The Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on this day. It stated: “I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief… do, on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three… publicly proclaim… that all persons held as slaves… are, and henceforward shall be, free…. And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence… and… recommend… they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.” Lincoln concluded: “And upon this act… I invoke… the gracious favor of Almighty God.”

William J. Federer. American Minute

Out of his anguish he shall see light;
he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge.
The righteous one, my servant,
shall make many righteous,
and he shall bear their iniquities. --- Isaiah 53:11


If we have no peace,
it is because we have forgotten
that we belong to each other.
--- Mother Teresa


Let the past sleep,
but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.
--- Oswald Chambers

... from here, there and everywhere

1     The proverbs of Shlomo the son of David,
king of Isra’el,
2     are for learning about wisdom and discipline;
for understanding words expressing deep insight;
3     for gaining an intelligently disciplined life,
doing what is right, just and fair;
4     for endowing with caution those who don’t think
and the young person with knowledge and discretion.
5     Someone who is already wise
will hear and learn still more;
someone who already understands
will gain the ability to counsel well;
6     he will understand proverbs, obscure expressions,
the sayings and riddles of the wise.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

                Let us keep to the point

     My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed, but that now as ever I may do honour to Christ in my own person by fearless courage.
--- Phil. 1:20. (Moffatt.)

     My Utmost for His Highest. “My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed.” We shall all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus on the point He has asked us to yield to Him. Paul says—“My determination is to be my utmost for His Highest.” To get there is a question of will, not of debate nor of reasoning, but a surrender of will, an absolute and irrevocable surrender on that point. An over-weening consideration for ourselves is the thing that keeps us from that decision, though we put it that we are considering others. When we consider what it will cost others if we obey the call of Jesus, we tell God He does not know what our obedience will mean. Keep to the point; He does know. Shut out every other consideration and keep yourself before God for this one thing only—“My Utmost for His Highest.” I am determined to be absolutely and entirely for Him and for Him alone.

     My Undeterredness for His Holiness. “Whether that means life or death, no matter!” (v. 21). Paul is determined that nothing shall deter him from doing exactly what God wants. God’s order has to work up to a crisis in our lives because we will not heed the gentler way. He brings us to the place where He asks us to be our utmost for Him, and we begin to debate; then He produces a providential crisis where we have to decide—for or against, and from that point the ‘Great Divide’ begins.

     If the crisis has come to you on any line, surrender your will to Him absolutely and irrevocably.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

Heads bowed
     over the entrails,
over the manuscript, the
block, over the rows
          of swedes.

Do they never look up?
     Why should one think
that to be on one's knees
     is to pray?
The aim is to walk tall
          in the sun.
Did the weight of the jaw
     bend their backs,
keeping their vision
     below the horizon?

Two million years
in straightening them
     out, and they are still bent
over the charts, the instruments,
     the drawing-board,
the mathematical navel
     that is the wink of God.

R.S. Thomas The Poems of R.S. Thomas

     Since the ministry of Jesus begins only after his baptism by John (chap. 3) and the temptation (4:1–11), the opening two chapters of Matthew are in a sense the preparation for the main narrative. The preparation that Matthew provides, however, is far from simply the supplying of some helpful background information. The first two chapters constitute a work of art that makes a statement of its own and that anticipates the theological richness of the total Gospel.

     The question of the historicity of chaps. 1–2 is very often posed in terms of history and theology conceived of as polar opposites, as though what is theological cannot be historical and vice versa. That is, one has here either theology or history. The idea of a historical core with theological elaboration is hardly considered. Yet that may very well be the case here in what is admittedly material of a special character. Matthew has taken his historical traditions and set them forth in such a way as to underline matters of fundamental theological importance. Thus he grounds his narrative upon several OT quotations and provides a strong sense of fulfillment. The literary genre of these chapters, as we shall see, is that of midrashic haggadah, designed to bring out the deeper meaning of the present by showing its theological continuity with the past. Matthew’s procedure is to set the scene theologically by identifying the who and the how in chap. 1, and the where and whence in chap. 2. To some extent Matthew may have apologetic or polemical concerns here, but in the main these chapters are a statement of the theological significance that may be perceived even in the preliminaries. In this instance the prolegomena articulate the gospel before the main narrative.

Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 33a, Matthew 1-13 (hagner), 483pp

     John 1:1

     It is fitting that the first verse of the first book of the New Testament, Matthew 1:1, identifies Jesus as the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. These few words sum up the culmination of the entire Old Testament, and in them are the seeds from which the New Testament plan will grow. The long-awaited, promised Messiah, the restorer of God’s kingdom and the redeemer of his people, is Jesus himself. This is Matthew’s central message, his purpose for writing his book.

     In his first verse, Matthew made an amazing claim. At the time he was writing, many Jewish readers would have been skeptical about the idea that the man Jesus was indeed also the promised king or Christ. After all, he was merely a carpenter from a backwoods province, and they wanted a king just like other worldly kings — politically connected, militarily powerful, and personally charismatic, with all the accompanying pomp, circumstance, and credentials.

Holman New Testament Commentary (12 volume set)

     When preached simply and purely, verse-by-verse and book-by-book, the Bible can change lives and transform history. Just ask Zwingli.

     Ulrich Zwingli was born on January 1, 1484, in a Swiss shepherd’s cottage in the Alps. His parents instilled in him a love for God. The young man proved a brilliant student, and following a brief stint as a schoolteacher he entered the priesthood. For ten years he labored in the village of Glarus, and there he began corresponding with the famous Greek scholar Erasmus.

     The Swiss church was bubbling with corruption during this time. In 1516, when Zwingli moved to Einsiedeln, he, too, was struggling hard with sin. In his new village, the young priest fell into an intimate relationship with the barber’s daughter. But it was also in Einsiedeln that he borrowed a copy of Erasmus’s newly published Greek New Testament. Zwingli copied it. Carrying it everywhere, he pored over it continually and scribbled notes in the margins and memorized it. The pure Scripture began doing its work, and Zwingli’s life and preaching took on new vigor. Soon he was invited to Zurich as chief preacher in the cathedral.

     He arrived on December 27, 1518, and began his duties on his thirty-sixth birthday, January 1, 1519, with a shock. He announced that he would break a thousand years of tradition by abandoning the church liturgy and the weekly readings as a basis for his sermons. Instead, he would teach verse-by-verse through the New Testament, beginning immediately. He proceeded to preach that day from Matthew 1 on the genealogy of Christ.

     Such preaching was radical in its day, but Zurich loved it. Zwingli’s concern for the city’s youth, his courage during the plague, and his cheerful temper dispelled initial doubts about his reformation ideas. Later, when opposition arose, Zurich’s City Council and 600 other interested citizens gathered to evaluate his actions. The assembly (the First Zurich Disputation, 1523) affirmed Zwingli and encouraged his work. Lives were changed; history was made. The Swiss Reformation had begun.

     Jesus Christ came from the family of King David and also from the family of Abraham … The Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet had said, “A virgin will have a baby boy, and he will be called Immanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
--- Matthew 1:1,22,23.

Morgan, R. J. On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

     Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. --- Psalm 27:14.

     When life is difficult, too difficult for platitudes, people need strong, honest words of encouragement. Christian truth possesses that kind of power, power that transcends the ages. The apostle Paul still speaks to us today; so does Moses. And the words of others—though not “inspired” as Scripture is inspired—speak to us, too—great preachers like George H. Morrison, C. H. Spurgeon, John Ker, and G. Campbell Morgan.

     The preachers quoted in this volume weren’t of the smile-God-loves-you variety. They didn’t sugarcoat life. Take this, for example, from a sermon preached by Arthur John Gossip shortly after the death of his wife:

     I do not understand this life of ours, but still less can I comprehend how people in trouble and loss and bereavement can run away peevishly from the Christian faith. In God’s name, run to what? Have we not lost enough without losing that too? If Christ is right—if, as he says, there are somehow, hidden away from our eyes as yet… wisdom and planning and kindness and love in these dark dispensations—then we can see them through.… Already some things have become very clear to me. This to begin, that the faith works, fulfills itself, is real, and that its most audacious promises are true.… Further, one becomes certain about immortality. You think that you believe in that. But wait till you have lowered your dearest into an open grave, and you will know what believing it means.1

     When facing calamities large and small in our own lives, surely we can take heart from such testimony as that.

     That the gospel is clearly proclaimed in these pages may seem superfluous in a book whose audience likely already believes in Christ. But, first, these preachers did, after all, proclaim the gospel. And second, the gospel is the great joy of believers. So be reminded, and meditate on the truths of it.

     When these preachers lived on the earth they spoke the language of their day, using word forms and vocabulary that may, for the modern reader, obscure the message. Because the content of that message is of greater value than preserving archaic forms, I have modernized the language in many older sermons—replacing thees and thous and older styles and sometimes changing word order. Except where it is necessary to a particular sermon I have also replaced the King James Version and Revised Version texts with The New International Version.

     These preached words are a part of our Christian heritage, and you will find the power of God in them still. I want to preserve them not because they are old but because they are true. It is our loss if we allow this part of our heritage to crumble to dust, forgotten, on out-of-the-way shelves. Let us carry with us that which is of value from our Christian history, that we may “be strong and take heart” as we go forward in the new millennium—still waiting for the Lord.

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

     You have never been this way before.… Consecrate yourselves. --- Joshua 3:4–5.

     When the New Year steps up to greet us, it evokes a certain response within the heart. (Highways of the Heart (Morrison Classic Sermon Series, The) ) We have reached an end that is also a beginning. Behind us is a common journey, before us an untrodden way. What, then, does this old story give us to hearten and guide us as we cross the threshold of the year?

     We must sanctify ourselves. What that means is gathered from the words of Jesus: “For them I sanctify myself” (John 17:19). Facing the untrodden way, we are to dedicate ourselves again to God. We are to give ourselves to the duties of our calling with a fresh and unreserved surrender—no matter what our calling. The wonders of tomorrow depend on the sanctification of today—a new surrender here and now is the prelude to a wonderful experience, which ought to be borne in mind by those who are growing weary of their work and dreading the prospect of another year. The enthusiasm of youth may have departed, the strength we once enjoyed may have been weakened, the freshness may have been rubbed off things through the ceaseless handling of the years. But if, here and now, facing the unknown in our Lord’s fashion we sanctify ourselves, tomorrow will be more wonderful than yesterday.

     Israel sent on ahead the ark of God. It was the sign and symbol that the Lord was with them, and they sent it on ahead into the swollen river. In spite of the express command of Jesus, how we send our imaginings ahead! How we toss ourselves into a fever over the fears of the untrodden way! Fear is a poor hand at finding a place to wade across. Fear is a sorry bridge-builder. Fear drowns the music of today. It hears nothing but the rushing of the river. But Israel sent on the ark of God, and that made all the difference. With a fresh surrender of ourselves, with spirits receptive and responsive, with a conviction that God is ahead, ordering everything in perfect love, let us go forward with the banners flying, to the high adventure of another year, for we have not come this way before.
--- George H. Morrison

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

HOLY NAME
YEAR 2

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 103
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 148
Old Testament Isaiah 62:1–5, 10–12
New Testament Colossians 2:6–12
Gospel John 16:23b–30

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 103

Of David.

1 Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits—
3 who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good as long as you live
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

6 The LORD works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
7 He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
8 The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9 He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
10 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
11 For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
12 as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
13 As a father has compassion for his children,
so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.
14 For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.

15 As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.

19 The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.
20 Bless the LORD, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
obedient to his spoken word.
21 Bless the LORD, all his hosts,
his ministers that do his will.
22 Bless the LORD, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul.

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 148

1 Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
2 Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his host!

3 Praise him, sun and moon;
praise him, all you shining stars!
4 Praise him, you highest heavens,
and you waters above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for he commanded and they were created.
6 He established them forever and ever;
he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

7 Praise the LORD from the earth,
you sea monsters and all deeps,
8 fire and hail, snow and frost,
stormy wind fulfilling his command!

9 Mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars!
10 Wild animals and all cattle,
creeping things and flying birds!

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,
princes and all rulers of the earth!
12 Young men and women alike,
old and young together!

13 Let them praise the name of the LORD,
for his name alone is exalted;
his glory is above earth and heaven.
14 He has raised up a horn for his people,
praise for all his faithful,
for the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the LORD!

OLD TESTAMENT
Isaiah 62:1–5, 10–12

62 For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,
and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
until her vindication shines out like the dawn,
and her salvation like a burning torch.
2 The nations shall see your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
and you shall be called by a new name
that the mouth of the LORD will give.
3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD,
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the LORD delights in you,
and your land shall be married.
5 For as a young man marries a young woman,
so shall your builder marry you,
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
so shall your God rejoice over you.

10 Go through, go through the gates,
prepare the way for the people;
build up, build up the highway,
clear it of stones,
lift up an ensign over the peoples.
11 The LORD has proclaimed
to the end of the earth:
Say to daughter Zion,
“See, your salvation comes;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.”
12 They shall be called, “The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the LORD”;
and you shall be called, “Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.”

NEW TESTAMENT
Colossians 2:6–12

6 As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a spiritual circumcision, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

GOSPEL
John 16:23b–30

23 On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete. 25 “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. 26 On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.”

29 His disciples said, “Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! 30 Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.”

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary

     REFLECTIONS: READ: PSALM 40:1-5; He also brought me up out of a horrible pit........and and set my feet upon a rock.
---Psalm 40:2.

     Not long ago, I passed a milestone marking 20 years since I began keeping a spiritual journal. As I reread my first few entries, I was amazed I ever kept it up. But now you couldn't pay me to stop!

     Here are some benefits I have received from journaling: From life experiences, I see that progress and failure are both part of the journey. I'm reminded of God's grace when I read how He helped me to find a solution to a major problem. I gain insight from past struggles that help with issues I am currently facing. And, most important, journaling shows me how God has been faithfully working in my life.

     Many of the psalms are like a spiritual journal. They often record how God has helped in times of testing. In Psalm 40, David writes: "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps" (vv. 1-2). Later, David needed only to read that psalm to be reminded of God's faithful deliverance.

     Journaling may be useful to you too. It can help you see more clearly what God is teaching you on life's journey and cause you to reflect on God's faithfulness.
--- Dennis Fisher

     For Further Thought:

     To begin a journal: Record your struggles, reflect on a verse that is especially comforting or challenging, or write a prayer of thankfulness for God's faithfulness.

     Reflecting on God's faithfulness in the past brings hope for the future.


Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries