Every day Devotional • December 17
A Studying from Zechariah 3:1-10
3 Then he confirmed me the excessive priest Joshua standing earlier than the angel of the Lord and the accuser standing at his proper hand to accuse him. 2 And the Lord mentioned to the accuser, “The Lord rebuke you, O accuser! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Just isn’t this man a model plucked from the hearth?” 3 Now Joshua was sporting filthy garments as he stood earlier than the angel. 4 The angel mentioned to those that had been standing earlier than him, “Take off his filthy garments.” And to him he mentioned, “See, I’ve taken your guilt away from you, and I’ll dress you with festal attire.” 5 And he mentioned, “Allow them to put a clear turban on his head.” So that they put a clear turban on his head and clothed him with attire, and the angel of the Lord was standing by.
6 Then the angel of the Lord warned Joshua, saying 7 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you’ll stroll in my methods and preserve my necessities, then you definately shall rule my home and have cost of my courts, and I gives you the best of entry amongst those that are standing right here. 8 Now pay attention, Joshua, excessive priest, you and your colleagues who sit earlier than you! For they’re an omen of issues to return: I’m going to deliver my servant the Department. 9 For on the stone that I’ve set earlier than Joshua, on a single stone with seven sides, I’ll engrave its inscription, says the Lord of hosts, and I’ll take away the guilt of this land in a single day. 10 On that day, says the Lord of hosts, you shall invite one another to return underneath your vine and fig tree.”
Meditation
In Zechariah’s imaginative and prescient, Joshua is sporting filthy garments, clearly unbefitting for a Excessive Priest of Yahweh. Devil rakes up Joshua’s previous to disgrace him, however the angel of the Lord intervenes. Joshua has been rescued and forgiven: “a model plucked from the hearth.” The angel instructs these round Zechariah—the colleagues that will have been gossiping about him—to strip off the filthy garments, simply as God has stripped away his guilt, and gown him in clear garments with a brand new priestly turban for his head. His previous doesn’t disqualify him for holy service as a result of God has made him clear. Not solely that—Joshua is an indication of the long run Yeshua who will cleanse the entire nation.
Dorothy Sayers, whom we honor at the present time as a holy girl, additionally had a previous. She had a baby with a married man in 1934, positioned the kid along with her cousin and went on to assist herself and her youngster with a day job in promoting and the wildly well-liked Peter Wimsey novels. Within the Nineteen Thirties she wrote a play for the Canterbury Competition, adopted within the Nineteen Forties along with her 12-part radio sequence on the lifetime of Christ, “The Man Born to be King.” She devoted the remainder of her life to translating Dante’s Divine Comedy. But she refused an honorary doctorate from Lambeth, objecting that she was not “a extra convincing kind of Christian.” After presenting Jesus in on a regular basis speech to all of Nice Britain by way of radio, she nonetheless felt unworthy.
Once we do fallacious or fail to do proper, God calls us to repent; forgiven, we attempt to fix our methods. Generally an accusing voice in our heads nonetheless torments us: “Take a look at your soiled garments! You possibly can’t serve God!” In religion we will reply: What God has cleansed, don’t name unclean!
Dr. Grace Sears is previous president of the Order of the Daughters of the King, and editor of its journal, The Royal Cross.
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Every day Devotional Cycle of Prayer
At this time we pray for:
