Devotion.al

Tag: creation

  • Narrowed Ways

    Narrowed Ways

    Read: Matthew 7

    ‌‌🔎 Focus

    ‌“Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” —Matthew 7:13-14 (NRSVue)

    ‌‌✟ Devotion

    ‌Depending on the publisher (including online ones), much of Matthew 7 is broken into sections. This is instead of the long that it is (including the chapters themselves). Our focus verse (similar to Luke 13:23-30) is often popped out all on its own, leading us to conclude that it stands alone.

    ‌This chapter is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount remains challenging to this day. As such, there are not sections that one can tear out separately from the rest.

    ‌All too often, the focus verses become solely about doing the right thing and the right life. I’ve heard sermons preached, and I’ve preached them. However, when we put the focus passage in its context (within the Sermon on the Mount), it gets a bit harder (even arguably impossible) to think that way.

    ‌If we look at just the verse before:

    “In everything do to as you would have them do to you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

    Matthew 7:12 (NRSVue)

    ‌…and the verse after:

    “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

    Matthew 7:15 (NRSVue)

    …perhaps our would .

    ‌What if, instead of being a standalone set of verses about narrow gates and hard roads, they were the transition verses between treating others as you’d have them treat you and looking out for false prophets?

    ‌Many of us have inherited a high view of the Scriptures (which we, I believe, should have). However, a high view of the Scriptures is, in many circles, a rigid view of the Scriptures, which does not allow for setting aside of traditions, such as looking at the narrow gate and hard road verses in isolation from the rest of Jesus’ words that Matthew has happening during a single event.

    ‌🤔 Reflection

    ‌In our expanded context of Matthew 7:12-15, we are presented with the Law, the prophets, and the false prophets. How might verse 12 impact your understanding of verse 15, when taken ? How does this affect your thinking about verses 13–14?

    ‌‌⏏️ Act

    ‌As you read the Scriptures, remember that while the Books are valid separations, chapters (except for the Psalms and Proverbs) and verses are not the original way the Scriptures were presented. Instead of defaulting to chapter, verse, and heading, read the words, and see what that does to change how you read and what you read.

    ‌🙏 Prayer

    ‌Jesus, you have the Word of life. Let us remember with and dignity that through you all of was made, that words do mean much, especially yours. Holy , guide our reading of the Scriptures that we are transformed from the inside out. God, forgive us when the tools that we deem to help us, interfere with what you have to say to us today. Amen.

  • Perspective and Significance

    Perspective and Significance

    Psalm 144; Ezekiel 19:10–14; 1 Peter 2:4–10 (ISV)

    In the fictional universe housing the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (written by Douglas Adams), there is a machine called the Total Vortex. Originally built (per the fictional universe) to provide beings a comparison of themselves to the infinity of creation, it became a torture device to (effectively) destroy a being’s mind.‌

    ‌It sounds a little extreme, except that much of the religions over the years are concerned with is much about finding our place in the universe.‌

    ‌The (Roman Catholic) Church attacked Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei for proposing that the earth revolved around the sun, rather than the sun (and the other planets) revolving around the earth. While the majority of the (entire ) Church now believes Galileo Galilei, we need to recognize that Galileo Galilei’s hypothesis was, for that era and theological framework, similar in effect to the Total Perspective Vortex.‌

    ‌On the other hand, in contemporary fiction and philosophy, there is a deep concern regarding the Butterfly Effect. This is the theory that if time travel were possible, a person going back in time could catastrophically affect the timeline (including the era from which the time traveler came). Many people have bought into this concept, and yet disparage the one small thing they do today.‌

    ‌Perspective matters deeply to how we function in life and how we treat others.‌

    ‌For me one of the most peaceful things is to stare at the night sky at the stars (most effective away from city light pollution). It brings peace to my soul and . It also guides me to have a better perspective of myself. I am tiny compared to the entire of Creation. I am only 1 person among over 8 billion people walking the earth at this moment.‌

    ‌For you, this may be disquieting. We have a need to be significant, but so much around us shows how insignificant we are.‌‌

    Lord, what are beings, that you should care about them, or mortal man, that you should think about him?

    Psalm 144:3 (ISV)

    ‌‌God cares about us. No matter how insignificant we believe or are told we are, God cares for and thinks about we humans. In comparison to the infiniteness of God, we are not even microscopic, yet God loves us.

    ‌‌If we derive our significance from others, we are often emotionally and spiritually doomed. If we derive our significance from God, however, that is a solid foundation on which to place our worth and .

    ‌‌There is, though, the danger of arrogance. “I’m by God, so I can do…” We are all guilty of this to some degree.

    Now it is planted in the desert, in a dry and thirsty land!

    ‌Ezekiel 19:13 (ISV)

    ‌When we get too full of ourselves, or when we look too much to others, we can be in the desert of and with God. It’s not that God ceases to care, quite the contrary. We can be chasing after things that we think will water and feed us, but we up in a desert, where receive the bare minimum to live.‌

    ‌The desert experience isn’t necessarily bad, ultimately. It can teach what is really important if we let it. On the other hand, far too many people stubbornly refuse to from the desert, and so end up dry and withered. That doesn’t have to be the end.‌

    Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

    ‌1 Peter 2:10 (ISV)

    ‌God is merciful. Yes, we’ve done stuff that doesn’t please God. We could even say that because we are fallible and fragile creatures, we will never measure up to God’s holiness and love. God is merciful.

    ‌⁜Reflection⁜‌

    ‌To whom are you significant? Why?‌
    ‌How do you think significance and mercy are related?‌

    ‌⁜Act⁜‌

    ‌Share with someone what makes them significant to you.‌

    ‌⁜Prayer⁜‌

    ‌God, it is often so hard to see my significance to you. Help me to be understand my significance to you, and help me focus on you defining my significance, rather than leaving it to others. Amen.

    ‌

  • Road Inheritance

    Road Inheritance

    Psalm 23; Jeremiah 10:1–16; Colossians 1:15–23

    Psalm 23:3 reads, in effect, “God helps and guides me along the paths that are best for me.” Note that it doesn’t say, “God will make me…” We choose to follow the guide, or we choose not to. That isn’t all that comforting, especially as we look around us. Free will is the ability to choose the wrong path.

    said, “Go in through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to destruction is broad and the road wide, so many people enter through it. 14 But the gate that leads to is narrow and the road difficult, so few people find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) In today’s plethora of choice, it might be rewritten to say, “there are plenty of roads to choose, many of which are attractive, fun, enjoyable, and scratch our itches. However, the road to True Life is hard to find among all the options, and there is very little on the road that makes it attractive for the world to follow.” Or you could say that the “narrow road” is a one-lane road, and the broad road is an 8-billion+ lane one.

    The and its people, however, still remain too attracted to the “ways of the nations” and the “signs in the sky” (Jeremiah 10:2). Regardless of political affiliation or social issues or a myriad of other things, the Church gets distracted very easily. Now, this is not to say that the issues that the world face are not our concern. Quite the contrary. We are to look to Christ first so that we are equipped to bring , , love, and . Instead, we look to and the talking heads that of the issues of the world to guide us. This crosses (pun intended) all political and other ideological lines.

    What also comes of this is our inheritance. There just might be a reason why God speaks through Jeremiah of the unique inheritance of the descendants of Jacob. We are those spiritual descendants (not necessarily of blood), so we should be paying attention, too. Our inheritance is not the world’s, and for that, we should be thankful! If our inheritance is from God, it seems reasonable to not want any other inheritance.

    The deception is that in the world we see a “shadow” of Jesus. All of was made through him and for him (Colossians 1:16). This means that it is easy to be deceived, or deceive ourselves, that we are following the right path for even the wrong paths have a shadow of Jesus. The skeptic (or the hopeful) might suggest this means that all paths lead to Jesus. Your shadow is an imperfect image of you that changes depending on the direction of the light source and the type of light source. It isn’t really you, just as the shadows of the world might look at times like Jesus, they really aren’t.

    ※Reflection※

    • What tensions do you see with Jesus loving the world, and the shadows of the world that may appear to look like Jesus?
    • What are some current issues/concerns of the world that appear to look like Jesus? How might those same issues not be like Jesus?

    ※Prayer※

    Jesus, stir in our hearts to claim and to share the inheritance that rust and moths cannot destroy. Amen.

  • Give It Up

    Give It Up

    Psalm 123; Jeremiah 7:27–34; Matthew 8:18–22

    There was this guy who science. He loved nature. He pursued the academics to take care of the wilds. Except he was stubborn. You see, what he loved wasn’t the science, but Creation. In fact, he wasn’t good at it at all. He stuck with that choice for 4 years. Sadly, no one gave him wise advice (not that he would have listened) to it up. It wasn’t meant for him. 4 years of misery and disappointment vanished into smoke. You might know such a stubborn person.

    The basic gist of God’s words to Jeremiah: give it up. No matter what you do, they won’t listen. No matter what acts of penance and remorse they act out…they are acting and their hearts aren’t in it. The people of Judah seemed to revel in their disobedience to God. Blaspheming the Temple of God with idols of false gods. Killing their sons and daughters and them to fires.

    Give it up, Jeremiah. They won’t see the errors of theirs ways until the places of these sacrifices are filled with corpses of war, famine, and pestilence, and these so-called sacred places of sacrifice are themselves blasphemed. Oh, and maybe not even then. Give it up.

    We are in a time and place where even conversations with friends and acquaintances are “given up” as there can be no discussion or resolution. The hearts are hard and the ears are closed. Sometimes all we can do is give it up. That is until it comes to us.

    ‘ words seem somewhat harsh to our ears. Yet, they hold a profound that much of Western Christianity, especially the US iteration, is in the process of rediscovering. Give it up.

    The legal expert would have had a decent home and security. Jesus told him, basically, give it up. The disciple (since unnamed, probably not one of the 12) says, let me bury my father. In other words, let me wait to follow you until my father wouldn’t disown me or be ashamed of me. Jesus responded, who is your father in comparison to me? Give it up.

    We have become far too comfortable. Whether it is being the majority confessed (rather than followed) , or the “majority” skin color (if you are), or the nice buildings, or our ties to political power, or our ties to monied power, or the practices we hold dear, or the ability to speak openly about Jesus, we’ve been comfortable.

    Jesus’ point to these two was that comfort isn’t the …Jesus is the call.

    In certain Christian traditions that hold only men may be pastors/priests, they are struggling to find men to fill the roles. Often the is that they should accept women. Those who respond that way will often point to those denominations (like the of the Nazarene) that do ordain women. Yet, the real question, the real deficit, is that people don’t want to give it up. They don’t want to give up their lives.

    None of us do, really. Even those denominations that do ordain women still have a problem, and that is the people themselves who don’t want to give it up for Jesus. It is not a matter of men or women. It is not a matter of politics, , race, or other things. It is that people don’t want to give it up for Jesus.

  • Seriously

    Seriously

    Psalm 123; Jeremiah 7:16–26; 2 Corinthians 10:7–11

    The Christian understanding of God is one of love, forgiveness, and . These are often the primary characteristics on which we focus. If we are honest, it’s because, with such a God, a lot of pressure is off of us. There are many, however, who claim these same three characteristics are God’s and yet talk only about God’s judgment, anger, and destruction. Today’s passages would seem to have that same .

    In today’s verses, the opening words to Jeremiah are brutal. “Don’t pray…or plead for them…” First, this tells us about Jeremiah. Jeremiah prayed. Jeremiah hurt for the people and the relationship with God that they had lost.

    One could say that God’s words were unloving, except perhaps we have the wrong focus. What if God’s focus (in the opening verse, at least) wasn’t really the Israelites, but Jeremiah. Like a parent or grandparent long praying for the of a child or grandchild, perhaps that was Jeremiah (God did tell him to not pray). Perhaps Jeremiah was deeply upset (he was often called the Weeping Prophet), and God wanted him to let go.

    There is also the high possibility that God knew that the hearts of the Israelites would not be repentant before the time of reckoning. If this is indeed the case, the of “don’t pray” would have been, “release your burden, for it is not yours to bear.” That would be in the face of .

    In some ways, Jeremiah is as Paul states, “The Lord gave us that authority to build you up and not to destroy you.” Jeremiah certainly didn’t want the power to destroy the Israelites. He wanted to build them up so that they returned to God.

    This is where the hard reality of the Scriptures hits us, and we don’t like it…at all. We say that we don’t like this God of “meanness” and try to cover up what we think is “wrong” with language that God loves everyone.

    Oh, God does. Without question, God loves all of , even these broken and dysfunctional parts called humans. There does, though, come a point where it all has to .

    We don’t like this point. We don’t like the thought of lost ones not knowing God at the end. GOOD! We’re not supposed to like it! Perhaps, just perhaps, that God is showing us that it is a serious matter (even deadly), and we ought to be serious about it, too.

    ※Reflection※

    • What were your initial thoughts about God when reading Jeremiah? How about Jeremiah? The Israelites?
    • What lessons can you from God’s words and actions?
    • What lessons did you learn from Jeremiah’s words and actions?
    • What lessons did you learn from the Israelites?

    ※Prayer※

    Lord, loving you is often easy, but your love for us and our betterment is often beyond our understanding. Guide us in your ways. Amen.

  • Moving Pain

    Moving Pain

    Psalm 107:1–3, 23–32; Job 38:1–11; 2 Corinthians 6:1–13; Mark 4:35–41

    The right time. God moved at the right time. God’s timing is perfect.

    From a purely intellectual standpoint, these are easy to say. It is much harder to say this in the midst of trial and be at peace with that truth. We will often tell ourselves that we trust God, but that doesn’t mean we are at peace with it.

    Sometimes we aren’t called to be at peace with it.

    , whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, is God’s gift to us that something is wrong. One of the biggest ones is the pain of , particularly . Death is the ultimate indicator that something is wrong in Creation.

    Pain also often indicates that you need to do something. Just sitting in your pain, because you trust God’s timing or are “at peace” about, is not always the right or .

    Pain, oddly enough, can also be disguised in positive events and positive moments, as these moments of transition mean letting go of the past.

    The disciples didn’t just in their pain (). They woke up. That was wise.

    (and Timothy) didn’t just sit in their pain that the Corinthians appeared to be abandoning them or letting their love (of Paul and Timothy and/or God) grow cold. A letter was written and delivered. It was said aloud and shared among the Corinthians (and other churches).

    Job didn’t just sit. He carthartically released his pain. We often think of the Book of Job as Job mostly sitting with the others. While he is, Job is also doing what a lot of us try to do when we are in pain (spiritual and emotional, especially)…we process.

    ※Reflection※

    • What pain are you working through right now? What is the biggest obstacle for you in it?
    • How is your pain impacting those around you, particularly those who are closest to you?
    • How is your pain impacting your daily and choices?

    ※Prayer※

    God, you gave us pain to guide us. Help us to look at the pain we are dealing with to see how you can use it to transform us. Amen.

  • So Say The Skies

    So Say The Skies

    Psalm 107:1–3, 23–32; Job 37:1–13; Luke 21:25–28

    One of the most useful tools invented, and also one of the most irritating is the clock. Humanity has long felt the need to measure time. Multiple cultures used some iteration of a sundial to divide the day. The Egyptians invented a “clock” that used water drops to measure time (both day and night). Even in the beginning, God marked the boundary of day and night with the sun and moon (and stars). The Jewish calendar was built around the cycle of the moon, and the sun set the day. The Jews were not unique in that.

    Looking to the skies was also important, since having an idea of weather (even if only a few hours ahead) provide some idea of which tasks needed to be done immediately. Rain, snow, hail, lightning, all come from the skies. The dreaded locusts came by sky, too (granted, by flying). There were and sand storms. When everything is subsistence, and even now, watching the skies is important.

    Then, there were the astrological signs. We’re not talking about the “signs of the Zodiac”, per se. We’re talking about comets, eclipses (solar and lunar), the planets (as they appeared and disappeared based upon their respective orbits). We admire eclipses, for example, because they are pretty cool. We also understand them. In ancient days, most people didn’t have the to understand them, and those that did often used it for their and advantage.

    Thus, when we read the with all their weather and astrological signs, we have to understand this is about human awareness of how much they didn’t know and understanding that there was a bigger picture beyond them (a lesson many more highly “learned” people need to re-learn). We may think it strange that ancient cultures attributed to God (or gods) weather and astrological signs that we “know” are “merely” systems with a structure, rules, and logic.

    For Job, these were signs of God’s majesty and control. They showed that God was in control. This is also Job’s acknowledgment that God has a plan and that he (Job) doesn’t understand it. Job actually points to all the signs as proof of God’s existence, and that he (Job) is merely a finite person in the eyes of the infinite God.

    Even points to astrological signs. Yes, Jesus also points to more “earthly” signs, which are equally out of the hands of humanity. Jesus then combines the Godly with the earthly to make the point of unification between God and .

    Will Jesus really come back on a cloud, or is this just a figure of speech? Depends on who you . The underlying point isn’t how Jesus comes back. The point is that Jesus does come back. Even in the ancient church creeds, the important part was that Jesus was coming back, not how.

    ※Reflection※

    • Do you believe that Jesus is coming back? Why or why not?
    • Do you think that the return to Jesus an important part of being a ? Why or why not?
    • Is Jesus’ return an important part of your Christian life? If so, how is that expressed through your life? If not, how do you understand Jesus’ return as being part of your faith, if it is?

    ※Prayer※

    Lord Jesus, many of us long for your return to end the of the world. Many of us want your return delayed to assure we can bring more into your . Help us to grasp emotionally, mentally, and spiritually that there is an end that is coming, and that you will be there. Amen.

  • Light It Up

    Light It Up

    Psalm 107:1–3, 23–32; Job 29:21–30:15; Acts 21:1–16

    is full of ups and downs. Psalm 107 starts with such a positive tone. Then mishaps and adventures and trials occur. Then back to rejoicing in God. It doesn’t seem to really matter your place, station, or nation in life, there are ups and downs. Even in some of the harshest conditions, people will find positive things. Part of that is just how we maintain some sort of sanity (even if it’s by our fingernails).

    This certainly is not to belittle anyone’s trials and tribulations. Even in midst of grieving over the of a loved one, people might ‘s beautiful Creation. They might laugh at a really bad Dad joke (yes, a dad joke and a bad joke are the same thing). They might have an enjoyable meal or a great time with friends. The remains, but something can still be good.

    Job was respected. He cared for . He honored God. He led others.

    Job fell. He was despised. He was rejected. Others sought to lead him. Yet, he honored God.

    All of Acts is a series of ups and downs. While this part of ‘s journey is really the foreshadowing of his journey to Rome and to his death, it is still filled with stories of love, caring, loyalty, and faith.

    The world is indeed a dark place. Often, the only thing that can keep us sane and even happy is . Only hope in Jesus Christ will endure through time.

    ※Reflection※

    • Thinking of a dark time in your life, what were high points in the ? What made them that way?
    • Have you ever questioned a joyful or happy moment in the midst of darkness? Did you feel as if you disrespected the time of darkness?
    • What are ways that you have found to invoke , , and hope in the midst of your darkness and the darkness of others?

    ※Prayer※

    Jesus, you are the light to the world. Help us to be the smaller lights that bring hope to the world, and glory to you. Amen.