Good Morning Friends,
Today we look at three poems from the 17th Century designed to help teach pastors and parishioners in the way of disciple-making. We are to imagine Christ taking us by the hand and smiling at us. As you read them, consider what you feel. And contemplate today’s question: How Would Christ Reply To Your Doubts, Struggles, And Fears?
Scripture from the words of Jesus;
“Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19)
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you… This is my commandment, that you love one another.” (John 15:9, 12)
“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
“Abide in me as I abide in you… those who abide in me bear much fruit.” (John 15:4–5)
“We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” “Bring them here to me.” (Matthew 14:17–18)
Message: George Herbert (1593–1633) was a 17th‑century English poet and Church of England clergyman, best known for his devotional poems collected in The Temple. From that collection comes a poem entitled Love (III). It is below for your reading and is included in this devotional because it instructs us in disciple-making. Herbert teaches that disciple‑making begins with a heart God has softened, shaped, and filled, so that His light, not ours, shines through. It is about a heart offered, not perfected. The second poem I offer to you this morning is The Altar. Herbert begins with honesty: a heart that feels too small, too cracked, too unworthy. He imagines his heart as a broken stone God must rebuild. That is where disciple‑making begins, not with confidence, but with surrender. Wherever you worship you most likely see this truth every Sunday. People gather with joys and burdens, strength and weariness, faith and questions. And yet Christ calls each one. You see, disciple‑makers are not self‑made. They are God‑made. Herbert’s poem The Windows also from The Temple imagines a preacher as a pane of glass—ordinary, fragile, but radiant when God’s light shines through. That image feels especially at home in the Moorings sanctuary, where the stained‑glass windows tell the story of Christ in color and light. Those windows preach without speaking. They shine because the sun shines through them. So it is with disciple‑makers. Disciple‑making is not about spotlighting ourselves. It is about becoming transparent enough that Christ is visible. The point is that all service begins in adoration. Ministry flows from worship. Before every pastor was a pastor, they were worshippers, returning again and again to the sanctuary, the altar, the presence of God. Worship is one of our deepest gifts, the choir lifting Scripture into song, the organ filling the sanctuary with beauty, the congregation praying as one body. This is where disciple‑making begins: in the presence of Christ. Fruitfulness in ministry is not the result of effort. It is the result of abiding. Herbert’s most beloved poem, Love (III), ends with Love welcoming the hesitant soul to the table. That is the gospel: Christ does not send us until He has first welcomed us. Disciple‑makers are not driven by guilt or pressure. They are sent by Love. We help others become disciples not by pushing them, but by leading them to the Love that welcomes us.
And So, I think these poems show us that God delights in using the small, a drop of grace, a whispered prayer. Disciple‑making often looks like this: a conversation in the courtyard, a prayer in the pew, a volunteer reading to preschoolers, a casserole delivered to a grieving family, a youth leader listening with patience and love. Jesus shows us the same truth in the feeding of the five thousand: Small offerings, even the few words of a poem become abundant in the hands of Christ.
Pray Lord, You send each of us in the strength of Your welcome.Pray Lord, You take our uneven hearts and make them Yours.PrayLord, you deepen our worship so that our lives naturally invite others into Yours.Pray Lord, You take our small acts of love and multiply them for Your kingdom. Pray Lord, You make us clear glass, so that others see You. Pray, O Christ, that You shape our hearts as Your altar, tune our lives as Your instruments, make Your church a window for Your light. Let people see not our strength but Your grace, not our programs but Your presence, not our effort but Your love. Make us a community of disciples who form disciples, until Your beauty is multiplied in many lives. Amen.
Blessings,
John Lawson
The Altar
By George Herbert
A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart and cemented with tears:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workman’s tool hath touch’d the same.
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
Oh, let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctify this ALTAR to be thine.
Love (III)
By George Herbert
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d anything.
A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
The Windows
By George Herbert
Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory
More reverend grows, and more doth win;
Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.
Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the ear, not conscience, ring.
Daily Devotionals 