We often look to someone outside of our community to be the bearer of God’s blessings.  Perhaps, it’s because we believe we know those who are closest to us too well.  Or perhaps we rely too heavily on the Scripture that tells us, “(for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country).  [John 4:44]  That may lead us to think and believe that there may be greater wisdom coming from someone we don’t know.  And yet the truth is God is not bound or limited by our personal preferences.  God’s only responsibility is to God’s self so that, again, Scripture reminds us,

       So is the word that issues from My mouth:

            It does not come back to Me unfulfilled,

       But performs what I purpose,

            Achieves what I sent it to do. (Isaiah 55:11)

If God chooses to raise a prophet from within the community, that is God’s choice.  It’s our responsibility to be open to what God is doing in our midst.  Our everyday resurrection might just come from the word of God raising people to new life in our community.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, free me to acknowledge and accept the person bearing the gift of Your resurrection power, whoever they are and wherever they may come from.

       We are people who are ready to proclaim that God is good all the time, and that all the time God is good.  That has become a common response within the life of the faith community of the church.  But I’m also aware that when we have been the recipients of God’s blessings, we’re not afraid or ashamed to tell others about the goodness of God when we have our private moments with friends.  It increases the likelihood that when we confess the goodness of God among others, they are also likely to join us in our praise of God.  Our witness to others about God’s goodness typically points to those times when we’ve been walking through the valley of the shadow of death or feel as if we’ve died because of how life’s circumstances have affected us.  This is the real power of everyday resurrections — sharing our story with others so they can join us in praise of our God, and feeling new life enter us because of what God has done.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, let my mouth be filled with rejoicing and praise at all You do to raise me to new life. Free me to tell others that they, too, might rejoice and be resurrected to new life with me.

       One of life’s greatest tragedies is the thought (or reality) of losing someone we love, especially a child.  It shocks us to our very core, leaving us fearful and hesitant to go on with life.  And yet there is no greater gift that can be offered or any gift that we can receive than to be raised with new life again.  With resurrection comes our hope and the end of despair.  With resurrection, we are able to find a new reason for living and rejoicing.  Sometimes, it takes the power of God to revive our souls.  But our God is the God of resurrection and the giver of new and eternal life.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, lead me to find the power of Your resurrection leading me to new life and hope even when the situation seems impossible.

       It is God’s nature to look upon us with the eyes of compassion.  God’s compassion is different than God’s mercy.  God’s mercy is what we experience as the end result of God’s compassion.  It is something that God does.  God’s compassion is sensitive to our human needs, and is an outward expression of God’s love, mercy, justice, grace, forgiveness, righteousness, and faithfulness that God feels toward us.  It is a love that that has no ends, that sees what we need, even if we aren’t aware that we need it, and supplies it without condition.  God’s compassion embraces us with a Spirit of resurrection, to lift us from our circumstances of need and fill us with an attitude of boundless hope.  It’s able to provide us with both instant gratification and long-term satisfaction.  It is the quintessential product of everyday resurrection.

• How have you experienced God’s compassion in a way that raised you to new life?
• How did you experience your resurrection?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, thank You for looking upon me with the eyes of compassion and offering me what I need to be resurrected to new life.

       It’s never been my experience to be an only child.  However, as a parent there was a time when I had an only child.  The thought of losing him once to pneumonia drove me to fear and tears.  I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like to lose him.  I guess those of us who have children feel that way about them, whether it’s one child or more.  But each of our children are precious to us.  And the thought of losing anyone we love can be devastating and require personal resurrection.  It’s at those times when we feel we’ve lost — or fear losing everything — that the need for Jesus to step in and raise us to new life becomes very real.  It is perhaps a signal that we need to be resurrected as well.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, help me to recognize the value of each person’s life, knowing that everyone is someone’s child, even Yours. Let this awareness be a source of resurrection to me.

       The thought of new life intrigues us.  It leads us to fantasies about recapturing our youth without the limitations of youthful naiveté.  And in our experience, we tend to think about this new life coming in the form of resurrection.  It is Christ’s promise to us about things eternal and the blessings that come to us at the end.  But too often we overlook the power of God to resurrect us in the midst of our daily life experiences.  We sometimes miss, deny, or overlook the miracles of resurrection in everyday life that give us hope, and provide us an opportunity to praise God for the ways God raises us to new life each day.  If we can shift our thinking from resurrection as a one-time event that we experience after death to the idea of resurrection as something that can happen to us each day, then the potential for us to find new life and hope multiplies.  We can encounter the Christ (who is life) and offers us life each day.  He  is moving among us and raising people to new life each day.  That’s when resurrection can be transformed from a one-time future event of hope into a miraculous occurrence we can experience in our lives each day.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, as I look forward filled with the hope of resurrection to eternal life, give me faith in Your power to raise me to new life every day.

       Faith is a fundamental concept in our understanding of God and our relationship to God.  We know that those who come to God must first come in faith, believing that God is.  That belief, alone, underwrites how we come to experience the reality of God.  What we don’t often recognize and is difficult to understand is how the faith of others works to make us whole.  It’s not always our faith that opens the door of God’s grace and presence to us.  Sometimes it is the faith of others through which God works to inspire us, encourage us, and perhaps, even heal us.  It’s the right kind of faith that ignites our relationship with God, revealing the healing that comes through the faith of Christ as well as our own.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful Christ, thank You for allowing the faith of others to become a means of Your healing grace. Grant that my faith may be counted worthy of Your consideration in the healing of others.

       How our relationship to God is expressed in the presence of God is perhaps the most significant posture we ever take.  Unlike some in today’s culture who express feelings of entitlement, the idea of taking a position of entitlement before God is always an inappropriate position to assume.  Entitlement presumes that we have somehow earned and deserve the right and status to even be in the presence of God.  If we can humble ourselves, recognize and acknowledge that we are undeserving of God’s grace, it may go along way toward opening wider the door of God’s mercy to us.  It’s not an admission that we are bad; simply the acknowledgement that we’ve done nothing to earn the free gift God’s love which is unmerited.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, always keep me mindful that l am unworthy of the many blessings I’ve received from You, except by Your grace.

       We are constantly aware that we stand in awe of God’s power and abilities.  We have ascribed to God such qualities as omnipresent and omnipotent, qualities that leave us amazed and in awe of what God is able to do.  What we have failed to acknowledge is that Christ, too, has expressed feelings of amazement, both for the amount of faith we have and at the lack of faith we display.  It could be that these are nothing more than expressions of Christ’s human experience as well as our inability to fully discern spiritual matters.  It just might be that the right kind of faith will always be a faith that trusts in and lives in awe of God’s power to do the things we cannot.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Christ, enable me to live with such a presence of the right kind of faith in my life that You can express joy that I have trusted and believed, rather than experience the disappointment that I have not.

       We sometimes forget that God’s word has the power to change things in our lives.  And when we forget, there is sometimes the expectation that our awareness of God’s power places on God the responsibility to respond to our requests or demands.  That position which is one of entitlement is a very different position than taking a position of humility.  When we humble ourselves, we at the same time admit our weakness to do on our own what we need to have done while acknowledging God’s power to satisfy our needs by doing nothing more than just speaking the words. It’s that act of humility that displays our real faith.  The reality is that Jesus, more often than not, simply spoke a word of healing and people were changed — not by God’s presence, but by the right kind of faith — a faith that believes unconditionally.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, open my spirit to a faith that believes that You only need to speak the words and I can be restored from any condition of suffering.

       There’s probably some truth to the statement that, “At times, we’re too quick to give up on God.”  Voices of doubt and lack of faith, along with failure and resignation are all around us.  This is especially in situations that, at first, appear hopeless.  But faith in God is supposed to be neither hopeless nor endless.  And the words of Christ are filled with hope that invites us to never resign ourselves to distrust or misunderstanding what God is doing in any situation.  Every life situation is unique and the right kind of faith implies that we should never give up on God.  There may be times when God’s plan points toward the end of life for some, because death is inevitable.  However, the last word is not spoken unless and until God speaks it.  God invites us to always keep our faith open to what God is able to do, acknowledging that with God, all things are possible.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, grant that I may grow in my faith in such a way that when all others have lost hope, I will always have faith in Your ability to answer prayer.

       It’s normal — and perhaps even expected — that people will speak kindly of us after we’ve died.  But then, perhaps a more accurate picture of our lives is discovered in the words people speak about us while we’re still alive.  One writer has said, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”  If it is a truism that our actions speak louder than our words, then our reputation for being Godly people is really a reflection of how we have lived before others.  And perhaps the good we do and have done will also speak well of us when we find ourselves in need.  We say we live to hear Jesus speak those words, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”  Perhaps it becomes easier for Jesus to speak those words If we have lived honorably, and people will also speak well about us.  And if not, then spiritual reputation might prevent others from petitioning God on our behalf.  The right kind of faith leads us to live our faith so that others may speak well about us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Christ, let me live my life with such spiritual integrity, that what others say about my life is a positive reflection of my faith in You.

       There are sometimes two extremes of human value placed on us by ourselves and the world around us.  One of those values is typically formed by people who know us (or at least think they do).  The other values are those we acknowledge as our own.  From a faith perspective, both extremes are measured against God’s righteousness.  I’m of the opinion that when we stand before God feeling insecure and knowing that we’re undeserving of the grace that God so generously bestows upon us, we may, at times, feel humbled.  It’s at that time we’re most aware that we’ve sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and sense our unworthiness to be in God’s presence.  But we also stand in the light of other people’s opinion of us and other people’s opinions of us vary.  And yet, because it’s also easy to get caught up in what other people think of us it can become difficult to have an accurate perspective of ourselves.  The right kind of faith invites us into a place and space of humble self-awareness that acknowledges God’s authority to both judge us and justify us.  It’s then that standing humbly before God that other people’s opinions of us become irrelevant.  The right king of faith can and does have the power to cross the spatial and geographic distances that we think is a hindrance to God’s grace for others.  It’s because the right kind of faith is a humble faith.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful and loving Christ, enable me to live with the right kind of faith — a faith that humbles me in my relationship to You and enables me to live with the trust that because of my faith in You, others can be healed in Your name.

       At times we downplay the power of prayer to reach God.  We also are reluctant to have faith enough to believe that God can and will then act through our prayers.  Perhaps we have become too cynical and sophisticated about God and the ministry of prayer.  We perhaps have also ascribed to God the role of a puppet, thinking that whenever we ask God for something in prayer, God is somehow obligated to give it in order to prove to us that prayer is meaningful and that God does, indeed, hear us when we pray.  Maybe it’s because our prayers lack a certain humility.  But it might also be simply that God is trying to teach us something about prayer.  And in that teaching we become aware that God is now, and ever shall be God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, teach us the art of humility in our prayers that we may experience Your power to heal us and know that You are God.

       The healing power of prayer always has a purpose.  But that purpose is not ever manifested among us to draw the glory away from the God who is responsible for answering our prayers.  Perhaps it’s a good thing that the power to heal rests on God’s will acting through our prayers and not upon the person offering the prayer.  It might be easy for others to presume and assume that if we pray, and that prayer is answered, that we are something special.  It’s happened before that people looked to the person offering the prayer as the power and source of whatever healing has occurred.  But in every situation of healing or restoration, through whomever or however that prayer is offered, God and God alone is worthy of receiving the glory and the praise.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, let my prayers, should You choose to answer them, always point away from me to You as the source of life, salvation and healing.

       The anointing of a person with oil has always been a part of the healing process.  It has some definite medical benefits for the body.  But many of our religious leaders have moved away from the anointing process when invoking prayers for the healing of other people’s bodies and spirits.  While the practice may not be as popular as it once was, the practice is as ancient as the word of God to the people of God.  It could be that the anointing of a person’s body with oil — while on the surface may appear symbolic — may also carry with it the weight and assurance of faith.  It is through our faith that we are healed, and in that, our faith in God’s Spirit is the most important anointing of all.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, may the anointing of your Spirit through prayer bring healing and wholeness to all who are blessed to be prayed for.

       Prayer, much like other aspects of our faith, is a discipline.  Now, that doesn’t mean that prayer should be regimented and hard.  But it does mean that it may cause some discomfort if it causes us to have to change our lifestyle to accommodate it.  It usually means giving up something now, for the sake of a better blessing later on.  Sometimes it’s our Spirits that are lame and broken, and disciplined prayer is the instrument of ministry by which God will work in us to heal us.  Sometimes it is the lack of that discipline which indicates the seriousness of our prayers, or our desire to truly find healing in our relationship with each other, or with God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Tender God, create in me a spirit of prayerful discipline, such that if there are any broken or diseased places in my Spirit, they may be healed.

       The thought is as timeless as the situation portrayed in Scripture.  Even today, we tend to believe that our lives have been impacted negatively because we have sinned and done something that God is not pleased with.  It’s at the point of our belief that it becomes a waiting game to see when the season of our discomfort will end — to see just how long our sin will be forgiven.  So it is that prayer, if it has the power to heal the body, can also heal the spirit.  And healing of the body or spirit, whatever the circumstances, brings the joy of forgiveness and spiritual power through answered prayer.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to understand that forgiveness, whether it heals my mind, body, or spirit or every part of me is the power present within an answered prayer.

       Not every prayer of healing is because we are in physical distress.  There are times when our greatest struggles come on a spiritual level.  It may well be that those feelings of brokenness and separation in the spirit are our greatest cause of emotional and physical stresses.  It could well be that our prayers which address the healing of our spirits through the Spirit of God are also our greatest assets.  Those prayers might carry with them the added benefit of healing us in mind, body, and spirit.  And that this statement of Paul’s purpose for prayer is unselfish, we are invited to consider his sufferings as a part of our sufferings, and ultimately God’s power as an experience happening within us.  There is a marvelous healing power when someone is praying for us and we’re praying for them.  It is God’s power working within us, and God’s power alone.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Creator, hear those prayers for me and from me that are addressed to the healing of my spirit. Let Your Spirit become my strength and power.

       The notion that prayer is nothing more than a conversation between us individually and God is a mischaracterization.  Prayer is the opening of a door that invites us into the presence and the power of God.  Once the door is open, God can choose to act upon our prayers in ways that are consistent with God’s will for our lives.  Prayer, then, is not just the utterance of a lot of magical mumbo-jumbo in order to elicit a powerful other-worldly presence to be at our beck and call.  It is, however, an instrument — a vehicle through which we are heard by God, and one through which God chooses to respond.  It has already been proven that when we are sick, prayers have a mysterious energy of their own to change the circumstances and results of the person being prayed for.  And while the source of this energy has yet to be discovered, the results of it are proven.  Prayer has a healing power for which we don’t have substantive answers, but through which the Spirit of God works to bring healing to those who offer it, and to those for whom it is offered.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, by Your power working through our prayers for one another, grant that we may be strengthened in our weaknesses, find courage in our fears, patience in our suffering, and hope in our discouragement that all may be comforted and be healed of our dis-eases.

       The idea that worship is something that we do within the walls of the sanctuary is a foreign concept, although it has become a tradition of modern church.  The fact that we are God’s people means that our connection to God is not limited by our physical location or by how we choose to worship God in the sanctuary.  The truth of the matter is this.  It is our witness — what we say in praise of God outside the sanctuary as well as what we do to share our God’s goodness with others wherever we are that become acts of praise pleasing to God.  Our Hallelujah’s are just as powerful when we are in loving relationship with others outside as it is when we shout our praises within the walls, or gates of the sanctuary.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, enable the praise I give to You inside the walls of Your church to be carried to those outside as an external and vocal witness to Your power.

       Generations throughout the ages have looked upon the outward and physical expressions of praise of God as outrageous.  Perhaps these feelings are motivated by fear that outward expressions of praise and thanksgiving show a kind of indignity that disgraces God.  Or perhaps they are motivated by a more  narrow understanding of what it is to praise God — one that cuts across their cultural understanding of what it is to praise God.  Or it could be that visible and physical acts of praising God are understood by some to defile God’s holiness by a worldly, or ‘heathen’ display of disrespect.  But clearly David didn’t have a problem dancing and celebrating what God had done.  The problem never seems to be with those who are willing to allow themselves to praise God with their entire selves,  It only seems to be an issue with those who don’t feel free to do so.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Wonderful God, free me from despising those forms of worship that I don’t approve of but help me to embrace all worship that praises You in Spirit through joyful celebration!

       It seems that we have forgotten what passionate worship is.  Have we become a people who come looking to receive something, rather than coming to give praise to God?  Have we moved to the place where dancing in worship is now done by praise dancers, more for our entertainment, than a way for us to stand up and bless the Lord?  Has worship become a place to sit, listen, and ponder the presence of God with nothing more than an occasional Amen?  Do you think that today, those sitting in the privacy of their homes worshiping virtually dare to rise up and give praise to God.  (Of course, I’m talking about those who are able.).   It seems that worship has primarily become a place where we stand or sit silently while the choir (if there is one) sings to us, the preacher preaches to us and the ushers come to take our gifts rather than us joyfully bringing our offering to our God.  In some very real ways, we’ve forgotten what it means to celebrate God’s activity among us, vocally declaring God’s faithfulness, praising God in ways that our WHOLE BEING MIGHT SING HYMNS endlessly to our God.  That’s how passionate worship is described in Holy Scripture .

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Lord of the Dance, free me to allow my whole body to celebrate and give praise for all You have done to save me. You have been my ever-present help, and I praise You for Your eternal love.

       The praise of God always comes as an outward expression of words from our mouths, whether they be through our tears or shouts of joy.  It’s almost as if vocal celebration — that uttering of joyful accolades of gratitude and thanksgiving at what God has done is what pleases God more than anything.  If it’s important for us to find affirmation for the small things we do, how much more important for God and others to hear us proclaim and celebrate the goodness of our God.  And if we should cease to offer passionate worship, God will not be thwarted.  Even the stones will gain voice and cry out, shouting the glory and power of our God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Blessed Jesus, give me the courage to continually praise You with my lips. Accept my vocal affirmations of glory to our God as an act of honor, thanksgiving, and praise.

       There are some people who believe and promote the idea that worshiping God is all done in an effort solely to please God.  It’s also believed that the praise we offer will somehow act as a buffer standing between God’s wrath.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We worship God as an acknowledgment of how we experience God’s activity in our lives — those things that God does that defy explanation or description.  It is experiencing those things that inspire us to celebrate God’s greatness in all the earth.  It is those things that occur beyond our human capability that compels us to offer up praises for God and celebrate God’s mighty deeds.  Praising God is not an act done under duress, but an act that comes from gratitude and appreciation.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of love and God of power, grant that my praise gives You proper affirmation for all that You do as an expression of appreciation of Your grace.

       There is no doubt that passionate worship involves the vocal celebration of God’s authority and grace.  Praising God verbally is also one of the simplest ways of sharing what our God has done for us.  It is an expectation of praise that our witness speaks openly and boldly without fear of those things that God has done to merit our praise.  One of the ways that happens is through passionate worship.  But it’s worship that begins inside of us as an internal and private acknowledgement of what God has done for us.  It then works its way outwardly as an open expression of our internal praise and thanksgiving to our God.  While God’s sanctuary is often entered into as a building erected outside, God’s spiritual sanctuary has been erected within us.  It’s the praise that’s on the inside working on the outside that shows our passion, whether it is by shouts of joy or tears of deep, and passionate emotion.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
All Powerful God, give me the courage to no longer be a silent witness of your grace whether my praise drives me to tears or empowers me to speak boldly of all You do for me as a witness in praise of You.

       What we do today as worship has, in some ways, become so mechanical that our ways of worshiping God have become less than celebratory.  We’ve reduced the Holy Spirit and our praise of God to a science that pleases us but is a long way from the passionate expressions of praise that God is due.  The whole idea of worship is to offer God celebratory praise of all that God has done, all that God is doing, and all that God is going to do.  To that end, we are invited to be unrestricted in how we may express that praise.  We are encouraged to use every means available to us.  And it’s not just about how we worship God, but it’s really about why we worship God.  Those two — the how and the why of worship — together, they outline the ways in which we may lift up the name of our Lord and glorify Him.  Those expressions call for shouts of praise with our voices, musical expressions with every musical instrument available, voice included.  It calls for an enthusiasm that invites our spirits to find release from our inhibitions and fears that would prevent us from letting ourselves explode with a passionate outpouring of praise to our God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Great and Mighty God, free me from everything that keeps me from passionately worshiping You. Empower me to burst into all-out praise of you for all that you are and all that You do..

       Life and living is a top priority for everyone.  This is especially true for those who share a belief in the eternal existence of us all.  Breaking through that life to live eternally with a holy God for whom righteousness is an expectation is difficult for those of us who, from time to time, do things that violate the standard of living that God requires.  To fall short of God’s glory because of our human failures is unacceptable.  But without something in place to repair and restore us, we are all destined to death.  To receive a gift that changes the outcome of life’s hope and expectation is necessary to insure and ensure life for us all.  God’s gift of grace through faith that accounts for righteousness because of faith in Jesus Christ is life’s guarantee for everyone, even those who have been considered outside of God’s initial promise.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy God, strengthen me to continue my faith trusting only in the righteousness of Christ as the free gift of grace that secures my eternal life.

       I had been a Christian for some years, practicing my faith as best I knew how.  And then without warning, I slipped.  I had walked into a situation which I knew was in direct conflict with how I believed God wanted me to act.  No one was more aware of my sin than I was.  And yet it was in the midst of my sin that I sought and found the healing forgiveness of Christ.  It was there that I realized the promise through faith in Jesus Christ and the spiritual healing I so desperately needed.  Had I depended to receive life from the law, I would have been dead on the spot.  However, because of faith in Christ and the power of his grace, I received forgiveness and life was restored and made new again.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, may the sweet taste of Your forgiveness found in Jesus Christ always remind me that with You, I am no longer a common sinner, but uncommonly forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ.

       There is an internal need in everyone driving them to want to belong.  That’s true whether it’s a group activity, a party that’s given, or some other event or relationship.  This fact may be truer in a relationship with God than any other connection.  The idea of being excluded can be devastating to people leading them into isolationism where their value and self-worth becomes questionable to themselves and even others.  God’s desire is that we not be excluded but enter into that relationship as children of God being recognized and accepted because of our faith, and not because of some human standard.  It is nothing more or less than God’s statement that we are all valuable that is the only difference.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, in a world where people are often excluded for all kinds of bogus reasons, thank You for opening the door and inviting me into a relationship with You where the only thing that matters is my faith.

       One aspect of relationship is having a place where that relationship can be nurtured.  That place can become a type of sanctuary — a place of repose where safety and security, solitude, and the experience of human and spiritual emotions can be expressed.  It has always been a part of prophecy that non-Hebrew people would be able to experience a relationship within God’s plan.  This process has been realized in and through Jesus Christ.  Now, for those who have chosen to abide by faith in Jesus Christ, we have all chosen to worship the same God, all using the metrics of faith as the standard.  Not everyone has the same ability to keep the law, but everyone has a capacity to have faith.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, my heart fills with gratitude to know that in Your faithfulness You have made, in Jesus Christ, a place for all people to worship You by faith.

       The lyrics of a certain song says,

“I’m glad man didn’t make sunshine,

for he may not let it shine on me.”

       When it gets to the heart of the matter, people will choose arbitrary reasons to make someone a part of the in-crowd or make them an outsider.  All of the little petty things we create that invite us to discriminate against each other have been removed by God’s grace.  God has, in Christ, made us all equal reducing all of our differences to a matter of spiritual integrity.  It’s no longer where you came from or what side of the tracks you were born on — whether you’re a part of the in-crowd or the out-crowd.  The only thing that matters is that God, by grace in Jesus Christ, has removed any arbitrary human distinctions between us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving and gracious God, grant me the ability to live knowing that you have removed any distinctions between me and others, making all people equal in your eyes.

       Faith has been everything with God, and in turn, should be everything to us.  Scripture reminds us of all of those who, by faith, were considered righteous before God.  With Jesus Christ, nothing has changed.  There may be some who make attempts put people down because of certain differences or lift themselves up because of them.  Those are very common ways that we have dealt with each other to raise ourselves up.  But God has removed the power of making differences or distinctions between human creation by making common the thread of relationship with God a simple matter of faith.  That thread is an uncommon approach to true relationship.  It cancels the need for human achievement and places everyone on the spiritual field of faith.  Our faith and life begins and ends with Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega.  It’s a uniquely uncommon way to include everyone.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, I thank you that the playing field of life has been leveled by Your standard of faith in Christ as the key to a true relationship with You.

       We have an historical record as God’s created people of making distinctions between one another.  And we’ve made those differences from a variety of positions.  They’ve been made on the grounds of race, religion, politics, sexual orientation, gender, and culture.  Those differences have been made on the grounds of nationality, economics, class and social position, and perhaps any number of other equally bogus and discriminating reasons that make no sense at all, especially to God.  There have been wars waged between nations and people because of the reasons previously listed.  But God has determined that no such positions should interfere in our relationship with the One who has created us all.  In Jesus Christ, those of us who previously had no relationship with God have been invited into the family of God so that in Christ there would be no distinction between the acceptable and those considered unacceptable — between those who were in relationship by God’s promise to Abraham and those who were not a part of that promise.  It is in Jesus Christ that all have been found acceptable to God through faith.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of Love and Justice, thank you for declaring me important enough to have an uncommon relationship with You. Keep me mindful that nothing you have created is common and that all people are equal in Your eyes.

       If seems that we always find ourselves caught between that which invites God into a full relationship with us, or that which pushes God away from any relationship with us.  And yet, it always seems that God is the primary activator who takes the responsibility of healing the relationship.  It’s only after we come to the place of confession that we find ourselves open to reconciliation.  Perhaps, that is why our relationship to God and each other, and the acts of forgiveness and reconciliation are so important.  They are a part of God’s grace and have the ability to heal us and our relationship with God at its deepest level.  It has the ability to justify us through grace and make things right.  God always calls on us to enter into a relationship of trust and reconciliation through forgiveness.

• When are you most aware of God’s desire to enter into negotiations with you to reconcile a broken relationship?
• How does God’s offer of grace allow you to know that you can call on God in all times of need?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Grace, grace, God’s grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within. Grace, Grace, God’s grace, grace that is greater than all our sin. (#365 UMH).

       It seems that we are creatures of habit.  It appears to be within our nature as human creations of God to become forgetful of new goals or aspirations.  We become especially forgetful about our past.  We’re either forgetful or suffer from amnesia in a way that won’t allow us to break free from past bad habits.  And yet, a part of us knows when we have relapsed into behaviors inconsistent with who we are as children of God.  Those are the times when we who remember God are left to call upon our God who is faithful, or to call upon other resources out of habit that can’t sustain us.

• Are there times in your relationship with God that you find yourself forgetting God’s goodness?
• What are some steps you can take to ensure that you are always reminded of your relationship with God that stops your dependence on other lesser gods.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to live continually reminded of my relationship with You so that I will have the presence of mind to call on You.

       In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet  Letter, he wrote: “No one, for any considerable period , can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which one may be true.”  The human family is, from time to time, self-compelled to live outside of the truth of who they are.  For ages, people have claimed to live faithful to God, only to have their pretense exposed, and the truth of who they really are revealed in some other way.  Perhaps it’s because everyone walks in the name of their own self-created god.  It highlights the fact that no one can serve two masters, as well as lifting up the utter nature of hypocrisy.  If God is our God, then our trust, faith and loyalty should be indicated by our daily walk with God and be visible to others who see us for who we are, not who we claim to be.

• What do you do when you find yourself living with divided loyalties between your faith and something else drawing you away from God?
• What steps are you willing to take to live more faithfully to your loyalty to God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and merciful God, enable me to always walk with integrity, living my life in Your name so that when trouble arises, I will remember to call on You.

       From time to time, we need to remember all of the good things God has done for us.  And if we can’t remember, then there should be hallmarks in our lives to remind us so that we don’t forget.  It is the nature of us to have short-term and long-term memory issues when it comes to remembering what God has done or has promised to do for us.  But our saving grace is this: that God is faithful.  And it is out of God’s faithfulness that we can learn to trust and align our loyalties consistent with God’s actions in our lives and our faith that God is faithful.

• When are you most likely to recall or remember God’s blessings and faithfulness in your life?
• What things can you do to become more faithful to God because of God’s faithfulness and goodness to you that enables you to call on Him?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to recall and remember Your goodness so that I will always call upon Your name in good times and in bad.

       “What have I done to you” is a question that we ask others when their actions toward us are inconsistent with our treatment of them.  When we ask it of each other, it’s often because we feel that we’ve been treated unjustly or unfairly, or we’ve been betrayed in some way by their actions.  We’d like to believe that there is a “cause and effect” relationship between how we treat people and how they treat us.  We feel that if we are loyal and trustworthy toward others, they should be loyal and trustworthy toward us, especially if the actions that bind the relationship go above and beyond what is normal.  Is God any different than we (who were made in God’s image) when it comes down to it?  Shouldn’t we reciprocate faithfulness to God when God has been faithful to us?  Does God not deserve and receive our loyalty and respect for all of God’s goodness directed toward us?

• When someone asks you, “What have I done to you?”, what is your first reaction?
• If God were asking you the question “What have I done to you?”, what response would you make to God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, enable and empower me to live in a way consistent with Your goodness toward me, not taking Your goodness for granted.

       We live in an age when loyalty and faithfulness are fleeting.  Too often we’re distracted by things that make the grass appear greener on the other side of the fence.  These distractions often lead us away from that which has been a constant source of reliability toward that which is unreliable and unsustainable .  And if we’re honest, a certain amount of loyalty is to be expected after we’ve saved someone danger allowing them to escape harm.  When things go wrong, or people tend to betray us and forget our acts of redemption, we use terms like, “bite the hand that feeds you” to show that such betrayal is out of order.  And when that betrayal occurs, our feelings and our response typically border on outrage.  That we feel a sense of outrage seems normal for us.  It is a different story altogether when loyalty and fidelity to God — and specifically our loyalty and fidelity to God — have been brought before us as a crime against God.  That God would find our acts of betrayal because of our desire to trust other gods is not only disappointing to God, but it is totally disrespectful when in fact our God has been so faithful and true to us.

       And yet, we are more likely to forget what good has been done for us by our God after we’ve been rescued from that danger found between that rock and that hard place.  And we’re less likely to recall who has rescued us when we’re distracted by our own passions, when we find ourselves in a pinch again.  And yet, therein is God’s disaffection with our actions.  Somehow, we should learn to call upon God who is a wellspring of life in good times and in bad, rather than trusting in other gods whose support for life is waning.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, teach me to trust in the un-cracked cisterns of Your faithfulness, wisdom, and counsel for decisions about how to live my life. Enable me to know that only through the living waters of trust and faithfulness to You can my life be sustained.

       The absence of God’s Holy Spirit from the presence of humanity was a long dry season.  To believe that the words of Jesus would quench the parched, dry, spiritual throats of those who were thirsting for freedom and truth, grace and forgiveness was something that had been desired for centuries.  In his presence, Christ represented the very Spirit of God present among the people.  But there’s an old adage that says, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”  And there seems to be no difference, even when you bring water to the horse.  Even though the Holy Spirit of God has been offered to humanity through faith, and his ability to quench the spiritual thirsts of people is as powerful today as it was when he spoke those words, we still only need to come and drink.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, refresh my spirit by the presence of Your Spirit dwelling within me. Enable me to drink as I have need, realizing that my thirst for You is unquenchable.

       It is still a grievous experience to know that our understanding and acceptance of God is divided.  While we all agree (Jews, Christians, Muslims and other monotheistic faiths) that there is one God, we continue to refuse God’s offering of peace and unity in Christ.  To some, he is the divisive wall standing between people of different faiths.  When in reality, there is no one else who has acted to tear down the wall of division.  Christ is the only one that invites all to come, whether you’re far away from faith or close.  Hearing what the Holy Spirit speaks gives evidence of Christ and is proof of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s authenticity.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, empower me by the gift of Your Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ to become an instrument of Spiritual unity in the human heart and mind.

       The question that was asked at the conclusion of the Scripture in Acts is, indeed, an interesting one.  “How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own tongue?”  We are often unable to fully comprehend the power of God and the activity of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives.  We often find ourselves unable to understand things that are directed by the Spirit.  Even in an age when multitasking is seen as a unique gift to get a lot of things done, we find ourselves unable to concentrate long enough to be effective at it.  Hardly does anyone think that speaking in one language and hearing in another is normal.  And yet, the author of diversity — the Holy Spirit — has the power to engage people to both speak and hear in languages uncommon to any of them.  It is God’s Holy Spirit that creates the diversity of all languages, giving us the ability to understand what others are saying.  God’s Spirit even has the power to allow the understanding of the unspoken words of God’s Spirit.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, help me by the power of Your Holy Spirit to hear others communicate clearly that we might all come to a place of common understanding.

       Our gods and loyalties have taken on a different look in the twenty-first century.  While we may not craft our own idols, we are quite willing to adopt others as our idols so that our loyalties are split between our faithfulness to God and other little gods of our own creation.  And yes, some of them are wood, metal and stone, but there are other gods which want our loyalties.  Politicians, political parties, friendships, club and recreational associations all invite us to trust in them before we trust in our God.  In the end, the question will always be where do we place our trust?  United States currency says, “In God we trust.”  The question is, “has that (money) become just another god to steal our loyalty from the one, true God?”

• As a mid-week reflection, consider those times when you may have chosen loyalty to a friend, club, organization, object, or another group that went against your faith in God.
• How might you work to insure that Your loyalty to God receives the highest priority?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, empower me to discern the difference between my chosen loyalties and my loyalty to You so that I may always, in faithfulness, call on You.

       We often overlook what, at times, should be very obvious to us.  There is no division or divisiveness in God.  There is only the powerful beauty of diversity we experience when the gifts of God’s Holy Spirit are distributed among those who believe and they are used to accomplish God’s purposes.  Maybe it’s God’s way of encouraging us to value and uplift one another, being sure to praise God and include the gifts of the Spirit we’ve received in an act of thanksgiving.  Or maybe it's God’s way of acknowledging our limitations while openly realizing that we truly need each other.  Or maybe it’s also God’s way of sharing God’s person with each of us, reminding each of us that we are a part of God and God is a part of us.  Whatever the reason, it is God’s Holy Spirit, as diverse as the gifts might be, that calls us into the unity of God’s presence and reality.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to embrace the gifts of Your Holy Spirit that you’ve shared with each believer. Help me to see each gift as the presence and expression of You.

       We live in a world of mutually conflicting ideas and opinions — indeed a world of truths and non-truths.  One person believes in their heart, and because they believe, their lives are justified by what they believe in their heart.  Yet, for whatever reason, they can’t quite come to confess Christ with their mouths.  They confess with their lips, but their words of confession are not in their heart.  Another person confesses with their mouth, knows and believes in their heart, and finds themselves saved by their willingness to openly confess what they believe.  Therein lies the reality of their experience with the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit cannot deny itself.  The belief in our hearts gives direction to the words coming from our mouths.  Both agree that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are one.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, let the agreement between what I say, what I believe, and the presence and power of Your Holy Spirit within me secure my salvation.

       The discussion and contention has raged for any number of years around the question, “Is Jesus real or not?”  That the question is even asked speaks to the truth in one way or another.  Those whose answer to the question is informed by the Holy Spirit have one answer that is affirmative, while those who are ignorant of or deny the reality of Jesus Christ have another.  Is it possible that God is a schizophrenic?  I don’t believe so.  God may offer a diversity of gifts to all people, but the unity of our faith and truth is proved by the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit that affirms the reality of Jesus Christ who came in the flesh.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of love and power, enable me by the witness of Your Spirit in me to know and experience the assurance of my salvation by confessing that Jesus came in the flesh.

       The words detailing our beginning are forever etched in the minds of those who believe ― “We are created in the image of God”.  There is a certain amount of great comfort in that reality.  But there is something about the creation alone that leaves us incomplete.  Life didn’t begin until God breathed into us the breath of life.  Yet and still, the gifts of God’s Spirit alive inside of us defines our role as contributors to God’s creation as agents of God’s Spirit within us.  And it is God’s Spirit that defines God’s fullness in the body of the church.  God’s Spirit, while it completes us, continues to display the creative power, genius and diversity that God intended for our world.  None of us are exactly alike, except that we all share a vital part of the Spirit of God within us.  None of us are born with the same gifts from God, but the diversity of gifts within each of us allows us to see and experience a different part of God’s Spirit.  It is that diversity that makes up and includes us in the unity of the body of the church.  Our differences, more than anything else, reflect how completely God has included us all and used our diversity as a unifying agent of God’s oneness.  It’s not our blackness or our whiteness, or city or country of origin, or where we are now.  If we told the truth, we can’t look at one another without admitting that we are defined as much by our differences as we are by the One who is greater than those whom we see.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to see with new eyes Your presence and diversity in the lives of others. Help me to embrace the gift of Your Spirit in each person as just one small expression of who You are so that we may represent You as one complete body.

       In our experience, the peace we seek and long for is often confused with the absence of chaos.  It’s because we presume that if there is not chaos (no fighting, warring, killing, hating, or indifference), then peace is present.  We have effectively learned to tolerate people without truly accepting them, resulting in what looks like and outward peace, when there is untold internal chaos.  And yet, it’s this internal chaos that, at times, leads to outside antagonisms.

       God leads us to the place of peace, not from outside antagonisms, but to a place where despite outside chaos, we can know an inner peace that is an override system.  God’s peace invites us into the relationship of unity and community with the Holy Spirit of the living God where people are accepted above our idea of tolerance and peace is created internally and externally.  That is the kind peace that enables us to see the reality of God, precisely because it is God’s peace and not peace as the world gives.

• Have you ever experienced peace within you even when things going on around you seemed to be out of control?
• How do you understand the Holy Spirit acting in your life to bring this peace?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, enable me to know the presence of Your Holy Spirit so that Your peace can be experienced even in the midst of life’s chaos.

       Proof of God’s Holy Spirit can be both seen and heard.  However, we need to adjust our understanding of what it means to see and hear something as proof of its reality.  We don’t actually see love as a physical substance, yet it is possible to visibly see the outcome of love as proof of its presence. The same can be said of our ability to hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us.  While we don’t audibly hear God speaking to us, the reality of hearing God’s Holy Spirit is more truly realized when we speak to each other in ways that allow communication beyond our physical limitations of language.  Both of these actions of the Holy Spirit enable us to see the reality of God present in our world.

• How can acts of love toward someone else that go beyond the boundaries of language can allow others to experience the reality of God?
• What can we do to give expression to the Holy Spirit of God beyond language that reveals itself as tangible proof of God, visible to anyone?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to open my eyes and ears to see the reality of Your presence revealed in loving acts in every language.

       Our ability to see the reality of God is an internal reality through which God communicates with us, guiding us and teaching us about the things of God.  It is an anointing — something that comes to us from outside that has taken up residence inside of us.  Our ability to see the reality of God is also made visible to others by the way in which God’s Spirit is revealed to the world.  Since we now have the Spirit of God alive within us, she acts as proof of God’s reality, and God’s eternal love for us.  When we act in ways contrary to the Spirit, it is that Spirit abiding in us that makes us aware we are out of sync with God.

• What is it like for you when you experience internal urgings and guidance of the Holy Spirit?
• How do these Spiritual communications continue to affirm to you proof of God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, continue to make me aware of the presence of Your Holy Spirit abiding within me as evidence of Your reality and that I still abide in You.

       It’s an eerie feeling to believe that someone can read your mind.  The idea that someone is living inside of your head with your thoughts is daunting.  And we’d like to believe our thoughts are private – that those things we think about within us are a private affair.  But now, having the Spirit of God within us, we become privy to and accessible to the wisdom of God.  That also can be a scary thing, primarily because it gives us insight into things that make no sense to the world but connect and integrate with the truth about God and our world.  It is evidence of God like no other, because it is God’s wisdom that guides our actions, correcting us when we’re wrong, and affirming us when we operate within God’s will.

As a mid-week reflection, think about times when the truth of God’s word was revealed to you in ways that indicated that God knew what was on your mind and was impacting your decisions.

• How did God’s revelation of information to you verify the presence of God’s Holy Spirit within you?
• What impact did that have on your faith?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of Wisdom, empower me to discern Your thoughts which give me insight into Your wisdom. Enable the actions that follow to continually reveal those Spiritual truths that You are.

       We don’t often look to contemporary prophets as proof of God.  Perhaps that’s because prophets are not often welcomed into our communities with a great deal of hospitality.  While they were and are instruments of God’s peace and proof of God’s reality to God’s people, God settled all things related to our desire to see God through Jesus Christ.  That is in all but one.  The promise of the Holy Spirit to be given to us in God’s word came to us in order to fulfill all things.  While Jesus may have ascended and is no longer with us in body, the Holy Spirit remains as a witness and is evidence of God.  It is God’s Holy Spirit and the individual work of the Holy Spirit accomplishing God’s work in us that enables people to see the realty of God.

• In what ways are you aware that God is now speaking to you through the presence of the Holy Spirit and using You to accomplish God’s work?
• How has God’s Holy Spirit speaking to you substantiated, confirmed, and assured your faith relationship to God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, continue to live in me through the power of Your Holy Spirit as an everlasting witness of Your presence in the world.

       Those of us in a relationship with god have longed to see God for some time, now.  From the days of Moses to the present, we have chosen to depend on our sight of God as an accurate indicator of God’s reality.  Even Manoah and his wife errantly believed that they had seen God (Judges 13:23) when in fact, they had only seen an angel of the Lord.  And yet, what gives us evidence greater than anything is the outcome — the end result of what it is we’re looking for.  If we’re looking for love, it is the result of loving actions that give proof that love exists.  It can’t be quantified, but it can be qualified.  That is a Godly measure that we have seen the reality of God.  As we look for evidence, perhaps we should be looking for “all of God’s goodness” becoming evident right before our eyes.

• Where do you look and what do you look for when you want to see evidence of God’s reality in our world?
• How does this affirm the presence of the Holy Spirit within you that you have seen God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, allow me to see all that is done in the world around me by the power of Your Holy Spirit as proof of Your reality visible in the world.

       People are constantly looking for proof that God is real.  4th century Bishop of the church, Augustine, was quoted as saying, “Lord, you have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.”  What we dare to do and done in our search for God is to look for and create visual images that satisfy our need to see God’s reality.  Our spiritual God points to the incessant creation of idols that we make to fill this apparent void and to shore up our insecurities and doubts.  But our God and Savior Jesus Christ invites us to stop looking for a physical image of God’s reality.  Instead, God and Christ insist that evidence of God’s reality outside of us is found when we see the works of love done in Christ’s name powered by God’s Holy Spirit inside of us.  It is that Spirit of God which motivates us to do acts of love. As verification and validation of that, we have received the Holy Spirit as an “Advocate” and helper to continually advocate for God and to prove God’s reality.  It is the Holy Spirit of God inside of us that is our reminder and proof of God — of all Christ has said and all that God has done through him.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, help others to see Your reality by the works of love, mercy, and justice that I accomplish by the power and presence of Your Holy Spirit alive in me.

       I imagine that one of the most difficult tasks of being a Christian is assembling the various parts that make us one.  We’ve perhaps heard stories about or seen images of persons who have disassembled something and in putting it back together realized that there were spare parts left out that weren’t there before they took it apart.  Being together (or one) in Christ means having all of our pieces put together.  Christ has done that for us.  He has put all of the pieces together so that now, we have the ability to function as if we were a new creation.  We’ve been transformed by our faith which should be exhibited in our love for one another.  But sometimes love— if not from the heart — is not enough.  Love that comes from the heart of Christ’s compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and acceptance is proof of Christ’s love for us and proof of Christ love in us.  It comes by faith in God’s word.

• How can we discern the difference between love that comes from the heart and other types of caring that, perhaps, masquerades as true Christian heart‑love?
• What can we put into place that will indicate ‘proof of love’ to those outside of our faith that our love is from the heart?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, empower me to love others honestly and deeply from my heart just as You loved us.

       For many people, love — that unconditional acceptance of others that is supposed to be proof of love for Christians — is something we have to continually work on.  It does not come easily.  We must get beyond our own biases and prejudices that come from years of indoctrination by a world that wants us to be a part of its doctrines of hatred and division.  That kind of love (if one can call it that) is a love that abides in death, seeking to engage us in the kind of tribalism that divides and separates rather than unifying, accepting, and bringing people together.  That in itself is a kind of death.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once observed, “We will either live together in community, or die together in chaos!”  Doing what Christ invites us to do is countercultural and may therefore draw the hatred of those for whom unconditional love is abhorrent and goes against the love of Christ.  And yet, our love (acceptance) of one another is our proof of love.  It is visible evidence that the love which Christ gave us is alive and active in our lives.

• Have you ever experienced hate or rejection from friends or others because you chose to love (accept) someone who was considered an outsider?
• How can we be encouraged to grow in our faith by unconditionally loving others and encourage others to do the same?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable the love I have for others within me to be proof that I have passed from death to life because I love, even if it means I am hated by the world.

       It’s difficult for us to believe that love can become stagnant.  However, if we are not making a concerted effort to engage in acts of love that challenge us causing us to love more — acts of love we practice as an expression of the love we’ve learned from God, then we are destined to fall into the trap of making our love of others and toward others a distortion.  It’s at that point we begin to love selfishly with the expectation of getting something in return.  Proof of love (as learned from God) occurs for us when we grow in our ability to love others unconditionally rather than becoming selfish, giving life to less healthy forms of love — forms where the love we give is done for public display rather than a genuine desire to share the love of Christ with others.

• Have you ever witnessed or experienced a time when an outward display of love toward others became selfish, habitual, and lifeless?
• What can we do to avoid Christ’s love in us from becoming selfish and lifeless as we love others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, empower me to always be searching for more ways to love authentically as ‘proof of Your love’ alive in me.

       Imitating God — now, there’s a concept.  The idea of loving Christ as he loved us is a high and noble goal.  And yet, it’s no different than being a child and desiring to be like our favorite dancer, sports star, or actor, etc., by imitating them.  in order to be like them, we try to do what they do exactly like they do it.  There was an entire advertising campaign promoting that idea done with children singing, “I want to be like Mike (Michael Jordan).”  For years we’ve sung our Christian hymn echoing the words, “Lord, I want to be like Jesus, in my heart … “ as a musical expression of our desire to be like the One who loved us.

       To becomes like Jesus would simply mean studying how God loves all people in Jesus Christ and imitating that loving action in our lives.  Will we become like Christ after the first effor?  No, probably not.  And it would challenge us to find that common thread of love that would be ‘proof of life’ that we are children of God.  God believes we can do it, else Christ would not have given us the new commandment indicating our oneness in him.

• For a mid-week reflection, think about the different ways Jesus loved others as he came into contact with them.
• How can we become imitators of Christ in our time and culture that enables us to become more like God in our daily life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to become an imitator of You by how I show love to others as ‘proof of love’ that we are one in each other.

       For those who believe the law and its commandments have come to an end, we have come to a gross miscalculation and erred in our conclusion.  Our God still gives Commandments.  Only God’s last Commandment isn’t given to stop us from doing anything.  It is given to us that we might begin doing something radically different in our relationships with each other.  God takes that which once was a cease‑and‑desist order and has given us a positive action plan that commands us to love one another.  Loving one another is ‘proof of love’ in us that we are abiding in God and God is abiding in us.  The Spirit of God present in us is a constant reminder of God’s presence and proof that God’s love is within us.  Just as God is eternal, so then is the love within us eternal.

• How do you reconcile the idea of salvation by grace through faith and our responsibility to be faithful to keep God’s commandment to love one another?
• What part does God’s Spirit play in providing ‘proof of love” for us?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower and enable me to be faithful to Your commandment to love one another as proof of Your love in me by the indwelling of Your Holy Spirit.

       Loving one another is not just something that we do without reason as persons imitating Jesus Christ.  Loving one another is something that we do that gives evidence that God is active and alive in our lives.  Loving one another opens the door of service to God and compassion towards each other as we seek to make the body of Christ evident in our world.  How we love one another is our ‘proof of love’ to the world that Christ is not only alive, but that Christ is alive and active in us through the love we share.  It’s not about us, though.  It’s about Christ receiving the glory for his power to transform us.

• When you actively engage in the act of loving others, are you aware that you’re doing it for Christ’s sake, or do you seek some recognition for yourself?
• How can we ensure that Christ receives the glory for acts of love done by us?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, empower me to live in a state of constant love for others as ‘proof of (Your) love’ present in me so that You will be glorified.

       Branding is important for companies and organizations.  It’s what organizations use to identify themselves as unique in an overstuffed and overcrowded marketplace.  It identifies who they are and suggests what makes their organization different from others.  It is also supposed to lift up the reality giving evidence that their organization is alive and well.  It is their “proof of life”.  People look for indicators, or proof that a person, or an organization has integrity about who they claim to be.  Humans have used branding for years in their organization to give their group or organization an identify that is marketable, with each organization having its specific brand.  For those of us who are Christian, our branding strategy, or at least the one that has been given to us by Christ, is based on the integrity of our ability to love one another.  Our strongest connection to our brand is exhibited by who we say we are and what we claim we do.  Our brand goes to our image that represents Christ and what and who we say we are in the marketplace of life in his name.  For us, there is a specific way of giving to anyone who would ask of us as proof of Christ’s love.  According to Christ, it’s shown by the love we have for one another.  That is our proof that Christ is alive in us and that we are alive in Christ.  This is the love that is expected to be shown and practiced by us and given freely to others in Jesus’ name.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, enable all people to experience Your love through me as proof of Your love alive in me and proof of my love made alive by you.

       It seems easy enough to say we love God.  To say we love God is one thing, but loving God is an action in response to God’s love for us.  It doesn’t happen because we mouth the words.  It’s an action that happens as a part of our relationship to God and is directed toward others.  Love shown toward others is the only way we can make visible the reality of God who is invisible, but who is personified in love.  We exist as much to prove and show that God is love – a love that reaches out as a vehicle of embrace to everyone.  And as we reach out in love to others, we imitate and display that unconditional love God show us and proves that God is love.

• If God is love, how does showing love to others validate God’s reality?
• In what ways do you believe that openly displaying your Godly love for others gives validity to why you exist?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable and empower me to highlight You as the personification of love as I put you on display by showing my love for others.

       Often, we think the reason that we exist is utilize some unique, innate gift or talent that we have.  And so, we either search through life looking for meaning in our work, in our hobbies, and in things we find joy in doing.  Or we find ourselves falling into life’s rut.  Things become routine and life loses its meaning and purpose.  And yet, if God is our teacher, then we can expect to learn that of which God is a master.  We become an apprentice to God to learn to do what God does best – loving others.  The outcome is that we then exist for God’s sake — seeking to keep God’s reputation as a loving and generous God intact, and to glorify God and what God does by emulating God in our lifestyles.

• When you examine what you have learned from God about love, how is the art of loving others as God loved you displayed in your life?
• What action are you willing to take that would put God’s love on display so that others might acknowledge that God is love?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, teach me the art of loving others so that Your name and Your love for me is put on display in everything I do and say.

       It’s not unusual to think of loving others as primarily a positive and good thing.  That’s typically the case when we choose those we’re willing to love carefully.  It’s safer for us that way.  The liability and danger comes when we are compelled to love those, who after all of our efforts, leave us with a broken heart.  It’s those times when the outpouring of our love disappoints us and suffering becomes an act of love in itself.  It’s not as easy to suffer for the sake of God’s love but that’s why we exist — to show God’s love and do good whether we find joy or whether we endure suffering.  It’s when we find ourselves during those times of suffering that we have the greatest opportunity to give glory to God.  André Crouch once wrote, “I thank God for the mountains; and I thank God for the valleys, and I thank God for all the things he’s brought me through.”  It’s God bringing us through those valleys and tough times that God is most deserving of our praise.

• In what ways are you willing to risk suffering to show God’s love in the world?
• What situations most frighten you and prevent you from wanting to suffer for love’s (God’s) sake?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Precious Christ, empower me with a willing spirit to show Your love to others, even if I find that loving others in the spirit of Your love causes me to suffer.

       Obedience is not something that we talk about much in our culture.  Especially in today’s culture, the idea of disobedient to law and other officials – even God – has become more popular.  The idea of being tolerant or more understanding and accepting of others gets you labeled as being “woke”.  It has taken on negative connotations that suggest a dominant-submissive relationship between persons.  We regrettably allow our human concepts to affect our understanding of God.  And yet, the truth is our obedience to God  and the confession of the gospel of Christ by loving others is not being “woke”.  It’s why we – living as Christians – exist.  By showing others what happens when we are obedient to God and love one another as Christ has commanded, we put God on active display in the world.

• As a part of your mid-week reflection, think about what it means to be obedient to God. Make a list of the challenges, the benefits, the liabilities, and the rewards.
• How will you allow your obedience to God move you to love others more deeply?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable and empower me to be obedient to You by actively confessing the gospel of Christ’s as proof to others why I exist.

     Integrity is an important part of our faith journey.  At some point we have a responsibility to develop and grow into the people Christ has called us to be, and then to reproduce the core of Christ’s fruit in us in others.  If we are children of God, then our fruit will give indications of that.  As it’s often said, the fruit doesn’t fall very far from the tree.”  But we also need to face the reality that we are unable to produce anything other than the fruit of who we truly are.  If we exist to love others then our words and our actions should be indicative of God’s love, and the fruit we bear will also be on display for all to see.

• In what ways has the integrity of who you are as a child of God been evidenced by what you’ve reproduced of God’s love in the world?
• What areas in your life do you feel need continued growth so that you may become more fruitful for Christ?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to live a life of integrity reproducing the love You’ve placed within me that You might be glorified in all things.

       There is no such thing as an invisible Christian. We were not called by God to act in secrecy, to be hidden, or to be anonymous in how we show God’s love to others.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  We’re called to be a beacon of light — God’s light of grace and love to others in the world so that by our acts of gracious and generous love, God may be on display and receive the appropriate praise and glory. For all that we do and all that we are, we exist to display God’s love in the world so that others might see God’s love present in us in a positive and gracious way and give praise to our God.

• What are some ways you can work to become more visible in glorifying God by how you love others in the world?
• What are you willing to do to put God’s love more prominently on display in Your life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, create within me a spirit in which I desire to put Your light and love on display through the acts of caring and love that I do to glorify You.

       There was a very popular song that once highlighted the theme, “What the world needs now, is love —sweet love.”  It spoke of those things in life that are beautiful but inferred that God had done a fantastic job in creation.  We didn’t need another mountain, another hill-top, another valley, or another stream.  In some ways, the beauty of creation can serve as a distraction from our reason for being and our purpose in Jesus Christ.  For those who are called by Christ, the reproduction of love by our actions, by our Spirit, by our intentions, by our personality — by everything we have and are, is how we bear fruit in life.  Love — as a purpose for living — gives evidence of God’s reality and identifies love as the essence of all things beautiful in the world because God is love.  Those of us who have been chosen by God to reveal who God is in the world then, only have one reproductive purpose.  We exist for one reason and one reason only — to glorify God (illuminate love — God’s presence) by loving God and loving one another to reproduce God’s love in the world.  In short, to be living examples of Christ’s love active sharing and spreading love throughout the world.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, help me to realize that I exist for no other reason than to glorify You by becoming a living example of Christ reproducing the fruit of Your love throughout the earth.

       One of our human characteristics is the art of creating hoops for people to jump through in order to be accepted.  We find that if we can make the hoop small enough, we can restrict almost anyone.  And then God comes along to change the rules of our games of restriction, rendering our hoops uninviting, unnecessary, and irrelevant.  And as is usually the case, someone who has previously been more interested in their own agenda than in God’s agenda, comes to the knowledge and wisdom of God and opens wide the door of God’s grace.  Exclusion has never been on the agenda where relationship with God is concerned.  God’s house is supposed to be a house of prayer for all people, without exclusion.  And God’s family – because of Jesus Christ – is now open to those who have previously been excluded.  God has in Christ place a welcome mat at the door of God’s Kin-dom.

• Have you ever created an arbitrary hoop that excluded or prevented God’s grace from being available to someone?
• Do you still struggle with God’s grace, or have you removed your restrictions in favor of God’s grace?
• What is your continued struggle, or what caused your change of heart?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of mercy and hospitality, enable me to be an instrument of your peace that welcomes those who have previously been excluded to offer them the blessings of relationship and grace in the name of Jesus, the Christ.

       All of the early teachings of Christ and God’s gift of grace to the world are generated in the Scriptures of the Hebrew people.  Our New Testament ties the prophecy to the reality that relates to the revelations of God discovered by those who lived and experienced God’s grace with them; both their redeemer and our Emmanuel.  The word of God, once thought to be ancient, continues to be as contemporary as the God who years ago told of things that we experienced yesterday, experience today, and will experience tomorrow.  God’s grace is not just for now, but for all people in every age and time.

• How does discovering Christ’s presence in the scriptures of the Hebrew prophets strengthen your understanding of God’s grace to all?
• Does it change your understanding of Hebrew Scriptures?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, and Ancient of Days; empower me to rely on your ancient words of grace as evidence of your contemporary presence in my world. And with that grace, allow me to place your welcome mat, in all of its ancient and contemporary glory before everyone.

       Jesus has been quoted as saying, “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit.”  Isn’t it then more appropriate to invite our God to gain understanding that they might guide us — to lead us in the paths of true understanding.  If we are led by God, following God’s wisdom, relying on God’s understanding, then how can we go astray, unless we choose not to follow where God is leading us.  At the same time, if we can remember God’s faithfulness and compassion shown toward us and then trust that God’s word is true, why would we go off in another direction?  There is great wisdom to walking with the one who has all wisdom or walking in the direction we’ve been told to go.  God both sees the way and knows the way.

• What do you do to ensure that you are being led in God’s truth?
• How have these efforts helped your understanding of God’s grace in your life?
•  … in the lives of others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and merciful God, take away my willfulness to walk in the arrogance and pride of my own self righteousness so that I may be led in the footsteps of your mercy, grace, and truth.

       The best kept secrets are the ones that are never talked about.  In some ways, the Christian church has been profoundly silent about the grace of God found and revealed in Jesus Christ.  And while Jesus is not necessarily a secret, what he has done to welcome us into the family of God is one of the best kept secrets ever.  Somehow, we think it offensive if we tell others that God’s grace has been poured out.  So, God has chosen those who can and will do it when others are unwilling or unable.  Without those who proclaim the story, Jesus would still be the best kept secret the world never heard of.

• How much of your understanding of God’s grace for you came from someone who was sent to preach the Gospel?
• From what other sources has your faith in God’s grace in Jesus Christ been revealed and confirmed?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, continue to bless those who are sent to preach words of grace so that your welcome mat of acceptance may always lay at the doorway of a relationship with you for all who may need to experience God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

       For the most part, there has always been a process established that took into consideration those who were considered outsiders for God’s people.  You might even call that process an act of God’s grace, extended to everyone who believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  God’s grace, then, is nothing new.  What’s new is how we are asked to apply God’s grace in the light of the presence and reality of Jesus Christ.  It is true that Christ changes everything for everybody who seeks a relationship with God.

• How do you become an expression of God’s grace that welcomes those seeking to know God?
• What can you do to help others understand God’s acceptance of them in the name of Jesus Christ?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of All people, there are no strangers with you. You know us all and seek to welcome all who are seeking relationship with you. Empower me to be a vessel of your love that welcomes all who have heard of Your powerful grace and are seeking to know and worship you.

       Perhaps it has always been God’s desire that all people everywhere be unified as we give praises and honor to God.  God’s power is magnified when we are all serving with one purpose and one purpose only.  Somehow, we have failed to find or practice that unified sense of community that breaks down the walls of division.  That is, until Jesus Christ came to open the doors of Grace and enable everyone to have access to God.  It is not that God has not extended the welcome to those of us previously on the outside of God’s community of faith.  It’s just that not everyone has chosen to be welcome in Jesus’ name, accepting the amnesty that God offers to all.

• How do we promote the unity of the faith while indicating that Christ is the welcoming mat of God’s provision?
• How should we respond to those who refuse to accept God’s welcome?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and eternal God, please send laborers for the harvest calling on everyone to lift up one voice, serving God with one purpose so that through your welcome offered in Jesus Christ, we may know and experience your grace for all.

       Many of us are raised with a value system partly shaped by our parents, our culture, our relational experiences, and by what we learn and think we know of God.  To that end, our value systems vary from individual to individual, with each person believing their system is the right one.  There are some who profess to lean more heavily on what the word of God says, taking it literally.  While those who lean on their biblical reading may have read their religious text with some understanding, God continually unveils God’s truth so that we may be informed by a greater truth than our own.  We are reminded in the Holy Scripture of God’s promise that we shall all be taught by God.  Enter Jesus the Christ, who comes with such an amazing grace that we can’t fully understand it.  The temple curtain is torn into and access to God is now available to everyone.  Suddenly our value systems, which often exclude people because of our fears and human standards, are shattered by a God and Christ who are willing to receive all who come, especially those who have been marginalized and left out.  It appears that God’s welcome mat is truly that — a welcome mat that welcomes everyone, and all who come must come standing on the name and standard of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

• Are there excluded by your value system who are now welcomed in the Kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ?
• How does their inclusion change your understanding of God’s grace?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of truth and love, I continue to rejoice in the good news that You have welcomed me unconditionally into Your family. Empower me to tell others excluded from Your grace that they, too, are unconditionally welcome in Jesus' name.

       We often think of an anointing, when in reality, oil can be used as a metaphor to identify something real but different.  It’s almost like acknowledging something like “the milk of human kindness” when we know in reality that human kindness is not milk, but like milk, human kindness can nourish others around us.  They can drink it up to the point that they are filled with the kindness of others.  In the same way, we can be anointed with the oil of joy, knowing that joy alone is not an oil, but like oil, joy can spread like a fragrance filling a room with the smiles, fellowship, and a desire to experience more joy — the kind of joy that is unspeakable, but one which everyone experiences as a welcome and inviting spirit.  When God anoints us with the oil of joy, we are indeed blessed and filled with a joy that no one can take away.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, anoint me with the oil of joy until my cup of joy runs over, touching the lives of others and filling the room with the fragrance of Your goodness.

       When we consider the goodness of God, we don’t often think of “how” God works to protect us.  Even though we find refuge in God, we often would like to entertain the thought that we should be immune from life’s challenges.  But perhaps there is something about how a mother eagle teaches her young eaglets to fly that might help us grow in our understanding.

       As I understand it, when a mother eagle determines that her young need to learn how to fly, she takes the eaglet out of the nest, flies as high as she can go and then drops the young eaglet.  Since the fledgling has never flown before, when she drops it, it falls fast, but the momma eagle is watching.  At the last moment, she swoops down to catch the young eaglet and repeats the process until it learns to fly on its own.  The situation is similar for us.  In order for us to learn to trust that God will save us, sometimes we have to go into free-fall, but God is watching, and at the last moment swoops in to save us.  It teaches us greater trust in God, and it also reveals to us God’s eternal presence as well as increasing our faith that God will never leave us nor forsake us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, strengthen my faith and trust in You so that I am more reassured that You will always be there to protect me.

       Author and once Democratic candidate for President Marianne Williamson was once quoted as saying: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?”  And yet, as popular as the quote has become, it overlooks a very significant reality — many of us are afraid of being abandoned and left alone.  We are afraid of challenges that we face every day and being overwhelmed by them without someone near to us that can assure us that we are not alone.  Our fear of being absent of the presence of God is a frightening thought and experience for those of us who acknowledge our divine Creator.  And while relying on each other gives us some sense of security, it is the word of God given to guide and instruct us — God, whose reputation and name are at stake — who stands in the breach of life to protect us and assure us and says, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20b).  It is that type of assurance that gives us comfort and strength to face the challenges or our day.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Protector God, continue to assure me I am not alone in life’s challenges and that You are, and forever will be my protector and friend.

       For many of us, all we have is our name.  If we were people of great power, we could effect that power to achieve our purposes in life.  At the same time, if we were to use that power to excess, it might be considered abusive and our name and our reputation could be sullied because of it.  Just think about some of the names that have described a specific characteristic that may or may not have identified people or the reputation accurately:  Ivan the Terrible, Tombstone, Arizona, Red Devil, Alaska, and Genghis Khan.  The mere mention of those names evoked terror or fear in people.  The danger present for all of us is that somehow our name will suffer disgrace because of the reputation attached to it.

       God is no different.  God, too, has a reputation to maintain.  And God’s actions are performed to illicit the appropriate characterization.  And so, are reminded that God is “ … slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,”.  We are reminded of God’s gracious kindness, and that God will correct us as a shepherd guides and corrects the sheep of his pasture, but that

       “The LORD has mercy on those who respect him,

           as a father has mercy on his children.

       14 He knows how we were made;

          he remembers that we are dust.

That is why God’s name needs not to be profaned or misrepresented.  It’s why God continues to act in loving and caring ways for his name’s sake because God has a reputation to protect.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, let Your actions and presence in my life be a continual reminder to others of Your love and grace so that Your name will continually be honored and glorified.

       One of our greatest human needs is our desire to know we will be cared for.  To live with the security that someone is acting as our protector, as our provider, as a counselor and friend is our greatest source of relief from the pressures of life.  When we have the assurance that our basic needs are going to be taken care of, then the insecurity and anxiety that comes from the fear of living without can drive us to a state of panic rather than peace.  What God as our shepherd offers and provides for us is the freedom from those anxieties that so often disturb us and distract us causing us to lose confidence in ourselves and in our God.  And yet, we are assured that when we belong to God, those of us who have lived in captivity to want and need will be liberated from those fears.  We will have the security of knowing that God is our provider, protector, deliverer, and our friend.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, I live with a spirit of praise and gratitude knowing that Your arms of protection and provision are always there to assure and comfort me, shelter and protect me, guide and provide for me, and that in You, I shall not want for anything.

       Our safety and security is important to us.  It’s one of the reasons home security companies do so well in our society.  It’s why we’ve graduated from the simple lock on our doors to doorbell cams, driveway cams, and other forms of video to monitor our property.  And yet, when one thinks about personal protection, our minds go to handguns, rifles, and shotguns to secure our properties when cameras fail, or to secure our personal safety.  What we don’t often think about are the measures we can take to provide personal security without the additional need for a personal bodyguard.  And yet, each of us who has accepted Christ, has one.  Not in the sense of keeping us from immediate danger, but from a greater danger that threatens our eternal lives.  Jesus then becomes our personal security provider, who calls us when danger is near.  He provides spiritual protection for all who hear his voice and are obedient to do what he says.  That is the nature of our unit under his protection – that his sheep represent all those who hear his voice and obey, whether near or far.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
Loving Christ, grant that I might always live in relationship with You that in hearing Your voice call to me, I will always be obedient.

       We are a people who, for the most part, love our independence.  We like to be free to live our lives as we wish, make our own decisions, and fundamentally have control of our lives.  The idea of someone else micro-managing our existence leaves us resistant and cold.  And yet, God is not a micro-manager, but more like a coach – or as our Scripture references, a shepherd — who takes a personal interest in us.  God is someone who leads us, guides us in the right direction to inject new life into our spirits.  Our God gives us a sense of security and assurance that we are safe, even when the dark clouds of death envelop us.  In fact, God is someone whom we have learned to depend on.  Closer observation of our lives reveals that God is more than just a coach, but a provider, a caretaker, a supporter, and encourager whose desire for our well-being pursues us to be better, do better, to live better.  And God does all of this for us so that others – our enemies – will come to know our God as a loving and caring God.  God does it, not for selfish reasons, but for our best interest, so that others will learn of God’s reputation as a faithful and generous God and give God the praise. 

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious and caring God, Your faithfulness as my shepherd has been and always is a source of support that sustains me. I’m thankful that throughout my life’s journey, you’ve always been there looking out for me.

       God’s offer of grace is not really new.  Even before the prophet Isaiah recorded these words, God has offered us – God’s people – an opportunity to turn from our ways and return to God and God’s way so that the grace that God offers could be accepted and God’s creation would begin conforming to God’s plan for the world.  Yet, the fact that God has been offering grace to us for so long, only serves to prove that we are the ones who have failed to act upon God’s offer of grace in order to live by our own plan.  We are the ones guilty of not accepting God’s grace when the offer is placed on the table for the taking.  And that God continues to offer us grace is ongoing evidence that we continue to need it. Our only hope is in accepting God’s grace.  Accepting God’s grace and that alone will secure our relationship with God today, and our place in God’s eternal Kingdom for eternity.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, keep the door Your grace open so that when I fail, I’ll be able to return to You to receive the mercy You so generously offer.

       Our personal success is important to us.  And because it is important, we love to celebrate our accomplishments.  Our independence, the work we’ve put in, as well as the rewards we get from having accomplished a job well done speaks to who we are at our core.  Success and the response we receive from having excelled at what we do is our reward for the hard work we’ve put in and we like to claim it as our own.  But when it comes to our salvation, we have to realize that it is not an accomplishment, but a gratuity that we pick up at the end of the day.  And it’s not something that we’ve earned, because our history indicates that our work, our effort – while well-meaning – has been less than acceptable and not meritorious of any reward.  Our response to our own mediocrity can’t then be a celebration, but an admission that someone else has done the work for us.  So, we have no boasting pleasure.  We can only accept the grace that is offered because someone else has done for us what we couldn’t do for ourselves and offered us a gift – a gratuity – for doing nothing more than accepting the gift of grace.  It is the acceptance of the gift, more than anything we haven’t done, that is our proper response to the free gift offered.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, thank you for taking upon yourself the burden of work through which I might be saved. Let all, who in their wisdom realize Your truth, turn away from their private plan of salvation and accept Your grace.

       The stories (or parables) that Jesus told tell us so much.  They were not designed to show that we act out of ignorance and defiance from time to time.  But they do offer us a picture into the human condition that frequently shows the impact that our decisions have on us.  Sometimes our doubt and our unwillingness to let go of our own intelligence to accept God’s wisdom has a specific impact on us.  They also show us what life can and should be like when — through faith — we accept the grace God offers us in Jesus Christ.  It’s somehow innate to us to be conflicted about what we say and what we do.  Yet, the key to accepting God’s grace is not grounded in the conflict between our hearing about God’s grace and not accepting it, but in hearing about it, and even if not accepting it immediately, eventually getting to the point of believing its truth.  The key to accepting God’s grace is found when we embrace God’s truth by faith, even at times when our heart may not be all in.   That’s the nature of the first son saying that he wouldn’t go, but then changing his mind and in obedience and faith, accepting responsibly.  That in a meaningful way is learning not to rely on our own desire but, in faith, accepting the grace of God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, continue to grant me the wisdom to accept Your grace by faith honoring You through faithful actions that prove my faith.

       It’s a difficult thing to admit our ignorance about almost anything.  And yet if we look back and examine our lives, we have to admit that we’ve been ignorant about almost everything.  I sometimes share with people that “between me and God, we know everything!”  I never say who’s carrying the Lion’s share of that knowledge, but I believe it’s obvious to people that I’m not speaking about my own wisdom.  That would certainly be true about my understanding of God’s grace.  And yet, at some point in my life, I heard and listened to God’s voice speaking to me and realized that my plan to save myself was not only futile, but my plan was poorly conceived, limited in its power, and totally dependent upon my own sense of internal well-being.  Fortunately, that made me a perfect candidate for God’s plan of salvation.  I accepted God’s grace, tossed my own plan of salvation, and in doing so, I became the wisdom of God by accepting God’s grace in Jesus Christ.  It’s amazing what accepting God’s grace can do.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, thank You for thinking of me in your plan of salvation and giving me the wisdom to accept your Grace freely offered in Jesus Christ.

       We (the human family) have always had a strong desire to chart our own destiny, and be our own people led by our own sense of intelligence.  Some years ago, a very popular song told of one songwriter’s understanding of this human condition.  The lyrics of the song proclaimed clearly:

     “Yes, there were times I'm sure you knew

     When I bit off more than I could chew

     But through it all, when there was doubt

     I ate it up and spit it out

     I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way!”

And the final line says it all – “I did it my way!”  Not “that they considered using God’s wisdom”, but proclaims he knew other options, ignored them, and did it his way.  That is contrary to the wisdom of God and is often the road that leads us out of covenant and relationship with God and keeps us on the road of life searching for something that’s already been prepared for us.

       Living life by our own rules is just another way of rejecting the grace freely offered to us by God, enabling our continued ignorance and willfulness to show while we deny the healing and refreshment that accepting God’s grace is sure to provide.  God’s grace and God’s grace alone can make us whole.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
All Loving God, let me grow to trust more and more each day in You and Your understanding of the world I live in. Help me to accept Your grace that I may be whole again.

       How many times must we require tangible evidence before we are ready to accept the truth that has already been spoken?  I’m not sure there’s an answer to that question that would satisfy anyone.  However, what makes sense to me is that if the question has been asked and answered beyond doubt, then the answer and the acceptance of that answer should be able to satisfy any who are still inquisitive.   It seems that that theory holds true in every legitimate conversation except those conversations people hold about the grace of God freely offered.  In most situations, people will try to devise their own plan for salvation except the one provided by God.

       Now, it could be that those persons unwilling to accept God’s grace want to make it on their own because they don’t believe.  It could be that people want to show some independence and take some personal initiative to save themselves.  The continued efforts to save ourselves happens as much out of ignorance as it does out of disobedience.  The simplest and the easiest way is to believe those who have heard the story and retold the story, and to listen to those retelling the same story today so that they might listen, hear, and accept the grace of God given without condition.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to hear Your words of truth that I may share Your story enabling others to accept your grace for themselves.

       Humanity has long looked for and thought of ways to achieve perfection.  We’ve tried almost everything imaginable, even elevating ourselves to the level of being God.  And yet, it is amazing how long humankind has been ignorant and undiscerning of the things of God.  We have more often than not been too willing to trust our own thoughts and ways and unwilling to trust God’s wisdom.  If we were to trace the history of our relationship with God from the time in the Garden of Eden when both Adam and even acted disobediently and ignored God’s instructions, to Moses trip down the mountainside to find God’s people worshiping the golden calf, to our incessant unwillingness to listen to the prophets, up to and including the leaders of our world ignoring God’s wisdom to “trust in the Lord with all our heart” and not to embark on their own eternal designs and wisdom, plus our ongoing failure to accept each other in love only points continually to our lack of wisdom and our inability to find the grace we so strongly require.

       Peter (though) offers us another peek into God’s wisdom — one that reaches beyond our own ignorance, and disobedience, opening the door to a grace that is above our intelligence level.  Peter says that God used our ignorance to complete God’s plan of salvation for us all.  And his advice? … to be smart and repent turning to God and away from our own ignorance so that we might accept the grace of God that we so desperately crave and need — a grace that has already been prepared for us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to turn away from the ignorance and limitations of my understanding and turn toward Your wisdom and accept Your grace which holds my salvation.

       Faith and fact will always live in tension with one another.  One requires tangible evidence and empirical proof of reality.  The other relies on reality to be proven by what one believes.  It is the  “… which came first, the chicken or the egg?” question all over again.  And yet, we came to know God first by faith and then by God’s proof that God exists.  There are so many other areas of life where we’ve moved first by faith as the proof of what is.  It’s also where we’ve (at times) registered our hopes in a future that we’ve believed in but could not see.  That is really walking by faith.  That’s also where life truly begins — first, walking by faith and then trusting in the faithfulness of God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of faithfulness and mercy, I awaken is each day to walk by faith. I cannot know the outcome of any day I am granted by your grace to see. Empower me to let my life begin by the principles upon which I awaken each day — walking by faith and trusting in Your faithfulness.

       There have been many prayers for peace in our world.  Most of those prayers come from living with the fear of nuclear or terrorist attacks upon our nation, other nations, or individuals.   This is a strange form of peace because it is a type of peace that reflects the absence of conflict, rather than the presence of justice, or community.  And it could be that our fears of conflict, war, arguments, and other forms of violence keep us focused on the negative aspects of life.  In that regard, they actually deprive us from letting our lives begin, because we are locked in a room of our own making because of fear of the world.  There is not peace in that world or behind the locked doors we hide behind.

       There is, however, a peace that comes from God.  That peace is a peace that allows us to begin living absent the fear that keeps us from living.  That peace comes when we begin thinking about those things that are true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.  With that peace there is not only the absence of conflict, but the presence of justice that leads to community.  It is the peace that comes from God.  It cannot be explained, only experienced.  And with God’s peace comes contentment and joyful security, and the ability to let life begin.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of peace and understanding — life cannot begin as long as my life is couched in fear. Enable me to live each day without the shadows of fear hanging over me. Let my life begin by focusing on the positive things and my relationship with Jesus Christ.

       Scholars from both Jewish and Christian disciplines have tried to interpret God’s words to the prophets, all without much clarity or perceived accuracy.  And yet those of us who have let our lives begin because of Christ, have not yet accepted God’s truth that we are adopted —grafted into the family of God, and as adoptees in the family of God, we are now members of the house of David.

       The word of God reaches through the centuries to find us.  I’m unsure of whether history is catching up with us or we’re finally living into God’s future.  We nevertheless find ourselves struggling to connect with the voices of the past that told of things to come.  That they would “look on the one whom they pierced” speaks with far greater accuracy than one could imagine.  And yet, there is in God’s word a prophetic witness that speaks to us today inviting us to put our doubts and skepticism behind us so that we might let our lives begin, living by faith in the truth of God’s faithfulness.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, let me find the beginning of life in the words of prophets of years ago, yet make the beginning of life be as contemporary as your witness today.

       There are those who believe that as children of God we are mostly powerless because we lack the power of 1stcentury apostles.  We weren’t imbued with the power to heal in the miraculous ways depicted in the biblical accounts.  In believing that we are powerless, we have failed to acknowledge a powerful connection we have that supersedes that of the flesh and blood but extends into the realms of heaven.  We have been given the power to give people access to life and to set people free.  The extent of that power is that it is not a power that exists to be used individually.  It comes after two of us have agreed about Spiritual matters lifted up to God and from being in the presence of Christ.  When we have agreed together and partnered with Christ, we have not only shared in the power of his resurrection, but we share in his power to liberate and resurrect others.  This is the power that comes from living in Christ and being in relationship with God through Christ.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful Christ, my life began when you set me free. Enable me to carry the message of good news so that others may also find the freedom to begin living in you as I have.

       God created humans from the dust of the ground.  However, life began after we had inhaled the breath of God.  Just as certainly as life began in the garden with God breathing life into his human creation and us inhaling the breath of God, our new life begins when we have been created anew by our encounter with Jesus, and after he has breathed his life into us in the same way, and we have inhaled the very Spirit of Christ.  The risen Christ stands before us breathing new life into us so that we don’t just take in the breath of God’s life anew, but so that when we have inhaled that new life  and it’s inside of us, we can take action and go, being sent following Christ instructions just as he was sent following the Father’s instructions.  That’s where our new life begins.  It’s not enough that our life begins, it must begin with the Spirit of God coursing through every fiber of our being, directing us to go out in Jesus’ name and live.  “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.  World without end.  Amen”

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of resurrection and life, breathe into me a new life vibrant with the presence of Christ’s Spirit so that I may go where you send me and accomplish all that you have called me to accomplish in Jesus’ name.

       The need for proof will not go away.  There will always be skeptics and doubters among us.  But just as surely as there are skeptics and doubters, there will also always be those who have a firsthand faith experience with Christ.  That is how the story moves from age to age and generation to generation.  Those of us who have had a personal, real-life encounter with the risen Christ — one in which the life in our spirits has been made alive — will continue to tell the story of Christ’s resurrection and of our resurrection by the one who was raised to new life and raised us to new life because of him.  Maybe that’s why another Scripture reminds us: “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists … (Heb. 11:6).  Perhaps it is in putting aside our doubts ad questions that ignites the fire of faith and life.  Maybe that is when and how new life begins again.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious and eternal God, enable my personal faith and witness to the power of your resurrection become a point of beginning for my new life and the life of others.

       Faith is a peculiar thing.  On one level it leads us to do things that, after having accomplished them, we know we couldn’t have accomplished without it.  On another level faith requires the absence of any doubt.  There are things we want to see with our eyes; touch with our hands; taste, smell, and hear for ourselves ― experience for ourselves before we will allow ourselves to move forward in life.  And yet, while we at times require that kind of tangible proof, we have to admit that to always live our lives that way can stop the process of living altogether.  It can reduce life to a crawling, almost immobile pace.  We then have to wonder if that is the kind of abundant life that Christ has promised us?  Or has Christ invited us to take off the chains of disbelief so that we could soar beyond those things that we need to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell?

       There is something to the notion that believing without seeing or touching is such a blessing that we can kick-start the beginning of our lives without the benefit of any tangible evidence to rely on.  That could be — in very many real ways — the place where life really begins.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious and freeing God, empower me by my faith in your resurrection to put aside every doubt that prevents me from moving forward to truly let my life begin.

       The words are from antiquity, but they find their truth in God’s promise to generations that never heard the prophet Isaiah speak.  Long before we knew of Jesus, God’s purpose had already been accomplished.  God’s promise culminated with good news from the graveyard: “He is not here.  He has risen” — words filled with the promises of tenderness, hope, life, and love.  It is God who continues to feed us with the good news — we are loved beyond our ability to understand.

• Have you ever considered the magnitude of God’s promises of healing and hope for us?
• Can you now make the connection between God’s promises coming out of antiquity and the truth about God in Jesus Christ?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and gracious God, enable me to experience the best news ever — that Your promises are secure. You are faithful to do what You say.

       Paul got it right.  He understood the truth about God and the scope of God’s love for us.  For all who fear that an act of sin is the great separator and that death is the great divider to keep us eternally from God, God sends Jesus.  And, for what purpose?  The only purpose there is — to set the record straight that God has forgiven us, and that God loves us so much, not even death can keep us from God.  That message was the best news coming out of the graveyard ever and continues to be good news for those who believe.

• What comfort is there for you in recognizing the magnitude of God’s love for you?
• How does the reality of God’s love encourage you to tell others of God’s love and faithfulness?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving God, empower us to find such confidence in Your love that we become convincing witnesses of the good news from the graveyard found in Jesus Christ.

       Good news travels fast.  At least that’s what the old adage says.  And we were not the first to hear the good news, although it didn’t come from the graveyard.  God has always been in the business of allowing those of the faith to share good news with others.  That it would happen early in Jesus’ ministry is not a surprise.  That it would lead to the graveyard where its import would be acknowledged by three women who were alarmed and frightened at the new is a surprise.  No one expected God’s news to be good following the crucifixion.  But God continues to remain faithful, that all things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.  It couldn’t have worked any differently for Jesus.  God’s news is good and always has been for the faithful.

• Have you ever received good news from someone that seemed to be unbelievable?
• What impact does God’s good news have on your relationship with others?
• How do you/would you share God’s good news with your friends?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of love and God of power, enable me to find joy in knowing that You have always sent messages of good news to Your people — this time from the graveyard.

       The first of the good news began in antiquity but found its heralds (the angels) from God sharing the beginning of the story.  The first good news would be told about a child wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger.  The last and best news would tell of a risen Christ clothed in garments of purity, but in a graveyard.  God’s good news always seems to come from those unexpected places.  Even as time passes, the good news of God has come from the graveyards of people’s lives where they have seen the Christ and been resurrected themselves.

• Spend time today reflecting on those times when you’ve felt dead in your spirit and needed good news from God.
• How does thinking that, perhaps once in your life, you were in a “graveyard” of sorts?
• How did God bring good news to you in your circumstance?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful Christ, empower me to share the good news of Your love and grace to those who find themselves walking in the graveyards of their own existence.

       Most of what we revisit in the resurrection of our Christ is the newness of life that comes with His rising.  But there is something much deeper involved.  It is the faithfulness of our God who put things in place centuries before Christ lived out his fate.  It’s the faithfulness of Christ who faithfully served and suffered so that our salvation would be secure.  And it was the faithfulness of God who brought Isaiah’s words to fruition so that we would know that God’s hand was in it.  Isaiah’s words are clear and short.  God’s word happened just as He said they would.  What confidence we can have in our God when not even the passage of time can thwart God’s plan.  That, too, is very good news.

• Isaiah’s prophecy comes to bear in Jesus’ life. What are some other promises of God that have been good news to you in your faith journey?
• What other prophetic words given to the prophets from God have been good news to you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of faithfulness and promise, Your word is transcendent beyond time and space. Enable me to discover Your good news in every word of Your truth.

       There were heavenly witnesses to all that happened at the crucifixion of Jesus.  All heaven was watching.  But there were human witnesses as well.  Three women saw his death from afar. Three women also made the journey to the tomb on Sunday morning to complete some much-needed business.  With so many witnesses, the good news — that he was raised from the dead was even more profound.  The good news from the graveyard was witnessed by more than the few.  God’s good news was neither a secret nor a confidential matter.  It was there for all to see.  The kind of alarming, good news that came from the graveyard on Resurrection morning was too good to keep, even if the women who went to anoint Jesus’ body were too afraid to say anything.

• How do you see yourself as a living witness to humanity of God’s good news from the graveyard?
• What are you willing to do to insure that God’s good news continues to be told?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, lead me deeper into my faith through the power of those who have seen and experienced Your good news from the graveyard of Christ that I may continue to tell the story.

       Our thoughts about death are rarely comfortable ones.  In fact, our thoughts about death and entry into cemeteries are often viewed with a sense of terror and fright.  Many of the frightening images we receive from literature and the filming industry tend to focus on the despairing thoughts of death and where bodies are finally laid to rest.  Those images are not altered by our own thoughts about death.  Death is viewed as the last experience for human efforts, and the graveyard is the place we go to see where all human efforts at life have been brought to a screeching halt.  So, there is the notion that there is nothing good that would or could ever come out of a graveyard.  Even the current series, “The Walking Dead”, honors the notion that death and the living dead should be feared.  And yet the resurrection of Christ stands in stark contrast to that idea.  To know that God has reinforced His love for us by raising Jesus from the grave is God’s affirmation that Christ told the truth about God — that God loves us so much that not even death would come between us and our God.  To know that God loves us beyond the stronghold of death is the best news ever, and it’s not alarming at all.  In fact, it’s great news wherever we are.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Eternal and loving God, empower my faith to remove my astonishment of Christ’s empty tomb, but let my faith in Christ’s resurrection from the dead reassure me that not even death can keep us apart. And that’s truly good news from the graveyard.

       The commandment was to rest on the Sabbath day.  According to the story, God worked for six days and on the seventh day rested, and then commanded us to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.  But, what else could you do after you’d seen your hopes and dreams placed in an empty tomb?  Watching your future crash before you takes an emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual toll on the body.  Rest may not only be what is wanted, but time with the God who can still deliver us is always required.

• What is it that makes a day a Sabbath day for you?
• What is it that gets in the way of your Sabbath day becoming a sacred day set aside to rest and meditate upon the Lord?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to take time to make a sacred space for resting my heart, mind, soul, and spirit from the burdens of life’s trauma and burdens.

       He died.  There are no other words to describe it.  We may relive the agony of it, the horrid way in which his life was taken.  We may go over in our minds what it all meant.  But on this day, “Good Friday”, we acknowledge that Jesus died.  It’s an historical fact.  And for those whose hopes had been filled with the expectation of life and the coming of the kingdom, their hopes died and were buried with him.  But Jesus didn’t die on the cross alone.  All of our sins (past and future) died with him.  Those who were there were blind to that reality.

• What do you think Jesus’ death on the cross did to the faith of the disciples and those who followed Jesus.
• What do you think they were feeling when they saw him nailed to the cross and finally die?
• What does it mean for you to know that your sins (past and future died on the cross with Jesus?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, grant me the grace to remember with respect and open my eyes to the faith that what died on the cross with Jesus were my sins.

       The last meal has become standard fare for those who were facing the death penalty.  Perhaps it’s a way for us to deal with our feelings of guilt, or to provide those who are about to die to have one last indulgence.  Jesus, too, had one last indulgence — to be with his friends at his last meal during the holiest period of the year.  And yet, a cruel truth must be revealed.  When informed that one of them was going to betray him, everyone responded, “Surely, not I?”  One of them would betray him.  Perhaps it was the one whose faith had become blind to what God was actually doing.  And perhaps not all, but if blind faith is being ignorant of what God is doing in our midst and trying to invoke our will above the will of God, most of us would be found guilty at some point.

• Have you ever considered how we often betray Christ day to day by doing things that do not represent our loyal praise of him?
• Have you ever had an “aha” moment when you realized it was you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful Christ, empower me to come to terms with my blind faith and the guilt of ever betraying You. And yet, convict me and grant me grace whenever I do.

       Blind faith is not new.  At least not the kind of blind faith that compels us to follow people whom we neither know, nor fully understand.  We give our trust, our money, our time, our energy, and virtually anything else to someone we believe in.  But when it comes to Christ, we become selective about what and how much we’re willing to give to the living God.  And this is not a criticism.  It’s simply an observation.  Perhaps it’s a character trait of the human condition.  Jesus was aware of it when he walked the earth and noted it in our scripture for today.  Perhaps our blind faith is based more on what we hope to see, rather than that which is happening right before our eyes.  In fact, our blind faith to others who come in their own name may be what’s preventing us from be wholly loyal to Christ.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, help me to become aware of those people and things to which I submit my faith to blindly. Strengthen me to open my eyes so that I may always see you as deserving the glory.

       When there is an important event, or someone is made king, providing a welcoming walkway is expected.  When Jehu was being made king, people threw their coats down as a sign of respect and honor.  Today, when there’s and important event, people roll out the red carpet.  It’s a sign that something of significance is taking place and that “royalty” (if nothing more than of stage and screen) are going to be present.

       When they laid down palm branches and threw their coats before Jesus, it was their way of proclaiming him their king.  The question will always be whether or not their proclamation was based on traditional expectations, or whether they were heralding in another type of king — whether they were operating from a point of faith that affirmed what they already believed, or whether they were working from a position of blind faith — not knowing exactly what they were experiencing.  But for this day and time, they were willing to give him their loyal praise.

• In this contemporary culture, in what ways do you demonstrate by your actions that Christ is King?
• If Christ were entering into the Holy city of Your heart, what would you put down as a sign of honor and respect?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ and King, accept my honor and tribute to You as my celebration of Your sovereign rule in my life. Let my praise of You be loyal and real.

       My father used to say from time to time when I was a child, “Mark my word.”  It meant that what he had said would eventually come to pass, and I could count on its truth as having been said at that time.  The prophet Zechariah said that Israel’s King would come to his people in the Holy City riding on a donkey.  I would presume that no one in Zechariah’s time ever said, “Mark my word.”  And yet, God has been faithful throughout eternity to bring to pass the assurance of the reality of God’s word.  God’s faithfulness should inspire loyal praise, even today.  And you don’t have to take my word for it.  You can “mark God’s word.”  Or as the prophet Isaiah reminds us —

       11 so is my word that goes out of my mouth:

          it will not return to me void,

       but it will accomplish that which I please,

         and it will prosper in the thing I sent it to do. (Isaiah 55:11)

• Is there anything in God’s faithful promises that inspires you to give loyal praise to Christ?
• If yes, is that something that inspires you strong enough to make you praise God so that God doesn’t have to depend upon the stones to give praise?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, enable me to always give loyal praise to You because of Your faithful promise to Your people. Let my loyal praise be an inspiration to others.

       Three years is a long time spend with someone, listening to them teach, watching them work miracles, believing that they are the One who was to come to make the enemies of Israel their footstool.  And then to hear the people chanting the words of prophecies of old, making even more vivid that their time had come.  Their faith was finally going to become sight — or so they thought.

       Faith can be considered blind in more than one way.  It can be blind when we believe so strongly in something that we proceed without having any evidence that what we believe is going to take place.  Or it can be blind because we’ve failed to see what was happening right before our very eyes — not what we wanted to believe, but what was actually happening as God intended.  The disciples spent three years with Jesus and yet it wasn’t until God’s plan of faith was fully complete that they understood the who, what, and why of Jesus.  I wonder how many years of faith we spend believing in Jesus but remain totally unaware of what God is doing right before our very eyes.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, open my eyes to Your divine plans happening right before my eyes that I might understand Your will and purpose so that my faith is not blind.

       Obedience as a means of discipline has lost it’s since of importance in our world and culture.  We’ve evolved into a culture that prides itself on valuing a person’s individual pursuits.  So, we say, “do your own thing; you do you, and I’ll do me, and you don’t know me, so you can’t judge me … “ all of which leads to a person making their own rules as they go along.  The only virtue by which to abide is the “Law of Me.”  And yet in our relationship with God, obedience is the key to a healthy relationship with Christ.  It prevents the kind of spiritual suffering that occurs when we’ve broken covenant with God.  And it may well prevent the kind of physical suffering that comes with it.  But being obedient can also bring the kind of suffering that is redemptive in its understanding.  It’s the kind of obedience that glorifies God.  Saul understood it, but too late.  Christ understood it, was obedient, and suffered for his obedience that God might be glorified.  There is something to be gained by suffering for God’s glory and not our own.

• Have you ever been obedient to God and suffered for your obedience in a way that gave God the glory?
• What challenges do we face in our decisions to be obedient to God?
• What can be gained by our obedience which is better than sacrifices?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and Gracious God, empower me by Your grace and power, to live a life that is obedient to You that You might receive the glory.

       There is a tendency for us to believe that when we suffer, we suffer alone.  Often it’s because others may empathize with our situation, but they’re not fully aware of what it is we’re going through.  That’s true even when someone has gone through a similar circumstance.  The truth remains that even though the circumstances are similar, the particulars of each situation are different.  Then perhaps, there is some truth to that old spiritual song whose words proclaim,

          Nobody knows the trouble I've seen;

          Nobody knows my sorrow.

          Nobody knows the trouble I've seen;

          Glory, Hallelujah!

Perhaps it is within the truth that no one else knows our trouble that the words of the Psalmist then proclaims – just as we can – that in our trouble God has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted and has not hidden God’s face from us.  If God is with us in our suffering, then in some peculiar way we are suffering for God’s glory.  Because Christ has become the High Priest, no one knows the trouble we’ve seen.  Nobody knows but Jesus.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, continue to look upon the affliction of Your people, and stay with us during times of suffering that our suffering may ascribe to you all the glory.

       I imagine that it’s difficult to see your personal suffering coming at you full speed while knowing that your desire to avoid it is not the primary concern.  There must be a great deal of internal suffering that goes into to making the decision to sacrifice your will to the will of God – to submit to God’s plan while pleading for your life in the midst of the unknown.  And I can’t even imagine that my ensuing suffering would cause me such distress that God’s personal Care Minister – an angel – would be sent to tend to my suffering in order to strengthen me for what was to come.  At some point it all seems so overwhelming to think that the agony of Christ began before the actual physical suffering took place.

       Somehow, suffering for the glory of God doesn’t touch us in that way.  I can’t imagine what that would be like.  And yes, there have been those who have faced death for the right to vote, the right to sit on a bus, the right to eat in a bathroom, use a rest room, and drink from a water fountain.  And while it might have been done for the sake of justice, I’m not certain that those were perceived as acts that would directly give God the glory.  To face death, not for a cause we perceived as righteous, somehow pales in comparison to the suffering Jesus was to face.  And then, perhaps it was all done to the glory of God.

• Has there ever been a time when you felt you would be willing to face death knowing that your suffering would give glory to God?
• How did you experience you suffering at that time?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and merciful God, teach me to face my suffering with courage, trusting that through it all, you will be with me and receive the glory and praise.

       I must have been a marvelous experience to have heard God proclaim to Jesus in the midst of those who heard, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you!”, especially since it had never happened before.  It established a connection between Christ and the creator that is vastly different than the one we experience.  Or, is it?

       While God did not speak in ways that those around us could hear, each of us has been claimed by God who has said to each one of us in our own way, “You are my son/daughter … in Christ I have claimed you as my own!”  We heard God speaking to our heart.  It was typically following God’s proclamation in our heart that we stood before the congregation and professed that God had claimed us, and that we were claiming God and Christ.  In making our professions, we essentially agreed that we would become a part of God’s family.  What we didn’t realize was that at some point suffering would be a part of our life with Christ.  Just as God glorified Christ by claiming him as his Son, Christ has glorified us by claiming us as members in God’s family.  The glorification is not our own, and the suffering that we do in Christ’s name gives glory to God in the same way that Christ’s suffering glorified God.  Because of Christ and his suffering, we are now one with him.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to live up to the glory you have given my by including me in your family. Help me to draw closer to You and Christ through my suffering in Your name.

       There’s a story that points to our relationship to Christ and suffering.  We don’t often consider that suffering has any real purpose in our lives, other than to cause us pain.  But there is a connection to our suffering when we consider that suffering for God’s glory has some redemptive benefit.

       On September 2, 1945 the documents of surrender officially ending World War II were signed by the Japanese and designated representatives of allied nations. General Douglas MacArthur officiated the ceremony aboard the USS Missouri and was the last to sign on behalf of the United States.

       MacArthur, flanked by his military colleagues, took his Parker fountain pen and simply signed his first name "Douglas." He then passed the pen to General Wainwright, who signed "Mac." MacArthur then handed the pen to General Percival, who signed "Arthur."

       This unusual procedure was MacArthur's way of honoring the two United States generals who had suffered severe persecution as prisoners of war. They had persevered, and now they were allowed to share in the glory of victory.

In Romans 8:17 Paul describes the future of those who persevere in the spiritual battles we fight this side of heaven.  He calls them joint-heirs.  Those who share in the sufferings of Christ will also share in his glory.[1]

       While our suffering may seem irrelevant in and of itself, if done with the purpose of seeking God’s glory as Christ, did, then we become partners with Christ in ways that give glory to God, and joint heirs with him as we share in his glory as children of God.

[1] Greg Asimakoupoulos, author and speaker, Naperville, Illinois

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and Loving God, empower me with Your presence that my suffering may be because I chose to do Your will. Let my suffering for Your sake give honor and glory to You.

       We all perhaps know people who live and exist in the radiance of their own personhood.  They’re unabashedly unafraid and unashamed to tell any and everyone they meet how great they are.  And as is often the case, they are unable to live up to the hype they sell about themselves.  The problem with their self-glorification is that other people can see through their many flaws, and that they lack the humility to recognize their shortcomings.

       On the other hand, when a person’s talents or affirmations come from someone else, and those who acknowledge the talents and achievements of others is broadly accepted, it becomes much easier to not only accept the glory of that person, but to believe that what others are saying about them is true.  It’s even more honorable when the person laying the acclaim on a person is not the person themselves, or their friends and acquaintances, but it is God who has raised that person up as someone to be looked up to.  When God gives the glory, there is a great likelihood that any suffering that is experienced will only give glory to the God who has allowed a person to endure the suffering, because that person is more likely to point to God as the source of their successes, and not to themselves as the one responsible for their self-glorification.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, humble me by the power of Your Spirit, that in all things, that I will not seek my own glory, but if I am asked to suffer, my suffering will give glory to you.

       Many people have suffered in life.  So, suffering — in and of itself — is not new to the human family.  And we each suffer for different reasons, though it’s unlikely that we choose suffering on our own, or for ourselves as a part of life and living.  If we’re honest, we avoid suffering and all of the pain and agony that go along with it.  However, that was not Jesus’ choice.  If we consider what he did and how he did it – more importantly, “why” he did it – we find an answer much different than the one we would offer in our suffering.  Our suffering comes about for different reasons.  We make bad decisions and suffer; become ill and suffer; see our friends hurt and suffering and we suffer; but our suffering is more or less a result of an uninvited incident that changes our circumstances from one of normalcy to one that we have to endure.  Our suffering doesn’t have behind it the pure motive of glorifying God.  God’s glory may be something that comes out of it, but we don’t typically make a decision to suffer for no other reason than God receive the glory.

       That’s the fundamental difference between our suffering and Christ’s suffering.  We suffer incidentally.  Christ’s suffering was intentional and for no other purpose than to give glory to God.  He was anointed and appointed to take on suffering. And it was his suffering through his obedience to God that gave glory to God and secured our salvation. Suffering for God’s glory has a redemptive quality to it.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, we give thanks and praise that you chose to suffer obediently to glorify God and secure our salvation. Give me the strength to suffer obediently for your sake that you may be glorified.

       The whole of what it means to living a Masterful life generally comes down to our relationship with God and how we experience living out of that relationship.  One way of doing displaying a relationship with God is to say that we have a relationship with God while doing all kinds of things that point to the opposite.  The truest way of living a masterful relationship is to live doing the things that the Master would do.  That would be an indication that we are in an authentic masterful relationship.  One cannot wear two faces without it eventually becoming apparent which one is true.  In other words, that which is done in darkness will eventually come to light.

• What is happening in your life that would give clear evidence to others that you are walking in the light of a relationship with Jesus Christ?
• What challenges do you face that might indicate the challenges of walking in the light?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and Gracious God, enable me to live my life in a way that shows others the true light of Your grace through the things I do.

       I was once told that there were two kinds of dirt.  There is dark dirt that gets on light stuff, and light dirt that gets on dark stuff.  It would seem that there are also two kinds of light.  There is ‘light’ light — works that speak to the goodness of a person when they are exposed.  And then there is dark light — works and deeds which become light when they are exposed but speak to things that are reprehensible.  Masterful living invites us to do things that present us as children of light — God’s good works in the world.  Any other light points away from God’s goodness, grace, and mercy.

• Consider the work you do for Christ. How can the work we do in Christ be done humbly and still stand out as a work of light?
• What do we need to live cautiously about so that we truly live Masterful lives?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, empower me to always live in a way that Your light might give indication of the Masterful living I do in Your name.

       One of the greatest benefits of living Masterfully is freedom — freedom from guilt; freedom from shame; the freedom to live without having to always be like a gerbil on a treadmill, always laboring to be acceptable.  Masterful living is done within the arena of grace, where those who can’t and couldn’t make it on their own would see that there is another way.  There are some who refuse to see.  And as Jonathan Swift once said: “There are none so blind as those that will not see.”  Masterful living is a way of allowing the master to be our eyes.

• Has there ever been a time when you were unwilling to see a truth that was right before your eyes?
• What do you experience when the light of truth finally opens your eyes?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and merciful God, open my eyes that I may see, glimpses of truth thou hast for me; open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine. (UMH #454)

       There is a benefit to masterful living —living in a way that models Christ) — that we don’t frequently think about.  It is the benefit of freedom.  There is a unique burden we carry if we know we are living a life being viewed through the lens of a microscope of examination each day.  And yet it is Christ who not only had freedom in God, but offers us freedom in God to live and do good among God’s creation all of the good we can, just as he did, without the added weight of having to be perfect according to a set of religious laws.  Grace brings the perfect freedom that allows us to live life in a masterful way.

• Use today as an opportunity to reflect about what God’s grace has done for you.
• What about the idea of not being condemned invites you to live your life masterfully in the model of Jesus Christ?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to live a Masterful life that reflects Your truth to the world — that no one who accepts Christ as their sin offering are no longer condemned by law but freed by grace to live.

       The idea of living through someone else sometimes escapes us.  Our current language defines it as living vicariously through someone.  And yet, masterful living is exactly that.  It is living vicariously through Jesus so that God’s love and presence are everywhere present in the world through us.  We don’t yet experience what it is to be like Jesus until we have taken it upon ourselves to live vicariously through him.  That is Masterful living at its best.  That is God’s true purpose in Jesus — that Christ be alive, living in us, and that we live vicariously through him.

• How would your life change if you began to live vicariously through Jesus Christ?
• What good works do you think would give evidence that you were engaged in “Masterful living” — living that shines God’s light in the world through you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and Loving God, empower me with Your presence in all my ways that Jesus may live in me, and I may live vicariously through him.

       It’s hard to imagine being overwhelmed by snakes.  The story almost seems like something out of a Hollywood fantasy.  And yet, by following the word of God, their Lord and Master, those who were obedient were set free from death by looking upon a snake on a standard (a bronzed snake lying horizontally on a vertical pole) and lived.  God became their savior after they looked upon the standard.  This was God’s true purpose in Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ became the standard that we might look upon him and live — live to follow God and do it in a way that continually points to Jesus as the one responsible for our freedom.  We have a responsibility to use that freedom so that God’s love might be seen in the world.

• How does the idea of Christ as the standard of salvation align with your understanding of God’s grace
• How could you model what Christ has done so that others might see God in you?

   

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
       Gracious God, enable me to lift up Jesus Christ as the standard by which I and all people can look upon him and be saved — saved to show God’s light and love to the world.

       There are people who do all kinds of things, some of them good, some of them evil; some of them are done well, some of them are done with mediocrity and haphazardly.  It is the nature of our lives that for the most part, things that we want other people to see are the things we do well — that is unless of course the things we do well are better done in secret, behind doors through which no one can see.  We typically know that people who do such things are usually doing things in violation of everything that is holy.  That’s why they do them in ways that there acts and actions can’t be discovered.  And yet, we know our God.  And if life has taught us anything, it has taught us this:  “The truth is the light and the light shall shine”, and “That which  is done in darkness will eventually come to light!”  We also know that our God is a holy God and things done in God’s name for God’s purposes are those things that are designed to be done in the light.  They’re designed to help people — to care for people so that those on the receiving end might know the goodness of God.  Living in a manner that would glorify the Master and done in a way that the Master would invite us to live — things done openly and not in secret — well, those are things that require Masterful living — living a life that follows Jesus.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Eternal God, let my life reveal the truth about God — that Jesus came that we might model the art of Masterful living — doing good in Your name that in a way that is visible so that the world may see Your love in action.

       There is within the transfer of power, a radical change in the order of things.  It can change who has authority, why they have authority, the extent of their authority, and the tenure of their authority.  This transition can often be seen as a radical change, specifically in how people relate to the person on who the new power has been conferred.  In many cases, a power newly conferred upon someone has an impact on everyone, whether it is realized or unknown, and has the ability to cause a radical change in the relationships.  It has the ability to cause division between groups of people, especially as people come to understand how the conferred power will impact their lives.

       Nothing has changed in years.  We experience the same when there is a change of Pastor within the church, when there is a change of supervisor on the job, or even when there is the introduction of a new baby within a family.  Each of these situations can cause radical change as the dynamics of the relationships change between Pastor and congregation, supervisor and employee, or parents as they navigate what is means to have someone of power (the new baby) enter into the relationship.  The goal of radical change is, in some ways, designed to change the dynamics of our environment.  But it’s also designed to bring a new understanding of relationships to which we must adapt if we are to avoid division.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, enable and empower me to adapt to the radical changes that occur in my life. Help me to see and understand radical change in a way that doesn’t cause division.

       If you’re like most people, you were born into this world a vessel of flesh and bones, simply labeled human.  We’ve each grown bearing the pains of our human experience, whether psychological, physical,  or mental.  But there is another dimension of life that we become aware of, (the spiritual).  And the idea of our bodies being converted (not physically changed) from human form into a spiritual temple of God’s Holy Spirit, probably represents the most radical change we’ve ever experienced.  That type of radical change has occurred so subtly that many of us weren’t even aware when it happened.  At some point, acknowledging that the change has occurred happens on a mental level.  We have to acknowledge it or deny it.  But, because this radical change is done through God’s initiative and not by our initiative, the degree to which the change becomes radical is magnified.

        Radical change doesn’t necessarily mean that the change which occurs is necessarily violent or initially visible.  But it does mean that there’s an augmentation of attitude regarding the change that has occurred.  It requires and demands a different response in terms of how we consider our actions and decisions.  It’s the outcome of the change that reflects how radical the change is, and not always the change itself.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, You have converted my flesh into a living temple where You reside each day. Empower me to acknowledge my changed body as a temple where You are near and can be worshiped each day.

       God has never been reluctant to give us a sign of the radical change that disrupts our lives.  Neither Ahaz at the promise of a virgin bringing forth a child, or Christ bringing forth the sign of Jonah is enough radical change to make many people reorder their lives.  And yet, for Jesus, a sign was never enough.  The healing of the blind, the lame, and those with issues of leprosy and other health issues, wasn’t enough.  Our desire for something more spectacular — more magnificent defies our understanding of what we deem as radical.

       Radical change is God’s business.  Yet, people continue to be unmoved by the radical ways in which God has moved to include us.  Let’s consider for a moment our lives.  None of us expected the lives we’ve experienced in Christ.  And perhaps we didn’t receive the dynamic events of Pentecost, or becoming blind like Paul, or to receive the ability to heal another through touch.  But each of us has undergone something radical in how our lives have been changed and continue to be changed by the presence of the Spirit of the living Christ inside of us.  Perhaps, that is the most telling sign of God’s radical change — the presence of Christ’s Spirit inside of us, a sign visible only by how we now live.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, I thank you for giving me God’s sign of radical change, by allowing Your Spirit to reside within me.

       How devoted to God does one have to be in order to become offended at and by those who offend God?  And, how devoted to we have to be to put up with the hostility of others because of our faithfulness to God?  It would at first appear that devotion of that kind has to be above and beyond what most people are capable of.  And of course, we’d like to believe that our faith stance of believing and doing in the name of God puts us in good order.  Change — the kind of change that allows us to celebrate and thank God, “that we’re not like we were” — in some ways, allows us to become comfortable with who we are, where we are, and how we are.  But at the end of the day, we confess and admit that we’re not overzealous about our religion or our faith.  We’ve assumed a “live and let me live” attitude which doesn’t reflect the radical change that God has impacted in our lives.

       I can only speak for myself to say that my relationship with God was so radical that people were unable to believe that the new reports about my life were actually true.  And while I recognize that not everyone has had or lived my experience, I — along with many others — have failed to fall into the category of being “overzealous.”  I’ve never been eaten up inside by my desire to do God’s bidding and protect God’s Kingdom.  Yet, I continually wonder if that degree of passion is gained through a daily relationship with Christ, or whether it’s that degree of radical change that we all live for.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, I give thanks to the One who was and is consumed with zeal for Your house. It is their passion which has opened the door of grace for me to be who I am. Grow in me the zeal that Your servant has that I may be consumed by Your spirit.

       For years God has been telling us (God’s people) that He was coming.  We’ve been told the way in which God would appear and the circumstances under which God’s appearance would impact our world.  Nevertheless, we have assumptions and presumptions that God’s appearance would somehow be unremarkable.  We note the gentleness with which Christ entered into our world and continue sing “Silent Night” to commemorate the event.  At another important time of our celebrative year, we sing only of His resurrection, remarking that the radical change which God promised would come (the raising of his temple in three days) has happened and that we can celebrate that, “It’s over!  He’s been raised.”  And we celebrate with great fanfare that it’s done.  What we often overlook is the radical change that affects us in his coming and going and even in his presence.  And if we answer the question, “Who can withstand the day of his coming?”, the answer has to be, “No one.”

        Change in its simplest form only impacts a few people.  But God’s coming has been so radical that it has impacted everyone — those who believe and those who don’t; those who know and those who didn’t know; those who were alive and yet to come, and those who had been and are no more.  There is no change more radical than that which proclaims and fulfills the promises of God — that which has the capacity to purify us and make everyone’s offering to God acceptable.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving God, enable me to accept and appreciate the radical change You create in my life —that which purifies me and makes my offering acceptable to You.

       It’s difficult to celebrate life when your life is the control of another.  When another person controls where you sleep, when you sleep, when, what, and where you eat, when you work, how long you work and the conditions under which you work, life and the celebration is nothing more than a thought.  But when you become liberated from harsh working conditions and all other dynamics related to your enslavement, any change would be considered radical.  Not only would your liberation and the freedom you experience from your liberation be radical, but the freedom to celebrate and commemorate the date of your freedom, and the celebration of any kind would be a radical change from the past.

       Sometimes radical change can come with or without warning.  But to be moved from slavery to freedom, from isolation to community, from danger to safety, and from powerlessness to power can radically change a person’s life.  God often acts in our lives in ways that enable us to experience radical change.  The first Passover celebration must have been a radical departure from the experiences of Israel’s past.  They went from no celebration of life to a full all-out celebration of the freedom they received at God’s direction.  And yet, God continues to invite us to accept a radically changed lifestyle, even in something as important as receiving and celebrating the freedom that our God has provided us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, lead me to the place where I can both celebrate and accept the change in my life that keeps me conscious of your mercy and grace.

       Everyone I know suffers from what is known as “the Human Condition”.  It’s that very normal condition based on our human experience.  It’s so common among all people that we become unaware of our tendency to fall into what we’ve commonly called a “rut”.  And we define a rut as a condition which is experienced so often and so regularly that we become both familiar and comfortable with it.  It’s at this point that the idea of any change to our situation is met with resistance.  The idea of change causes us to panic.  And one of the first things we do to highlight our discomfort is to question the authority of the person making the change.  We want to know where these new changes originate from, or who authorized or gave permission for these changes to be initiated.

       When change comes, it often requires a radical departure from our traditional ways of doing things.  This is especially true when the change is initiated by God.  We may not even recognize when the change begins, or even recognize it as the beginning of something new.  We only notice that something is radically different from before — different in a way that catches us off guard.  And sometimes that change comes in surprising ways!

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, You help me to embrace the radical change You create in my life. Enable me to leave behind old models of living that don’t reflect my new relationship with You.

       The nature of who Christ is to us is, in very real ways, determined by our response to Christ’s call upon our lives.  In other words, we must always be willing to ask ourselves this question: “Will our lives be authentic in following the necessary Ideas of what it means to be Christian?  Or will we live remaining content to accept God’s grace in vain and continue to live according to our own rules of behavior.  In the nature of our relationship with God, there can only be one person leading.  The rest of us are invited to deny ourselves and follow Christ.  Denying ourselves may be the 2nd most difficult thing in the world to do.  The most difficult thing will be to follow Jesus

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, Take my will, and make it thine; it shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own; it shall be thy royal throne. Take myself, and I will be, ever, only, all for thee. (#399 UMH)

       At times, I’m amazed at how cheaply we value the life we’ve received from God.  We sell it for nickels and dimes.  We undervalue it when we purchase our life-insurance policies.  And in truth, it’s really a death assurance policy.  If we’re honest with ourselves and others, our life  is a priceless gift.  Yet, despite the fact that God’s gift of life to us is priceless, it seems that we are not opposed to trading it for something unequal to its value.  Power, money, fame, drugs, and alcohol, even cheap relationships with other people are normal items of trade.  But we will also give up life to hold on to the illusions of control, and the desire to have our will over God’s when God has promised us eternal life, something that has already been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ.  It is Christ who holds our life assurance policy, no matter how much we pay for the one in our safe deposit boxes.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, teach me to truly value the life You’ve given me. Give me the wisdom to not trade what is priceless for that which is worthless.

       Death is called the great equalizer.  It renders the rich, the poor, the sick, the healthy, the famous, and the infamous all the same and casts them in the same light of truth.  It doesn’t discriminate.  If that is true, why is it that we spend so much time collecting and trying to hold on to things we cannot keep and that do not promise life?  And why do we do it at the expense of allowing our relationship to and each other God to waste away?  It’s possible to be blessed with great abundance in many things, but what do we gain if in gaining those things we lose our sense of self, our dignity and self-respect, or even more importantly, our relationship with God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, teach me the true value of the importance of my life lived in Your will. Empower me to focus on Your big picture and humbly hold onto that which is eternal.

       We have to admit that we are often blind to those things that God does right before our very eyes.  It’s not that we don’t want to see the truth or know the truth.  We have a natural curiosity about God, our world, and how God makes those spiritual events happen.  We’d like to be able to say, “Here it is,” or, “There it is!”  Our difficulty comes in stepping back when we believe we do see what God is doing, following God’s will ,and allowing God to lead us rather than leaning to our own understanding.  It’s not always easy to blindly follow Christ.  We’d like to know where Christ is leading us, walking by sight and not by faith.  Yet, Christ invites us to trust that God will lead us where we are supposed to go, even if it means suffering to get there.  That means following Christ, trusting that the result of our following him will lead to a heavenly end.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me, when my vision of Your will is unclear, to take my rightful place behind You and follow Your leading of my life.

       Those of us who have accepted Christ as the Messiah have little trouble believing that he is the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One.  Nevertheless, it is not a “done deal” for many people.  And while the affirmation of who Christ is can come to us because of an intellectual pursuit, it also comes to us as a spiritual affirmation of God within us.  And with that affirmation, there are certain other things that God confirms within us that are a part of God’s eternal truth.  Those who look for a sign, often ignore the signs right in front of their faces.  Others who seek for Jesus to make plain his identity before them risk his silence.  Some will have to wait until the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One, coming on the clouds of heaven.  Nevertheless, the story of the suffering, death, and resurrection is as real as the identity of Christ in our lives even before he comes again.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
All Wise God, continue to affirm within me Your truth about the Christ. Empower me to carry my cross of faith and not to be deterred from Your truth into doubt or disbelief.

       We live constantly with spiritual perplexities.  We can’t make sense of God and what God is doing in our world.  And so, we search for an understanding of our own — one that will allow our mind will be at peace with itself.  But life is complex and circular.  The things we think are settled seem to come back to us in “déjà vu” fashion.  And yet, all the time our mind is working, there is uncertainty.  There is uncertainty about what we think we know, and at all times, uncertainty about the things we don’t know.  This will always happen when we try to know everything that God is doing.  It is a much easier task for us if we simply free God to do what God does and trust that God is in control while we accept God’s activities and our uncertainty about them as one of life’s norms.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
All gracious God, teach me — not knowing what Your plans are and how they are unfolding — to trust that in following You I will gain my life.

       Life is supposed to be fairly simple.  There shouldn’t be tremendous complications around how to live or how to make life meaningful.  That is how it’s “supposed” to be.  However, life comes with certain complexities — challenges if you will — that seem to distract us from what life and living are really supposed to be about.  This is particularly true where God and God’s plan for life is concerned.  We have our agenda.  Distracted, by the things of the world, we’ve come to know what we value — what’s important to us.  We know how we want things to start and how we want things to end up.  In short, we want to be in control.  But those are all physical things we wish to control; things which have no connection, necessarily, to the spirit.  We who worship God, are invited to worship God with that which is in essence that part of God alive in us — God’s Spirit.  Now, to do that, there are only three simple rules:

1. First, deny all of those feelings and thoughts we have about setting our own agenda.  Bury our desire to see our plan fulfilled and pursue the things of God.  In short, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.  And remember, there are only two plans: our plan and God’s plan, and our plan doesn’t count (or at least it’s not supposed to count more than God’s plan).
2. Second, pick up our own cross.  It is not our cross to choose.  It is, however, our cross to bear.  That may require pursuing an issue that is unjust and unpopular among the status quo, and more than likely will cause suffering; and,
3. Humbly follow Christ wherever Christ leads us, even if it is down a road of righteousness that leads to our death.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, empower me with the desire to boldly follow Your three simple rules. Give me the humility to yield my life to God’s will, the courage to embrace suffering for love’s sake, and the discipline to follow wherever You lead me, without straying from the path.

       Life is precious and temporary — at least it is for those who haven’t found a way to navigate around life’s end called death.  And yet, it seems that God’s true purpose may have as much to do with life in its temporary state as it does with life in its eternal reality.  God’s purpose through Jesus Christ both amplifies and clarifies God’s purpose in life for us now and eternally.  And that purpose is that all who believe in Christ today would have it today, and that those who have accepted that gift of grace would live with the assurance that it can never be taken away.  They will have it forever.  God’s true purpose doesn’t affect us as a just now, or then reality.  It carries its impact on us from then (past history), to now, and into our eternal future.

• What comes to mind when you think that God’s true purpose was to insure eternal life for you?
• What is an appropriate response to God’s purpose in Jesus Christ?
• Why is that response important?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving and Faithful God, enable me to live knowing that Your true purpose — my eternal life — has been assured by my faith in Jesus Christ today, Your gift of eternal grace.

       Thoughts of our destiny are not usually a conversation piece in everyday life.  We live more as “now people” rather than “when and then people” of the future. We’ve always been more concerned about today than tomorrow except when worry about sickness, money, or family enters in.  But both today and tomorrow have always been God’s concern for us.  Because today is so temporary, we’re reminded that “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” (2 Cor. 6:2).  God has plans for us that extend far before our beginning to our ultimate end, when “God gathers up all things in him in heaven and earth.  It’s a time that speaks of the end and does not lie. (Habakkuk 2:3).  That is God’s true purpose for humanity.

• In what ways does God’s purpose for you in the future impact the way you live today?
• What can you do now that would honor God’s care and love for you in the end?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Eternal God, empower me to embrace Your true purpose to confirm my eternal destiny as well as Your love for me today.

       For some of us, the idea of living in a relationship with God is of extreme importance.   We typically believe that once our business of confirming our relationship with God is done, so too, is our responsibility.  But sometimes God’s picture is bigger than our mind’s eye can imagine.  And if I understand it correctly (and I think I do) the issue is not so much about my eternity with God.  The issue is getting others who have not yet come to turn away from whatever their old understanding of God is to “hear the good news” adopt the “good news” understanding of God’s tremendous love for us.

• Does shifting the focus from your personal salvation to God’s great desire to save us all in love change your desire to share the truth about God with others?
• What is one way you can begin to share the story with others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, help me to live as an outward expression of Your love for others so that they may see Your real purpose and believe the good news about You.

       The scripture, John 3:16, has used so often and become so popular that it’s almost hackneyed.  Just seeing the words, ”John 3:16” in print calls to people to remember what it says.  Some people have used it as a message of condemnation and others have used it without any explanation at all.  Yet, it is the heart of that message that expresses God’s true purpose for us all — to be saved and to be involved in a relationship with God that is born of love and not, anger or wrath.  For too long, the world has been made aware of God’s wrath, fearing it, but never quite enough to be transformed by their fear.  What we (those of us who believe and have a relationship of love with Jesus Christ) have adequately failed to do is reveal God’s loving nature, and the wideness of God’s mercy for others to embrace.  That’s the truth about God and God’s purpose.

• Take time today to reflect on God’s purpose for sending Jesus into the world to save it.
• How will you act to insure that God’s true purpose is reflected in your life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to be an active expression of Your loving nature in the world that others may experience Your love and know the truth of Your purpose.

       Those of us who are Christian have arrived at two truths.  One — Jesus is the Son of God, and two — we have believed because we have heard the good news?  Now, there may be many other truths we believe about Jesus.  However, it is the ongoing witness of this truth — that Jesus is the Son of God — that leads others to know who Jesus is.  And it allows them to know not just God’s true purpose, but our true purpose.  At some point, we are compelled to tell others the truth about God and God’s true purpose, or else God’s true purpose will become tainted with untruths, half-truths, and no truths at all.

• Does knowing who Jesus is and his purpose create in You any desire to share that truth with others?
• Have you ever considered sharing your story of how you discovered the truth about God’s purpose?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of Truth and Love, empower me to become a means by which the ongoing message about who Christ is and Your purpose for sending him among us may be told.

       Prophets of old prayed about it — that God would come down from highest heaven and be among God’s people so that God’s true purpose would be revealed to all who had eyes to see. It was not to be some timid coming, but one that was visually powerful.  To be honest, the image of God’s presence as Isaiah tells it causes the fear factor to rise.  And yet, what other image did they have of God beyond the one they lived with.  Though God chose a gentler way — the prayer was answered with power, as a bright and shining star appeared in the sky leading others to discover the child born in a manger.  God came down and the results of Isaiah’s prayer and desire for God to come down were accomplished.

• What different image do you have of God coming down to be with God’s people than that of Isaiah?
• Does your image or Isaiah’s image conflict with God’s true purpose?
• If so, in what way?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, help me to believe and understand that Your true purpose spoken of by the prophets was fulfilled, and was always to come down and be present with Your people.

       There have been many things said about God and stories told about God.  In a previous age of antiquity, poor health was considered to be a curse by God because of some previous sin.  Wealth, on the other hand, was considered to be God’s blessing on those who had won God’s favor.  It’s easy to see how the lines around God’s truth and God’s true purpose could become blurred.  After all, which God do we believe in — the  God who curses people who are sick because of some other person’s sins, or the God who blesses those who already have an abundance with more because they have found some special favor with God?  That’s not good news for those who are poor, sick, or disparaged.  It could be that both of those images are distortions in some ways.  Both images lack God’s truth that God “… makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:47).  Both lack the fundamental truth of who God is and how God truly operates with the truth being known by God and God alone.  Enter Jesus Christ, our Emmanuel, our God with us, who says repent — turn away from all previous knowledge we’ve contrived and believed from erroneous sources about God and sin.  Turn toward God — the one whom God sent and walks among us and believe the good news.  Believe the truth about who God is and God’s true purpose for humanity as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, teach me to turn away from every untruth told about you so that in Christ, I may come to know who You truly are and learn Your true purpose for our world from those who believe the good news.

       All days are ordinary for most of us.  We typically awaken in the morning to proceed on with our day.  Even when our days are bookended by prayer, for the most part they are ordinary.  However, they can be thrown into the realm of the uncommonly holy days, when we hear God speak to us through the word of Holy Scripture, or when we hear God’s proclamation from a prophet of our time.  The words of the prophet Isaiah spoke to the people of his day making their day uncommonly holy in the midst of what was ordinary.  That is not unusual.  God speaks to us, usually during those ordinary times of our lives.  Sometimes directly, sometimes in the words of a prophet, and sometimes through the words of Scripture.  But whenever and however God speaks to us, it transforms those times in an ordinary day into uncommonly holy moments.  What makes it uncommonly holy is that we hear what God is saying.

• When have you heard God speaking to you either personally, through a current day preacher or prophet, or through the words of Holy Scripture?
• How was your day changed by the exchange?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, continue to open my heart and ears to Your voice speaking to me by whatever means You choose. Transform the ordinary times in my life into uncommonly holy moments.

       Sunday was Transfiguration Sunday in the life of the Christian church.  It marked the last Sunday before we enter into the period of Lent in which Jesus entered the wilderness for forty days and forty nights.  What marked Jesus’ trek up the mountain was the holy moment in which a cloud covered the disciples and they heard the word of God speaking to them.  It was an uncommonly holy moment for them.  However, they were not alone in experiencing an uncommonly holy moment.  Centuries before, Moses also entered the cloud and heard God speaking to him to offer the law written on tablets.

       And yet prior to Moses entering the cloud, what would have been an ordinary day for Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, was an uncommonly holy moment in which they not only saw God and lived, but they also saw God, and ate and drank.  We are truly blessed when we’re invited to experience those uncommonly holy moments only available to us by the grace and power of God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, we’re thankful for Your word that allows us to hear You speak to us in Your Word so that we might experience uncommonly holy moments in an otherwise ordinary day.

       When Moses was given the law commanding that the people should dwell in booths and Nehemiah issued the order for them to build shelters for the people to dwell in, it would not have been an uncommon idea.  It wasn’t an ordinary day for Nehemiah or Moses because it was a day of celebration to honor God’s faithfulness because of the return of the exiles to their home.  It was a day that had already been declared a holy day unto the Lord.  The fact that this was a special celebration which made the entire day a holy time unto the Lord, removed any indication that this was an ordinary day.  And yet, it just might have been that the simple act of collecting branches, of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, enabled the people to discover some uncommonly holy moments in the ordinariness of work.  It seems that God is able to disclose himself in the common events of the day to reveal to us uncommonly holy moments.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to seek Your holiness in the common acts of work and worship that that I might experience Your presence as uncommonly holy moments.

       Perhaps we all become bored with the idea of waiting.  The disciples didn’t have video games to occupy their minds and time as they waited on Jesus to pray.  It just might be that those three, the same three who climbed the mountain with Jesus when he was transfigured were inconsiderate of Jesus’ feelings about being ‘sorrowful, even to death’.  Perhaps the idea of watching and waiting for someone else to pray inspired them to take a nap.  But whatever it was going on with them, again, they found themselves sleepy, and put themselves in a position to again, miss one of those uncommon holy moments that only God can provide.  In sleeping, they missed an opportunity to see Jesus, not as one transfigured into a vision of the consummation of the Kingdom in the presence of God, God’s Son, the Chosen One, Moses, the iconic symbol of God’s Law, and Elijah, the prophet who didn’t die.  This time they missed the uncommonly holy moment of seeing Jesus at his most fearful, anxious, and prophetic moment.  They missed the uncommonly holy moment of seeing Jesus at his most divine, his most human, and his most subservient role — a servant of God who chose to deny himself, pick up his cross, and yield his life in total obedience to God — an uncommonly holy moment in his and their lives.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, embolden me by the power of Your Spirit to stay awake long enough to experience those uncommonly holy moments that will occur in my life.

       Today is the beginning of the Lenten season.  It is a time for us to examine our lives, to consider what it means to deny ourselves, to repent,  and to consider reconciliation as a part of our covenant with God.  That reconciliation includes serious reflection on the ways in which we have broken our covenant with God.  The season lasts 40 days, giving us enough time to search deeply and reverently so that returning to God is not done to justify our previous behavior, but to come with deep and intentional sorrow for the ways in which we have either done things that might have been offensive to God, or omitted things that we should have done that would be pleasing to God.

• Ask yourself and answer each day, “What have I done today to deny myself?
• Take some time each day to examine where you might have done better representing Christ in the world.
• Ask yourself if you’re deeply sorrowful for what you’ve done or haven’t done.
• How will you repent and turn to God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Ash Wednesday Prayer —
Lead me Lord, lead me in thy righteousness.
Make thy way plain before my face.
For it is thou, Lord, thou, Lord only,
That makes me to dwell in safety.

       Our daily experience with and of God is not typically one in which we experience a personal sighting of our Creator.  We are normally resolved to see an artist’s image of who they believe God to be.  That image is sometimes taken from a story found in Holy Scripture, and sometimes it’s borne of a creation from their own mind.  Whether it’s an inspiration from Scripture or a mental representation, those moments when we see them are all ordinary.  They may lead us into a personal moment of holiness, but they’re typically pictures that we’ve all seen before and are not necessarily moved beyond the place of the ordinary.

       If, however, we were to experience a personal sighting of God — however God might appear to us — be it a vision of God enthroned in glory as Daniel saw, or a cloud descending on us as described in the Transfigurations of Jesus (Luke 9:28-34-36), or, riding a white horse (Rev. 19:11-16), I’m certain it would transform any ordinary experience into an uncommonly holy moment.  And it’s the actual personal experience of God’s reality that changes what is ordinary into an uncommonly holy moment.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, enable me by faith to trust and believe that You have especially chosen me to experience an uncommonly holy moment should it occur in my life.

       It may seem that prayer is an ordinary thing to do.  After all, most of us do it.  We perhaps kneel in prayer in the mornings, and maybe again, right before we have breakfast.  We may pray again just before we eat each meal and prior to going to bed each night.  We may pray when we hear bad news and good news.  None of these times go beyond that which is ordinary to our day or our times of prayer.  Each event is a holy moment of its own, but it may also fall into the realm of ordinary and unmemorable.

       But what if in the midst of what we perceived as an ordinary time of prayer, God intervened and spoke to us a proclamation of great significance?  I would imagine that not only would we remember it as more than just a holy moment.  We would remember it as an uncommonly holy moment.  It would be uncommonly holy because we had heard God speak directly to us.  It would be an uncommonly holy moment because it’s not something that usually happens to us when we’re in prayer.  It’s because when we typically pray, it’s more common for God to be silent while we talk, than for God to interrupt our prayer with words of clarity speaking directly, and specifically to us.  It’s not often that we experience uncommonly holy moments in our lives, but when they occur, they are a blessing to us in our hearing.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, bless me that I might engage in an ordinary time of prayer, yet in that time, I might hear Your voice speaking to me in an uncommonly holy moment.

       We are often attracted to the miracles that Jesus performs.  We love to read about and hear the stories of him healing the sick, offering grace to those who are suffering emotionally and spiritually, and speaking words of hope to the desperate and depressed.  It’s not often that we experience Jesus caught up in those common moments in his life, or our lives for that matter, that make them uncommonly Holy.  We’ve probably read before that he has gone up in the mountains to pray.  But it passes over our heads because it’s such a common everyday thing — praying, I mean.

        How often do we consider the common act of prayer as one of the more uncommonly holy moments of our day?  We don’t often enter into prayer expecting a miracle or connect anything spectacular to our prayer time, perhaps a time when God might speak to us.  After all, it’s just prayer.  Maybe — like Jesus — we all seek a place and time when we can be alone to pray.  Or perhaps we belong to a prayer group where we are surrounded by others with whom we pray. But we don’t enter into that time of prayer expecting something miraculous to occur.  And yet it may just be that in those times when we are alone with Jesus, we —by the grace of God — are allowed to experience Jesus like we’ve never experienced him before.  And for us, as for Peter, James, and John it happens when we we’re engaged in something as common to us as prayer.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, help me to experience those uncommonly holy moments in life when I can hear you speak to me, reminding me to listen to Jesus, Your chosen one.

       To see Christ is — in some ways — to see God’s presence in a way in which we recognize God’s grace and forgiveness available for all people.  Grace can only be realized by those who need it and can only be received from those who have already received the gift.  To be the children of our Father in heaven is to embody and model the distribution of love and forgiveness as freely as God gives it.  It is true that there is evil in the world.  Bad things happen and many times, the ones who are the perpetrators are us.  And yet, God’s continual challenge to us is to freely let God’s grace flow, just as God allows grace to flow, both to those who try to be faithful and to those who don’t so that they, too, may experience the unconditional love of God through our actions.  It’s in seeing God in Christ for who Christ is that this grace can be distributed so freely.

• Recall a time when you believe you were treated poorly by someone whom you believed didn’t like you.
  • Did you find yourself thinking of ways to harm them or did you try to find ways to forgive them?
• What would have been the appropriate dispensation of God’s grace?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, empower me to be a vessel of Your grace to all people, allowing others to see the image of You in me even if they have sought by their actions to harm me.

       The history of our relationship to each other as God’s creation is less than stellar.  We fail to understand what grace is or accept it when it is presented to us.  We have often heaped violence upon others because we believed we were right and thought it was God’s will.  The Crusades, the Salem Witch trials, many wars that are waged, and slavery — all of these things have been done in the name of God, mostly in our efforts to show our diligent worship to a God who is eternally opposed to our hurting one another.  And yet, none of these acts even comes close to truly worshiping God or giving any evidence of God’s grace.  They were only evidence that gave evidence of how misguided our knowledge of God has been.  We proclaim we know God, but our failure to see, either in Spirit or in truth who God is continually leads us to do harm to one another in God’s name.

• Have you ever persecuted or treated someone unfairly because you believed God was being served by your actions?
• Have you ever been persecuted or treated unfairly because someone believed God was being served by their actions?
• What did you do when you realized your actions were improperly motivated?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving God, teach and enable me to see and know You. Guide my heart, mind, and actions so that I don’t do hurtful things that falsely represent You.

       Life isn’t easy for those who are the target of people motivated to do them harm.  And our record of dealing violently with and trying to eliminate those who have taken issue with a different position than the one they hold dear is monumental.  Wars break out because people can’t simply agree to disagree.  Genocide has been just one form of violence practiced by those who have failed to see Christ.  And the violence that we visit upon others is devastating.  This is especially true of wars that rage in the name of God, brother killing brother, fathers killing sons, and all in the name of a God whom each professes is a God of love.  It is perhaps more important than professing the name of God, to act in ways that indicate that we have actually seen God, and then allow God’s presence to guide our actions.  That can be an action initiated by our awareness of the Holy Spirit’s power.

• Do you know of anyone who was a victim of violence or persecution because they were living in faithfulness to God?
• What do the names Ita Ford, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatmas Gandhi, Steve Biko, and Oscar Romero all have in common?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, enable me to view the world with Your eyes of grace. Empower me with the power to refrain from the need to hurt anyone in Your name.

       Life comes at us from so many directions.  We, at times, become so distracted with everything that’s going on around us that we can’t see the forest for the trees.  It’s important to remember that even in the midst of a hurricane, God is a permanent refuge of power, glory, and dominion.  Our relationship with God cannot and should not be characterized by improperly motivated anger that drives us to hurt each other.  God’s grace should be the one power that prevails in every situation enabling us to come together rather than inflict harm on one another.  It could be that seeing God and Christ for ourselves is enough to transform our understanding and our relationship with each other.

• As a mid-week time of reflection, try to recall times when you or someone you know was surrounded by turmoil and needed to see God’s presence.
• How did it feel to experience the presence of God and to realize that God’s grace had been with you all of the time?
• What was your response to that realization?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, in situations where evil is all around me, help me to see You and always remember that Your power and grace are both present and everlasting.

       Our violence and outpouring of rage against one another is as old as time.  The first biblical record is that Cain killed Abel.  It seems that our anger and rage at one another has snowballed since then.  The things we’ve done to each other and continue to do to each other is a malignancy that eats away at our soul, our relationship with each other, and our relationship with God.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “We will either live together in peace, or die together in chaos.”  His words aren’t original.  God has been telling us that since before Cain killed Abel.

• At what point is it important to acknowledge feelings of anger deep inside of us and the reasons behind those feelings?
• In what ways do we respond to allow God’s grace to intervene when we become angry enough to do harm?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, free my mind from any desire to respond violently in anger at another person. Empower my life to express the fact that I’ve seen You and can offer You grace and forgiveness to all.

       God’s record is clear and accurate.  Bad things happen to all people, whether they are “good” or bad.  But the human record of people’s response when there are theological disagreements is evidence that our inclination to do harm to those who disagree with us can become violent.  We’ve neglected to acknowledge that the human reaction against those who have been sent by God to tell the truth is abhorrent.  It seems that we are less willing to hear the truth from God than we are to believe the lies we tell our selves.  Perhaps Aldous Huxley said it best: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”  And in the case of God’s prophets, we’ve forgone God’s grace and acted in violence toward God’s people.  Even in today’s world, there appears to be an ongoing tension between those who believe differently on religious grounds.  Those who believe they are right appear to be aligning themselves against those who have been labeled as “woke”.  And depending on who’s reading the temperature of the room, Christ’s seems to be issuing a warning to those who represent the “woke” in our culture.  It also seems that the tension remains between those who claim to know Christ and those who act as though they have seen Christ and have opened the doors of acceptance and forgiveness.

• Do you know of anyone who continually rejects Christ’s invitation to bring all people together because of their refusal to accept Christ’s message of inclusion?
• Have they ever treated you disrespectfully because of your belief?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, empower me to make Your grace a tool that will help me live peaceably with all who bring Your message of grace.

       Christians have often been accused of being hypocritical.  The charge is laid at our door because there are times when we castigate and criticize others for not seeing the world as we see it.  Our actions —at times — don’t represent the loving, understanding, recipients of grace that we’d like people to believe we are promoting.  To that end we become critical because we believe we know Jesus.  And perhaps we do.  The real truth is there’s a difference in knowing who Jesus is and seeing Jesus for who he is.  We forget that Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that through him the world might be saved.  And so, criticism and blaming others isn’t an appropriate way to endear people to us, nor our understanding of who Christ is.  And sometimes our criticism is fueled by our refusal to accept the truth about who we are and what we’re doing that raises a level of unforgiveness that is unacceptable to God.  The result of our actions causes others to pour out righteous indignation on each other through acts of violence, claiming that in doing it, we honor God.  And yet, until we’ve seen Jesus for who he is, we’re all guilty of not seeing Jesus for who he is; some guilty of not seeing his divinity, others guilty of misunderstanding God’s grace.  Seeing Jesus for who he is can change our righteous indignation, whether we are unbelievers or those who believe, but have not truly seen him as the God of Grace and Glory whose grace is being poured out on us through pleas of forgiveness for ourselves and others.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and gracious God, help us to acknowledge the truth — that seeing Jesus for who he truly is can change us into Instruments of Your grace making Your forgiveness available to us and our enemies.

       No one seeks martyrdom.  It is not in us to seek our own death to prove a particular point in life.  There may be many things for which a person is willing to die, but even if that spirit or willingness to die for what we believe in is deep within us, we don’t actively seek out death as proof of our beliefs.  We want to live.  We want to live despite those objects of resistance that, from time to time, present themselves in our lives.  It’s a basic desire central to who we are.  When people seek to do us harm, our desire to live will often override our need to validate ourselves.  It’s in those times our will to live is stronger than any other feelings we have and we seek to survive.

• Have you ever felt threatened because of your beliefs?
• If so, what did you do to escape the apparent danger?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, empower me to remain faithful to who I am. Help me not to seek martyrdom, but only to live my life according to Your will and design.

       It is difficult for many people to accept the truth, especially when it is the truth about themselves.  While the Bible has quoted Jesus as saying, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 6:31-32), English author Aldous Huxley has been quoted as saying in contrast and much to our disdain: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.”  This may be particularly true when the truth revealed to us isn’t the truth we want to know.  The result is that heightened feelings of rage swell up, especially in a group of people that leads to what is referred to as “mob mentality”.  It’s where an irrational response takes over and the unthinkable happens.  This is most likely to occur when those objects of resistance to the truth desire to kill the truth or kill the messenger.

• Can you recall a time in history when anyone was killed for telling the truth?
• How does their experience inform your faith about the costs of being faithful?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, empower me to continue moving toward Your call on my life despite the objects of resistance who seek to destroy Your truth and me with it.

       It’s very difficult to walk or run from the shadows of history, much less escape your past.  People who may have never really had a deep relationship with you or anyone in your family are unafraid to connect you to what they believe your past history is regardless of any transformations you might have taken in your maturity.  Famous and popular adults can always find someone who believes they know them because they know (or knew) someone in their family related to them.  It’s even more difficult to escape when they are willing to overlook the new “you”.  You can call it the curse of familiarity.  When people think they know you, they find it difficult to believe that any good things are possible for you. 

• Have you or someone you know been limited in their ability to accomplish something because of “the curse of familiarity”?
• How did you or the other person move forward despite “the curse of familiarity”?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, as I draw closer to you on my journey, protect me from “the curse of familiarity”. Empower me to do Your will despite what others may believe about me.

       We are sometimes caught in the middle of what we perceive is our life’s journey when we discover that there are people, who for whatever reason, are unappreciative of the certainty of where we are going.  They believe that because they think they know us, they know who we are capable of becoming.  Their definition of who we are doesn’t always fit with our life plan.  And so, we are faced with the choice of living into who we believe we are becoming in God, or to live a life representative of their belief, which is often an object of resistance in our path.  It is those objects of resistance that stand as a barrier to God’s greater plan and will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

• Are there people in your life, who because they thought they knew you, tried to hinder who you might become?
• How did you respond to their resistance?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, empower me to continue along the path You have chosen for my life, despite those who stand as objects of resistance to You and me.

       We’ve all probably heard the term at one time or another, “music to my ears.”  This phrase usually speaks of something that has a very pleasant sound.  God, speaking to Ezekiel, has offered another metaphor as it relates to God’s words.  He suggests that God’s words are as sweet as honey.  To hear the sounds of freedom and liberation when you have lived a life of oppression and poverty; to be freed from spiritual blindness by the gift of sight can be the sweetest taste one has ever tasted.  Words and actions designed to prevent God’s word from becoming our reality can and should be considered objects of resistance.

• What words from God have a particularly sweet taste (or sound) to you?
• What about them frees you or gives you satisfaction?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and loving God, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found; was blind, but now I see.”

       We are often amazed at what God has done, is doing, and will do for us.  I’m not sure we should be amazed.  It has been God’s habit of liberating us from oppression of all kinds.  We’ve had a number of experiences prior to God’s acts of liberation in our lives that have all come to us as objects of resistance.  They’ve inhibited and tried to prevent God’s will from unfolding in our lives.  Sometimes the resistance has come from our friends.  Sometimes it’s come from our families.  Sometimes, we’ve been the objects of resistance to ourselves.  However, it’s important to remember that they are objects of resistance and nothing more.  With our God, all things are possible — even moving objects of resistance from our path.

• What are those objects of resistance in your life from which God has freed you?
• What emotions do you connect with the realization that God has liberated you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, thank you for being the power that enables me to overcome objects of resistance in my life. It is by Your grace, and Your grace alone that I am free.

       There is a scientific law which simply identifies two relatives.  One is a movable object.  The other is an irresistible force.  The law suggests that when a movable object meets an irresistible force, that object can in fact become displaced from wherever they are located by those forces that are irresistible.  These objects may be there for many reasons, but whatever their reason is they have the ability to impede movement.  It is not an odd thing that this should be.  God, the greatest, most exacting scientist of all creation has created humans, many of whom are here without having discovered their reason for being here, but who in fact have become, in some of our lives, objects of resistance.  It isn’t a strange phenomenon that the same law that applies to the world of physical science should apply to the spiritual world.  After all, we are spiritual people who simply occupy a physical presence.  It’s also not a phenomenon that as we — people of God — understand God’s call upon our lives and move toward it, that there will be objects of resistance to God — the irresistible force of God’s ’s plan for us and God’s presence in our lives.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, empower me to remain faithful to your call upon my life as I seek to avoid those objects of resistance that prevent me from drawing close to you. And grant me grace to avoid becoming an object of resistance in the lives of others.

       We’ve done everything, as humans, to talk about the world’s need for more love.  We’ve created songs about it, written poetry about it, and a host of other things not necessarily related to our faith. Sometimes we just respond out of a need to convince ourselves and others that we are good people.  But there is something more.  There is an element of productivity that is generated by faith indicating that those of us who say we believe in the God of love will produce something tangible giving evidence of that faith.  It is our work that becomes a product of our faith.  And without the work, our faith has no fruit worthy of any acknowledgement.  It exists in an incomplete state and is dormant.

• How is your faith bearing fruit as evidence to God and others that your faith is a complete faith?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower my life to be so lived that my works of kindness serve as evidence of the fruit of my living faith in You.

       A life that is only half productive is really a life of impotence.  Impotence indicates that a person is incapable of producing anything of value.  It in some ways speaks to how we assess the value of others.  And yet, to Christ, to bear fruit that indicates our faith is alive is as simple as sharing what we have with those who have less.  It’s not terribly complicated.  And the end result is that our faith in God drives us to become more God like in our actions, by doing for others what God has done for us.  We look beyond their faults to supply their needs.  That’s what a complete and living faith is all does when it’s in action.  In incorporates what we believe into an action that can change our life and the lives of those with whom we come in contact with.

• Where are the opportunities in your life and community to bear the fruit of your faith by sharing with others.
• How might you participate in church sponsored events to bear the fruit of faith?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, fill my heart with the complete faith of compassion that my faith in You will motivate me to bear acts of love by sharing with others.

       We like to think of faith as simply something that we have.  I would suggest that in most of our minds, our personal faith has very little impact on the lives of others.  We believe ad are comfortable in our belief as sufficient without having to do anything but believe.  We call that grace, trusting that our believing is enough.

     And yet, Rahab the harlot, as socially unacceptable as she was, could by her faith be motivated to do something that gave evidence that her faith was much more than a private experience with God.  It was a faith that combined her belief (as socially unacceptable as she might have been) with actions — evidence that her faith motivated her to proper actions giving proof of her faith.  A faith that failed to compel her to give aid to others would have been an incomplete faith.  But because she chose to marry her faith to actions of mercy and love, her faith was complete and alive.

• What can you do to give evidence that your faith is complete and alive?
• How will that transform your relationship with God and others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, teach me to live my life as an active response to the faith that is alive in me. Empower me to act upon my faith as living evidence of my faith.

       We’ve always been in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ for two reasons.  One is our faith, and that faith, not apart from our acts of love.  Is it any wonder then that Paul gives thanks to the Thessalonians for their ”works of faith and labor of love”?  Not faith working in and of itself; not love working alone, but faith that has the hands and feet of Christ performing acts of grace through love as evidence that they work together.  One without the other is a faith that is incomplete and lacks true life.  And yet, together they exhibit and exemplify a faith that is active, living, and complete.

• How do the “works of faith” in your life produce “labors of love” that others can be thankful for?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving Christ, keep me always mindful that it is my faith in you that produces from me acts of mercy and love that completes my faith.

       From the time of Abraham, faith has been the factor motivating people to action. It is not the works themselves which justify us and complete our faith.  The works alone are no more than an attempt by us to have the power to sway God.  But works that are driven by a trust in God to be faithful to us, are what transforms us and our relationship to God. It is that faith that trusts in God that motivates the actions and not the other way around. Works without faith and faith without works are incomplete.

• Where have those times been in your life when your faith in God motivated you to do something that showed your trust in God and that your faith was alive?
• What was the final outcome?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, continue to empower me by my faith to realize that it is my faith in you and actions upon that faith that make my faith complete.

       English writer John Donne (pronounced Dunn) once wrote that “no man is an island unto himself”.  It is, perhaps, his interpretation of the scripture in 1 John 3 that led him to that proclamation.  Our relationship with the living God is displayed as an act of living faith when we see our brothers and sisters in need.  But if it stops there, it is dead, and leaves others to die in its lack of action.  And yet, with compassionate love, our faith becomes alive and compels us with determination to do something about it.  It becomes an act of compassion on our part that is motivated by our faith in the living God. That is what makes our faith a complete and living faith.

• It’s difficult to always answer the cries of the needy.  How can we insure that our acts of kindness are motivated by our faith in Christ?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, let my faith in You be as complete and alive as You are in me and inspire me to do acts of kindness toward others.

       As United Methodists, we have a rather traditional position about our faith.  From the Wesleyan perspective (and I might also add, a biblical perspective as well) we adhere to a belief of personal piety combined with the practice of social holiness.  In other words, we believe and proclaim our belief in a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.  But that personal relationship is coupled together with the practice of our faith by taking care of the needs of those who have been termed “the least of these, Christ’s brothers and sisters.”  One part of our faith without the other is only half a faith, and in reality, is no faith at all.  A faith that thrives on simply doing good deeds apart from a belief in God is to suggest that we can justify our lives without the need for a belief in God.  A faith that suggests that all we need to do is believe in God at the expense of neglecting our brothers and sisters is really a dead faith.  A faith that is complete and alive is one that does both, illustrating the accuracy of Scripture that states that faith and deeds go together and are not mutually exclusive.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving and gracious God, encourage and strengthen me to have a complete faith in You that lives. Help me to make my faith one that couples the words I say in my heart with acts of grace that I do for others in Your name.

       We live in a culture that sometimes judges people for what they do rather than for who they are.  Martin Luther King Jr. prayed that one day we would be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we don’t know, nor can we evaluate, except by the grace of God why one person falls in the light of honor and another in dishonor.  Perhaps that is why Rahab, the prostitute, could be justified before God by her faith. Perhaps God didn’t see her as a prostitute, but as a person oppressed and enslaved by a culture more willing to judge her than the circumstances that created her condition.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, empower me to do actions that, motivated by the Spirit of Christ, set free persons who are oppressed and enslaved.

       Someone once said, “If you see someone in a fight with a bear and you don’t help them, you’re helping the bear.”  Knowing when to help someone can be a tricky issue.  But for those who are trapped in the business of sexual oppression and enslavement, it is difficult if not impossible, for them to know the degree to which they are trapped.  They are in a fight with a bear.  Waiting for them to know the extent of their enslavement before we help is irresponsible.  The time for salvation has been declared by God.  It is today.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, empower me to use today to bring liberation to those who are held captive by the immoral and illegal business of sexual exploitation. Make today Your day of salvation for all people.

       God’s word has long spoken to us about the duties of faith.  A fast, which calls our attention and focus upon God (at least in God’s eye) really challenges us to act on behalf of those who find themselves in untenable systems of injustice, where oppression and slavery of others is unacceptable.  Even in this 21st century, we find ourselves still faced with a contemporary slavery that destroys lives by abuse and oppression.  This makes God’s all the more relevant in our contemporary culture.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, empower me to live the fast that you call for looking beyond the antiquity of Your word to institute justice in its contemporary relevance in my world today.

       We often take the grace of God for granted.  In a book titled “The Cost of Discipleship” Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains that the grace of God is free, but it is not cheap.  There is a cost tied to being a disciple of Jesus Christ.  While there are only 3 rules of Christian discipleship: 1) deny yourself; 2) pick up your cross; and 3) follow Jesus, the truth is that Christ paid a dear price to redeem us.  He paid it all on Calvary for our sins.  Therefore, we are now eternally indebted to Christ to do nothing more than finish the work he began.  The job is exactly the same today as it was then: to open the eyes that are blind, to liberate prisoners from the darkness they dwell in, both the oppressed and the oppressors.  That liberation movement includes liberating those of enslaved in human sexual bondage.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving Christ, inform my mind and Spirit of those things I need to do to live in faith to you. Help me to liberate others in any way I can that you might be honored.

       We don’t often think about the experience of liberation.  It’s a difficult concept to grasp unless you’ve personally been entrapped or enslaved.  And yet, our experiences of having a burden lifted can be very similar to those who are enslaved, especially around human trafficking and the business of sex.  There is certainly the joy of being relieved of the burden.  Knowing that God is working to bring freedom can be a joyful experience.  This is especially true when we do the work of God who sets others free.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me, by the power of Your grace, to bring joy to the oppressed, the prisoners, the enslaved, and the blind. Let their joy be in You for Your mercy.

       One undeniable witness of the presence of Christ is that his work has been the work of liberation.  It was an expression of his mission as he entered ministry reading from Isaiah, and it was evidence that he was the one who was to come.  Our role is to continue to do the work of Christ.  We are in mission to connect people to a relationship with him, but it is a relationship where they can experience freedom and vision.  By his grace we continue to set free those who are oppressed that we might be adequate examples of Christ’s presence and love in the world.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, help me to continue in my walk of faith doing what you would do to bring the good news and set free those who are oppressed.

       As United Methodists, we commit ourselves to the value of human life and quality.  Our social principles speak to it in this way:

       We deplore all forms of the commercialization, abuse, and exploitation of sex.  We call for strict global enforcement of laws prohibiting the sexual exploitation of children and for adequate protection, guidance, and counseling for abused children.  All persons, regardless of age, gender, marital status, or sexual orientation, are entitled to have their human and civil rights ensured and to be protected against violence.  The Church should support the family in providing age-appropriate education regarding sexuality to children, youth, and adults.

       We affirm that all persons are individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God.  All persons need the ministry of the Church in their struggles for human fulfillment, as well as the spiritual and emotional care of a fellowship that enables reconciling relationships with God, with others, and with self.

       To that extent the entire industry that makes a business of sex is a violation of Holy Scripture and of the tenets of the United Methodist Church.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving God, empower us as your people to do everything possible to bear fruit in your ministry of setting free those who are captive and oppressed. Enable me to become an instrument of your peace to all whose bodies are enslaved for profit.

       It’s not often that we see ourselves as wealthy — as people who live in luxury and pleasure.  And yet, there are those who make a pretty healthy living off of migrant farm workers, undocumented aliens, and others.  The lives of luxury that have come from those who make their profit is but one side of the coin of our relationship with the poor.  The other side reveals those of us who benefit from their labor but refuse to stand in support of those who have been victimized by our desire to have cheap labor and cheap prices.  That does not please God.

• Are you aware of the discrepancy of lifestyle between the rich and the poor?
• What does God call us to do to level the playing field between the wealthy and the poor?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Creator, convict me of my responsibility to help those at my doorstep and empower me to become more sensitive to the needs of the poor.

       It’s difficult for us to think of being generous to the extent that we would give to anyone who begs from us.  That idea flies in the face of a mindset that says a person should be willing to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.  It is an easy platitude to reach for the person reaching has the boots.  But all too often we see only from the perspective that our own eyes can see, when the question really is, “What would I have them do to me?”  Perhaps if we saw ourselves as God saw us, we’d realize that we are all beggars in some ways.

• When you think about persons begging, what images/thoughts come to mind?
• Are you ever able to see yourself in that position and respond to other beggars as you would have them respond to you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to see those who are without as I would see myself and empower me to give what is asked for knowing that I can supply their need.

       Our relationship with the poor has often been strained by our need to characterize them as unwelcome and undesirable.  There are those who capitalize off of them because they seem to have no voice of power to speak on their behalf.  But that is a terrible accident of thought.  God speaks for them.  It’s not so much that we insult the poor as we insult the God who claims them as His children.  It’s difficult to justify insulting God when all that’s necessary to honor God is to perform acts of kindness and respect toward those who are, though poor, children of God in every way.

• In what ways do people show indifference and apathy toward those who are poor?
• What can you do to establish a way of showing kindness to those who are considered poor?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of mercy and love, empower me to be kind and generous to those who live in poverty, so that in doing so, I give honor to You.

       There are so many crumbs that fall from our tables — blessings we could give to others without penalty or loss.  There are even literal scraps of food that we throw away, waste, and let spoil.  I wonder if we ever consider our waste when it comes time to offering sustenance or provisions for the poor.  A business week magazine article estimated that the average American household throws away 20 pounds of food each week and American restaurants throw away 6000 tons of food a year. Those scraps that fall from our tables could feed a lot of poor people — if we would just see them.

       For this midweek time of reflection, think back to times when you were wasteful throwing away food that had spoiled, was no longer edible, or just food you left on your plate that you didn’t want because you were full.

• How is it possible to justify throwing away so much food while denying those who are impoverished and in hunger?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to be convinced that the poor who are on my doorstep just outside the gate are worthy of the scraps that fall from my table.

       The Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible or Canon) uses the term kinsman in place of fellow Israelites, meaning one who is related to you.  Another version The New Revised Standard Version) broadens the understanding from kinsman to one who is in your community.  For Christians, this is an inclusive directive to define all humanity as being related to one another.  But we also live in a culture that has a particularly negative view of the poor and needy.  They are often seen as leeches upon flesh of humanity, society, and culture.  God’s understanding that we are all connected and related to one another challenges a political, or social perspective that snubs the poor and looks down on them as being unworthy of the basic provisions of life.  We are left to answer the question, “Is our view of the poor shaped by God’s view of the poor, or are we motivated to agree to a societal, or cultural view toward the poor?”

• By what standards of acceptance shape your view of the poor?
• Do you think about who they are (what they look like) or do you consider their need?
• Is your desire to give urged on by your love of God or the condition of their need?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, help me to not be shaped by cultural or political opinions of those in need. Free me to give generously so that Your will on earth is done.

       In some ways, we are invited to see those who are considered poor as victims of a system of injustice.  There are times when our political affiliations and loyalties direct us to see poverty and those who are poor as disinterested, lazy, slothful, and unambitious.  And yet, God, who sees us all in a much more comprehensive way, understands that the poverty doesn’t just happen.  Poverty is, in some real ways, a social construct designed to give advantage to the wealthy, while pitting those from whom resources are being withheld against each other.  God has provided enough for everyone to have if we simply share the bounty of God’s generosity.  There is a system that gets in the way of our sharing that promotes injustice rather than fostering a just community.

• How have you seen persons with economic wealth pervert or distort the justice system in their favor against the poor.
• What should be the Christian position for those in poverty? Toward the rich?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to clearly see my participation in systems of injustice that create poverty. Help me to become an advocate and participant in Your system of justice.

       The focus of ministry in January usually turns towards issues of justice, especially around the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.  In the life of the United Methodist Church, we turn toward the annual celebration of Human Relations Day.  This week our devotions will focus on one of the Social as we approach the celebration of both of these events.

       The Social Principles of our United Methodist Church offer this understanding about the poor of our world, but specifically our immediate community:

“Because we recognize that the long-term reduction of poverty must move beyond services to and employment for the poor which can be taken away, we emphasize measures that build and maintain the wealth of poor people, including asset-building strategies such as individual development, savings accounts, micro-enterprise development programs, programs enabling home ownership, and financial management training and counseling.  We call upon churches to develop these and other ministries that promote asset-building among the poor.  We are especially mindful of the Global South, where investment and micro-enterprise are especially needed.  We urge support for policies that will encourage equitable economic growth in the Global South and around the world, providing a just opportunity for all.”[1]

• In a world where God has considerable concern for the poor, how do we address this issue of poverty”.

[1] (Taken from the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church—The Social Community)

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, open my heart that I may be as much a helper and protector of the poor as You are. Humble me that I may see them, not because of their poverty, but because they are valuable children of God.

       God’s commitment to faithfulness has existed from the beginning.  That we have discovered that “faithfulness was a thing with God” may be something we’ve glossed over in our understanding of how or why God does what God does.  But it’s clear that God’s commitment to faithfulness is a core value of our God.  And our acknowledgement of God’s faithfulness only comes become we’ve seen it; experienced it in our lives; recorded it as a part of our history with God so that we can continue to tell the story of God’s faithfulness.  What we also may have missed is that God’s commitment to faithfulness is a targeted response to those who are engaged in a relationship with God who have responded to God’s commitment to faithfulness with a commitment of faithfulness of their own.  Perhaps it’s in that relationship of a commitment to faithfulness that we also discover God’s mercy and grace.  That, too, would be consistent with God’s declaration of a commitment to faithfulness, and is a part of God’s response when grace is needed and supplied to us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving and faithful God, lead me into a deeper relationship of faith where I am more assured of Your commitment to faithfulness as I strengthen my commitment of faithfulness to You.

       We’ve never really celebrated Christ and his birth as an even that would become a problem for some people.  For those of us who have believed and accepted Christ, we may be convinced that Christ is the Savior of the world.  But we are reminded by Simeon’s story and the words of the prophet Isaiah, that the birth of Christ would be more than an event of hope, love, peace, and joy.  It would also become a point of conflict in the lives of many.  God’s commitment to faithfulness has opened up this reality, perhaps because of our history of abandoning God’s promises to embark on a journey of our own choosing.

       It may be normal for all people to live with a certain amount of disbelief and skepticism.  But to experience those things in the light of God’s truth and the birth of Christ, only serves to represent God’s commitment to faithfulness and the truth of God’s promises.  Alive within God’s commitment to faithfulness is also the tragedy of Christ’s coming to dwell among us — that as agents of free will, we can choose to accept or deny God’s proclamation, and thereby be a part of the fulfillment of God’s commitment to faithfulness.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of truth and love, enable me to make a commitment to faithfulness to live within the truth of Your word, and make a commitment of faithfulness to You.

       The life we experience is a direct result of God’s commitment to faithfulness.  We live each day experiencing the fulfillment of God’s promises made to us despite the challenges and disappointments we are forced to Go through in life.  And it’s in those experiences when we may not feel that God is present that we are compelled to wait on the assured promises of God.  It’s in that waiting we prove our commitment to faithfulness where our patience is tested as well as our trust in God’s faithfulness.  Without trust in God, our commitment to faithfulness is diminished, our trust in God begins to fade, and will ultimately disappear.  And when we begin to lack confidence in the very thing we need to make a commitment to faithfulness, we lose our desire to commit to anything.

       God’s commitment to faithfulness becomes God’s witness to us as God’s promises are confirmed in the fulfilling of God’s promises to us.  In the same way, our commitment to faithfulness is confirmed by the fulfilling of our covenant with God.  It’s in that commitment that we both live into and experience the power of both our and God’s commitment to faithfulness working together.  And it’s in that commitment that we become a witness to others that a commitment to faithfulness by God and us is what makes the world go round.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
All powerful God, continue Your commitment to faithfulness to me that my life might be a witness to the power of Your faithfulness and truth unfolding in my life.

       The truth is we live by the promises God makes to us and we rely on God’s commitment to faithfulness to experience the fulfillment of those promises.  After being called into ministry, I had to leave my family to enter ministry in places I’d never been before.  While I was away serving in remote places, I grieved the fact that my family was not near.  And yet, Jesus made a promise in Mark 10:29.  He said

29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

It’s in that promise that I acquired the blessings of that promise as it was fulfilled in my life while I now await the promise of eternal life.  Children who were not mine became mine through ministry situations I found myself in.  I was “adopted” in some ways by the families I was in ministry with and they became my “new family” in some very real ways.  My family was broadened beyond my bloodline to include my “Spirit-line”.

       None of this happens without God’s commitment to faithfulness or our commitment to faithfulness.  Paul’s witness to us is that, “God is faithful …”.  That witness and discovery is echoed by those who make a commitment to faithfulness to God and becomes our assurance.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, continue Your commitment to faithfulness and fill me with the assurance that my commitment to Your faithfulness acts as a catalyst to Your eternal grace.

       God’s promises are sometimes a long time coming.  700 years before the birth of Christ, God made a promise to Ahaz that a virgin would conceive and bear a son.  Isaiah states the very nature of God’s commitment to faithfulness, both to fulfilling God’s faithfulness to us and our commitment of faithfulness to our God.  There is a waiting period.  A period between the promise  made and the fulfillment of that promise that both tests and proves our commitment to faithfulness, while the fulfilment of the promise proves God’s faithfulness.  It’s in God’s commitment to faithfulness that we experience the result of our faithfulness in waiting and can rejoice because our God has saved us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Eternal God, I pray my commitment to faithfulness in You will continue to reveal the fulfillment of Your promises to me so that I may always rejoice in Your faithfulness.

       Often our relationship with God has always been one of covenant.  Even when Abraham was engaged in a bargaining agreement with God about the residents of Sodom, the end resulted in a commitment to faithfulness by God to spare the entire city if even five faithful persons were found residing in it.  But any covenant initiated by God automatically presumes God’s commitment to faithfulness in carrying out God’s end of the covenant.  If God initiates the covenant, we can rest assured that God will honor God’s end of the commitment.  It’s God’s commitment to faithfully do what God said God would do that gives us the assurance that God is faithful.  The balance of any commitment to faithfulness then falls upon the person or persons with whom God has made the covenant.  There is an unspoken expectation that the fulfillment of the covenant is primarily dependent upon our willingness to commit to faithfully fulfilling our part within the covenant.  That is what a commitment to faithfulness involves — a firm resolve on our part to remain faithful to God even in the midst of a waiting period while God does what God does in and through God’s commitment to faithfulness. Our commitment to faithfulness to God acts as a catalyst to God’s faithfulness.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Faithful God, teach me in all things to live committed to my faithfulness to You.

       Our lives revolve around the acts of faithfulness.  Not much is accomplished without it.  But as important as faithfulness is, it can be considered empty and useless if we don’t make a commitment to faithfulness.  So many dreams are given up on and forgotten because people refuse to commit to the faithfulness of waiting them out.  Often, it’s because it takes too long to realize the things we really desire.  Waiting becomes impossible, we become distracted, and before we know it, we’ve given up on the very thing we said we wanted.

       When we examine our relationship to God, we can several observations.  The first and most important is that God is faithful.  God has committed to faithfulness to us that we might learn that we can depend on God.  The second is not too far from the first.  God is committed to faithfulness.  It’s in God’s faithfulness that we learn that God can be trusted to come through on God’s promises.  But perhaps equally important is our commitment to faithfulness.  At some point we must make a commitment to be faithful to ourselves, faithful to God, and faithful to receive God’s promises no matter how long it takes.  It’s those two things working in tandem (both God’s commitment and our commitment to faithfulness) that gives us confidence in God’s promises and increases our faith in God’s ability to do what God says God will do.  If we can trust God’s commitment to faithfulness, then our commitment to faithfulness becomes much easier.  We can then rejoice and glorify God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty and all Holy God, Your commitment to faithfulness to me is without question. Lead me into that place of faith where my life reveals my daily commitment of faithfulness to You that Christ may be glorified in all the earth.

       One of our greatest concerns in life is safety.  It’s important to us wherever we are.  We want our homes to be safe, our cars to be safe, and our families to be safe.  I can’t imagine any situation where safety doesn’t impact our lives.  It’s especially significant when we are vulnerable as children often are.  Christ experienced the need to be safe in his lifetime and God in an effort to protect us took extraordinary measures to protect the one who came to save us from spiritual calamity.

       Many people have failed to recognize the need for spiritual safety.  It’s not something that comes up in the halls of legislation of city, county, state, or country.  It seems that the only place our safety was important was in the kingdom of our God.  Unable to legislate a spiritual safeguard between our righteousness (or unrighteousness) and God’s righteousness, God fully responded to our need by initiating the coming of God’s gift in Jesus Christ.  Now, our spiritual lives are as safe as God kept the life of our Christ in faithfulness to God’s promise.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Great and Mighty God, Your promises for my salvation were faithfully secured. Keep me secure in my faith that Your faithfulness and safeguards over my Savior at his birth are the same ones by which You protect me each day.

            All of the things we say we desire in a leader are promised by God.  We look for someone who will stand up for the weak.  We look for someone who will be just and fair in all of their decisions — who in his faithfulness will “do justice.”  We look for someone who will look beyond appearances and judge by what is real and true.  But this leader whom God has appointed shall be different from the others.  This is a leader appointed and anointed by God leads — not because he respects and fears what men will do — but because he takes great joy and pride in doing what is the will of God, whatever the cost.  This leader actually takes care of those who cannot take care of themselves.  In truth, the love of God we’ve been waiting for has truly been born in our Christ, God’s appointed and anointed leader of all humanity.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and loving God, thank you for the precious gift of a child King who looks beyond my faults to see my needs.

            While the nation of Israel — indeed, all creation — waited for love to be born, it appears our waiting is not yet over.  We often think of the baby Jesus at this time of year.  However, his appearing had an impact on more than those who were aware of his birth.  There were eternal consequences of his coming and the reason for his appearing.  His coming was an invitation to join him in denouncing those things that were not a part of God’s true purpose for creating us.  It was an invitation to live holy lives, as much as possible, while we awaited Christ’s glorious return, and our restoration to our once perfect state.  And so, our waiting for the love of God continues.  Only this time we wait for total redemption and renewal.  The clock is still ticking, but of the time of his coming, no one knows.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Oh God of grace and mercy, grant that I may live my life in a way that honors the reality of your coming as I wait for you to come again to perfect me.

       When Zechariah was asked what name to name the child, because he couldn’t speak, he had to write it down for all to see.  In the eyes of many witnesses the name of John’s birth was confirmed and his birth certificate became public information.  Even in Isaiah, writing information down made of that information a public record.  It has continued throughout the centuries.  We’ve recorded names as a matter of record, from those who were entries of slave records, to those who disembarked the ships at Ellis Island, to the names on register in the county courthouse.  All of their recorded names witness to the presence of someone’s life among us.  But even more importantly is how our name relates to the promise that God has given us.  That name may establish a new pattern of tradition and behavior in our lives.

• What does your birth certificate say about your formal name?
• Did your name break a family tradition?
• Did you know that this information about your name is on the records forever?
• How does your formal name differ from what your friends and other relatives call you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to rejoice and give praise to you because of the new name I have received because I have believed in Your promises to me.

       Stories abound of all the people informed of the birth of Christ.  Heavenly messengers brought the good news to everyone.  It began with the prophets, found its truth in Elizabeth, and became a born reality to Mary, with the shepherds making the journey to verify the promises of God from antiquity.  All of the things happened just as God had promised.  And now we know the story and the faithful promises of God revealed.  The revelation to us should inspire us to go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious, loving God, in this season reminding us of Your faithful promises, may I be filled with the spirit of sharing the good news of Christ’s birth.

       We sometimes begin to believe that Jesus’ birth would be defined by his authority among worldly leaders.  And yet, with all of his power, Jesus seems to have little effect upon those who don’t believe in him or acknowledge him.  And yet his authority is to give wise counsel, to offer grace to God’s people, to bring peace to those who seek an end to their separation from God, and to do it in a way that it becomes eternal.  That he has done this by coming to dwell among us is evidence of his authority — not the authority we give to human authority, but the authority accorded to him by God – the authority to save the world by his grace and ruling in the hearts of everyone who believes.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Lord, Your authority to rule in my heart, bringing peace, wisdom, and the reality of Your presence is gift enough for me every Christmas.

       They had waited for God’s promise to them that love would be born.  And now, the promise is coming to pass in the lives of those to whom it was made.  God’s faithfulness is bearing fruit in the lives of those who have believed.  Elizabeth and Zechariah have been promised a child and God has faithfully followed through on that promise.  It’s now time to celebrate God’s faithfulness  Yet, it was just the beginning of a bigger promise — one that extends beyond the mortal lives of an old priest and his old wife.

       The birth of this promise extends back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They have waited for this promise of God’s love for generations.  And now the day has arrived.  That which will break the mold for new beginnings is coming forth.  Along with breaking the mold of new beginnings will come the breaking of tradition.

       A name is important.  It ties a person to family; to heritage and history; but more importantly to a new future for all people.  It’s a time of blessing God; of praising God for God’s faithfulness.  In the fulfillment of the promise, the old is not thrown away to make room for the new but is synthesized into something different to bring the past promise into the present and celebrate the future hopes of all creation.  All of this happens when God gives birth to God’s promises.

• Has there been a time when a promise was made to you in the past for some future date and the date arrived?
• Recall what it was like to experience the birth of that promise becoming real.
  • Did the birth of that promise establish any new traditions in your family or relationships?
• Did the birth of that promise help you to understand any long-standing family traditions?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, the birth of Your promises have proved Your faithfulness and You have done a new thing. Empower me to lean more on more on Your faithfulness so that I may celebrate Your faithfulness to future promises to me.

       We all live within the promises of God made to Abraham long ago.  We additionally live with God’s faithfulness to those promises.  It seems obvious, but the promises without the fulfillment of the promises render the promises insignificant.  If our celebration of God’s promises depend on the promises alone, then we live without any evidence of God’s faithfulness, and no history of God’s faithfulness that enables us to trust in God’s faithfulness.  It’s not the promises only that enable us to celebrate God’s faithfulness, but the fulfillment of those promises as they have been revealed throughout history that gives us confidence that our God will be faithful.  As we have come to trust in God’s faithfulness, we’ve also been enabled and empowered to celebrate our God’s promises while waiting on God’s faithfulness to, once again, become apparent in our lives.

      God’s promises and God’s faithfulness do not exist in polarity to each other.  They are a coordinated function of God to increase our faith in God’s ability to be faithful, and in turn, enable us to celebrate God’s faithfulness as we await the outcome of the fulfillment of God’s eternal promise to us.

• Have you ever disconnected God’s promise to us from God’s ability to be faithful to do what God has promised?
• Have you ever questioned God’s faithfulness while waiting for God’s promise to manifest itself in your life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving God, help me to always remember that Your promises and Your faithfulness to fulfill them are inseparable, and that your faithfulness is a reason to celebrate while I wait.

       Whenever we’re celebrating God’s present actions in the world and what God has done, we are faced with the realization that we’re celebrating God’s faithfulness.  Our acknowledgement of what God has done and is doing typically compels us to focus on the action that God is performing.  But the outcome of God’s promises are really nothing more than the continual display of God’s faithfulness to God’s people.  If we could tie into celebrating what God has faithfully done in the past, it would open the door to the celebration of God’s presence while we wait on celebrating the next blessing from God.  The truth is, we’ve all seen and experienced God’s faithfulness at some time in our lives.  However, we tend to be impatient in our waiting and forgetful of God’s continual faithfulness.  When we openly acknowledge what God has done in our past, it’s a significant reminder that God’s faithfulness is what we celebrate.  It’s what we can continue to celebrate as we acknowledge God’s ongoing faithfulness and shout to the Lord and burst into jubilant singing.

• How do you distinguish between times of celebrating the outcome of God’s promises and the presence of God’s faithfulness in your life?
• What is the most significant shift in your understanding between the two (the outcome and God’s faithfulness)?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, teach me to celebrate Your faithfulness as well as the outcome of Your faithful promises to Your people.

       Celebrating what God is planning to do unless we live with the knowledge that God is faithful is virtually impossible.  It is our faith that convinces us from a place deep within us that God will complete what God has promised.  It’s that faith that inspires our willingness and our actions to give praise and glory to God for what God has promised to do for us.  Even before we’ve received God’s promises, we can celebrate all that receiving a blessing from God does for us.  For Mary and Elizabeth, it was truly a lifesaving and life changing event.  The trajectory of Elizabeth’s life would change from a downward spiral into one that only exalted her and lifted her up.  Mary’s future was even more certain because she was the fulfillment of God’s promise in the entire nation of Israel.  Both ladies had something to celebrate although neither had fully received the outcome of God’s promises to them.  It’s hard for us to imagine having received the promise without having received what was promised and still find a reason for celebrating while we wait.

       This story is so indicative of the season of Christmas.  Mary and Elizabeth celebrated God’s promise to them before they came to pass.  We begin the celebration of the day long before the day gets here — more accurately — we begin to celebrate while we wait on Christmas to come, celebrating the fulfillment of God’s promise to God’s people.  It’s not uncommon for God’s people to celebrate while we wait.

• What ways do you celebrate while you wait for the coming of Christ?
• How does God’s faithfulness inspire you to engage in this celebration?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, encourage me to continually discover and celebrate your faithful promises, even before they manifest themselves in my life.

       We rarely think of God rejoicing over us.  If we’re honest, we often see God as loving, but we’re also fearful of God as a punisher.  And so, the idea that God has joyful emotions — or even that God give way to singing is outside of our imagination.  But there is something to consider when we read these words.  That we have to be told that God is in our midst means that God is present and we’re unaware of it.  And God is rejoicing over us while — and because — God is in our midst.  Our God is with us, to save us, to protect us and take joy in us.  If there is any reason to celebrate as we wait for God’s promises to be fulfilled in us, it is because God is with us and rejoices in us.  Though we may be unaware of God’s presence is irrelevant to the reality that God is.  Waiting to become aware of God’s presence among us can become a time of celebration, until faith becomes sight.

• Have there been times when you’ve been filled with celebratory joy even though you were not sure God was present?
• Does celebrating while waiting for God to be revealed limit your ability to celebrate while you wait?
• In what ways does the waiting affect your ability to celebrate?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, help me to become more aware of Your presence. Enable me to celebrate while I wait to acknowledge Your presence in my midst.

       The blessings of God fall on us all because of God’s goodness.  They are a part of God’s Spirit of generosity.  It’s why Scripture reminds us: “For he makes his sun to shine on good and bad people alike, and he sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous alike.” (Matt. 5:45).  But there’s another component of God’s generosity that is connected to our willingness to be obedient to live within the covenant that God has made with us.  Those blessings fall beneath the umbrella of our ability to celebrate with joy the faithfulness of God as we live out with faithfulness what God has chosen us to do.

       God’s promises to us come to us on the basis of our submission of faithfulness while God is carrying out God’s promises to us.  It is God’s expectation that we choose to live in faithfulness to receive them.  Nevertheless, knowing that our God is faithful, and that God will do what God says He will do, is reason enough to celebrate as we live faithfully and God responds to us out of God’s faithfulness.  All of God’s blessings don’t come to us at one time.  But because we know God is faithful, we can celebrate while we wait for God’s faithfulness.

• Have there been times when you’ve celebrated God’s faithfulness while waiting for more blessings from God?
• What was the nature of the covenant made with God that compelled you to wait in faithfulness for God faithfulness?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, grant that I may continue to live in obedience to Your word as you continually bless me with the promises of Your faithfulness to me.

       Words praise and adoration are always due our God.  When we consider all that God has done, all that God is doing, and all that God has yet to do based on God’s reputation, we (like the Psalmist) have only words of praise on our lips.  Our acknowledgment that God is doing great things among us leads us to these acts of praise.

       Both Elizabeth and Mary have reason to lift their voices in praise of their God: Elizabeth because her long awaited desire to give birth to a child — a special child that will prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah — is more than enough for her to lift her voice in praise.  She is an old woman who has been granted the desires of her heart.  Mary has been called upon to serve God by carrying the Messiah in her womb to deliver God’s presence in the flesh into the world.  God’s promise to her is a distant nine months away, while Elizabeth must wait at least another three months to deliver God’s gift to her.  But both women are in waiting mode.  Both are filled with excitement, and both lift their voices in praise of what God is doing in their lives.

       It’s natural for us to celebrate and praise God openly when God’s promises are being fulfilled in our lives.  When those things we’ve prayed long and hard about are on the calendar to become a reality because of God’s faithfulness, it’s not uncommon for us to praise God for God’s faithfulness and for what God is doing.  Even if we haven’t received the blessing yet, knowing it is coming allows us to celebrate while we wait.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, let Your praise forever be on my lips as I worship You and glorify Your name for Your faithfulness in all things, and celebrate with joy as Your promises are revealed in my life.

       When I was a child, I had the distinct honor of being my grade school building spelling champion.  I hadn’t expected to win, but the joy of winning filled me with pride and excitement.  The certificate was going to be given out later on awards day, so I had to wait to get it, but I had won.  I couldn’t wait to get home to share the news with my mother.  The only problem was that my mother wasn’t going to be home to receive the news.  She wasn’t going to be there to celebrate my good fortune.  Nevertheless, it didn’t stop me from being in a hurry to get home to share my good news.

       We get in a hurry for a lot of reasons.  Sometimes, we’re in a hurry because we’re running late for an appointment. Sometimes we’re in a hurry because we want to make sure that we get an especially good seat at what might be a crowded venue.  And then there are those times when we’re in a hurry because we have some place to go because we have good news to share —something to celebrate.  And sometimes, it’s not because we have actually received the source of our good news.  But we celebrate because we know that the one who has made us a promise will be faithful.  And when we share that good news, there is the occasion for everyone involved to celebrate the occasion.  Yes, there is some anxiety while we wait — there’s a certain nervous anxiety that we feel.  It’s not a fearful anxiety, but an anxiety that filled with anticipatory excitement.  That’s why I ran home.  It’s why Mary hurried to Elizabeth’s home.

       Sometimes we have to wait to receive what we’ve been promised.  Yet, that’s no reason not to celebrate while we wait.  God’s promises are faithful and sure and worthy of celebration until God’s love comes to us in a tangible way.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, lead me to trust completely in Your faithfulness. Let my confidence in Your faithfulness be my reason to celebrate while I wait for Your promises to me to be fulfilled.

       Mary is not the first one to question God’s ability to accomplish great things.  But our world is full of skeptics and doubters.  Many people have no experience with God that will support the idea that nothing is impossible for God.  And those of us who can recall from our own experiences that God can do the unimaginable, from time to time, have bouts with selective amnesia.  We forget what God has done, and question whether or not God is still able to do “the next great thing.”  We are more than likely willing to approach God with the request that God serve us in our dilemma.  Or perhaps we (like Mary) will question how it could be that God would come to us with such high expectations.  Seldom are we caught uttering the words as Mary said, “I am the Lord’s servant … May your word to me be fulfilled.”

       We often forget that it is we who are called to serve God and not God who is called to serve us.  To that end, we are called to serve, even if it means waiting for God’s will to be fulfilled in our lives.  We are the Lord’s servants — not volunteers.  Volunteers do what needs to be done when extra help is needed.  Servants are ready and willingly to submit to God’s purpose as an act of humility.

• What might change in our relationship with God if we simply accepted our role as a servant of God.
• What God might be asking of us that we will have to patiently waited while God works out God’s plan for our lives in our time of waiting?”
• Is it possible that God is trying to accomplish in us what God knows is possible in us?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving God, make me a servant humble enough to accept Your call upon my life. Let the prayer of my heart always be, make me a servant today.

       We live in a fast food, drive-through world.  We’ve grown accustomed to living in a culture where we can place an order in one place, and in the time it takes to drive to the window and pay for our food it will be delivered to us complete.  Even our waiting time in restaurants is challenged if the food takes too long to be delivered after we’ve placed our order.  It in some ways speaks about an “on demand” culture.

       Years ago, a commercial featuring a little kid named Mikey who loved his morning breakfast cereal often grew impatient waiting for his morning cereal.  He would demand, “I want my Maypo, and I want it now!  We, like little Mikey have grown impatient waiting for what we’ve been promised.  Fortunately, our God is not obligated to comply with our fast-food, drive through, on demand expectations.  With God there is always time, and enough time to accomplish all things.  God’s promise was made ages ago, and yet David writes a Psalm to recall and proclaim God’s promise.  It’s nothing more than an invitation for us to be patient waiting while God fulfills God’s promises to us.

• By effecting God’s time on everyone, is God perhaps inviting us to slow down and acknowledge God’s faithfulness in times past, as well as the present and future?
• How does this affect you as you wait to give birth to the God in you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, teach me to be patient as I grow in my faith while waiting and trusting that Your promises will be revealed in my life.

       The promise reaches back 700 years to a prophet named Isaiah and a ruler named Ahaz.  Ahaz could have named anything he chose to get confirmation from God concerning his life and the future of Israel.  But Ahaz left it up to God to make the call — a child will be born to a virgin.  Frequently we are afraid to test God, even when God makes the invitation.  In another unrelated incident to this story, God invites us to test Him (Malachi 3:10-12).  And in our fear, and our reluctance to trust or test God, the waiting begins.  God is waiting to see if we will believe and be faithful.  And then, there is the waiting to see if God will be faithful.  There is the waiting to see if there is integrity in what the prophets say.  And for sure, there is the waiting to see if there really are no limitations to what we might ask of God.

       For the most part, our waiting is an act of faith and trust.  We’re invited to wait in faith and trust that God will do what God has promised.  We’re invited to wait in faith and trust that God would actually use every-day people like Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, — and yes, even you and me to accomplish God’s purpose in the world.  And so, the waiting continues.  God is waiting on us to trust God’s promises.  We’re waiting on God in distrust to prove God’s faithfulness — again.  Not until we can trust in faith that with God, nothing shall be impossible, can we even give birth to the idea that God is in us and the waiting will continue.

• What causes us to distrust that God’s promises can be believed?
• Does waiting for God’s promises to reveal themselves help or hinder our belief that God is faithful and trustworthy.
• Has there been a time when you’ve waited and God’s promise or blessing became real during your waiting period?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, I pray today as the disciples of old prayed long ago, “Lord, increase our faith.”

       Troubling comments by an angel that “The Lord is with her” send Mary into a state of perplexity.  And yet the angel’s response is, “You have found favor with God.”  Through it all, Mary is told that God intends to fulfill the promise to Abraham and Sarah long ago, and to the nation of Israel through her.  And Mary couldn’t make sense of it.  She has been waiting to be married to Joseph, and now this.  The timing is all wrong for her, all wrong for Joseph, all wrong for their families, and yet just perfect for God.

       We have all made plans at one time or another only to have them interrupted by an event out of our control.  The proverbial saying of poet Robert Burns — “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray!” — have never been truer.  And yet, it seems that God’s interruptions are an invitation to accept God’s promises, step out in faith, and believe that what’s coming is better than what currently is.  It’s also an invitation to wait until it’s time to give birth to the God in You.

• Have there ever been “why now” moments in your life when unexplained and unexplainable things seemed to be happening?
• Does waiting become easier or more stressful during these times?
• Is knowing that God’s love is alive inside of you a source of comfort or frustration during those times of waiting?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, teach me to live with the perplexities of what you are doing in my life and to wait patiently for Your love to be born in me.

       There is so much about God that we don’t understand.  We are not alone in this.  There seems to be a disconnect between what we think of as normal and those things that occur that are beyond our ability to make sense of.  A child is found in a Haitian earthquake, supposedly dead, but lived for 21 days without food or water.  The doctors say it can’t be done.  A kamado dragon gives birth in the United Kingdom.  It’s not possible for a mother to give birth without benefit of a host.  A woman lies on her death bed for 18 days without food or water.  Those present are told that she’s comatose and cannot respond.  Yet, when a prayer is offered for her in her final hours, she reaches out to the one praying and takes his hand.  And yet, it’s those things that medical science can’t explain that we don’t understand.  And in the midst of our inability to understand we find ourselves waiting for the love of God to be born.

• Have there been occurrences in your life experience where things have seemed impossible, only to have them occur despite logic, scientific skepticism, or medical explanation.
• Could acknowledging and sharing stories of that nature enable you to give birth to the love of God inside of you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, empower me to move beyond my ability to understand how You do what You do. Help me to accept Your truth so that Your love may live inside of me.

       I was just a boy who had taken his jacket to the ballpark one evening.  After all, all baseball pitchers needed a warm-up jacket.  What I didn’t expect is that after the game, I would forget the jacket and leave it in the park.  The realization of guilt that I had lost my school jacket haunted me.  The only thing I could do was to face the music and tell my mother.

       So, one night in the hallway by the closet, I told her. And she looked at me and her only words were, “That’s alright. We’ll get you another one.”  And in one sentence grace entered in and the disgrace of losing my jacket and the condemnation I feared because of it was removed.

       We don’t often see our disgrace the same way that others see it.  Our disgrace leads us to feeling unaccepted and unacceptable to the ones we desire it from the most.  A part of that comes from our need to be loved.  It’s not until someone gives birth to the love of God in them and extends it to us that we’re able to experience God’s grace and forgiveness in a way that takes away our disgrace.  Giving birth to God’s love in us enables others to experience God’s love present in the world.  It might also just have to ability to take away their disgrace.

• Have you ever been guilty of anything, and with one swift act of forgiveness the sin of which you were guilty was laid to rest?
• What does it feel like to have your disgrace taken away?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, I thank you for all those who have given birth to Your love inside them and removed the disgrace of those who needed Your love. Empower me to give birth to Your love inside of me that others’ disgrace may be removed.

       Elizabeth has conceived out of God’s faithful promise to Zechariah.  She has been the reproach of her people because she could not fulfill a woman’s expectation to be fruitful and to bring forth life.  Before, she could add nothing to her family’s legacy.  She was the fruit bearer who could not produce.  Modern science nor the cultural norms of her day would point the finger at Zechariah.  Zechariah  was the victim and Elizabeth was the disgraced embarrassment.  But now, Elizabeth is pregnant and waiting to give birth to the love of God inside of her.

       But now the angel Gabriel is visiting Mary.  His proclamation: “The Lord is with you!”  The Lord is with you.  It’s a part of our liturgy each Sunday when we take communion.  We offer it as a comforting good‑bye when leaving friends.  It’s what we wish for those who are going through stressful times, or those who are facing uncertainty and doubt.  But what does it mean?  In some ways it is wishing the blessings of God upon our friends and neighbors.  But in another sense, it is an invitation to acknowledge the presence of our God’s love within us.  And if it’s within us, it’s there waiting to be delivered to the world.  For those of us who believe, it is the acceptance that we live each day pregnant with the love of God inside of us — a love that is waiting to be born.

• Have there been times when you’ve given birth to the love of God inside of you?
• Have there been times when you’ve missed the opportunity to give birth to the love of God in you to the community, friends, or family?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, help me to acknowledge the truth that Your love is always present in me. Empower me to be always willing to give birth to Your love in me that others might know Your love.

Messiah, the idea that he had come was not wasted on John the Baptist.  And while we may want to project our anticipation forward to end our waiting, it is, in fact, the waiting that drives us to premature conclusions.  This is perhaps as true today as we try to read present day conflicts and realities interpreting them as the signs of the second coming of Christ.  We really want to know without having to walk by faith.  And yet, this season we are invited to wait in faith not having to rely on signs and wonders as proof that God’s love is coming.  We’re invited to wait in faith for the love of God to come and to not look for some external evidence that God is faithful.  There may be premature signs that the love of God is on the way and is eminent, but faith prohibits us from rushing to judgment.  We can look to God’s past faithfulness that God will continue to be faithful to God’s promises.

• What signs might there be in this time of waiting and preparations that God’s faithfulness has already made good on His promise?
• What actions can we take to keep from getting ahead of ourselves and put our trust in God while we wait?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, help me to find patience in my times of waiting. Let my patience become evidence that I continue to trust in Your promises, even though I may not speak about my faith.

       Promises that speak of a future for us always cause us to ask the question, “How will I know?”  At the heart of our question is our insecurity and fear that the future will turn out as we envision it.  Also mixed into the midst of our question is our doubt and distrust that the future will come to past.  And along with that question is our inward need for assurance?  We’d like to see some evidence that what we’ve been promised is really going to come to pass.  And yet, even though we can be given the assurance, there will be the waiting.  And waiting for something that is coming but is not yet due and is outside of our immediate vision can require a great deal of patience and a greater amount of faith.  We will need faith not to lose heart and wander into disbelief.  We’ll need patience to live non-anxiously while the promise we’ve been given unfolds.  Times of waiting can be times of great anxiety for us all.  It is usually the not knowing that is so frustrating for us.  The questions are:

• What can we do in the “in between times” of waiting for the love of God (Christmas) and its arrival?
• How can we grow in our assurance that the promises of God are really true?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Eternal God, open my heart to hear Your promises and accept them, living without the insecurities that come from a lack of faith. Help me to hear Your voice when mine is silenced by doubt.

       Many of us don’t realize that our lives are lived out in relation to our calling.  Before we were born, we were consecrated and preordained to fulfill a certain role in the life of this world.  Some of us have clearly heard, know, and have responded to what we have been consecrated (set apart) by God to do. Others of us have remained unaware, denied, or been doubtful of God’s call upon our lives, or of our purpose for living to honor God.  Some of us live waiting; we’re waiting to fulfill, or to have fulfilled in us our life’s purpose.  And yet, even in a holy calling consecrated from the womb represents a time of waiting.  There is the wait to be born.  There is the wait to mature.  There is the wait for just the right time.  Then there is our waiting for God to fulfill the promise made — to realize the appearance of God’s love right before our eyes.

• Have you ever considered that your life has been ordained by God to do something significant in life?
• Does it seem improbable that you’ve been in a “waiting period” to discern what God has consecrated you to do?
• How can we remain productively faithful while waiting for God to reveal God’s call upon us?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, help me to remain patient and faithful as I wait for You to fulfill Your purpose in my life.

       Our lives are steeped in tradition.  And it doesn’t matter if that tradition orders a special place for us or places us among the ordinary.  Some of the traditions are family traditions which invite us to carry on the traditions no matter what.  Each year, some family waits for tradition to unfold.  Carving the turkey at Thanksgiving; even saying grace over the meal at certain family events can set a family’s tradition forever.  For those who undertake the responsibility, waiting for your opportunity to carry out the rites of the family can be significant.  It can also seem like they’re taking forever to come to fruition where the mantle is finally passed on to the one who’s been anxiously waiting for it.

       Zechariah was a PK (preacher’s kid), not unlike his father before him, and his before him.  It was a tradition of their faith.  And because he was not the only one in the family, he had to wait his turn to enter the temple. 

• What are some of the traditions of your family or church that you feel are important enough to wait for?
• Can you recall when the tradition practiced in your family or church was first established?
• Who’s next in line to carry out the tradition? Are they waiting for it?  Are you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, in this season of waiting for Your love to come, give me patience to be chosen to do what You have promised I could do.

       Waiting is an unavoidable part of life.  We all do it.  We all have to.  Zechariah and Elizabeth have been waiting for a child for what seems like forever.  They’ve waited past the time of all but the impossible.  Now, The dreams of his heart are finally going to come true because of God’s promises.  But his waiting is not over.  And the people have to wait as well.  Zechariah has been in the temple longer than usual.  What could be keeping him?  And when he does exit the temple, none of the questions they have can be answered because Zechariah can’t speak.  He can’t tell anyone about the joy that is bursting inside of him.  And so, he must wait with quiet, animated frustration.  And his wife must wait in ignorance of what is about to happen.  The waiting seems to begin all over again.

• In this season of waiting, what are you waiting for? Is it Christmas?  Family to arrive?  A special gift?  The unexpected?
• Have you ever waited for something that you couldn’t tell anyone about?
• How can you use this time of waiting to grow in your faith in God’s faithfulness?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, as I wait for Your love to reveal itself to make my faith sight, enable me to not lose heart, or the believe that with You, all things are possible.

       We’ve heard of it happening before.  The little boy is given a seed to plant and he is promised that if he plants and nurtures that seed, it will grow.  But before it is able to bear fruit, he digs it up to see what is happening to it.  His waiting is interrupted by his curiosity and lack of faith because what he wants from the promise  seems like it’s never going to happen?

       We’re often impatient as we wait for someone’s promises to be fulfilled.  After so long, we lose both heart and faith, that the promise will ever be fulfilled, and we adopt an “I’ll believe it when I see it!”, attitude.  People have waited lifetimes for things to happen and they never did.  That’s especially true where God’s promises are concerned.  We seem to wait forever for God to act.  And then, God steps in.

       Zechariah and Elizabeth were not the first barren couple who waited of God’s love to reveal itself.  Abram and Sara come to mind.   And then there is Manoah, the father of Samson.  There are times when our waiting is pregnant with promise — and the promise is pregnant with hope, and all of our waiting is waiting for the love of God to manifest itself in our lives.

• Was there ever a time when you waited for something that seemed impossible, or that it was taking forever?
• Have you ever waited for God to do something you’ve prayed about?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, help me to move past my doubts of Your faithfulness as I wait for Your faithfulness and Your love to come.

       This day in Zechariah’s life, like most days for us, started out very normally.  A humble priest was going about his priestly duties like so many other priests before him and on so many days before this one.  And yet this day would be so different; different for many reasons.  Among the many prayers that Zechariah had been lifting up was a prayer for a child for himself and his wife Elizabeth.  On this day, God would finally break God’s silence and answer Zechariah’s prayer.  And this day Zechariah would find himself doubting the promises of the God he believed in after all this time, and ultimately left speechless because of his doubt.

       Like so many of us whose days begin routinely, we sometimes find ourselves caught in a situation where we find ourselves speechless because of our doubt.  Sometimes it’s because we can’t find the words to say.  What we think and what we want to say don’t find themselves meeting in agreement and so we say nothing.  Trauma can do that to you.  But also, there can be specific moments of salvation when God has intervened in a special way and we are silenced by our doubt and uncertainty.  We find ourselves humbled by God rather than elated by the coming fulfillment of God’s promise to us.  Zechariah could tell us what it was like for him if only he could have spoken.

• Have there been days when things started out routinely for you and God added a special, unexpected blessing to your day?
• Have you ever been told to wait for something that you couldn’t speak about?
• Have you ever had to wait for something you never thought you’d get and found your doubts cautioning you to be quiet about it.
• What do you think it might be like to be unable to talk about something that you had been praying for and was now coming to you as a blessing.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, help me in those moments of doubts and lack of faith in Your promises. Enable me to rejoice in the promise of Your salvation and wait for Your love to be revealed rather than question Your faithfulness.

       It is sometimes difficult for us to get past our disappointments and frustrations with each other and move forward becoming the people God calls us to be.  There is a hymn which uses the term “fightings without and fears within” to indicate the nature of who we are as the body of Christ.  And yet, this is not God’s intention for us.  God’s intention is that since we have received the perfect gift in Jesus Christ, that we become a gift — a blessing — to each other, encouraging each other to become and develop into the people God created us to be.

• Have you ever become so disappointed with life in the church that it angered you, making you speak negatively about what was going on?
• What might have changed if you had chosen to be encouraging in order to benefit everyone involved?
• What changes would you have had to make in your life to make that happen?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to develop Your grace in me so that I may — as a holy member of Your family — encourage and benefit others in Your name.

       It’s very difficult for us to put aside our frustrations with others when they fail to meet our standards and expectations.  And yet, if we examine the life of Christ and who he was to us, it’s not hard to realize that God’s grace is (in some real ways) putting up with the failings of the weak (each other) for our benefit.  This is essentially how we use our God given strengths and gifts to build up, not only each other, but the church of our Christ.  It’s far more beneficial to everyone if we build each other up rather than tear each other down.

• Have you ever put aside your frustrations with someone less competent than you in order to build them up and encourage them in the life of the church?
• How do you think that the process of building up those who were weak can work to strengthen and benefit the entire church?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, empower me to adopt the attitude of Christ, building others up to benefit everyone when they fail to reach my standards or don’t meet my expectations.

       God’s gifts to us are most prevalent and reach their greatest magnitude when we come together and are able to share those gifts with each other.  Their perfection is realized in the midst of community.  It is in that context of community that the entire Spirit of God is present.  This is the time when we are most capable of using those gifts to build each other up through teaching, understanding, worshiping God through music, and other ways.  This is essentially how and why God’s gifts to us are so diverse.  It’s so that no one will be omitted from building up the church, not even the artists and musicians.

• In what ways do you use God’s gift in you to build up and benefit the church?
• How might you leverage God’s gift in you to reach more people while encouraging others to also use their gifts?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Generous God, empower me to use my gift in the body of the church that others may be built up and You may be glorified and praised.

       God’s divine plan for us is not laid out randomly.  God has a plan for us with purpose.  That God would give each of us different gifts is an indication that we are not to exist independently of each other. We are to use these various and different gifts to benefit everyone.  It’s not easy work trying to discover and implement each gift in a way that enables us to reach out and achieve the church’s maximum potential.  But reaching the church’s maximum potential is God’s plan.  It’s also God’s plan that we develop God’s gift to us and in us in order to reach our maximum potential in Christ.  It’ not work that happens in a vacuum.  It's done through a process of encouragement and engagement of our gifts so that we can benefit the entire community.

• As an opportunity to reflect on our gifts, give some time to think about your gift and how it might be used to benefit and encourage someone else.
• How might you use your gift in the larger context of the church to build up someone so that they reach their full potential in Christ?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, empower me to utilize Your gifts in me so that I may encourage others so that we may all reach our full potential as children of God.

       We often speak of exercising our faith.  And yet, exercising our faith is more than going through the rituals and traditions of going to church, Sunday school, and bible study.  Exercising our faith is actually growing in the development and use of God’s Spiritual gifts within us.  If the old adage is true — that practice makes perfect — then we should be diligently practicing the use of God’s gifts to us in order to excel in them, but to also to excel in them so that the church is built up for Christ.

• In what ways have you worked to discover God’s gift in you and then worked on developing God’s gift so that you excel in it?
• How might you develop a plan, or seek opportunities to further develop God’s gift within you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, give me a Spirit of discipline that I may strive to excel in the gift You have given me so that Your church may be built up.

       It’s clear that we have all been given a gift from God to use for the benefit of everyone.  It’s also clear that some of us seem to be more advanced in the development of that gift than others.  Paul seems to suggest that we’ve been given the gift in proportion to our faith (our awareness of the presence of God). It seems then that our development is twofold: to develop a greater awareness of God’s presence in us and to develop the perfect gift that God have given to us.  To that end, knowing what our gift is, being passionate and willing to use it according to our faith.  Drawing closer to God in faith can only serve to make our gifts stronger, while building up the community of faith where we worship.

• In what ways can you become more aware of the Spiritual gift God has given you and become more aware of God’s presence ( your faith) so that your Spiritual gifts may become stronger?
• How do you understand the relationship between your faith and God’s gift to you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, empower me to increase, both my awareness of Your presence (my faith) and Your spiritual gift to me that I may use it to honor You and Your church.

       The idea that we have a gift from the Spirit of God sometimes goes over our head.  Perhaps it’s because when we think of receiving a gift, it’s typically a gift for us.  It’s given to us for our own personal enjoyment — to satisfy our personal passions, needs, or wants.  Additionally, when we think of the gifts we receive, we don’t often think of them as something we share with others, or something that’s been given to us to benefit anyone but ourselves.  We might share them with others, if it’s that kind of gift, but often we hold it close and cherish it as something just for us.  We sometimes forget that Christ is changing the world, but he’s doing it through us.  It makes sense, then, that the gifts we have received from the Holy Spirit are not for us but are for the benefit of others in the community of faith.  And that they are given specifically with us in mind means that God took great care to think not just of us, but of the community that we make up.  So, the gifts we give are not only perfect, but they are also there for us to use to encourage one another, to build up one another; to celebrate one another so that the church may become strong and affirming.  We sometimes forget that we have received God’s gift as a compliment to God’s perfect gift to the world, Jesus Christ.  But before that can happen, we must first give our gift to each other so that we and the entire world can benefit.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, empower and encourage me to know and understand Your perfect Spiritual gift in me, and your Spiritual presence with me so that Your church may prosper, and Your Kingdom may become a visible reality on earth.

       We live in an age of consumerism.  It’s a concept that we don’t often think of as anything that would have a negative impact on our lives, but it is something that invites us to have more than we need and to keep more than we will use.  When we move into the space where God is understood as our provider, we should also begin to understand that God will provide our needs.  That may mean accepting that we will always have only as much as we need despite a culture that tells us to consume.  It’s living with the tension between what we need over and against our fear of not having what we want that prevents us from trusting that God will provide what we need and no more.  God will always provide our daily bread from heaven that we may learn to trust God to provide.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, help me to realize that my anxieties about not having enough are relieved when I acknowledge that You provide exactly what I need — my daily bread.

       Our eagerness to give is often shadowed by our fear of not having enough.  We have — somewhere along life’s journey — convinced ourselves that there is a scarcity of resources available to us.  And it’s our fear of scarcity that then drives our lack of eagerness to give as well as our limits of generosity.  That leads us to wrongly presume that our generosity and our eagerness to give added to our fear of scarcity are not connected.  And yet, as people of faith our fear of scarcity prevents us from understanding that our God — the same God that has provided we’ve had, all that we have, and all that we will ever have — is the same God that “is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”  It’s always God’s intention to let those of us who are eager to give blessings to others, to also be abundantly blessed so that we will have all that we need.  That requires a shift in our understanding.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we’d have to admit that our lack of generosity is driven by our fear of scarcity and the fear of not having what we want, and not having what we need.  Therein lies the difference between being eager to give and fearful of giving.  Believing and trusting that God’s desire to bless us is tied to our desire to bless others frees us to be willing to give eagerly.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, grow within me the Spirit of generosity as someone eager to give and live without the fear of going without, so that others may be blessed to have what you’ve provided to me — the things we need.

       Giving to God’s work through our offerings to the church is not a contest.  The wealthy and the poor are neither celebrated nor reprimanded for their faithfulness in giving their gift.  Jesus does, however, make a sharp and insightful observation about the gift of the widow.  It appears that the one with the least was neither reluctant nor fearful of giving all she had to give.  Her eagerness to give shown in her willingness to trust God to provide whatever she needed.  Her gift was a gift of true sacrifice.  If there is a motivating factor for giving, perhaps it is found in our eagerness to sacrifice all we have and give, eagerly trusting God to provide all our needs.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, increase my eagerness to trust You enough to give everything I have believing that You will provide for my every need, so that I may grow in my eagerness to give.