Daily Devotion for January 30, 2026
Prayers
Scripture
Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
Classical Friday today! And our music is a “heavenly” rendition of Schubert’s Ave Maria by Barbara Bonney.
The German Ave Maria is not a translation of the Latin, but a setting of a poem by Sir Walter Scott.
Ave Maria! Unbefleckt!
Ave Maria! Reine Magd!
For the Holy Spirit
Send, we beseech you, Almighty God, your Holy Spirit into our hearts, that he may direct and rule us according to your will, comfort us in all our afflictions, defend us from all error, and lead us into all truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, world without end.
Prayer for Jails and Prisons
Lord Jesus, I am remembering today how you were convicted and punished as a criminal. I pray that today you will visit the jails and prisons of the world with your pity and mercy. I want to pray that you will take care of the prisoners, no matter how wickedly they may have behaved in the past, and bring the guilty to repent their sins and change their lives, learning to have faith in you and trying to live like you want us to live.
Give them hope for the future! And I pray that the people who are not guilty of the crime will be released. Cast off their chains, Mighty Jesus!
Forgive all of us, jailed and free, and let us seek honest justice. And bless also the jailers; keep them safe; lead them to be humane and compassionate, and save them from becoming brutal or callous. All this we ask for your mercy’s sake.
Meditation
You cannot impart what you do not possess.
Parting Prayer
Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip me with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in me what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Matthew 5:17 (DP Bible)
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Galatians 3:15-18 (BSB)
rothers, let me put this in human terms. Even a human covenant, once it is ratified, cannot be canceled or amended. 16 The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say, “and to seeds,” meaning many, but “and to your seed,” meaning One, who is Christ.
17 What I mean is this: The law that came 430 years later does not revoke the covenant previously established by God, so as to nullify the promise.
DP Parallel Bible (3-Column) - Galatians 3
Notes on the Scripture
First off, a note on the terms “testament” and “covenant.” We are not going to discuss why and how these two terms are used and misused in English Bibles, because it involves impossibly tangled-up translation difficulties between Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English. Here is a good rule we will follow: The word “testament” should only be used to describe the two main parts of the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament. If your Bible uses the word “testament” anywhere else, scratch through it (mentally or physically) and substitute “covenant.”
The actual word is Hebrew (berit) and refers to a relationship that is fundamentally akin to a contract. It exists between two or more persons; generally they must both agree to it — but we will see exceptions. Normally both have duties and benefits under its terms.
In the Bible, the Hebrew word we translate “covenant” was often understood to mean the relationships initiated by Yahweh; He would make certain requirements that, if accepted by a person or people, would bring His favor to them. (Greek did have not such a specific word, and neither does English.) Unlike the English or Greek words used for these occasions, berit also describes promises made by God, which might be effective in posterity, but without any promise or behavior required of the recipient. God’s promise to Noah, for example, not to destroy the earth by another great floor, is called a “covenant” even though it is not a contract in English.
Moreover, the covenants of God often involve a ritual by the humans involved and this often includes blood sacrifice. In Genesis 15, we see God require a bizarre ritual to solemnize one of the covenants of Abraham (still called Abram at that time): Abram cut animals in half and then went to sleep, so that a burning oven and torch could pass between the animal halves.
Can a human covenant, “once ratified,” be canceled or amended? Paul says not, and we must simply accept that he is talking about a Semitic concept that did not have a specific Greek word to translate it. In our laws, pretty much any contract can be canceled or amended by agreement of all parties. But some sources indicate that the Hebrew practice of cutting animals in half and walking between them would create an absolute contract; so perhaps this is what Paul means by “ratified.”
Finally, we get to the main point: The Law of Moses, even though it was a covenant of God, did not extinguish, change, or in any way affect the covenant made with Abraham. God’s promise to Abraham was the inheritance of the heirs of Abraham and thus unchangeable. Of course God, who is all-powerful, could hypothetically change anything He pleased, but He will not renege on His promise to Abraham; for one of the attributes of God is that He is faithful. (E.g. 2 Thessalonians 3:3; Deuteronomy 7:9.) What we attribute as faithfulness to God might, however, be a human way of understanding His omniscience.
We see a similar situation in the New Testament, concerning the Law of Moses. The Gospels tell us explicitly that the coming of Christ did not abolish the Law of Moses, either in terms of the promises made or the moral force underpinning the laws it contained. (Matthew 5:17-20) The difficulty with the Law is that it was a conditional contract: God would fulfill His promises if the Hebrews followed the Law, which they did not do. (And in fact, as Paul will tell us, God knew all along that the Hebrews were incapable of following the Law. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, so we will leave this for later.)
