Devotion.al

Tag: questions

  • Heart and Purpose

    Psalm 20, Isaiah 50:7–11, John 3:16–21

    “May he you what your desires and fulfill your whole purpose.” Psalm 20:4

    What does your heart desire?

    What is your WHOLE purpose?

    Those are two questions that humanity has wrestled with since the eyes/hearts/minds of Adam and Eve were opened in the Garden of Eden.

    What we often do, however, is try to fill our hearts’ desires with things and activities that do not fulfill our whole purpose. In so doing, we are confused and disillusioned. We look to other people (who are just as confused and disillusioned) and try to find fulfillment based on what they say is the “right” way to be .
    Isaiah could have chosen the easy road, and probably had an easier time of it. However, he understood that often even while the heart is in (as his was), his heart desired God and Isaiah was fulfilled by following and obeying God.

    “…people the rather than the light because their deeds were .” (John 3:19)

    This is the harshness of trying to be fulfilled by our own efforts.

    “But anyone who lives by the comes to the light, so that his works may be showed to be accomplished by God.” In the Greek, accomplished strongly implies comprehensive, or fulfilled.

    Chasing the light can be hard, but if fulfillment is truly what we seek, it is it.

    As the world’s state generally improving, the immediate need and drive of survival come against purpose. As the awareness of purpose comes out, the lack of fulfillment becomes a threat to life: drugs, addictions, suicide, theft, violence. While throughout existence, some of this has always existed, the levels are increasing rapidly.

    We are called not just to walk in the light. We are called to be the light, and to carry the light of Christ into the darkness.

    1) Why do you think suicide and addiction are often a person’s response to purposelessness?

    2) What are new ways (or old ways in a new costume) that can bring hope and purpose to a world that doesn’t believe?

  • Drawing Waters of Salvation

    Isaiah 12:2–6, Jeremiah 31:31–34, Luke 22:14–20

    Isaiah is often not filled with much encouragement. This particular “song”, however, is a pronouncement of the saved telling the unsaved that they can be saved.

    Isaiah starts out with his salvation, and that his relationship with God is sound. He then tells the wayward hearer that they will joyfully (note they are miserable) draw water of their salvation. Then they will sing praises to God. Springs of salvation, or could we say Water? What do you think?

    Water is life. This is a special truth in the desert, where water is scarce. From a scriptural standpoint, blood is the life of a creature. Thus when we come to communion, we are to consider both the aspect of blood as life (Jesus’ blood) and water as life (Jesus is the living water). When Isaiah speaks about the spring of salvation, it is reasonable to see a foreshadowing of communion.

    With its darker tone (the blood of Jesus), it is also easy to see that this is not quite what had happened before, yet had similar attributes to the sacrificial practices of the Israelites. When Jeremiah speaks of a new covenant, there is little chance that the Israelites would have expected how that covenant would come to be. That this new covenant also changes how the “law” worked would also be beyond . How would the Israelites “know” God’s law? It is not until the is fully expressed that an understanding of this new way of the law fully revealed. There is also a special promise in Jeremiah’s New Covenant . If we all know God’s law, and have to be neither taught nor teach (admonish) . Looking at the world around us, and our own lives, the only way that happens is if we fully yield ourselves to God. Yielding ourselves to God often starts with the simple acknowledgment that we cannot fully understand God.

    The disciples didn’t fully understand God, and they spent 3 years with Jesus! Have you heard, if only Jesus were here, we’d get the real/whole story, and we’d understand (or even believe). If his disciples who were with him (even one going so far as to betray him) for years didn’t get it, would we be any more likely? With our post-Enlightenment and scientific tendencies, we might be even less likely to understand! Even Judas Iscariot (the betrayer) up to this point didn’t get what this specific night meant for the . They were just celebrating Passover with Jesus.

    When we celebrate communion (a sacrament), we become participants in this last meal.

    Instead of the usual at the end (besides, there were plenty of questions already), we will end with Book of Common Prayer, Contemporary Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Lent:

    Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world:
    Evermore us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him;
    who lives and reigns with you and the ,
    one God, now and for ever. Amen.

    US Book of Common Prayer, 2007

  • The Why of Right

    Psalm 18:21-36, Deuteronomy 6:16–25, Hebrews 2:1–10

    Sometimes the greatest legacy we leave is the little things we do. Where we were not shown love, we show love to . Where people did not build up, we build up. We may never see any of these little steps, but if we are to follow God, letting him guide us, a Godly legacy comes naturally. When it becomes a Godly habit, we don’t have to ponder long to answer of why we do things.

    In Deuteronomy, we really are reading the legacy that Moses seeks to pass on, not just to his children, or his immediate tribe, but to the entire people called Israel. Imagine having such a potential legacy. The self-imposed pressure would be huge. Yet, the purpose of a legacy is not to bear the entirety of the burden yourself, but to it. It is shared with the leaders with whom you work, it also is shouldered by the ones to whom it is passed.

    Moses wants to make sure that it is not just the leaders or priests that bear the burden. The next generation (and the generations that follow) is the goal of passing on a legacy. Moses wants the parents to understand their place in passing on the legacy of God. The parents, leaders, and priests all have their place in passing on the legacy that they have received. It is not just passing it on, however, that makes it successful. Just passing on information is just that. It is out what was passed on that makes the legacy successful. Just as with the Psalm, there is a result that comes with the successful passing, God’s preservation and looking out for them.

    Right and True information and living is the expression of a legacy. The author of Hebrews, even after such a short time of Christianity, is already concerned in his writing that the Right and True information is being lost. The author of Hebrews would be already well aware of the memory that Israel experienced after escaping Egypt. The author reinforces the importance of the right information being passed along. Often this gets confused, too. People often turn to “right” without “right” belief (and vice-versa). When the “right” action is done it loses its long-term effectiveness and purposed when divorced from the why. Doing “good” things, for example, doesn’t earn one’s way to Heaven.

    1) What “right” thing(s) have you done without knowing the “right” reason(s)?

    2) With whom do you work (or have worked) to make sure that you pass on a legacy having?

    3) Why is it good for us to what legacy we are passing on and why?

    FD) Why is important to know why we do things?

  • Trusting God’s Way

    Psalm 1, Jeremiah 17:5-10, 1 Corinthians 6:1-11

    Has someone ever said to you, “I don’t trust anyone?” First, imagine like that. Someone who lives such a paranoid life could never be happy. You cannot love if you cannot trust. Second, anyone who says that hasn’t walked down the road of thinking that through to the end. You certainly cannot function in modern society, or really among humans, without some level of trust. Even when driving (when trust is often least), we generally trust people. We have no choice. To get from one place to the other we have to expect that everyone is trying to get to their destination, too, and will behave accordingly. Oddly enough, if such a person were to exist, there is still one person they have to trust, themselves.

    While it is almost impossible to distrust everyone, it is far to easy for people to believe in those who are in power or have influence. We often seem to turn off our common sense and our ability to right from wrong when dealing with certain people. Sometimes, even more strangely, we continue to trust people that have already betrayed our trust. People put a lot of trust in the things of man: wealth, power, influence, cars, homes, boats, knowledge, etc. The most dangerous trust, though, is when we get to the point where knowledge trumps God. For clarity, we’re talking about God. We aren’t talking about, for example, evolution and Genesis, or Jonah and the whale (fish). We’re talking about trusting things of man rather than God. The thing that probably endangers man most of all is knowledge.

    Whether your perspective of the Garden of Eden (a story in the book of Genesis) is a parable (story) or definitive truth, the underlying truth (other than humankind’s pride) is that knowledge is a barrier between us and God. We put it there. We chose, and daily choose, to put knowledge between ourselves and God. Our society honors and elevates those who use knowledge to oppose God. This is nothing new. The sad state of most American Christians (and there are exceptions) is that if there is an (of which America has had and has made many) the general is not one of, “God, forgive us.” It is, “…raise the Department of Defense budget.” We often justify this response by saying, “it’s a wise choice.” The question we should constantly be asking ourselves “is it the God-ly choice.” Now, here is the real rub. Honest (with themselves) Christians may on many fronts including “just” war, dealing with poverty, dealing with immigration. That is perfectly okay (and normal). What is not normal, and should be, is, “what is God’s response to this through me?” Am I honoring God, or dishonoring God. Again, the reality is that different people will come to different conclusions. Yep.

    When we trust God’s redemptive work in us and by extension God’s redemptive work in others, we can trust people not because people are trustworthy. We trust God’s work because it’s God’s work, not ours. When we trust God’s work, we become that tree planted by the water, nourished by the love and of God. God’s transformative grace continually works on, in, and through us. Changing our lives from ones that trusted the things and ways of man, into lives the revolve around God and his love. When God justified us he set us apart to be weird. Trust God. God does amazing things.

    1) Even in the church, people often turn to the ways of man. Why do you think that is?

    2) Especially in the church, people turning to the ways of man is problematic at best, sinful at worst. How can you tell when something is the “ways of man” rather than the “ways of God”?

    3) Often the phrase, “the reason of the ,” is used to not judge another (and justifiably), but also it is used to justify our personal actions. Why is the concept of only God knowing our heart (both feeling and motivation) both freeing and very dangerous?

    FD) How can you start asking yourself “is this God’s way” ? What do you think the result will be?

  • Life Vessel

    Psalm 71, Isaiah 55:1-13, Acts 9:19b-25

    It is easy to get lost in . It is easy to let the troubles of this world get you down. When the world especially tries to drag you down with, “if there really was a God…” The psalmist feels overwhelmed and opposed. There is even some feeling of being abandoned by God. Yet, the psalmist does not lose , and trust God, even when questioning. It’s okay to question what’s going on. God’s big enough to handle the question. It’s not that we question. It can be how we question. Really, it is who we look at when we question. Are we looking at ourselves? Are we looking at ? Or, are we looking, really looking at God?

    Isaiah has questions. The people of Israel have questions. They have lots of questions, and heartache, and , and pain, and anger, and despair, and…a whole of issues. The words shared by Isaiah are really the question…who/what are you looking at? When we look at God, we can receive – water and life. When we look elsewhere, it goes out of us. That can be good, as long as we keep looking to God to receive. However, the longer we are open to receiving, we end up leaving ourselves open to being changed. Some people take a touch. Others take tap. Others require a spiritual 2×4. It is what happens afterwards that is the difference: our and how we look at God.

    got the 2×4 (or something bigger). He had an experience that was so powerful that he changed. He went from a man successfully penalizing the church (including being an accomplice to murder), to being an obvious and outspoken support of Jesus Christ and his church. So much so, that it is not an unreasonable question to ponder, if he was so quickly able to successfully defend Jesus as the Messiah, why couldn’t have figured it out earlier? What if…a powerful question, that has no real answer.‌

    • ‌1) Being a vessel of God’s living water (spirit) can us deeply. Why can that be scary to people?‌
    • 2) What do you think of the Christian life in the of Isaiah’s words? Should your Christian life be changed?
    • 3) We often think of Paul being alone. Yet, he was never alone. What does that tell us about Paul, ourselves, and how we view important people?
    • FD) Sometimes we don’t understand God. Is that okay? Is it okay to not understand, and still love and trust God?