God wanted the Israelites to see that the gods of Egypt were powerless against him.
Moses turned the water to blood making them have to dig for their own water. All the fish died and the water stunk. One of the Egyptian gods was the Nile River.
In Matthew, Jesus explained judgment in the kingdom. God wants to have mercy on us, but if we have not had mercy on those on earth, then he will not be able to have mercy on us in heaven.
The Pharisees came and tried to trap him by asking if a man could divorce for no reason. Moses allowed men to divorce with a legal writ if the man found out his bride was not a virgin, even though it was not God’s original plan. God planned for a virgin to marry a man and stay married their whole life. In Jesus’ day, men were divorcing their wives without a legal writ causing them to commit adultery if either remarried. Jesus’ ground for legal divorcement was sexual unfaithfulness. He gave three reasons why men don’t marry: they have no desire to marry, they have been castrated, or they have renounced marriage for the kingdom’s sake.
Lord, you have a lot to say about judgment but you make it very clear how to be righteous. Help us to forgive anyone that we have any aught against.