God Owns it All
Good Morning Friends,
At first glance secularism is filled with superstitions not rational philosophy and certainly not the foundations of our faith lived out in the spirit. It seems that secularism fails at a fundamental level to caste out fear. It seems to be more controlling than an act of love. The tragedy is that churches have the same problem. Though we all hunger for it we do not, as a people, much manifest transcendence, significance and community. On closer observation it becomes apparent that for now there is a false distinction between the secular and the sacred. There is not to be a divide between that which is sacred and that which is secular. The curtain has been torn. Friends, to separate anything from God is a violence. To sequester what we think is God’s in a church vault is little better than to store them as a secular scrooge. Beware the thief in the night. The reality is that God Owns it All.
Scripture: No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:12 (NRSV)
The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it;
Psalm 24:1 (NRSV)
For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
1 Corinthians 10:1-5 (NIV)
Message: At the door to the Temple the Psalmist says that God owns it all. And if it were not so, the Temple would never have been built in the first place. You see, it takes the obedience of God’s paymasters here on earth to make the connection. What becomes clearer is that when Christ is Lord nothing is secular. Needs are filled in and through God’s desire for us. Maybe that is why we all seek transcendence. I have found that everyone has the extraordinary embedded within them. Here it waits to be release by an act of love in the spirit… a commitment to God’s providence. Friends, we all are instinctively looking for this reality of God whether we believe or not. We are looking for something beyond the door where everything we want wants us as well. And here we seek significance as we hone the art of living and discover that everything we do is insignificant but still very important if it guides us to build community. Sure, we are looking for significance and identity in this new reality whether we see ourselves as secular or sacred, but we can only find it in community…this place where our character is tested. It is here that the same invisible God who once made himself visible in Jesus now makes himself visible in community…that is if we love one another. Friends, the most daring of things is to create stable communities that address the terrible disease of lowliness. This desire for Transcendence, Significance and Community are on our side as we realize that people are looking for the very things God would offer them.
Pray we live this day in the presence of God. Pray we are obedient and live it in the spirit of love. Pray we realize that without God life has no purpose and without purpose no meaning and without meaning no hope. Pray we realize that God owns it all…Trancendence, Significance and Community…all the things we desire the most. Pray we discover God in the secular but still flee from idolatry. Pray we realize that all the verbal proclamation of the gospel is of little value unless it is made by a community of love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 