The words of our beginning are forever etched in our minds ― “We are created in the image of God”.  We take great comfort in that.  But it’s not our outer image that defines us as much as it is the gifts of God’s Spirit alive inside of us that defines us and who God is within us.  And it is God’s Spirit that defines the wholeness of God in the body of the church.  God’s Spirit, while it completes us, continues to display the creative genius and diversity that God intended for our world.  None of us are exactly alike, but we’re all alike in that the Spirit of God is within us.  None of us  are born with the same gifts from God, but it is the diversity of gifts within each of us that allows us to see a different part of God’s Spirit.  And it’s because of this diversity that we are interdependent.  We need each other in order to wholly function in the world of God’s design.  It is that diversity that makes us the unity of the body of the church.  It is our differences that, more than anything else, show how completely God has included us all.  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 by someone greater than we can see with our eyes, but experience at a level much higher and deeper than we can explain.  We owe who we are to the One who created us so differently and yet so alike.

• How do you honor the unique gifts God has given you to benefit the community of your church or the world?
• Are you able to use your gifts of the Spirit in working with others to build the community?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to see with new eyes the power of Your 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.

         We don’t often see ourselves as persons of great strength.  For the most part, we acknowledge our weaknesses, often with the phrase, “I’m only human.”  The phrase in and of itself is an admission that somehow, we’re less than able, less than strong — simply, just less than.  We certainly don’t have God’s strength to do what God does.  But that’s a misunderstanding.  God is strong enough to be our comfort in all of our troubles.  The same God — who is our strength — has now empowered us to be God’s strength and comfort to others who are experiencing troubles.  It’s difficult for us to then claim, “I’m only human,” when we’ve been gifted with the strength of God to comfort others as God has comforted us.  It is important for us to recognize that it’s not our strength we use to comfort others.  It’s God’s strength flowing through us as an agent of God’s Holy Spirit.  Still, it makes us stronger in ways that we don’t often fully realize.  And it also invites us to recognize that when we comfort others with the same comfort we ourselves receive from God, it’s not our strength we’re using.  It’s God’s strength.  Whether we’re being comforted by God to ease us in all of our troubles, or we’re using God’s strength to comfort others in their distress, God is our strength.

• How has God’s strength been used in you to comfort others?
• How did you come to realize that it was God’s strength and not yours that was comforting someone else?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and gracious God, thank you for being my strength whether You’re comforting me in my distress, or giving me Your strength to comfort others.

         There was an old song that was sung in church titled, “I’m Glad.”  The words to the song spoke of one person’s joy that man (or humanity) didn’t make sunshine, because he may not let it shine on him.  And in some ways, that’s human nature.  Inequality has been a hallmark of injustice in our culture and in the world at large.  The poison of racism, sexism, ageism, genderism, xenophobia, and all of the other ways humans practice oppression seems to have crept into the hearts of humanity without their awareness.  We say, “those things don’t come to us naturally but are taught as evils that society practices the establish their forms of human hierarchy.”  And it’s in our practice of tribalism, oppression and evil that we find we the nature of humanity oppressing, distorting the truth, and practicing all manner of evil against one another.

       That’s human nature, but it’s not God’s nature.  We come to God because we’ve never seen God treat God’s creation differently because of race, sex, age, because people were different, or any of the discrepancies used in the world to treat people unequally.  We never experienced God’s love differently because of someone’s skin color, height, weight, intelligence or lack thereof.  We turn to God because God is a God of justice and equity that treats peoples of all nations without deference.  God’s equity has extended as equally to the Gentiles as to the Jews; as equally to women as to men; as equally to the youth as to the aged.  It is because of God’s practice of fairness and equality that God is deserving of all praise from all people.  And so, when the oppressive and discriminatory forces of the world begin to impact the lives of God’s people, we can go to our God because God is our strength.  God is our active force and agent against injustice and inequity in the world.  Because God is our strength, God is worthy of our praise.

• How have you experienced God’s strength active in your life providing equity when things seemed unjust?
• What circumstances have caused you to praise God because he brought you through a season of injustice in your life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, thank you for the honor of knowing that with You, equity and fairness is Your nature, and I praise you for it.