Tuesday, May 21, 2024

   James 4: 1 - 10

    Where do the conflicts and disputes among you originate?  Is it not your inner cravings that make war within your members?  What you desire you do not obtain, and so you resort to murder.  You envy and you cannot acquire, so you quarrel and fight.  You not obtain because you do not ask.  You ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly, with a view to squandering what you receive on your pleasures.  O you unfaithful ones, are you not aware that the world is enmity to God?  A man is marked out as God' enemy if he chooses to be the world's friend.  Do you suppose it is to no purpose that Scripture says, "The spirit he has implanted in us tends toward jealousy"?  Yet he bestows a greater gift, for the sake of which it is written,  God resists the proud but bestows his favor on the lowly."  Therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will take flight.  Draw close to God, and he will draw close to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, you backsliders.  Begin to lament, to mourn, and to weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to sorrow.  Be humbled in the sight of the Lord and he will raise you on high.

Psalm 55: 7 - 11, 23

  And I say, "Had I but wings like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest.  Far away would I flee; I would lodge in the wilderness.  I would hasten to find shlter from the violent storm and the tempest."   Engulf them, O Lord; divide their counsels, for in the city I see violence and strife; day and night they prwol about upon its walls.  Evil and mischief are in his midst.     Cast your care upon the Lord, and he will support you; never will he permit the just man to be disturbed.

Mark 9: 30 - 37

  They left that district and began a journey through Galilee, but Jesus did not anyone to know about it.  He was teaching his disciples in this  vein:  "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men who will put him to death; three days after his death he will rise."  Though they failed to understand his words, they were afraid to question him.     They returned to Capernaum and Jesus, once inside the house, began to ask them. "What were you discussing on the way home?"  At this they fell silent, for on the way they had been arguing about who was the most imortant.  So he sat down and called the Twelve around him and said,  "If anyone wishes to rank first, he must remain the last one of all and the servant of all."  Then he took a little child, stood him in theif midst, and puting his arms around him, said to them. "Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me.  And whoever welcomes me welcomes, not me, but him who sent me."