JANUARY 6, 2025

 “We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.” 

― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

GENESIS 15-17

1After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.

I am your shield,^a

your very great reward.^b ”(15:1)

MATTHEW 5:27-48

43“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighborⁱ and hate your enemy.’ 44But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,45that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

JOURNAL 

In both of these passages the emphasis is on man's relationship with God and the fruit of that relationship. In Genesis God states that he is the reward and then in Matthew the command is to do something completely illogical...love your enemies. 

So why would God make such commands. I think it all goes back to the essence of God actually being Man's God. That God himself is the reward and the goal...not riches or fame or long life...just God and God alone. It also moves the bar so far out of reach for man to ever really fully achieve. I believe this is done so that we can never boast or find equivalency with God. We always miss the mark, we are always in need of his mercy, forgiveness and love. 

I struggle with this, it can feel pointless. Why keep trying when I can never really achieve perfection? I think the answer is that it's not the actual perfection but the relationship that occurs in the seeking.  In doing so we experience the joy of relationship with God, we understand him better and we become a glimpse of the eternal. Because the only way we don't need his forgiveness is when we are one in spirit with him. Never easy but worth it. 

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

ROMANS 12:1-2

JANUARY 5, 2025

 “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” 

― Martin Luther King Jr.

GENESIS 12-14

1The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

2“I will make you into a great nation,

and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,

and you will be a blessing.^a

3I will bless those who bless you,

and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth

will be blessed through you.”^b(12:1-3)

MATTHEW 5:1-26

14“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

JOURNAL 

Abram is called to follow God and picks up his entire life and sets out in obedience. 

Jesus begins the sermon on the mount...this has always been to me the part of the Bible that I really believe should be read again and again. It is Jesus' sermon. He begins by listing all those that are blessed. The list does not include the wealthy or the successful or the powerful. He states that those that are blessed are people that most would consider unfortunate or cursed. Those that mourn, poor in spirit and meek. I could never imagine a facebook post that stated that I am so blesssed because I really feel poor in spirit today or I am so blessed because I am mourning the loss of a loved one. 

Yet Jesus begins his sermon in this way. Why? I think it is because Jesus wanted his audience to to realize that the things that most people consider blessings...are not always blessings. True blessings come from God and God alone, true blessings are things we cannot provide for ourselves. The people then that appreciate them the most are people who are in despair, who are lonely, who are trapped and see no way out. Jesus came to transform the worst in us, not congratulate us on our accomplishments. 

He then moves on to state that we are blessed when the world hates us and we are persecuted. Verse 14-15 then state that we are to be shining examples of his love for the rest of the world to see. Wow...what an opening statement, what a humbling statement. Going back to this idea of a glimpse, we are to reflect God and be a glimpse of his love, his compassion to the world. As a human I get that opportunity every day...yet I rarely fully embrace it. But this is God's command for my life! I am not to wallow in my suffering but rather rejoice in my blessing and opportunity. This definitely requires a mindset shift and I believe it's precisely what Jesus calls us to do. 

Father thank you for the wake up call...thank you for this sermon spoken 2000 years ago...thank you for being a light of love in my life that the world can never remove. 

 23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

COLOSSIANS 3:23-24

JANUARY 4, 2025

  “When we set about accounting for a Napoleon or a Shakespeare or a Raphael or a Wagner or an Edison or other extraordinary person, we understand that the measure of his talent will not explain the whole result, nor even the largest part of it; no, it is the atmosphere in which the talent was cradled that explains; it is the training it received while it grew, the nurture it got from reading, study, example, the encouragement it gathered from self-recognition and recognition from the outside at each stage of its development: when we know all these details, then we know why the man was ready when his opportunity came.” 

― Mark Twain

GENESIS 9-11

6“Whoever sheds human blood,

by humans shall their blood be shed;

for in the image of God

has God made mankind.(9:6)

MATTHEW 4

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted^a by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’^b ”

JOURNAL 

The spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted. So God led him to a place where he would be challenged. This is training, this is testing, this is what any good coach and every good athlete accepts and does themselves. Willing to encounter difficulty and face your enemies and face challenges. This is how we were designed to grow and learn. God is raising up Jesus, he is training him for the challenges that will come.

This is the nature of all challenges.  We are not designed to live in comfort and ease, we rather are made to face challenges and solve problems. That is how we grow and that is how we experience true joy. Through encountering challenges and solving problems. The more I see the world that way, the more I am less conflicted by the challenges and rather can see them as critical and crucial to my growth and my joy. 

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’^e ”

11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

MATTHEW 4:8-11

JANUARY 3, 2025

  “The saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there's nothing to make it last.” 

― Nicholas Sparks, Dear John

GENESIS 6-8

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.(6:9)

MATTHEW 3

16As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

JOURNAL 

God's desire is for us to be righteous. He forgives us and we have grace but his desire is for us to pursue him, obey him and live holy, righteous lives. I sometimes get complacent with the idea of grace. I sometimes mail it in because I know God will forgive me. Yet in really thinking about it...to do so is taking advantage of God, his love and his grace. To do so really hurts me. It wounds my own integrity and my passion for life. God is constant and his love never fails. To realize this and to not let it transform my life, my actions, my attitude, is ultimately to not really believe it. 

When I really think about it...the reason I don't live with a spirit of gratitude and humility it is because I don't fully believe that it matters. I've let circumstances and my experiences in the past cloud my judgement on the reason and purpose of obedience. There have been times when I've been obedient and life didn't work out the way I wanted. There also have been times when I've intentionally been disobedient and it did work out. 

Yet what I have noticed is that obedience always comes with the benefit of joy. In the end in some fashion or form, when I obey...I feel and know God's love and his approval. In those times, the circumstances and the success or failure really don't matter.  His love is truly enough.

28Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth.

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

29He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

30Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

31but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

ISAIAH 40:28-31

JANUARY 2, 2025

    “If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.” 

― Augustine of Hippo

If Jesus didn't think he could handle life without knowing the Scripture inside and out, what makes you think you can?

- Timothy Keller

GENESIS 3-5

8Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”(3:8-10)

MATTHEW 2

19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

21So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

JOURNAL 

This quote by Timothy Keller got all kinds of backlash...people saying that this causes people to worship the Bible and use it for harm and saying that all that really matters is love and that Jesus was reading from the Torah and not the New Testament. So crazy how people can get so out of whack in their own thinking. To me this all smells of trying to defend the fact that they probably never have really read the whole Bible. My question is how can you truly say that you worship and follow God if you have never really read the Bible. 

It's like giving a book report on a book you haven't ever actually read. There are so many things in scripture that have troubled me, comforted me, puzzled me, convicted me...but in the end all of scripture together affirm my faith and educate me to an understanding of who God truly is...without this personal reading and study I truly feel I would be lost. This quote from my devotion a couple of years past  is a prime example of something I never considered...

God calls out to the Man..."Where are you?" This is often the call of this generation to it's men. "where are you".  Looking at this juxtaposed to the faith of Joseph...it is quite interesting. Joseph is visited 3 different times by angels in his dreams. Every time he obeyed and followed and as a result Jesus was protected and spared.  It is also interesting that Jesus earthly "Father" is named Joseph the same name of the Joseph of the Old Testament and in many ways was the savior of his people through the famine of Egypt. He like Jesus was rejected, suffered, yet was redeemed and as a result brought his family into the Kingdom of Egypt. Just as Jesus was rejected, suffered and brought all people into the Kingdom of God. Joseph forgave his brothers and they were spared and made righteous, Jesus forgives us and makes us righteous. I have never really put that together before.

 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. 

EPHESIANS 2:4-10