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CR18Day_09 @ nkjv@Mark:6 @ RandyP comments: "He could do no mighty work there". We must be very cautious not to make the text say something it does not. Unintentionally perhaps, we can make this passage to say that it was the people's disbelief that kept/blocked Jesus from doing any intended mighty works; as if the sovereign God was not all that sovereign. Surely that is not what we mean to say but, that is often how our explanations come across. Better put, throughout the gospels (especially John's) we are presented a picture of the obedient Christ. What Christ sees the Father doing that He does. What He hears the Father say that He says. The Son is in fact mirroring the Father and if He doesn't behave in this all dependent manner well then there would be no reason to believe that He is in fact the Son. Satan's temptation of Jesus was an attempt to get the Son to do something that the Father HIMSELF was not seen/heard doing. Not that Jesus did not have these powers Himself but, that those powers were for this time to be set aside in humble submission/obedience. The Father would thus acknowledge glorify each of the Son's obediences by performing them thereby confirming HIS beloved Son in whom HE was well pleased in front of our eyes. Here Jesus had come amongst His own and saw the Father doing no mighty works, so He did likewise obediently. By doing no great works much was actually being said and done by them. You can imagine after having seen Jesus with the multitudes a day or so before how loud this sudden silence would be screaming out. Even Jesus' disciples were getting into the act previously and now? Why is this? Not to say "because of their unbelief" but to say "to make their unbelief known".

CR18Day_26 @ nkjv@Psalms:25 @ RandyP comments: Consider for a moment how much of the redemption plan is on God's shoulders. God is being asked to not let the enemy triumph, not allow shame to those who wait upon HIM, teach HIS paths, to not remember the sins of his youth, teach sinners, teach the humble, pardon iniquity, show HIS covenant, pluck his feet out of the net, turn and have mercy on, bring out of distress, look upon affliction and pain, forgive all his sins, keep his soul and deliver, let integrity and uprightness preserve him, redeem Israel from all their troubles. As for man, his part in this is to lift his soul to God, trust, wait on, humble himself before, fear, fix eyes ever upon, put trust in during affliction. You see how the roles in redemption are clearly delineated?

CR18Day_26 @ nkjv@Galatians:3 @ RandyP comments: This chapter goes along way to prove the Doctrine of justification by faith alone. It does not rule out the utility of the law and works in everyday practical matters, it places the ultimate justification found in Christ received by faith far above law/works instead. Justification means for one to be declared by God as righteous. The scripture has declared us all to be under sin no matter how good our works and obedience is to the law. If we miss one point of the law (and we often do) we are guilty of the whole law. So then, as observant as the Pharisee were, each was still guilty of the whole law if only by the fact of falling short in one particular facet. Even in this, we are talking about that hypothetical person that is only short in one specific area; that person does not exist, matters are actually much worse. There is one person however that has ever lived an entire life without any short fall/sin as concerning the law: Christ Jesus. Being declared right with God in the believers case is a matter of substitution only, He bears upon Himself the punishment of each of our sins in full, we receive His righteousness as a covering by imputation from His in full. It then becomes not our righteousness by works or by law or by birthright but, His righteousness covering over us that God looks upon and judges to be sufficiently righteous. The law and works are then given their proper place as a means of exercising/evidencing the curse-less state the believer now is under thanks to Christ. He/she might still miss at points of the law (and often does) but, the humble believer is now energized and tooled by the Spirit to do the better at it not being judged guilty of all of law in Christ.