Good Morning Friends,
God knows…God knows… and you are still loved. Today’s Bible passages give us, in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, what is essentially one a long sentence with praise to God for all our blessings in Christ. It places the source of our salvation, even of our faith, in God. It proclaims the mystery of salvation, and the rich wisdom and insight of a relationship with Christ. And it reminds us that the Body of believers calls us to a consistent Christian life that embraces unity and inclusion in the joy of life. Yes, there are some duties of our Christian walk we can pursue and there are other things, most everything, that are in God’s active control. Friends, we were chosen to be holy and how we experience this ultimate reality is through our life in relationships. During the last few difficult years, I think this is more important than ever. You see, we all are amazingly and wonderfully different, but we all are having to face the challenge of discovering what is and is not true freedom. So, imagine yourself, fully aware of the unique mission and vision God has placed in you as a specific purpose to advance God’s kingdom in this world, yet, let us be honest, some of us are held hostage to phobias, irrational worries, and destructive fears of failure, harm, or rejection. In God’s accounting system, we are justified for a purpose. We are to be set free even as some of our freedoms and joy of life seems to be more difficult to attain. Sure, God can do it another way. But if you do not fulfill the mission God assigned to you it might not get done as soon as it could be. You are unique and I am unique. So, have faith even as we contemplate today’s question. So, Do You Value Participating In God’s Plan Even Though You Are Not in Charge?
Scripture: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:3-14 (NRSV)
Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered by the thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops. “I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12:1-7 (NRSV)
Message: If people like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King had been fearful of people more so than of God, they would never have moved the needle of human rights for others.
But we do not have to be great leaders to be in the game. We too can move the needle through small acts of love if we trust God. The problem is fear. Fear is a common human emotion and sometimes it is rational. But what people commonly fear is not always what should be causing that spike of adrenaline.
Jesus urged his disciples and us to fear God and not fear people at all. The reason is because Jesus cares deeply for those who belong to him and realizes that we need to learn the empowerment of and value of trust. For when we trust we are to be freed of our fear through faith. The gospel here is the good news that Jesus paid the penalty for all our sin. And the message is that we are to trust God always because we have nothing to fear of people if we trust God’s guidance will care for us.
We are not to be controlled by religion but released by righteousness in Christ to share our unique gifts and obey the Holy Spirit’s guidance even as we count the cost.
The righteousness of this
is not something which we can accomplish, but rather comes as a gift from God through faith in Jesus shared. There are some things we can control but as for our feelings, I would have to say they come from a place which is not about thinking but raw emotions…the place in our brain that houses our instincts and the responses to fight or flight…. our reptilian brain formed long ago. And indeed, this can be a place of actions that result in harm or help for others. And that is why I think God calls His people to be transformed by the renewing of their minds to address that which we do not control. You see, there are some things of God that are unfathomable and yet on a personal daily basis we can experience a transformation as we ponder the glory of God revealed in the Bible against the context of culture, church history and even science and philosophy. And here to be equipped for the Christian life we must learn the power of praising God as a means of renewing our minds. Here the electing grace of God engages us in the challenge of taking seriously our personal definitions and doctrines on the concept of something that takes place before something else in the timeline of our life and the goal of our life. Along the way, like a road trip, we might have roadside experiences and diversions, but where we are ultimately headed and the path, we might choose today is not always a straight highway. Life happens and some of it is our own doing. So, don’t you wonder what happened to the person you used be. Maybe God has a plan for you and me that was written before the end of time, and we are to mature in character in the reality that God has chosen to make us in a way that we are given a choice to individual actions but also respond to God’s awareness of our will in relationship with a sovereign will. Ultimately friends God somehow determines what happens. God makes eternal decisions because we are not worthy on our own to do so. This is beyond our ability to address. The idea is that God can know who will respond and who will not respond. Some will say yes, and some will some say no. Perhaps some are predestined to believe, and some will not. The question of whether our salvation rests with God or with us however may not need to be an either-or scenario. But what I do know and knew even before I started contemplating this difficult question is that it is beyond my ability to answer here. Regardless, maybe the struggling with this topic has a purpose to help us realize that God’s sovereignty and grace is central to the answer. Maybe this dance of wills…this great battle within… needs a conquering King.
And So, today’s scripture calls us to live life like we are really alive. I want you to read it over again now over and over, until it becomes a part of the fabric of your being. Maybe you have noticed that the things we held dear a few years ago do not seem to be as important as they once were. And with that frustration levels are higher than they have ever been, perhaps because of the limits placed and enforced on our freedoms because of hurricanes and pandemics. And if this is a forerunner of things to come it is not someone else’s problem but something we need to grapple with ourselves. Perhaps our passions along with our freedoms have been taken and stolen from us, in an effort to set new boundaries of who we are and what the future supposedly holds for mankind. But who we are is not something which can be altered or changed so easily, as long as we remember who’s we are. For just a moment, it seems as though we have been caught up, in both following and marching to the same beat of the drum, everyone else has. But that is not who we really are and not who we were created to be. We have an identity and should easily be identified by the world, because of our identity as followers of Jesus Christ. We have a heritage, we have a future, we also have a destiny. And it is time we stood up collectively together and reclaimed what has been stolen from under our very nose and is rightfully ours as Christians. We are to focus on love and celebrate life taking pleasure in Jesus Christ in the joy of receiving and giving.
Pray we realize that we are twice as priceless when we reflect God’s presence through a thankful heart.
Pray we realize that the Christian life is about loving, giving, caring, and comforting. Pray that we discover that peace is not found in material security. Pray that God come along side us when we are going through hard times and brings us alongside someone else who is going through challenges, so we can be there for that person just like God is there for us. Pray that we endure the challenges in fellowship so that we might together then enjoy the good times. Pray that God comfort us so that we might learn how to comfort others.
Pray we face up to our lack of wisdom. Pray that God create a demand for wisdom in our hearts. Pray we ask for wisdom. Pray we have faith. Pray we have an attitude of trust. Pray we realize that alone we are insufficient for the day. Pray we realize that there is hope when we are thankful for what we have. Pray we imagine how God can put all the pieces together and set us on the right course in the challenge of life. Pray we realize that God knows us better than we know ourselves. Pray we realize that we are to reflect God’s love right here and right now.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 