Words of life
Day 396, Thursday, Sept. 11
John 5:16 – 6:24
The end of chapter 5 sounds a lot like what we’ve been reading from the prophets, speaking judgment on those who have been told the truth of God yet have not acknowledged it.
Verses 39 and 40 say, “These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
Similarly the people are chastised for not having followed the words of Moses. In verses 45-47, we read, “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
As in the prophets, though, there is a glimmer of hope. Verse 24 says, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
Some of the most encouraging words in the reading, though, are about judgment. In verse 26 we read, “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.”
Few affirmations of scripture are as hopeful as the affirmation that Jesus, who atoned for our sins, is also our judge.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Thursday meditation

Job 33:12-22
“But I tell you, in this you are not right, for God is greater than any mortal. Why do you complain to him that he responds to no one’s words? For God does speak—now one way, now another—though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride, to preserve them from the pit, their lives from perishing by the sword.
“Or someone may be chastened on a bed of pain with constant distress in their bones, so that their body finds food repulsive and their soul loathes the choicest meal. Their flesh wastes away to nothing, and their bones, once hidden, now stick out. They draw near to the pit, and their life to the messengers of death.

Prayer focus
Lord, thank you for giving us a judge who is also our savior.