Devotional

Christmas is all about the baby who is King. The message of Christmas is—All Eyes on the Baby.

This message is highlighted throughout the birth narratives.

• The lengthy genealogies, with all their difficult-to-pronounce names, are all about the baby. Matthew ends with the baby (Matthew 1:1–17). Luke begins with the baby (Luke 3:23–38).

• The Old Testament prophets peered down the corridor of time and saw the baby by faith (Matthew 1:23; 2:6, 15, 23). • Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, sang about the baby (Luke 1:68–80).

• The angelic host announced the birth of the baby to the shepherds (Luke 2:10–14).

• The angel Gabriel made the rounds announcing the baby’s coming (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:11, 26).

• The shepherds traveled immediately to see the baby and hurriedly left to tell others about Him (Luke 2:15).

• Mary treasured and pondered everything about the baby (Luke 2:19).

• The old man Simeon spotted the baby in the temple, took Him in his arms and blessed Him (Luke 2:30).

• The aged Anna was all about the baby who would redeem Israel (Luke 2:36–38).

• The wise men traveled hundreds of miles to see the baby King and worship Him (Matthew 2:10).

Why? Because He is the Messiah—the virgin-born, Bethlehem baby, who lived a sinless life, died for sinners, rose from the dead, and is coming again someday as King when “every eye will see Him.”

As you celebrate this season in personal times of reflection, family gatherings, and church services, may this caption appear underneath all your pictures—“All Eyes on the Baby.”

Prayer Item:

-Pray as the spirit leads you.

-Pray for the name of Jesus will be revealed, and received this advent season.

-Pray for our Fil.Com sisters that they will know more about Jesus

-Pray for the coming Christmas Party of our Filipino Community

Devotional

Presence—what a present! The gift of presence intentionally hears, engages, and attends to another as appropriate and necessary. It’s really a present, a gift—undeserved, unmerited, unearned. Among the deepest quests of the human psyche is a longing for divine presence. When God seems absent, we are compelled to invent an object to worship, trust, follow, and serve.

This attempt to offset the absence of God with our own, creative substitutes for His presence is found in the events in the life of Moses. The man of God on a mission for God had led the murmuring multitudes out of Egypt, based on the promise of God’s personal presence (Exodus 3:12). God’s people were doing rather well until Moses went up a mountain to meet with God. During Moses’s extended absence, the people became corrupt and built a tangible object of worship (Exodus 32). God decisively judged idolaters with a plague, withdrew His presence in mercy, and was willing to send His angel to take His rebellious people into the Promised Land (32:35–33:5). The people publicly mourned, and Moses pitched a portable tent and spoke to God face to face, “as one speaks to a friend” (33:11). Moses made a formidable case for someone to accompany him in leading God’s people. Being a compassionate and gracious God, The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. … What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (33:14–16). What makes the presence of God certain for the believer, without any threat of divine withdrawal or the possibility of confusion? CHRISTMAS! Christmas is God’s gift of His own presence to humanity. Humanity will never again have to wonder about the concept or certainty of God’s presence. In Jesus, God’s presence is not mere wish fulfillment; in Jesus, God fulfills our wishes for God’s presence.

Immanuel reads, “With us, God!” Wow! With us, God? Yes, With us, God. God’s presence with people is centered, concentrated, and concretized in Jesus. God’s Christmas gift of His very presence not only lies in His authority—the commanding presence of God—but also in His accompaniment—the convincing presence of God. When you receive the Lord Jesus as God’s gift of salvation, you also receive the gift of His presence—undeserved, unmerited, unearned. You become His, with whom He is! With you, God.

Devotional

When we think of allusions to Jesus in the Old Testament, stories like Isaac’s sacrifice, David’s strength, and Job’s suffering all come to mind. But can the story of an obscure Judge and his daughter allude to the Savior? Hopefully, a closer reading of this strange and tragic story shows that all Scripture points to Christ (Luke 24:25–27; John 5:39).

Here's a quick recap: Jephthah was born illegitimately and became a mighty warrior (Judges 11:1–3). When the Ammonites started attacking Israel, Jephthah’s legitimate brothers came to him for help (11:4–11). Jephthah then asked the Lord for help, and God gave him a great victory (11:29–33). But in the midst of this, Jephthah promised that he would sacrifice whatever he saw when he returned home from victory (11:30–31). When the first thing he saw was his only child, he was devastated (11:34–35). She, too, was devastated and realized that she would never get the chance to bear children of her own. But rather than resist or rebel, she accepted her fate, asking only for a chance to mourn in community with her friends (11:36–40). This story is often interpreted along moral lines with the application “Don’t make rash vows.” That’s probably good advice, but I don’t think it quite gets at the depth of the story and how it points to Christ.

Here are three ways it connects: First, both Jesus and Jephthah were rejected as illegitimate, but by the power of the Spirit, they would come to deliver their people and become their judge and leader. Next, notice that the word for “only child” in Judges 11:34 (Septuagint) is the same as the term (monogenes) used in the New Testament to describe Jesus as “only begotten” (John 1:14; 3:16; 1 John 4:9) and Isaac as an “only son” (Hebrews 11:17; Jephthah also appears in 11:32).

Finally, in all three stories, a loving father offered his only child as a sacrifice for the glory of Yahweh. In Isaac’s story, God spared the boy and provided another sacrifice, which looks forward to Christ dying in our stead. In Jephthah’s story, a woman longs for a child. Many years in the future, the child that the world longed for would come to a righteous woman who accepted her fate as the bearer of God to the world (Luke 1:26–38). This Christmas let’s glorify God for the Only Child that was given.

Devotional

If we think that the Christmas story started with Jesus’s birth, well, we aren’t reading the Bible closely enough! The roots of Christmas are deep in the Old Testament. Let me tell you just how Ruth saved Christmas.

During a famine, an Israelite family moved to Moab, and their two sons married Moabite women. Eventually, the men died, leaving the women in desperate straits. Naomi, the matriarch, urged her daughters-in-law to return to their birth families. One of them, a courageous and faithful woman named Ruth, refused to leave: “Your God will be my God,” Ruth said (Ruth 1:16). Despite her bold choice, the prospects for these two women were meager. But this is a Christmas story, complete with a happy ending. Three details reveal why that is so.

First, Christmas stories have stunning reversals. The King of kings arrived in very humble circumstances. Jesus was born in poverty, far from home, and with a whiff of scandal. Each detail resonates with Ruth’s story. Upon returning to Israel, the women’s one hope was a distant relative named Boaz. He showed kindness to Ruth when she came to his fields for grain, so Ruth and Naomi devised a daring plan to enlist his assistance. Their bold approach with Boaz could have resulted in deep shame, but to their astonishment, Boaz fell in love with Ruth. So, beyond all expectations, this widowed Moab woman with no prospects won the heart of her Mr. Right.

Second, the story of Boaz and Ruth tells a version of the same redemption story of Jesus. Boaz was the kinsman-redeemer (“guardian”) (Ruth 4:14), who purchased Naomi’s land and rescued Ruth and Naomi. Jesus, our Redeemer, secured our atonement by paying our debts with His blood. Boaz’s redemption of Ruth is a foreshadowing of Christian salvation. When we see how Boaz saved Ruth and Naomi, we should smile because Jesus did the exact same thing for each of us.

Third, both stories are about restoring the good in spite of suffering. The crucifixion was a horrible defeat until it became a great victory. The story of Ruth also looked like a tragedy, until Boaz married the daughter of one of Israel’s enemies. It wasn’t a sin, but a great act of faith. Boaz and Ruth became the great-grandparents of King David, and Ruth became an essential part of the legacy of the Messiah and His Christmas story.

Devotional

King Solomon, son of David, pursued life to the greatest extent possible. Through God’s appearance to Solomon in a dream, Solomon was granted “a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have!” (1 Kings 3:12, NLT). In addition to this, God granted Solomon great wealth, extreme pleasure, widespread fame, significant productivity, and a long life.

In spite of, and also as a result of, all he experienced and possessed, Solomon exclaimed in the opening of the Book of Ecclesiastes that “Everything is meaningless…completely meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). He expanded on this thought in a central thematic statement: Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. (7:13–14) Solomon recognized that he was not, and never would be, God. Solomon could not make his path straight and, therefore, could not ever see around the next turn. How often, in our own efforts, do we make the same attempt Solomon did? We so often turn our hearts toward pursuing knowledge, money, ease, notoriety, accomplishment, and longevity.

The Son of God (also named Son of David!) entered into His world as fully human and also fully God. Jesus possesses infinite wisdom and understanding. He has resources beyond measure. Jesus is perfectly satisfied as the second person of the Godhead. He has no beginning and no end. He created everything that has been made. Jesus is worthy of all praise, honor, and glory. So let’s turn our hearts toward pursuing Him.

This Christmas, celebrate Jesus as the only One who can be fully trusted as we approach every turn in our lives.

Peace for whom? There is a somber note sounded in the angels’ praise. Peace among those on whom his favor rests. Peace among those with whom he is pleased. But without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). So Christmas does not bring peace to all. “This is the judgment,” Jesus said, “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19). Or as the aged Simeon said when he saw the child Jesus, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed . . . so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34–35). Oh, how many there are who look out on a bleak and chilly Christmas Day and see no more than that—a sign to be opposed.

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:11–12). It was only to his disciples that Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27). The people who enjoy the peace of God that surpasses all understanding are those who in everything by prayer and supplication let their requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6–7). The key that unlocks the treasure chest of God’s peace is faith in the promises of God. So Paul prays, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing” (Romans 15:13). And when we do trust the promises of God and have joy and peace and love, then God is glorified. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased! Everyone—from every people, tongue, tribe, and nation—who would believe.

Unlike Luke, Matthew does not tell us about the shepherds coming to visit Jesus in the stable. His focus is immediately on foreigners—Gentiles, and non-Jews—coming from the east to worship Jesus. So Matthew portrays Jesus at the beginning and ending of his Gospel as a universal Messiah for all the nations, not just for Jews. Here the first worshipers are court magicians, or astrologers, or wise men not from Israel but from the east—perhaps from Babylon. They were Gentiles. Unclean, according to the Old Testament ceremonial laws. At the end of Matthew, the last words of Jesus are, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18–19).

This not only opened the door for us Gentiles to rejoice in the Messiah; it added proof that he was the Messiah because one of the repeated prophecies was that the nations and kings would come to him as the ruler of the world. For example, Isaiah 60:3: Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. So Matthew adds proof to the messiahship of Jesus and shows that he is Messiah—a king, and promise fulfiller—for all the nations, not just Israel.

Over and over, the Bible baffles our curiosity about just how certain things happened. How did this “star” get the magi from the east to Jerusalem? It does not say that it led them or went before them on the way to Jerusalem. It says only that they saw a star in the east (Matthew 2:2) and came to Jerusalem. And how did that star go before them in the little five-mile walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem as Matthew 2:9 says it did? And how did a star “rest over the place where the child was”? The answer is: we do not know. There are numerous efforts to explain it in terms of conjunctions of planets or comets supernovas or miraculous lights. We just don’t know. And I want to exhort you not to become preoccupied—not to become fixated—on theories that are only tentative in the end and have very little spiritual significance.

I risk a generalization to warn you: people who are exercised and preoccupied with such things, as how the star worked and how the Red Sea split how the manna fell how Jonah survived the fish, and how the moon turned to blood, are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal. You do not see in them a deep cherishing of the great central things of the gospel: the holiness of God, the ugliness of sin, the helplessness of man, the death of Christ, justification by faith alone, the sanctifying work of the Spirit, the glory of Christ’s return, and the final judgment. They always seem to be taking you down a sidetrack with some new article or book that they’re all excited about, dealing with something marginal. There is little rejoicing over the great, central realities. But what is plain concerning this matter of the star is that it is doing something that it cannot do on its own: it is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship him. There is only one person in biblical thinking who can be behind that intentionality in the stars: God himself. So the lesson is plain: God is guiding foreigners to Christ to worship him. And he is doing it by exerting global—probably even universal—influence and power to get it done.

Luke shows God influencing the entire Roman Empire so that the census comes at the exact time to get an insignificant virgin to Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy with her delivery. Matthew shows God influencing the stars in the sky to get a little handful of foreigners to Bethlehem so that they can worship the Son. This is God’s design. He did it then. He is still doing it now. His aim is that the nations—all the nations (Matthew 24:14)—worship his Son. This is God’s will for everybody in your office at work in your classroom in your neighborhood and in your home. As John 4:23 says, “The Father is seeking such people to worship him.” At the beginning of Matthew, we still have a “come see” pattern. But in the end, the pattern is “go tell.” The magi came and saw. We are to go and tell. But what is not different is the purpose and power of God in the ingathering of the nations to worship his Son. The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations is the reason the world exists.

Jesus is troubling to people who do not want to worship him, and he arouses opposition against those who do. This is probably not a main point in the mind of Matthew, but it is an inescapable implication as the story goes on.

In this story, there are two kinds of people who do not want to worship Jesus.

The first kind is the people who simply do nothing about Jesus. He is a nonentity in their lives. This group is represented at the beginning of Jesus’s life by the chief priests and scribes. Matthew 2:4 says, “Assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, [Herod] inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.” So they told him, and that was that: back to business as usual. The sheer silence and inactivity of the leaders is overwhelming in view of the magnitude of what was happening.

And notice that Matthew 2:3 says, “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” In other words, the rumor was going around that someone thought the Messiah was born. The inactivity on the part of the chief priests is staggering: why not go with the magi? They are not interested. They are not passionate about finding the Son of God and worshiping him. The second kind of people who do not want to worship Jesus is the kind who are deeply threatened by him. That’s Herod in this story.

He is really afraid—so much so that he schemes and lies and then commits mass murder just to get rid of Jesus. So today, these two kinds of opposition will come against Christ and his worshipers: indifference and hostility. I surely hope that you are not in one of those groups. And if you are a Christian, let this Christmas be the time when you ponder what it means—what it costs—to worship and follow this Messiah.

God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25). The gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need meeting. It would dishonor a monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care packages.

Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes. Deuteronomy 10:17 says that God takes no bribe. Well, what then do they mean? How are they worship?

Gifts given to wealthy, self-sufficient people are echoes and intensifiers of the giver’s desire to show how wonderful the person is. In a sense, giving gifts to Christ is like fasting—going without something to show that Christ is more valuable than what you are going without.

When you give a gift to Christ like this, it’s a way of saying, “The joy that I pursue [notice Matthew 2:10! “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy”] is not the hope of getting rich by bartering with you or negotiating some payment. I have come to you not for your things but for yourself. And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by giving up things in the hope of enjoying you more. By giving to you what you do not need and what I might enjoy, I am saying more earnestly and more authentically, ‘You are my treasure, not these things.’”

I think that’s what it means to worship God with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Or whatever else we may think of giving to God.

May God awaken in us a desire for Christ himself. May we say from the heart, “Lord Jesus, you are the Messiah, the King of Israel. All nations will come and bow down before you. God wields the world to see that you are worshiped. Therefore, whatever opposition I may find, I joyfully ascribe authority and dignity to you and bring my gifts to say that you alone can satisfy my heart.”

Hebrews 2:14–15, I think, is my favorite Advent text because I don’t know any other that expresses so clearly the connection between the beginning and the ending of Jesus’s earthly life—between the incarnation and the crucifixion. These two verses make clear why Jesus came, namely, to die. They would be great to use with unbelieving friends or family members to walk them step-by-step through your Christian view of Christmas. It might go something like this, a phrase at a time:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood . . .

The term “children” is taken from the previous verse (Hebrews 2:13) and refers to the spiritual offspring of Christ, the Messiah (see Isaiah 8:18; 53:10). These are also the “children of God” (John 1:12). In other words, in sending Christ, God has the salvation of his “children” especially in view. It is true that “God so loved the world, that he gave [Jesus]” (John 3:16). But it is also true that God was especially gathering “the children of God who are scattered abroad” (John 11:52). God’s design was to offer Christ to the world and to affect the salvation of his children (see 1 Timothy 4:10). You may experience adoption by receiving Christ (John 1:12).

. . . he himself likewise partook of the same things [flesh and blood] . . . This means that Christ existed before the incarnation. He was spirit. He was the eternal Word. He was with God and was God (John 1:1; Colossians 2:9). But he took on flesh and blood, and clothed his deity with humanity. He became fully man and remained fully God. It is a great mystery in many ways. But it is at the heart of our faith—and what the Bible teaches. . . . that through death . . 

The reason he became man was to die. As God pure and simple, he could not die for sinners. But as man he could. His aim was to die. Therefore, he had to be born human. He was born to die. Good Friday is the purpose of Christmas. This is what most people today need to hear about the meaning of Christmas. . . . he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil . . .

In dying, Christ de-fanged the devil. How? By covering all our sin. This means that Satan has no legitimate grounds to accuse us before God. “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33)—on what grounds does he justify? Through the blood of Jesus (Romans 5:9). Satan’s ultimate weapon against us is our own sin. If the death of Jesus takes it away, the chief weapon of the devil—the one mortal weapon that he has—is taken out of his hand. He cannot make a case for our death penalty, because the judge has acquitted us by the death of his Son.

. . . and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. So we are free from the fear of death. God has justified us. Satan cannot overturn that decree. And God means for our ultimate safety to have an immediate effect on our lives. He means for the happy ending to take away the slavery and fear of the now.

If we do not need to fear our last and greatest enemy, death, then we do not need to fear anything. We can be free. Free for joy. Free for others. What a great Christmas present from God to us! And from us to the world.

The point of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, came not just to fit into the earthly system of priestly ministry as the best and final human priest but to fulfill and put an end to that system and to orient all our attention on himself, ministering for us first on Calvary as our final sacrifice and then in heaven as our final priest.

The Old Testament tabernacle and priests and sacrifices were shadows. Now the reality has come, and the shadows have passed away.

Here’s an Advent illustration for kids—and those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like. Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom.

It makes you hopeful. But which is better? The hopefulness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner? That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our high priest.

That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing: Mom stepping around the corner of the aisle and all the relief and joy that gives to a little child.

We’ve seen it before. But there’s more. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing. Hebrews 8:1–2, 5 is a kind of summary statement. The point is that the one priest who goes between us and God and makes us right with God and prays for us to God is not an ordinary, weak, sinful, dying priest as in the Old Testament days. He is the Son of God—strong, sinless, with an indestructible life.

Not only that, but he is not ministering in an earthly tabernacle, with all its limitations of place and size, that gets worn out and moth-eaten and soaked and burned and torn and stolen. No, Hebrews 8:2 says that Christ is ministering for us in a “true tent that the Lord set up, not man.” This is not the shadow. It’s the real thing in heaven. This is the reality that casts a shadow on Mount Sinai for Moses to copy.

According to Hebrews 8:1, another great thing about the reality that is greater than the shadow is that our high priest is seated at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. No Old Testament priest could ever say that.

Jesus deals directly with God the Father. He has a place of honor beside God. He is loved and respected infinitely by God. He is constantly with God. This is not shadow reality like curtains and bowls and tables and candles and robes and tassels and sheep and goats and pigeons. This is the final, ultimate reality: God and his Son interacting in love and holiness for our eternal salvation.

Ultimate reality is the persons of the Godhead in the relationship, dealing with each other concerning how their majesty and holiness and love and justice and goodness and truth shall be manifest in a redeemed people.

Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, according to Hebrews 8:6. What does that mean? It means that his blood—the blood of the covenant (Luke 22:20; Hebrews 13:20)—finally and decisively purchased and secured the fulfillment of God’s promises for us.

It means that God, according to the new-covenant promises, brings about our inner transformation by the Spirit of Christ.

And it means that God works this transformation in us through faith—faith in all that God is for us in Christ.

The new covenant is purchased by the blood of Christ, effected by the Spirit of Christ, and appropriated by faith in Christ. The best place to see Christ working as the mediator of the new covenant is in Hebrews 13:20–21: Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

The words “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight” describe what happens when God writes the law on our hearts in accord with the new covenant. And the words “through Jesus Christ” describe Jesus as the mediator of this glorious work of sovereign grace.

So the meaning of Christmas is not only that God replaces shadows with reality, but also that he takes the reality and makes it real to his people. He writes it on our hearts. He does not lay his Christmas gift of salvation and transformation under the tree, so to speak, for you to pick up in your own strength. He picks it up and puts it in your heart and in your mind and gives you the seal of assurance that you are a child of God.

As I was about to begin this devotional, I received word that Marion Newstrum had just died. Marion and her husband, Elmer, had been part of our church longer than most of our members had been alive at the time. She was eighty-seven. They had been married sixty-four years.

When I spoke to Elmer and told him I wanted him to be strong in the Lord and not give up on life, he said, “He has been a true friend.” I pray that all Christians will be able to say at the end of life, “Christ has been a true friend.”

Each Advent I mark the anniversary of my mother’s death. She was cut off in her fifty-sixth year in a bus accident in Israel. It was December 16, 1974. Those events are incredibly real to me even today. If I allow myself, I can easily come to tears—for example, thinking that my sons never knew her. We buried her the day after Christmas. What a precious Christmas it was!

Many of you will feel your loss this Christmas more pointedly than before. Don’t block it out. Let it come. Feel it. What is love for, if not to intensify our affections—both in life and in death? But, oh, do not be bitter. It is tragically self-destructive to be bitter. Jesus came at Christmas that we might have eternal life. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Elmer and Marion had discussed where they would spend their final years. Elmer said, “Marion and I agreed that our final home would be with the Lord.”

Do you feel restless for home? I have family coming home for the holidays. It feels good. I think the bottom-line reason for why it feels good is that they and I are destined in the depths of our being for an ultimate homecoming. All other homecomings are foretastes. And foretastes are good.

Unless they become substitutes. Oh, don’t let all the sweet things of this season become substitutes of the final, great, all-satisfying sweetness. Let every loss and every delight send your hearts a-homing after heaven. Christmas. What is it but this: I came that they may have life? Marion Newstrum, Ruth Piper, and you and I—that we might have life, now and forever. Make your now richer and deeper this Christmas by drinking at the fountain of forever. It is so near.

Christmas marked the beginning of God’s most successful setback. He has always delighted to show his power through apparent defeat. He makes tactical retreats in order to win strategic victories. In the Old Testament, Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, was promised glory and power in his dream (Genesis 37:5–11). But to achieve that victory he had to become a slave in Egypt. And as if that were not enough, when his conditions improved because of his integrity, he was made worse than a slave: a prisoner.

But it was all planned—planned by God for his good and the good of his family, and eventually for the good of the whole world! For there in prison, he met Pharaoh’s butler, who eventually brought him to Pharaoh, who put him over Egypt. And finally, his dream came true. His brothers bowed before him, and he saved them from starvation. What an unlikely route to glory!

But that is God’s way—even for his Son. He emptied himself and took the form of a slave. Worse than a slave— a prisoner—and was executed. But like Joseph, he kept his integrity. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:9–10).

And this is God’s way for us too. We are promised glory—if we will suffer with him as it says in Romans 8:17. The way up is down. The way forward is backward. The way to success is through divinely appointed setbacks. They will always look and feel like failure. But if Joseph and Jesus teach us anything this Christmas, it is this: What Satan and sinful men meant for evil, “God meant for good . . .” (Genesis 50:20).

You fearful saints fresh courage take The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy and will break In blessings on your head.

• Pray for the events in our church will be a tool to reach out to the unreach people in our community.

• Pray for our invites to know more about Jesus and to experience His presence.

God is just and holy and separated from sinners like us. This is our main problem at Christmas—and every other season. How shall we get right with a just and holy God? Nevertheless, God is merciful and has promised in Jeremiah 31 (five hundred years before Christ) that someday he would do something new. He would replace shadows with the reality of the Messiah. And He would powerfully move into our lives and write his will on our hearts so that we are not constrained from the outside but are willing from the inside to love him and trust him and follow him.

That would be the greatest salvation imaginable—if God should offer us the greatest reality in the universe to enjoy and then move in us to know that reality in such a way that we could enjoy it with the greatest freedom and the greatest pleasure possible. That would be a Christmas gift worth singing about.

That is, in fact, what he promised in the new covenant. But there was a huge obstacle. Our sin. Our separation from God because of our unrighteousness. How shall a holy and just God treat us sinners with so much kindness as to give us the greatest reality in the universe (his Son) to enjoy with the greatest possible joy? The answer is that God put our sins on his Son, and judged them there so that he could put them out of his mind and deal with us mercifully and remain just and holy at the same time. Hebrews 9:28 says Christ was “offered once to bear the sins of many.”

Christ bore our sins in his own body when he died (1 Peter 2:24). He took our judgment (Romans 8:3). He canceled our guilt (Romans 8:1). And that means our sins are gone (Acts 10:43). They do not remain in God’s mind as a basis for condemnation. In that sense, he “forgets” them (see Jeremiah 31:34). They are consumed in the death of Christ. This means that God is now free, in his justice, to lavish us with all the unspeakably great new covenant promises. He gives us Christ, the greatest reality in the universe, for our enjoyment. And he writes his own will—his own heart—on our hearts so that we can love Christ and trust Christ and follow Christ from the inside out, with freedom and joy.

• Pray for the Salvation of our family members who have yet a relationship with Jesus.

• Pray that the HOSTs of the Filipino Community will be united in doing the purposes of God.

Christmas is a model for missions. Missions is a mirror of Christmas. As I, so you. For example, danger. Christ came to his own, and his own received him not. So you also. They plotted against him. So you. He had no permanent home. So you. They trumped up false charges against him. So you. They whipped and mocked him. So you. He died after three years of ministry. So you.

But there is a worse danger than any of these, which Jesus escaped. So you! In the mid-sixteenth century the missionary Francis Xavier (1506–1552) wrote to Father Perez of Malacca (today part of Malaysia) about the perils of his mission to China. He said, “The danger of all dangers would be to lose trust and confidence in the mercy of God. . . . To distrust him would be a far more terrible thing than any physical evil which all the enemies of God put together could inflict on us, for without God’s permission neither the devils nor their human ministers could hinder us in the slightest degree.”

The greatest danger a missionary faces is not death but to distrust the mercy of God. If that danger is avoided, then all other dangers lose their sting. In the end God makes every dagger a scepter in our hand. As J. W. Alexander says, “Each instant of present labor is to be graciously repaid with a million ages of glory.”6 Christ escaped this danger—the danger of distrusting God. Therefore God has highly exalted him! As he, so you. Remember this Advent that Christmas is a model for missions. As I, so you. And that mission means danger. And the greatest danger is distrusting God’s mercy. Succumb to this and all is lost. Conquer here and nothing can harm you for a million ages.

• Pray that we become dependent to God more than in our will being.

• Pray for the one life that God entrusted to us.

J esus became man because what was needed was the death of a man who was more than man. The incarnation was God’s locking himself into death row. Christ did not risk death. He chose death. He embraced it. That is precisely why he came: “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

No wonder Satan tried to turn Jesus from the cross— in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1–11) and in the mouth of Peter (Matthew 16:21–23)! The cross was Satan’s destruction. How did Jesus destroy him? Hebrews 2:14 says that Satan has “the power of death.” That means Satan has the ability to make death fearful. “The power of death” is the power that holds men in bondage through fear of death. It is the power to keep men in sin so that death comes as a dreadful thing.

But Jesus stripped Satan of this power. He disarmed him. He molded a breastplate of righteousness for us that makes us immune to the devil’s condemnation. How did he do this? By his death, Jesus wiped away all our sins. And a person without sin cannot be condemned by Satan. Forgiven, we are finally indestructible. Satan’s plan was to destroy God’s rule by condemning God’s followers in God’s own courtroom. But now, in Christ, there is no condemnation. Satan’s treason is aborted. His cosmic treachery is foiled. “His rage we can endure, for, lo, his doom is sure.”7 The cross has run him through. And he will gasp his last before long.

Christmas is for freedom—freedom from the fear of death. Jesus took our nature in Bethlehem to die our death in Jerusalem—all that we might be fearless in our city today. Yes, fearless, because if the biggest threat to our joy is gone, then why should we fret over the little ones? How can we say (really!), “Well, I’m not afraid to die but I’m afraid to lose my job”? No. No. Think! If death (I said, death!—no pulse, cold, gone!) is no longer a fear, we’re free, really free. We are free to take any risk under the sun for Christ and for love. No more enslavement to anxiety. If the Son has set you free, you shall be free, indeed!

• Pray that Christ be the center of Christmas celebration in our home, self and others.

• Pray that the message of Freedom be revealed to us in a deeper way.

The assembly line of Satan turns out millions of sins every day. He packs them into huge cargo planes and flies them to heaven and spreads them out before God and laughs and laughs and laughs. Some people work full-time on the assembly line. Others have quit their jobs there and only now and then return. Every minute of work on the assembly line makes God the laughingstock of Satan. Sin is Satan’s business because he hates the light and beauty and purity and glory of God. Nothing pleases him more than when creatures distrust and disobey their Maker.

Therefore, Christmas is good news for man and good news for God. “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). That’s good news for us.

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). That is also good news for God. Christmas is good news for God because Jesus has come to lead a strike at Satan’s assembly plant. He has walked right into the plant, called for the solidarity of the faithful, and begun a massive walkout. Christmas is a call to go on strike at the assembly plant of sin. No negotiations with the management. No bargaining. Just single-minded, unswerving opposition to the product. We won’t be a part of making it anymore. Christmas solidarity aims to ground the cargo planes. It will not use force or violence, but with relentless devotion to truth it will expose the life-destroying conditions of the devil’s industry.

Christmas solidarity will not give up until a complete shutdown has been achieved. When sin has been destroyed, God’s name will be wholly exonerated. No one will be laughing anymore. If you want to give a gift to God this Christmas, walk off the assembly line of sin and don’t go back. Take up your place in the picket line of love. Join Christmas solidarity until the majestic name of God is cleared, and he stands glorious amid the accolades of the righteous.

• Pray for spiritual strength for every Filipino sisters in the community. That their relationship with Jesus will become firm.

• Pray for our personal relationship with Jesus to be more intimate than before.

John 18:37 is a great Christmas text even though it comes from the very end of Jesus’s life on earth, not the beginning. Notice that Jesus says not only that he was born, but that he “[came] into the world.” The uniqueness of his birth is that he did not originate at his birth. He existed before he was born in a manger. The personhood, the character, the personality of Jesus of Nazareth existed before the man Jesus of Nazareth was born.

The theological word to describe this mystery is not creation, but incarnation. The person, not the body but the essential personhood of Jesus, existed before he was born as man. His birth was not a coming into being of a new person, but a coming into the world of an infinitely old person. Micah 5:2 puts it like this, seven hundred years before Jesus was born: But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

The mystery of the birth of Jesus is not merely that he was born of a virgin. That miracle was intended by God to witness to an even greater one, namely, that the child born at Christmas was a person who existed “from of old, from ancient days.” And, therefore, his birth was purposeful. Before he was born, he thought about being born. Together with his Father there was a plan. And part of that great plan he spoke in the last hours of his life on earth: “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (John 18:37).

He was the eternal truth. He spoke only the truth. He acted out the greatest truth of love. And he is gathering into his eternal family all those who are born of the truth. This was the plan from ancient days.

I feel so strongly that among those of us who have grown up in church and who can recite the great doctrines of our faith in our sleep and yet who can yawn through the Apostles’ Creed—among us something must be done to help us once more feel the awe, the fear, the astonishment, the wonder of the Son of God, begotten by the Father from all eternity, reflecting all the glory of God, being the very image of his person, through whom all things were created, upholding the universe by the word of his power.

You can read every fairy tale that was ever written, every mystery thriller, every ghost story, and you will never find anything so shocking, so strange, so weird and spellbinding as the story of the incarnation of the Son of God. How dead we are! How callous and unfeeling to your glory and your story, O God! How often have I had to repent and say, “God, I am sorry that the stories men have made up stir my emotions, my awe and wonder and admiration and joy, more than your own true story.”

Perhaps the galactic movie thrillers of our day can do at least this good for us: they can humble us and bring us to repentance, by showing us that we really are capable of some of the wonder and awe and amazement that we so seldom feel when we contemplate the eternal God and the cosmic glory of Christ and a real living contact between them and us in Jesus of Nazareth. When Jesus said, “For this purpose I have come into the world” (John 18:37), he said something as crazy and weird and strange and eerie as any statement in science fiction that you have ever read.

Oh, how I pray for a breaking forth of the Spirit of God upon me and upon you, for the Holy Spirit to break into my experience in a frightening way, to wake me up to the unimaginable reality of God. One of these days lightning is going to fill the sky from the rising of the sun to its setting, and there is going to appear in the clouds the Son of Man with his mighty angels in flaming fire. And we will see him clearly. And whether from terror or sheer excitement, we will tremble and we will wonder how we ever lived so long with such a domesticated, harmless Christ.

These things are written—the whole Bible is written— that we might believe, that we might be stunned and awakened to the wonder, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came into the world.

How do we practically receive reconciliation and exult in God? We do it through Jesus Christ. Which means, at least, that we make the portrait of Jesus in the Bible—that is, the work and the words of Jesus portrayed in the New Testament—the essential content of our exultation over God. Exulting in God without the content of Christ does not honor Christ. And where Christ is not honored, God is not honored.

In 2 Corinthians 4:4–6 Paul describes conversion in two ways. In verse 4 he says it is seeing “the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” And in verse 6 he says it is seeing “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In either case you see the point. We have Christ, the image of God, and we have God in the face of Christ. To exult in God, we exult in what we see and know of God in the portrait of Jesus Christ. And this comes to its fullest experience when the love of God is poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, as Romans 5:5 says. And that sweet, Spirit-given experience of the love of God is mediated to us as we ponder the historical reality of verse 6: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

So here’s the Christmas point. Not only did God purchase our reconciliation through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:10), and not only did God enable us to receive that reconciliation through the Lord Jesus Christ, but even now we exult in God himself, by the Spirit, through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:11). Jesus purchased our reconciliation. Jesus enabled us to receive reconciliation and open the gift. And Jesus himself shines forth as himself the indescribable gift—God in the flesh—and stirs up all our exultation in God.

Look to Jesus this Christmas. Receive the reconciliation that he purchased. Don’t put the gift on the shelf unopened. And when you open it, remember God himself is the gift of reconciliation with God. Exult in him. Experience him as your pleasure. Know him as your treasure.

When 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil,” what are “the works of the devil” that he has in mind? The answer is clear from the context. First, 1 John 3:5 is a clear parallel: “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins.” The phrase he appeared to occurs in verse 5 and verse 8. So most likely the “works of the devil” that Jesus came to destroy are sins. The first part of verse 8 makes this virtually certain: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.”

The issue in this context is sinning, not sickness or broken cars or messed-up schedules. Jesus came into the world to enable us to stop sinning. We see this even more clearly if we put this truth alongside the truth of 1 John 2:1: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” This is one of the great purposes of Christmas—one of the great purposes of the incarnation (1 John 3:8).

But there is another purpose that John adds in 1 John 2:1–2: “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Now look what this means: it means that Jesus appeared in the world for two reasons. He came that we might not go on sinning—that is, he came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8); and he came so that there would be a propitiation for our sins if we do sin. He came to be a substitutionary sacrifice that takes away the wrath of God for our sins.

The upshot of this second purpose is not to defeat the first purpose. Forgiveness is not for the purpose of permitting sin. The aim of the death of Christ for our sins is not that we relax our battle against sin. The upshot of these two purposes of Christmas, rather, is that the payment once made for all our sins is the freedom and power that enables us to fight sin not as legalists, earning our salvation, and not as fearful of losing our salvation, but as victors who throw ourselves into the battle against sin with confidence and joy, even if it costs us our lives.

Ponder this remarkable situation with me. If the Son of God came to help you stop sinning—to destroy the works of the devil—and if he also came to die so that when you do sin, there is a propitiation, a removal of God’s wrath, then what does this imply for living your life? Three things. And they are wonderful to have. I give them to you briefly as Christmas presents.

Gift 1: A Clear Purpose for Living.

The first implication is that you have a clear purpose for living. Negatively, it is simply this: don’t sin—don’t do what dishonors God. “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin” (1 John 2:1). “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). If you ask, “Can you give us that positively, instead of negatively?” the answer is: “Yes, it’s all summed up in 1 John 3:23.” It’s a great summary of what John’s whole letter requires. Notice the singular “commandment”—“And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” These two things are so closely connected for John that he calls them one commandment: believe Jesus and love others. That is your purpose. That is the sum of the Christian life. Trusting Jesus and loving people the way Jesus and his apostles taught us to love. Trust Jesus, love people. There’s the first gift, a purpose to live.

Gift 2: Hope That Our Failures Will Be Forgiven.

The second implication of the twofold truth that Christ came to destroy our sinning and to forgive our sins is this: we make progress in overcoming our sin when we have hope that our failures will be forgiven. If you don’t have hope that God will forgive your failures, when you start fighting sin, you give up.

Many of you are pondering some changes in the new year because you have fallen into sinful patterns and want out. You want some new patterns of eating. New patterns for entertainment. New patterns of giving. New patterns of relating to your spouse. New patterns of family devotions. New patterns of sleep and exercise.

New patterns of courage in witness. But you are struggling, wondering whether it’s any use. Well, here’s your second Christmas present: Christ not only came to destroy the works of the devil, our sinning; he also came to be an advocate for us because of experiences of failure in our fight. So I plead with you, let the fact that failure will not have the last word give you the hope to fight. But beware! If you turn the grace of God into license, and say, “Well, if I can fail, and it doesn’t matter, then why bother fighting sin?”—if you say that, and mean it, and go on acting on it, you are probably not born again and should tremble. But that is not where most of you are. Most of you want to fight sinful patterns in your life. And what God is saying to you is this: let Christ’s covering of your failure give you hope to fight. “I write this to you that you might not sin, but if you sin you have an advocate, Jesus Christ.”

Gift 3: Christ Will Help Us

Finally, the third implication of the double truth that Christ came to destroy our sinning and to forgive our sins is this: Christ will really help us in our fight. He really will help you. He is on your side. He didn’t come to destroy sin because sin is fun. He came to destroy sin because sin is fatal. It is a deceptive work of the devil, and it will destroy us if we don’t fight it. He came to help us, not hurt us. So here’s your third Christmas present: Christ will help overcome sin in you. First John 4:4 says, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” Jesus is alive, Jesus is almighty, Jesus lives in us by faith. And Jesus is for us, not against us. He will help you in your fight with sin in the new year. Trust him.

The problem is twofold:

1. We neglect to pay attention to what is going on inside us.

2. We are too busy to stop, slow down, and be with God.

As a result, we run the high risk of remaining stuck as spiritual infants, failing to grow into spiritual/emotional adults in Christ.

Spending time with God each week through the Daily Office helps us give Jesus access to what is deeply beneath the surface of our lives and cultivate a deep, personal relationship with him. Learning to spend time with Jesus in God's way to transform us into free, mature disciples who can serve as gifs to the world.

🗓️Day 1: Morning

📖Scripture Reading: Mark 11:15-17

✍️Devotional:

Jesus' intense anger and overturning of the tables in the temple courts ought to make us gasp. He knows that if we don't get to God, invaluable treasures will be lost or obscured. We lose the space where we experience God's unfailing love and amazing forgiveness. We lose an eternal perspective on what is important and what is not. We lose compassion. We gain the world but lose our souls. (Mark 8:36-37).

Be free for God

I have a need of such clearance as the Savior effected in the temple of Jerusalem a riddance of clutter of what is secondary that tblocks the way to the all-important central emptiness which is filled with the presence of God alone. -Jean Danielou

💭Question to Consider:

How would you describe "what is secondary" in your life, the thing that might be "blocking the way" to experiencing God?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, help me to see how much I lose when I lose you. My perspective on my life and all of life gets distorted when I don't make space for you, obscuring your love for me. Your love is better than life, and truly I long for more tastes of that love. In Jesus' Name. Amen.

🗓️Day 1: Evening

📖Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 15:22-23

✍️Devotional

Saul, the first king of Israel, did not know much about silence or listening to God. Like David, he was a gifted, anointed, successful military/political leader. Yet unlike David, we never see him seeking to be with God. In this passage, Samuel the prophet reprimands Saul for doing many religious acts (i.e., offering burnt offerings and sacrifices) but not quieting himself enough to listen, or "to heed" God (v.22).

We all must take the time to be silent and to contemplate, especially those who in big cities like London and New York, where everything moves so fast... I always begin my prayer in silence, for it is in the silence of the heart that God speaks. God is the friend of silence- we need to listen to God because it's not what we say but what He says to us and through us that matters. Prayer feeds the soul- as blood is to the body, prayer is to the soul- and it brings you closer to God. It also gives you a clean and pure heart. A clean heart can see God, can speak to God, and can see the love of God in others. - Mother Teresa

💭Question to Consider:

How could you make more room in your life for silence in order to listen to God?

🤲Prayer:

Unclutter my heart, o God, until I am quiet enough to hear you speak out of the silence. Help me in these few moments to stop, to listen, to wait, to be still, and to allow your presence to envelop me. In Jesus' name. Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: Jonah 1:1-4

✍️Devotional

Jonah is an example of a prophet with a case of emotionally unhealthy spirituality. He hears and serves God but refuses to listen to God's call to love and show mercy to Nineveh, a world power of that day known for its violent, barbaric behavior. Jonah flees 2,400 miles in the opposite direction, to Tarshish, in present-day Spain.

And why Tarshish? For one thing, it is a lot more exciting than Nineveh. Nineveh was an ancient site with layer after layer of ruined and unhappy history. Going to Nineveh to preach was not a coveted assignment for a Hebrew prophet with good references. But Tarshish was something else. Tarshish was exotic. Tarshish was an adventure. Tarshish in the Biblical references was a "far off and sometimes idealized port." It is reported in 1 King 10:22 that Solomon's fleet of Tarshish fetched gold, silver, ivory, monkeys, and peacocks. In Tarshish, we can have a religious career without having to deal with God. - Eugene Peterson

As Jonah runs, however, God sends a great storm. Jonah loses control of his life and destiny. He is thrown overboard and swallowed by a great fish. It is from the belly of the fish that Jonah begins to wrestle with God in prayer.

💭Question to Consider:

What internal or external storm might God be sending into your life as a sign that something is not right spiritually?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, may your will, not my will, be done in my life. You know how easy it is to call myself a Christian but then become busy, forgetting about your will and desires. Forgive me for this sin. Help me listen to you and grant me the courage to faithfully surrender to you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

🗓️Day 2: Evening

📖Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:15-17

✍️Devotional

At the end of the third century in the deserts of Egypt, an extraordinary phenomenon occurred. Christian men and women began to flee the cities and villages to see God in the desert. They discerned how easy it was to lose one's soul in the entanglement and manipulations found in society, so they pursued God in a radical way by moving to the desert. They became known as the "Desert Fathers."

Society... was regarded by them as a shipwreck from which every single individual man had to swim for his life... These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster... They knew they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them. - Thomas Merton

💭Question to Consider:

How do you hear the words of the apostle John today: "Do not love the world or anything in the world" (1 John 2:15)

🤲Prayer:

LORD, in order to be with you, I need you to show me how to "create a desert' in the midst of my full, active life. Cleanse me from the pressures, illusions, and pretenses that confront me today so that my life may serve as a gift to those around me.

📖Scripture Reading: Genesis 32:22-26, 30

✍️Devotional

Jacob's name can mean "cheat" or "grabber", and he lived up to his name. He was manipulative, deceptive, and aggressive- not someone you'd likely nominate for a leadership position in your church. Jacob was a seriously flawed person growing up in a dysfunctional family. He seemed to be either getting into trouble, just getting out of it, or about to make some more.

Jacob's story is so universal because it is so personal. Throughout his life, Jacob was stubborn and unwilling to trust anyone-even God. It was at the Jabbok brook that Jacob was finally broken by God and radically transformed. He was given a new name and a new freedom to live as God originally intended. This came, however, at the price of a permanent limp that rendered him helpless and desperate to cling to God. And it is out of this weak place of dependence that Jacob became a nation (Israel) that would bless the world.

In the same way, God sometimes wounds us in our journey with him in order to move us out of an unhealthy, "tip of an iceberg" spirituality to one that truly transforms us from the inside out. When these wounds come, we can deny them, cover them, get angry with God, blame others, or like Jacob we can cling desperately to God.

💭Question to Consider:

In what ways has God put your life or plans "out of joint" so that you might depend on him?

🤲Prayer:

Father, I relate to Jacob in striving, manipulating, scheming, denying, and spinning half-truths to those around me in order to get my way. At times, I too find myself serving you in order to get something from you. LORD, I invite you to teach me to live in dependence on you. Help me to rest and be still in your love alone. In Jesus' name. Amen

🗓️Day 3: Evening

📖Scripture Reading: Matthew 16:21-23

✍️Devotional

The apostle Peter had a passionate heart for Jesus but was rash, proud, immature, and inconsistent. His impulsiveness and stubbornness are evident throughout the gospels. Yet Jesus patiently led Peter to a crucifixion of his self-will, in order that he might experience genuine resurrection life and power.

When I am still in compulsion (the busyness that Hilary of Tours called "a blasphemous anxiety to do God's work for him"), it gives way to compunction (being pricked or punctured). That is, God can break through the many layers with which I protect myself so that I can hear His Word and be poised to listen... In perpetual motion I can mistake the flow of my adrenaline for the moving of the Holy Spirit: I can live in the illusion that I am ultimately in control of my destiny and my daily affairs...

French Philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal observed that most of our human problems come because we don't know how to sit still in our room for an hour. -Leighton Ford

💭Question to Consider:

What might be one way your busyness blocks you from listening and communicating intimately with the living God?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, forgive me for running my life without you today. I offer my anxieties to you now- as best I can. Help me to be still, to surrender to your will, and to rest in your loving arms. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 10:38-42

✍️Devotional

Mary and Martha represent two approaches to the Christian life. Martha is actively serving Jesus, but she is also missing Jesus. She is busy in the "doing" of life. Her life is pressured and filled with distractions. Her duties have become disconnected from her love for Jesus. Martha's problems, however, go beyond her busyness. I suspect that if Martha were to sit at the feet of Jesus, she would still be distracted by everything on her mind. Her inner person is touchy, irritable, and anxious.

Mary, on the other hand, is sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to him. She is "being" with Jesus, enjoying intimacy with him, loving him, and taking pleasure in his presence. Her life has one center of gravity-JESUS. I suspect that if Mary were to help with the many household chores, she would not be worried or upset. Why?

Her inner person has slowed down enough to focus on Jesus and center her life on him.

Our goal is to love God with our whole being and to be consistently conscious of God throughout our daily life- whether we are stopped like Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus, or active like Martha, taking care of the tasks of life.

💭Question to Consider:

What things are worrying or upsetting you today?

🤲Prayer:

Help me O LORD, to be still and wait patiently for you (Ps.37:7). I offer to you each of my anxieties and worries this day. Teach me to be prayerfully attentive and to rest in you as I enter into the many activities of this day. In Jesus' Name. Amen

🗓️Day 4: Evening

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 62:5-8

✍️Devotional

David, a man after God's own heart, beautifully models the seamless integration of a full emotional life with a profound contemplative life with God. He trusts in the LORD, pouring out his struggles, fears, and anguish over the lies being sad about him.

In The Cry of the Soul, Dan Allender and Tremper Longman summarize why awareness of our feelings is so important to our relationship with God:

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality; Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality. And the reality is where we meet God... Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice... However, we often turn a deaf ear- through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement. We strain out anything disturbing in order to gain tenuous control of our inner world. We are frightened and ashamed of what leaks into our consciousness. In neglecting our intense emotions, we are false to ourselves and lose a wonderful opportunity to know God. We forget that change comes through brutal honesty and vulnerability before God.

💭Question to Consider:

What are you angry about today? Sad about? Afraid of? Pour out your response before God, trusting in him as David did.

🤲Prayer:

LORD, like David I often feel like a leaning wall, a tottering fence that is about to be knocked down! So many forces and circumstances seem to be coming against me. Help me LORD, to find rest in you and to take shelter in you as my fortress. In Jesus' name, Amen!

📖Scripture Reading: John 7:2-8

✍️Devotional

Jesus moves slowly, not striving or rushing. He patiently waited through his adolescent and young adult years to reveal himself as the Messiah. Even then, he did not rush to be recognized. He waited patiently for his Father's timing during his short ministry.

Why is it then that we hate "slow" when God appears to delight in it? Eugene Peterson offers us at least two reasons:

I am busy because I am vain. I want to appear important. Significant. What better way than to be busy? The incredible hours, the crowded schedule, and the heavy demands of my time are proof to myself and to all who will notice- that I am important. If I go into a doctor's office and find there's no one waiting, and I see through a half-open door the doctor reading a book, I wonder if he's any good...

Such an experience affected me. I live in a society in which crowded schedules and harassed conditions are evidence of the importance, so I developed a crowded schedule and harassed conditions. When others notice, they acknowledge my significance, and my vanity is fed.

I am busy because I am Lazy. I indolently let others decide what I do instead of resolutely deciding for myself. It was a favorite theme of C.S Lewis that only lazy people work hard. By lazily abdicating the essential work of deciding and directing, establishing values, and setting goals, other people do for us.

💭Question to Consider:

What is one step you can make today to slow down and live more attentively to the voice of Jesus?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, grant me the grace to do one thing at a time today, without rushing or burying. Help me to savor the sacred in all I do, be it large or small. By the work, by the Holy Spirit within me, empowers me to pause today as I move from one activity to the next. In Jesus' Name. Amen!

🗓️Day 5: Evening

📖Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

✍️Devotional

The Bible does not spin the flaws and weaknesses of its heroes. Abraham lied. Hosea's wife was a prostitute. Peter rebuked God! Noah got drunk. Jonah was a racist. Jacob lied. John Mark deserted Paul. Elijah burned out. Jeremiah was depressed and suicidal. Thomas doubted. Moses had a temper. Timothy had ulcers. Even David, one of God's beloved friends, committed adultery with Bathsheba and murdered her husband. Yet all these people teach us the same message: that every human being on earth, regardless of their gifts and strengths, is weak, vulnerable, and dependent on God and others.

The pressure to present an image of ourselves as strong and spiritually "together" hovers over most of us. We feel guilty for not measuring up, for not making the grade. We forget that all of us are human and frail.

The apostle Paul struggles with God not answering his prayers and removing his 'thorn in the flesh". Nevertheless, he thanked God for his brokenness, knowing that without it, he would have been an arrogant, "conceited" apostle. He learned, as we all must that Christ's power is made perfect only when we are weak.

💭Question to Consider:

How might brokenness or weakness in your life today present an opportunity for God's power to be demonstrated?

🤲Prayer:

Father, the notion of admitting to myself and to others my weaknesses and failures is very difficult. LORD, I am weak. I am dependent on you. You are God, and I am not. Help me to embrace your work in me. And may I be able to say, like Paul, "when I am weak (broken), then I am strong". In Jesus' Name. Amen!

Awareness of ourselves and our relationship with God are closely related. In fact, the challenge of Scripture to shed our old "false" self in order to live authentically in our new "true self" in Christ is the very core of discipleship. In AD 500, Augustine wrote, "How can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self? In 1530, John Calvin wrote: "Our wisdom... consists almost entirely of two parts: knowledge of God and of ourselves". And Teresa of Avila wisely wrote: "Almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self-knowledge".

Powerful spiritual breakthroughs take place deep below the surface of our lives when we slow down to spend time with God in stillness and Scripture. This provides space for his purifying love to burn away all that is false within us and set us free to live authentically in Jesus.

🗓️Day 1: Morning 🌅

📖Scripture Reading: Mark 1:33-38

✍️Devotional

The challenge to shed our "old false" self in order to live authentically in our "new true" self strikes at the very core of true spirituality. We see this authenticity in the life of Jesus.

In the midst of a mini-revival in the town of Capernaum, Jesus was able to withstand the pressure of everyone looking for him and to move on to another place. He also knew his Father, who loved him and had a work for him to complete. In living faithfully to his true self, however, Jesus disappointed a lot of people. For example:

• He disappointed his family to the point where his mother and siblings wondered if he was out of his mind (Mark 3:21)

• He disappointed the people he grew up with in Nazareth. When Jesus declared who he really was- the Messiah- they tried to push home off a cliff (Luke 4:28-29)

• He disappointed his friends, the twelve disciples. They projected onto Jesus their own picture of the kind of Messiah they expected him to be, they quit on him.

• He disappointed the crowds. They wanted an earthly Messiah who would feed them, fix all their problems, overthrow the Roman oppressors, work miracles, and give inspiring sermons. They walked away from him.

• He disappointed the religious leaders. They did not appreciate the disruption his presence brought to their day-to-day lives or to their theology. They finally attributed his power to demons and had him crucified.

  
  

💭Question to Consider:

What might be one specific way that you give in to the expectations of others rather than being faithful to what Jesus has for you?

🤲Prayer:

Jesus, I am so grateful that you understand what it is like to feel pressure from the expectations of others. It can feel crushing at times. LORD, help me to love others well while at the same time remaining faithful to you. In Jesus' Name. Amen!

🗓️Day 1: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 17:38-40,45

✍️Devotional

Even as a young man, David knew both himself and God. Having taken off Saul's armor, he went up against the nine-foot Goliath with only his slingshot and a few smooth stones, confident in the living God.

Unlike David, however, the vast majority of us go to our graves without ever really knowing who we are. We unconsciously live someone else's life, or at least someone else's expectations for us. We are so unaccustomed to being our true self that it can seem impossible to know where to begin. Thomas Merton describes what we so often do:

I use up my life in the desire for pleasures... power, honor, knowledge, and love, to clothe this false self... And I wind experiences around myself and cover myself with pleasures and glory like bandages in order to make myself perceptible to myself and to the world as if were an invisible body that could only become visible when something visible covered its surface. But there is no substance under the things with which I am clothed. I am hollow, and my structure of pleasures and ambitions has no foundation... And when they are gone there will be nothing left of me but my own nakedness and emptiness and hollowness.

The path we must walk to remove the layers of our false self is initially very hard. Powerful forces around and inside us can smother the process. At the same time, the God of the universe has made his him in us (John 14:23), and the very glory God gave Jesus has also been given to us (John 17:21-23).

💭Question to Consider:

What might be one false layer or bandage God is inviting you to remove today?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, grant me the courage of David to resist the temptation to live a life that is not the one you have given to me. Deliver me from the "Goliath" in front of me, and from the negative voices I hear so often. Help me to listen and obey your voice today. In Jesus' name. Amen!

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 139:13-16

✍️Devotional

David seems to have maintained the tension of two complementary truths in Scripture. We are sinners who desperately need forgiveness and a Savior. At the same, God created us in his image, knit each of us together in our mother's womb with enormous care, and chose us for a special purpose on earth. Parker Palmer captures well the wonder of Psalm 139:

Vocation does not come from a voice "out there" calling me to become something I am not. It comes from a voice "in here" calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.

It is a strange gift, this birthright of self. Accepting it turns out to be even more demanding than attempting to become someone else! I have sometimes responded to that demand by ignoring the gift, or hiding it, fleeing from it, or squandering it- and I think I am not alone. There is a Hasidic tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal tendency to want to be someone else and the ultimate importance of becoming one's self. Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?

💭Question to Consider:

What do you think might be one of your "birthright" gifts from God that you have ignored in your life?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I come this day inviting you to cut those deeply entrenched chains that keep me from being faithful to my true self in Christ. In doing so, may my life be a blessing to many. In Jesus' name. Amen!

🗓️Day 2: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Ephesians 3:14-19

✍️Devotional

Bernard of Clairvaux (AD 1090-1153), the abbot of a Cistercian monastery in France, was perhaps the greatest Christian leader and writer of his day. In his great work entitled Loving God, Bernard describes four degrees of love:

1. Loving ourselves for our own sake.

2. Loving God for his gifts and blessings.

3. Loving God for himself alone.

4. Loving ourselves for the sake of God.

The highest degree of love, for Bernard, was simply that we love ourselves as God loves us- in the same degree, in the same manner, and with the very same love. We love the self that God loves, the essential image and likeness of God in us that has been damaged by sin.

💭Question to Consider:

Where do you see yourself on Bernard's list of the four degrees of love?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, strengthen me with your power that I might grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ that surpasses human knowledge. May I love you for you alone, and not your gifts or blessings. And may I live in the deep experience of your tender love this day. In Jesus' name. Amen!

📖Scripture Reading: Mark 10:26-31

✍️Devotional

Anthony (AD 251-356) grew up in a wealthy family in Egypt, receiving an excellent education and upbringing from His Christian parents. One Sunday, Anthony heard the words: Go sell all you gave and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven," and he felt God speaking directly to his heart. Unlike the rich young ruler, he responded to Jesus in Faith.

Selling his possessions, Anthony went off into the solitude of the Egyptian desert, not just for a few days or weeks, but for twenty years! He renounced all possessions to learn detachment; he renounced speech to learn compassion; he renounced activity to learn prayer. In the desert, Anthony both discovered God and did an intense battle with the devil.

When Anthony emerged from his solitude after twenty years, people recognized the qualities of an authentic "healthy" man-whole in body, mind, and soul. God soon catapulted him into one of the most remarkable ministries of that day. He preached the gospel among the rich and poor, performed many healings, and expelled demons.

Emperor Constantine Augustus sought out. 1.

Anthony's counsel. He served tirelessly in prisons among the poor.

In his old age, Anthony retired to an even deeper solitude to be totally absorbed in direct communion with God. He died in the year 356 at the age of 106 years old.

💭Question to Consider:

What impresses you the most about the story of Anthony's life?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, it is clear that layers of Anthony's false superficial self were shed during his time with you. Crack the hard shell over my heart that obscures and buries my true self in Christ. Transform me into the kind of person you desire me to be. In Jesus' name. Amen

🗓️Day 3: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Matthew 4:1-3, 8-11

✍️Devotional

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude, we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself into his furnace. There he was tempted with the three compulsions of the world: to be relevant ("turn stones into loaves"), to be spectacular ("throw yourself down"), and to be powerful ("I will give you all these kingdoms"). Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter- the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self... In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make... The task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my doot and leave me alone. - Henri Nouwen

💭Question to Consider:

What temptations or trials do yo find yourself in today that God might be using as a furnace to help you develop your interior life?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, help me to turn down the volume of the voices that tell me I have little worth unless I am wealthy, influential, and popular. Grant me the grace to day o experience your voice, which tells me: You are "my child, whom I love; with you I am well please (Matthew 3:16). In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 19:1-5

✍️Devotional

After Elijah's great victory over 850 false prophets at Mount Carmel, he had to run his life. During that process, he became both exhausted and depressed- to the point of wanting to die. For reasons not given in this text, we find Elijah alone under the broom bush and asking for death. He is, as we call it today, "burn out".

When I give something I do not process, I give a false and dangerous gift, a gift that looks like love but is, in reality, loveless- a gift given more from my need to prove myself than from the other's need to be cared for... One sign that I am violating my own nature in the name of nobility is a condition called burn out. Though usually regarded as the result of trying to give too much, burn out in my experience results from trying to give what I do not possess- the ultimate in giving too little! Burn out is a state if emptiness to be sure, but it does not result from giving all I have; it merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place. - Parker Palmer

💭Question to Consider:

What would it look like for you to respect yourself in light of you God-given human limits?

🤲Prayer:

Jesus, you know my tendency to say yes to more commitments that I can possibly keep. Help me to embrace the gift of my limits physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And may you, LORD Jesus, be glorified in and through me today. In Your name. Amen

🗓️Day 4: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Exodus 3:1-5

✍️Devotional

God's presence in us is like the fire in the Burning Bush. It gradually takes over us, so that although we remain fully ourselves, we are being made over into you true selves, the way God originally intended us to be. He is light, and we are filled with His light- maybe even literally, as some saints were said to visibly glow. The term for this transformation is fairly scandalizing: theosis: which means being transformed into God, divinized or deified. Of course we do not become little mini-gods with our own universes. We never lose our identity, but we are filled with God like a sponge is filled with water. - Frederica Mathews-Green

💭Question to Consider:

What is one area of your inner person that the fire of God's presence might want to burn away (e.g., selfishness, greed, bitterness, impatience)?

🤲Prayer:

Jesus, I believe that you came to save me from the penalty of my sins -death- and for eternal life. At the same time, you came to save me from the poison that flows in my veins, from that which keeps me from your light. Come invade me with your burning fire that I might become the person you have created me to be in you. In Your name. Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: Romans 8:35-39

✍️Devotional

Most of us place a higher premium on what other people think than we realize. As we can be seen in Galatians, the apostle Paul understood this struggle intimately.

M. Scoot Peck illustrates the point through a story of meeting a high school classmate at the age of fifteen. Here are his reflections after a conversation with his friend:

I suddenly realized that for the entire ten-minute period from when I had first seen my acquaintance until that very moment, I had been totally self-preoccupied. For the two or three minutes before we met, all I was thinking about was the clever things I might say that would impress him. During our five minutes together, I was listening to what he had to say only so that I might turn it into a clever rejoinder. I watched him only so that I might see what effect my remarks were having upon him. And for the two or three minutes after we separated, my sole thoughts were of those things I could have said that might have impressed him even more.

I had not cared a whit for my classmate.

What is most startling in reading this detailed explanation of what was going on beneath the surface of this fifteen-year-old boy, is the recognition that the same dynamics continue for most of us into our twenties, thirties, fifties, seventies, and nineties! We remain trapped in living a pretend life- always seeking the approval of others.

True freedom comes when we no longer need to be special in other people's eyes because we know we're loveable and good enough in Christ.

💭Question to Consider:

How might it change your day today if you were to cease looking for human approval and begin seeking only the approval of God?

🤲Prayer:

Grant me courage, LORD to today what you have given me to do, to say what you have given me to say, and to become who you have called me to become. In Jesus' name!

🗓️Day 5: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Isaiah 40:28-31

✍️Devotional:

In his book The Songs of the Bird, Tony de Mello tells the following story:

A man found an eagle's egg and put it in the nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chick. He scratched the earth for worms and insects, he clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air. Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked. "That's the eagle, the king of the birds", said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth- we are chickens."So the eagle lived and died as a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.

💭Question to Consider:

In what area of your life might you be living as a chicken when God, in reality, has made you an eagle?

🤲Prayer:

Father, you have made me a golden eagle- able to fly. In so many ways, however, I still live as a chicken, unaware of the heights and the richness to which you have called me. Fill me, Holy Spirit. Set me free to be the unique person the LORD Jesus has created me to be. In Jesus' name. Amen

The very heart of the spirituality and discipleship in the family of God is breaking free from the destructive, sinful patterns of our pasts in order to live the unique lives God intends for us. Yet few of us have reflected honestly on the impact of our family of origin and our culture. The result is that we carry baggage and excess weight that hinders us from loving God, ourselves, and others.

This is difficult work. and requires courage, but the power to go forward originates not with us but in communion with Jesus. He is the one who anchors us in the Father's love and empowers us with the Holy Spirit. He is the one who enables us to surrender all the broken parts of our histories to God so he can transform them into gifts for those around us.

🗓️Day 1: Morning 🌅

📖Scripture Reading: Hebrews 11:24-27

✍️Devotional

Even the worst and most painful family experiences become part of our total identity. God had a plan to place us in our particular families and cultures. And the more we know about our families, the more we know about ourselves- and the more freedom we have to make decisions about how we want to live.

If we ignore the truth out of fear, we will end up like Miss Havisham from Charles Dicken's novel Great Expectations. The daughter of a wealthy man, she received a letter at 8:40 a.m. on her wedding day, saying that her husband-to-be was not coming. She stopped all clocks in the house at the precise time the letter arrived and spent the rest of her life in her bridal dress (which eventually turned yellow), and wearing only one shoe (since she had not yet put on the other one at the time of the disaster). Even as an old Lady she remained crippled by the weight of that crushing blow. It was as if "everything in the room and house had stopped." She decided to live in her past, not her present or future.

Moses' life had more than its share of pain and failure. After being raised in a wealthy, privileged home, he murdered a man, lost everything, and spent the next forty years of his life in obscurity in the desert. Yet, by faith he "sees him who is invisible" and hears God's invitation to do something that will be a blessing to many.

💭Question to Consider:

What invitation might God be offering to you out of the failures and pain of your past?

🤲Prayer

LORD Jesus, set me free to be the person you have destined me to be. Help me to pause to hear your voice today, and to leave behind the "baggage" I am carrying as I seek to follow you. Help me to discern your hand at work in and through my life, both in the past and the future. In Jesus' name. Amen.

🗓️Day 1 : Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 9:59-62

✍️Devotional:

There's an old story about a boy who, having grown up at the edge of a wide, turbulent river, spent his childhood learning to build rafts. When a bout reached manhood, he felled some trees, lashed them together, and riding his raft, he crossed to the far side of the river. Because he had spent so long working on the raft, he couldn't see leaving behind when he reached dry land, so he lashed it to his shoulders and carried it with him, though all he came upon in his journey were a few easily affordable streams and puddles. He rarely thought about the things he was missing out on because he was carrying the bulky raft- the trees he couldn't climb, vistas he couldn't see,people he couldn't get close to and races he couldn't run. He didn't realize how heavy the raft was, because he had never known what it was like to be free of it. - Lori Gordon

While all of us are affected by powerful external events and circumstances throughout our earthly lives, our families of origin are most influential group to which we will ever belong. Even those who leave home as young adults, determined to "break" from their family history, soon find their family' way "doing life" follows them wherever they go.

Family patterns from the past are played out in out present relationships- often without us necessarily being aware of it. The price we pay for this is high. Our family history lives inside of all us, even in those who attempt to bury it. Only the truth sets us free. What was learned can be unlearned. And by God's grace and power, we can learn new ways of "doing life", making changed and freedom possible.

💭Question to Consider:

What heavy raft might you be carrying as you seek to climb the mountains God has placed before you?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I too prefer to not look at or remember the painful past. Show me, O Father, the heavy weighs and rafts I am carrying due to my past. Help me to learn what it means to honestly face my past, lift it up to you, and allow you to use it as a means to my maturing and growing in Christ. In Jesus' name. Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: Mark 3:31-35

✍️Devotional:

When we become Christians we are adopted into the family of Jesus. Jesus was clear and direct in calling people to have a first loyalty to him. Discipleship, he made clear, is putting off the sinful patterns of unbelief so that we might put on the choices of faith, being transformed to live as members of Jesus' family.

As we go back to go forward, we find that it is a never-ending process, we go back, breaking some destructive power of the past. Then later, on a deeper level, God has us return to the same issue on a more profound level.

Thomas Keating compared God's work in us to a Middle Eastern "tell", or archaeological site, where one civilization is built on another in the same lace. Archeologists excavate, level by level, culture by culture, down through history. The Holy Spirit, he says, is like a Divine archeologist digging through the layers of our lives.

The Spirit intends to investigate our whole life history, layer by layer, throwing our the junk and preserving the values that were appropiate to each stage of our human development... Eventually, the Spirit beigns to dig into the bedrock of our earliest emotional life... Hence, as we progress toward the center where God actually is waiting for us, we are naurally going to feel that we are getting worse. this warns us that the spiritual journey is not a scucess story or a career move. It is rather a series of humiliation of the false self.

💭Question to Consider:

What false self are you struggling with that Christ wants you to die to so that you can truly live?

🤲Prayer:

Holy Spirit,

I invite you to dig through the layers of my being that hinder my relationship and communion with others. Grant me perseverance to allow you to dig deeply, excavating out of me all that is not of Christ so that I may be filled with your presence. In Jesus' name. Amen

🗓️Day 2: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:1-3

✍️Devotional

Francis of Assisi was one of the most influential Christians in the past two thousand years, broke with his family in a very dramatic way. As Francis grew more passionate about his relationship with Christ and less interested in his father's lucrative business, their tension grew. This climaxed in the following scene:

The Father [dragged] th eson before the local bishop in the hope that the town's religious authority could talk some sense into the young man. But the plan backfired. There in front of God and everybody, Francis stripped off his clothing and handed it to his father. Standing there naked as the day he was born, Francis said, "Until now I called you father, but from now on I can say without reserve, 'Our father who art in in heaven'".

Francis father's heart carried his son's clothes back to a large house that was now strangely quiet. Francis, on the other hand, went on his way rejoicing, suddenly freed from the encumbrances of wealth, family, and social esteem...

But one final barrier was left to cross before he could serve God with his whole heart. One day as he was walking down the road and saw a leper approaching him, he knew his opportunity was at hand... Francis reached ou and kissed him.

Francis of Assisi represents one of the "great cloud of witnesses" mentioned in Hebrews 12. He literally, "threw off everything that hindered him" and was launched by God into an extraordinary life and destiny. His life continues to speak to us today.

💭Question to Consider:

What most impacts you in the story about Francis? How is God speaking to you through it?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, there is none like you. I want to know you as my ultimate Father, the one whose unfathomable, unconditional love sets me free to live for you- far above all other loyalties and expectations. In Jesus' name. Amen!

📖Scripture Reading: Genesis 50:15, 19-21

✍️Devotional

Joseph was born into a family characterized by great brokenness and sadness. Lying, jealousy, and betrayal visited upon Joseph's young life, and he spent ten to thirteen years in prison, completely cut off from his family.

Nonetheless, Joseph was able to observe the large, loving hand of God through all his setbacks and disappointments. In doing so, he affirmed that God mysteriously leads us into his purposes who has all history in his grip, working in ways that are mostly hidden to us on earth. Joseph understood that in all things God is at work- in spite of, through, and against all human effort- orchestrating his purposes.

God never discards any of our past for his future when we surrender ourselves to him. He is the LORD! Every mistake, sin, and detour we take in the journey of life is taken by God and becomes his gift for a future of blessing when we surrender ourselves to him.

Why did God allow Joseph to go through such pain and loss?

We see traces of the good that came out of it in Genesis 37-50, but much remains a mystery. Most important for us to recognize today is that Joseph did not deny his past but trusted in God's goodness and love, even when circumstances went from bad to worse.

💭Question to Consider:

What would it look like for you to surrender the pains of your past (mistakes, sins, setbacks, and disappointment) to God today?

🤲Prayer:

Father,

I affirm with Joseph that your sovereignty placed me into my family, my culture, and my present circumstances. I cannot see all that you see, but I ask you to show me how, like Joseph, I can rest in love and power- even when I can't see any good that you might be doing. In Jesus name

🗓️Day 3: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Genesis 45:4-7

✍️Devotional

Most of us resist remembering and feeling the hurt and pain of our past. It can feel like an abyss that might swallow us up. We can wonder if we are only getting worse. Yet Joseph wept repeatedly when he reunited with his family. In fact, Scripture relates that he wept so loudly that Egyptians heard him (Genesis 45:2).

Joseph did not minimize or rationalize the painful years of his life. He could have destroyed his brothers in anger. Instead, out of honest grieving for his pain, he genuinely forgave the brothers who had betrayed him and was able to bless them. Joseph was able to discern that God had sent him ahead to Egypt to save his brother's lives by a great deliverance (Genesis 45:7).

The question is, "How did he do it?"

Joseph clearly developed a secret history over a long period of time in his relationship with God. His whole life was structured around following the LORD God of Israel. Then, when the moment came for him to make a critical decision, he was ready. He took leadership of his family- and continued to the end of his days providing for them financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

💭Question to Consider:

What pains in your life are waiting to be acknowledged and grieved?

🤲Prayer:

LORD,

Lead me through the process of grieving and healing so that I might offer genuine kindness and forgiveness to those who have not been kind to me. Help me, like Joseph, to join with you to become a blessing to many other people. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Acts 9:1-6, 15-16

✍️Devotional

Saul's great conversion and life as an apostle can only be understood by looking at his entire life and training leading up to this famous passage in Acts 9.

Soren Kierkegaard once observed that life is lived forward, but only understood backward. This was certainly Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's experience.

Solzhenitsyn is considered by many to be the greatest Russian writer of the 20th century. But his sense of calling was not always clear. His purpose grew in his experiences of the Gulag, the Soviet concentration camps- a place where he experienced a deadly struggle to write, a miracle of a cure from cancer, a conversation through Jewish followed of Jesus, and a deepening burden to put "the dying wish of millions" on record. He wrote:

The one worrying thing was that I might not be given time to carry out the whole scheme. I felt as though I was about to fill a space in the world that was meant for me and had long awaited me, a mold, as it were, made for me alone, but discerned by me only this moment. I was a molten substance, impatient, unendurably impatient, to pour into my mold, to fill it full, without air bubbles or cracks, before I cooled and stiffined...

Later, the true significance of what happened would inevitably become clear to me, and I would be numb with surprise.

💭Question to Consider:

What space in the world (for which your past he prepared you) is waiting to be filled by you?

🤲Prayer:

LORD,

You are good, and your love endures forever. Help me to trust you- with the good as well as the difficult, the successes and the failures, the joys and the sorrows of my past. I surrender to your voice that whispers to me, "All is well, and all will be well." In Jesus' name, Amen.

🗓️Day 4: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 16:6-7

✍️Devotional

Chaim Potok, in his novel The Chosen, tells the story of friendship between two boys growing up in Brooklyn, New York. Danny is a strict Hasidic Jew, and Reuven is a conservative Jew. Danny's father is the leader of a Hasidic community and raises his son in silence. He never speaks to him directly.

Danny is hurt and confused. He cannot understand why his father is so distant and afflicts him with so much pain. At the end of the novel, Danny's father explains that he did it for him as an act of love. Danny later reflects on the painful experience: "My father never talked to me, except when we studied together. He taught me with silence. He taught me to look into myself in company with my soul."

In the book, Danny discovers that the suffering he experienced has a good outcome. "One learns of the pain of others by suffering one's own pain, but turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul. And it is important to know of pain. It destroys our self-pride, our arrogance, and our indifference towards others. It makes us aware of how frail and tiny we are and of how much we must depend upon the Master of the Universe"

In reading 1 Samuel 16, one has to wonder what life was like for David as the youngest of seven sons. What did he learn from being considered invisible, not only by his brothers but by his father as well?

How might this experience have helped to shape his character so that he is later called "a man after God's own heart"?

💭Question to Consider:

Can you name some of the ways in which you have learned the pain of others by suffering your own pain?

🤲Prayer:

Father,

May this pain I experience in life kill the things that need to die in me- arrogance, pride, and indifference to others. Help me, daily, to see my frailty and how dependent I am on you, the Master of the Universe. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Exodus 14:10; 13-16

✍️Devotional

Moses demonstrated godly leadership as Egypt's army overtook the Israelites at the Red Sea. However, in their anxiety, the Israelites distorted the past and refused to move forward. They preferred their miserable past to an unknown future with God.

Moses courageously stands alone and calls them to "be still" and to "move on". He picks up his staff and takes deliberate steps to move ahead. By remembering the LORD (being still), Moses courageously does what is best (moving on), despite the Israelites' lack of support. He models the delicate balance of being still while at the same moving on. In doing so, he transforms not only his own life but the lives of all those around him.

Everyone who draws breath "takes the lead" many times a day. We lead with actions that range from a smile to a frown; with words that range from blessings to curse; with decisions that range from faithful to fearful... When I resist thinking of myself as a leader, it is neither becauseo of modesty nor a cleared eyed look at the world wheter I acknowledge it or not.

So, what does it take to qualify as a leader? Being human and being here. As long as I am here, doing whatever I am doing, I am leading, for better or for worse. And, if I may say so. so are you.- Parker Palmer

💭Question to Consider:

How might the words from Exodus 14:14-15-" The LORD will fight for you, you need only to "be still" and "move on"- apply to you today?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I can relate to the Israelites in the desert and their desire to return to what is predictable- even if it is miserable. Chang is hard. Grant me the courage of Moses to walk the delicate balance of being still and moving to the new life in Christ that you have for me. In Jesus' name. Amen

🗓️Day 5: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 131

✍️Devotional

We often forget our humanity, our limits, and our inability to change others. Considering that David was one of the more powerful people in his day, it is striking how he reminds himself in this Psalm to not think too highly of himself.

The following quotation is from an anonymous Hasidic rabbi on his deathbed. These words have served me well over these years; they keep me focused on Christ changing me:

When I was young, I set out to change the world. When I grew a little bit older, I perceived that this was too ambitious, so I set out to change my state. This too, I realized as I grew older, was too ambitious, so I set out to change my town. When I realized I could not even do this, I tried to change my family. Now as an old man, I know that I should have started by changing myself. If I had started with myself, maybe then I would have succeeded in chaging my family, the town, or even the state- and who knows, maybe even the world!

💭Question to Consider:

In Psalm 131:1 David prays: "I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me." How do you hear these words?

🤲Prayer:

LORD Jesus,

Give my heart eyes to see and ears to hear the ways I need to change. May I be more deeply, radically, and powerfully transformed for your name's sake? Amen!

A mature spirituality requires that you go through the pain of the Wall— or, as the ancients called it, “the dark night of the soul.” Just as a physical wall stops us from moving ahead, God sometimes stops us in our spiritual journey through a spiritual wall in order to radically transform our character. Often we are brought to the wall by circumstances and crises beyond our control. 

Regardless of how we get there, every follower of Jesus at some point will confront the Wall. Failure to understand and surrender to God’s working in us at the Wall often results in great long-term pain, ongoing immaturity, and confusion. Receiving the gift of God in the Wall, however, transforms our lives forever.

Day 1: Morning/Midday Office

Scripture Reading:  Genesis 12:1-2, NLT

1. The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 

2.  I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 

3.  I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”

Devotional: 

Like a few other metaphors, the image of the Christian life as a journey captures our experience of following Christ. Journeys involve movement, action, stops, starts, detours, and trips into the unknown. God called Abraham to leave his comfortable life in Ur at the age of seventy-five and to embark on a long, slow journey— a journey with God that would require much patient trust.

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We would like to skip the intermediate stages.  We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.  And so, I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually— let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today at what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. 

Only God could say what his new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our LORD the benefits of believing that this hand is leading you.  And accept the anxiety of feeding yourself in suspense and incomplete.  - Pierre Teilhard Chardin

Questions to Consider:

What does it mean for you to trust in the slow work of God today?

Prayer:

Grant me courage, Father, to embark on the unique journey you have crafted for me. By faith, I surrender my need and desire to be in control of every event, circumstance, and person I will meet today. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Day 1:Midday/Evening

Scripture Reading: Song of Songs 1:2, 3:1-3, NLT

1. Kiss me and kiss me again,

    for your love is sweeter than wine.

1. One night as I lay in bed, I yearned for my lover.

    I yearned for him, but he did not come.

2. So I said to myself, “I will get up and roam the city,

    searching in all its streets and squares.

I will search for the one I love.”

    So I searched everywhere but did not find him.

3. The watchmen stopped me as they made their rounds,

    and I asked, “Have you seen the one I love?”

Devotional:

Christians primarily read the Song of Songs on two levels: as the marital love of a man and woman, and as a description of our love relationship with the LORD Jesus— our Bridegroom. Song of Songs 3:1-3 describes, in particular, the experience of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Regarding her painful struggle with God’s absence throughout her fifty-year service among the poor, she wrote:

When I cry to raise my thoughts to Heaven— there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul. Love— the word— it brings nothing. I am told God loves me— and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul…

In spite of all— this darkness and emptiness is not as painful as the longing for God…

Before I could spend hours before our LORD- loving Him– talking to Him— and now— not even meditation goes properly… Yet deep down somewhere in my heart that longing for God keeps breaking through the darkness. 

My soul is just like (an) ice block– I have nothing to say. 

Mother Teresa came to realize that her darkness was the spiritual side of her work, a sharing of Christ’s suffering, a treasure for her and her unique work. She eventually wrote: “I have to come to love the darkness. For I  believe that it is a part, a very small part, of Jesus’ darkness and pain on earth.”

Questions to Consider:

What treasures might there be in the darkness or difficulties in your own life today?

Prayer:

Father, teach me to trust you even when I feel like I am alone and that you are asleep in the boat with strong storms raging all around me. Awaken me to the treasure that can only be found in darkness. Grant me the grace to follow you into the next place you have for me in this journey called life. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

📖Scripture Reading:

³⁶ Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” ³⁷ He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. ³⁸ He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”

³⁹ He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

✍️Devotional

In the garden of Gethsemane, we see Jesus troubled and overwhelmed with sorrow- to the point of death. We see him falling with his face to the ground and praying three times. We also see the Father say NO to Jesus' request that the cup be taken away from him.

We want to follow Jesus into the abundant life of resurrection, but we are less than enthusiastic about following him into the garden of Gethsemane.

Lament for a Son, by Nicholas Wolterstorff, is record of the author's reflection and struggles following the death of his twenty-five-year-old-son, Eric, in an Austrian mountain-climbing accident. Wolterstorff doesn't have any explanations or answer for why God would have allowed such a tragedy. Who does? At one point, however, he comes upon a profound insight:

Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God. It is said of God that no one can behold his face and live. I always thought this meant that no one can he his splendor and live. A friend said perhaps this meant that no one could see his sorrow and live. Or perhaps his sorrow is splendor.

💭Question to Consider:

What does it mean for you to pray, "Yet not as I will, but as you will".

🤲Prayer:

LORD, everything in me resists following you into the garden of Gethsemane to fall on my face to the ground before you. Grant me the courage to follow you all the way to the cross, whatever that might mean for my life. And then, by your grace, and lead me to resurrection life and power. In Jesus' name. Amen!

🗓️Day 1: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Job 2:7-10

⁷ So Satan left the Lord’s presence, and he struck Job with terrible boils from head to foot.

⁸ Job scraped his skin with a piece of broken pottery as he sat among the ashes. ⁹ His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.”

¹⁰ But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.

✍️Devotional

Jonathan Edwards, in a famous sermon on the book of Job, noted that the story of Job is the story of us all. Job lost everything in one day: his family, his wealth, and his health. Most of us experience our losses more slowly- over the span of a lifetime- until we find ourselves on the door of death, leaving everything behind.

Catastrophic loss by definition proceeds recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same. There is no going back to the past...

It is not therefore true that we become less through the loss- unless there is nothing left.. Loss can also make us more..

I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather I absorbed the loss into my life, until it became part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it. One learns the pain of others by suffering one's own pain, by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul... However painful, sorrow is good for the soul...

The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering. - Jerry Sittser

💭Question to Consider:

How can you see God enlarging your soul through your losses?

🤲Prayer:

Father, when I think about my losses, it can feel like I have no skin to protect me. I feel raw, scraped to the bone. Looking at Job and Jesus helps, but I must admit that I struggle to see something new being birthed our of the old. Enlarge my soul through the trials and losses of my life. In Jesus' name! Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 22:1-5

¹ My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
    Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
² Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
    Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.

³ Yet you are holy,
    enthroned on the praises of Israel.
⁴ Our ancestors trusted in you,
    and you rescued them.
⁵ They cried out to you and were saved.
    They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

✍️Devotional

In the 1870s Horatio Spafford was a successful Chicago Lawyer and a close friend of evangelist Dwight L. Moody. Spafford had invested heavily in real estate, but the Chicago fire of 1871 wiped out his holdings. His son had died shortly before the disaster. Spafford and his family desperately needed a rest so in 1873 he planned a trip to Europe with his wife, Anna, and their four daughters. Yet just before they set sail, a last-minute business development forced Horatio to return to work. Not wanting to ruin the family holiday, Spafford persuaded his family to go as planned and intended to catch up with them later.

With this decided, Spafford returned to Chicago, and Anna and the four daughters sailed to Europe. Unfortunately, their ship collided with an English vessel and sank in only twelve minutes. This accident claimed the lives of 226 people. Ana Spafford has stood bravely on the deck, with her daughters (Annie, Maggie, Bessie, and Tanetta) desperately clinging to her. Her last memory of the disaster is that of her baby being violently torn from her arms by the force of the waters. Just nine days later, Spafford received a telegram from his wife in Wales. It read: "Saved alone". When Horation Spafford made the ocean crossing to meet his grieving wife, he sailed near the place where his four daughters had sunk to the ocean's depths. There, in the midst of his sorrow, he wrote "It is Well with my Soul". The words of Stafford's hymn have brought comfort to so many in grief:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrow like sea-billows roll,

Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

Let this blessed assurance control,

That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,

And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

💭Question to Consider:

What about Spafford and his relationship with Christ moves you the most?

🤲Prayer:

Father, I can only bow to you before such unimaginable loss and suffering. I join with Spafford and pray to you: "Whatever my lot, Thou has thought me to say, It is well, It is well, with my soul." In your Son's name. Amen

🗓️Day 2: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 4:7-11

⁷ We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.^[a] This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

⁸ We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. ⁹ We are hunted down but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. ¹⁰ Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

¹¹ Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies.

✍️Devotional

Joni Eareckson Tada has been paralyzed from the neck down for over thirty years. As a result, she has experienced both the deaths of Jesus and the life of Jesus. She says:

The Cross is the center of our relationship with Jesus. The cross is where we die. We go there daily. It isn't easy.

Normally, we will follow Christ anywhere anywhere- to a party, as it were, where he changes water into wine, to a sunlit beach where he preaches from a boat. But to the cross? We dig in our heels. The invitation is so frighteningly individual individual. It's an invitation to go alone.

Suffering reduces us to nothing and as Soren Kierkegaard noted, "God creates everything out of nothing. And everything which God is to use, he first reduces to nothing." To be reduced to nothing is to be dragged to the foot of the cross. It's a severe mercy.

When suffering forces us to our knees at the foot of Calvary, we die to self. We cannot kneel there for long without releasing our pride and anger, unclasping our dreams and desires... In exchange, God imparts power and implants new and lasting hope.

💭Question to Consider:

How is God bringing you to your knees before him through difficulties and setbacks in your life?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, everything in me kicks against going to be the foot of the cross where you will root out of me all that is not of you. Help me not to fear the 'deaths' it will take for me to be transformed into a free person who loves you and others well. Have mercy on me, O LORD. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

1. For everything, there is a season,
       a time for every activity under heaven.
   ² A time to be born and a time to die.
       A time to plant and a time to harvest.
   ³ A time to kill and a time to heal.
       A time to tear down and a time to build up.
   ⁴ A time to cry and a time to laugh.
       A time to grieve and a time to dance.
   ⁵ A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
       A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
   ⁶ A time to search and a time to quit searching.
       A time to keep and a time to throw away.
   ⁷ A time to tear and a time to mend.
       A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
   ⁸ A time to love and a time to hate.
       A time for war and a time for peace.

✍️Devotional

We don't control the seasons; they happen to us. Winter, spring, summer, and fall come to us whether we like it or not. Their rhythms teach us about our spiritual lives and the ways of God. Consider the following description of the paradox of death and rebirth in nature and in our lives:

Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer's abundance decays toward wonter's death... In my own experience of autumn, I am rarely aware that seeds are being planted... But as I explore autumn's paradox of dying and seeding, I feel the power of metaphor. In the autumnal events of my own experience, I am easily fixated on surface appearances- on the decline of meaning, the decay of relationships, the death of a work. And yet if I look more deeply, I may see the myriad possibilities being planted to bear fruit in some season yet to come.

In retrospect, I can see in my own life what I could not see at the time- how the job I lost helped me find work I needed to do, how the "road closed' sign turned me toward terrain I needed to travel, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to discern meaning I needed to know. On the surface it seemed that life was lessening, but silently and lavishly the seeds of new life were always being sown.- Parker Palmer

💭Question to Consider:

What "road closed" sign is before you today that may be God's way of redirecting you to something new?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, grant me wisdom and prudence to see the larger picture, to wait, and to discern the seasons in my life with you. Forgive me for fighting the 'deaths' you send into my life in order to plant something new. In Jesus' name. Amen!

🗓️Day 3: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: John 3:26-30

²⁶ So John’s disciples came to him and said, “Rabbi, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you identified as the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going to him instead of coming to us.”

²⁷ John replied, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven. ²⁸ You yourselves know how plainly I told you, ‘I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way for him.’ ²⁹ It is the bridegroom who marries the bride, and the bridegroom’s friend is simply glad to stand with him and hear his vows. Therefore, I am filled with joy at his success. ³⁰ He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.

✍️Devotional

Experiencing loss makes us confront our humanity and our limits. We quickly realize we are not in control of our lives; God is. We are simply creatures, not the Creator.

Consider the example of John the Baptist. Crowds that formerly followed John for baptism switched their allegiances once Jesus began his ministry. They began leaving John to follow Jesus. Some of the followers were upset about this dramatic turn of events. They complained to him, "Everyone is going to him" (John 3:26).

John understood limits and replied, " A person can receive only what is given them from heaven" (John 3:27). He was able to accept his limits, his humanity, and his declining popularity and say, "He must become greater; I must become less" (John 3:30).

Getting off of our thrones and joining the rest of humanity is a must if we are to develop spiritual maturity. We are not the center of the universe. The universe does not revolve around us. Yet a part of us hates limits. We won't accept them. This is one of the primary reasons that biblically grieving our losses is such an indispensable part of spiritual maturity.

Embracing our limits humbles us like little else.

💭Question to Consider:

Name one or two limits God has recently placed in your life as a gift.

🤲Prayer:

LORD, forgive me for the arrogance that sees interruptions to my plans as alien invasions. Forgive me for constantly trying to do more than you intend with my life. Help me to be like John the Baptist, embracing my losses and respecting my limits. In Jesus' name. Amen!

📖Scripture Reading: 2 Samuel 1:17:20; 24-25

¹⁷ Then David composed a funeral song for Saul and Jonathan, ¹⁸ and he commanded that it be taught to the people of Judah. It is known as the Song of the Bow, and it is recorded in The Book of Jashar.^[a]

¹⁹ Your pride and joy, O Israel, lies dead on the hills!
    Oh, how the mighty heroes have fallen!
²⁰ Don’t announce the news in Gath,
    don’t proclaim it in the streets of Ashkelon,
or the daughters of the Philistines will rejoice
    and the pagans will laugh in triumph.

²⁴ O women of Israel, weep for Saul,
for he dressed you in luxurious scarlet clothing,
    in garments decorated with gold.

²⁵ Oh, how the mighty heroes have fallen in battle!
    Jonathan lies dead on the hills.

✍️Devotional

David not only sang this Lamentation, but he also ordered the people to learn it, memorize it, and inhabit it as their experience.

Pain isn't the worst thing. Being hated isn't the worst thing. Being separated from the one you love isn't the worst thing. Death is not the worst thing. The worst thing is failing to deal with reality and becoming disconnected from what us actual. The worst things is trivializing the honorable, desecrating the sacred. What I do with my grief affects the way you handle your grief; together we form a community that deals with death and other loss in the context of God's sovereignty, which is expressed finally in resurrection..

We don't become mature human beings by getting lucky or cleverly circumventing loss, and certainly not by avoidance and distraction. Learn to lament. Learn this lamentation. We're mortal's after all. We and everyone around are scheduled for death (mortis). Get used to it. Take up your cross. It prepares us and those around us for resurrection. - Eugene Peterson

💭Question to Consider:

What might it mean for you to mature by entering the painful reality of your losses rather than avoiding them?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I have spent much of my life running from pain and loss, medicating my pain and quickly moving on to the next project- the new urgent demand. I ask for your grace to embrace all of life- the joy and the sorrows, the deaths and the births, the old and the new. In Jesus' name. Amen!

🗓️Day 4: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 19:41-44

⁴¹ But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. ⁴² “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. ⁴³ Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. ⁴⁴ They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.

✍️Devotional

The Greek word used to describe Jesus weeping over Jerusalem is that of a person wailing or sobbing. Imagine the scene!

Sadly, many of us, unlike our LORD, feel guilty expressing raw feelings such as sadness and anger. The problem is that when we deny our pain, losses, and feelings year after year, we transform slowly into empty shells with smiley faces painted on them. But when we begin to allow ourselves to feel a wider range of emotions (including sadness, depression, fear, and anxiety), a profound change takes place in our relationship with God. As Ken Gire wrote:

C.S Lewis said that "we should bring to God what is in us, not what ought to be in us." The "oughts" will keep us from telling the truth. They will also keep us from feeling the truth. Especially the truth about our pain...

When Jesus realized the nearness of His own death, He went to a quit place and prayed... We are told that He agonized with "loud crying and tears" (Heb.5:7). We are also told that He fell to the ground, where He prayed fervently and sweated profusely (Luke 22:44).

This was no Renaissance painting. This was a real portrait, a portrait of how we pray when the earth beneath our feet begins to quake. We pray with our swear, with our tears, And with whatever friends we have who will sit with us in the darkness."

💭Question to Consider:

How would it change your prayer life to bring to God what is actually in you and not what you think ought to be in you?

🤲Prayer:

Abba Father, I admit that I am often afraid and embarrassed to openly tell you all what is going on inside me- even though I know you know it all anyway. Teach me what boldness in prayer looks like as I draw your throne of grace. In Jesus' name. Amen!

📖Scripture Reading: Hebrews 5:7-8

⁷ While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God. ⁸ Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.

✍️Devotional

The capacity to grieve is almost lost in our culture. People use work, TV, drugs, alcohol, shopping, food binges, busyness, sexual escapades, unhealthy relationships, and even serving others at Church- anything- to medicate the pain of life. Year after year we deny and avoid difficulties and losses of life, rejection, and frustrations. When a loss enters our life we become angry at God and treat it as an alien invasion from outer space.

This is unbiblical and a denial of our common humanity. Consider the following examples:

The ancient Hebrews physically expressed their laments by tearing their clothes and utilizing sackcloth and ashes. Jesus himself offered up "prayer and petitions with fervent cries and tears". During Noah's generation, God was grieved about the state of humanity (Genesis 6). Jeremiah wrote six confessions or laments in which he protested to God about his circumstances. Then, after the fall of Jerusalem, he wrote an entire book called Lamentations.

The God-like response to loss is neither spin nor a cover-up. Scripture teaches us to deal honestly and prayerfully with our losses and disappointments (big and small), and all their accompanying change and grow into the men and women of God has called us to be.

💭Question to Consider:

In what ways are you tempted to spin or cover over your losses and miss God's deeper work in you?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I acknowledge that I prefer to ignore and deny my pain and loss. I struggle with seeing how resurrection life can come out of death. Grant me the courage to pay attention to what you are doing, and to wait on you- even when everything in me wants to run away. In Jesus' name. Amen

🗓️Day 5: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Job 42:12-17

¹² So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning. For now, he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 teams of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. ¹³ He also gave Job seven more sons and three more daughters. ¹⁴ He named his first daughter Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. ¹⁵ In all the land no women were as lovely as the daughters of Job. And their father put them into his will along with their brothers.

¹⁶ Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren. ¹⁷ Then he died, an old man who had lived a long, full life.

✍️Devotional

Good grieving is not just letting go, but also letting the loss bless us. Job did just that.

The old life for Job was truly over. That door remained closed. That is the source of the great grief that arises from our losses. There is finality. We can't get what we've lost back. Yet if we follow Job's path, we will be blessed. That is one of the major lessons of Job. He followed the difficult path of allowing his losses to enlarge his soul for God, and God blessed him superabundantly. Not only was Job spiritually transformed, but the LORD blessed him with new prosperity. His wealth was doubled. God gave him ten children once again, and he lived to a ripe old age.

This account is meant to encourage us to trust the living God with the many mini-deaths that we experience in our lives. The central message of Christ is that suffering and death bring resurrection and transformation. Jesus himself said, "I tell you the truth unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds" (John 12:24 NIV1884).

But remember, resurrection only comes out of death- real death. Our losses are real and so is our God- the living God.

💭Question to Consider:

How is God coming to you through the "mini-deaths" in your life now?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, after his loss, you gave Job prosperity, blessing him with twice as much as he had before, but that has not always felt like my experience. Grant me patience. Help me to trust and wait on you, especially in those areas of my life where I have no idea what you are doing, when my hardship will end, or where you are taking me. In Jesus' name.Amen!

Many of us are eager to develop our relationship with God. But we are busy, very busy. And if we aren't busy, we feel guilty that we are wasting time and not being productive. We struggle to stop long enough to be with Jesus to cultivate our own direct experience of God.

But God is offering us a way to deeply root our lives in him. This can be found in two ancient disciplines going back thousands of years- the Daily Office and Sabbath. When placed inside present-day Christianity, the Daily Office and Sabbath are groundbreaking, countercultural acts that go against the grain of our fast-paced Western culture. They offer a rhythm to be with God in our chaotic world, enabling us to stay attuned to God's presence throughout our days and weeks.

🗓️Day 1: Morning 🌅

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 8:11-15

✍️Devotional

Awareness of the love of God- and responding to it- is at the heart of our lives.

Every moment of every event of every man's life on earth plants something in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.

This is no new idea. Christ in the parable for the sower long ago told us that "The seed is the word of God." We often think this applies only to the word of the Gospel as formally preached in churches on Sundays.. But every expression of the will of God is in some sense a "word" of God and therefore a "seed" of the new life. The ever-changing reality in the midst of rupted dialogue with God...

We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us in every situation, and seeks our good. - Thomas Merton

💭Question to Consider:

Pause and consider your day. What seeds from God might be coming to you that you don't want to miss?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I praise you because your love seeks my good in any and every situation. Forgive me for the seeds that I have squandered. Soften my heart to surrender to your will in and through me. In Jesus' name. Amen

🗓️Day 1: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Genesis 2:9b, 15-17

✍️Devotional

At the heart of the Daily Office and Sabbath, discipline is stopping to surrender to God in trust. Lack of trust is the very essence of the sin in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve legitimately worked and enjoyed their achievements in the Garden. However, they were called to embrace their limits and not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were not meant to see and know that which belongs to Almighty God.

As theologian, Robert Barron has argued, the heart of the original sin is the refusal to accept God's rhythm for us. The essence of being created in God's image is our ability, like God, to stop. We imitate God by stopping our work and resting. If we stop for one day a week, or for a mini-Sabbath each day (a Daily Office), we touch something deep within us as image bearers of God. Our brains, bodies, spirits, and emotions are all wired by God for the rhythm of working and resting in him.

Stopping for a Daily Office or the Sabbath is not meant to add another obligation to our already busy schedules. It is an entirely new way of being in the world, resetting all our days toward a new destination- God.

💭Question to Consider:

How do you hear the invitation to "stop and surrender to God in trust" today?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, help me to grab hold of you today. I need you. Set me free to begin reorienting my life around you, and you alone. Help me to pay attention to and honor how you have uniquely made me. Thank you for the gift of rest. In Jesus' name. Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 19:11-12

✍️Devotional

When God appeared to Elijah (after his flight from Jezebel and during his suicidal depression), he told him to stand and wait for the presence of the LORD to pass by. God did not appear in ways he had shown up in the past. God was not in the wind (as with Job), earthquake (as when he gave the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai), or fire (like the burning bush Moses saw). God revealed himself to Elijah in "a gentle whisper" which can also be translated as "a sound of sheer silence". The common translation of this passage does not fully capture the original Hebrew, but what could the translators do? How do you hear the silence?

The silence after the chaos, for Elijah and for us, is full of the presence of God. God spoke to Elijah out of the silence.

God invited you to stand and to wait like Elijah. Why? God also wants to speak to you out of the "sound of sheer silence".

💭Question to Consider:

When can you set aside some time for extended, uninterrupted silence to hear God?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, you know how difficult it is for me to be in silence before you. At times it feels almost impossible, given the demands, instructions, and noise around me. I invite you to lead me to a quiet, silent place before you- to a place where I can hear you as Elijah did. In Jesus' name. Amen.

🗓️Day 2: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: John 15: 4-6

✍️Devotional

When we are busier than God requires us to be, we do violence to ourselves. Thomas Merton understood this and wrote:

There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence... activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands. To commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy... kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.

And when we do this violence to ourselves, we are unable to love others in and through the love of Christ.

💭Question to Consider:

In what ways are you busier than God requires?

🤲Prayer:

Father, I know how often I am carried away by too many concerns demands, and projects. I have felt the violence to my soul. Deliver me from this whirlwind around me and in me. Heal my tired and weary spirit, allowing the wisdom that comes from rest in you to flow deep within me. In Jesus' name. Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 46:1-3, 10

✍️Devotional

Many are avidly seeking but they alone find those who remain in continual silence... Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within. If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself.

More than all things love silence: it brings you a fruit that tongue cannot describe. In the beginning, we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence. May God give you an experience of this "something" that is born of silence. If only practice this, untold light will dawn on you i consequence... after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of this exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence. - Isaac of Nineveh

💭Question to Consider:

What keeps you from silence?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, help me to be still and to wait patiently for you in silence. In Jesus' name. Amen!

🗓️Day 3: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Matthew 13:31-33

✍️Devotional

In these two parables describing the Kingdom of God, we hear Jesus calling us to slow down and take a longer view of our lives.

We can work without stopping, faster and faster, electric lights making artificial day so the whole mahcine can labor without ceasing. But remember: No living thing lives like this. There are greater rhythms that govern how life grows: seasons and sunsets and great movements of seas and stars... We are part of the creation story, subject to all its laws and rhythms.

To surrender to the rhythms of seasons and flowerings and dormancies is to savoe the secret of life itself.

Many scientists believe we are "hard-wired" like this, to live in rhythmic awareness, to be in and then step out, to be engrossed and then detached, to work and then to rest. It follows then that the commandment to remember the Sabbath is not a burdensome requirement from some law-giving deity-"You ought, you'd better, you must" - but rather a remembrance of a law that is firmly embedded in the fabric of nature. It is a reminder of how things really are, the rhythmic dance to which we unavoidably belong. - Wayne Muller

💭Question to Consider:

How do the rhythms you see in nature (e.g. spring, summer, fall, and winter, day and night) speak to you and point to the kind of rhythms you desire for your own life?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I thank you that you are working even when I am sleeping. Teach me to respect the built-in rhythms of life, and to live from a place of deep rest in you. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Mark 2:23-28

✍️Devotional

Sabbath is not dependent upon our readiness to stop. We do not stop when we are finished. We do not stop when we complete our phone calls, finish our projects, get through this stack of messages, or get out this report that is due tomorrow. We stop because it is time to stop.

Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop- because our work is never completely done. With every accomplishment, there arises a new responsibility... If we refuse to rest until we are finished, we will never rest until we die. Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days because it liberates us from the need to be finished.

We stop because there are forces larger than we that take care of the universe, and while our efforts are important, necessary, and useful, they are not (nor we are) indispensable. The galaxy will somehow manage without for this hour this day, and so we are invited-nay, commanded- to relax and enjoy our relative unimportance, our humble place at the table in a very large world...

Do not be anxious about tomorrow, Jesus said again and again. Let the work of this day be sufficient...

Sabbath says, Be Still. Stop. There is no rush to get to the end because we are never finished. - Wayne Muller

💭Question to Consider:

What is your greatest fear in stopping a twenty-four-hour period each week?

🤲Prayer:

Keeping the Sabbath, LORD, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, LORD, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name.

🗓️Day 4: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 92:1-6

✍️Devotional

Psalm 92 is a song that was intended for the Sabbath. It stands as an indictment against today's culture of exhaustion and destruction. It also presents us with a positive vision of observing the Sabbath that takes us far beyond a mere reprieve from six days of frantic exertion. The Sabbath is to focus and the culmination of a life that is daily and practically devoted to honoring God.

Abraham Joshua Heschel once observed, "Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath while still in this world unless one is initiated in the appreciation of eternal life, one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come." We are simply naive if we think that having wasted or squandered the many good griefs of this creation, we will not do the same with the grief of heaven. Sabbath practice, on this view, is a sort of training ground for the life of eternity, a preparation for the full reception and welcome of the presence of God.- Norman Wirzba

💭Question to Consider:

How might the Sabbath keeping (for an entire twenty-four-hour period) or practicing the Daily Office ( a mini-Sabbath for a few minutes) provide you with a taste of eternity?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, show me how to welcome your presence, not only one day a week but every day. Train me for eternity. Grant me a taste of heaven through the experience of true Sabbath rest. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 23:1-3

✍️Devotional

The Sabbath teaches us grace because it connects us experientially to the basic truth that nothing we do will earn God's love. As long as we are working hard, using our gifts to serve others, and experiencing joy in our work and the toil, we are always in danger of believing that our actions trigger God's love for us. Only in stopping, really stopping, do we teach our hearts and souls that we are loved apart from what we do.

During a day of rest, we can take a deep breath and look at our lives. God is at work every minute of our days, yet we seldom notice. Noticing requires intentional stopping, and the Sabbath provides that opportunity. On the Sabbath, we can take a moment to see the beauty of a maple leaf, created with great care by our loving Creator...

Without time to stop, we cannot notice God's hands, practice thankfulness, step outside our culture's values, or explore our deepest longings. Without time to rest, we will seriously undermine our ability to experience God's unconditional love and acceptance. The Sabbath is a gift whose blessings can not be found anywhere else.- Lynne Baab

💭Question to Consider:

How will you allow God to lead you to the "quiet waters" or rest this week so that you experience his unconditional love and acceptance?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I now take a deep breath and stop. So often I miss your hands and gifts in my life because I am preoccupied and anxious. Grant me the power to pause each day and each week to simply rest in your arms of love. In Jesus' name. Amen.

🗓️Day 5: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 5:12- 15

✍️Devotional

The Sabbath was intended to shape our lives as liberated people. The fourth commandment calls for a day of rest- even for people who had been enslaved.

The Deuteronomy reason for Sabbath-keeping is that our ancestors in Egypt went for four hundred years without a vacation (Deut.5:15). Never a day off. The consequence: they were no longer considered persons but slaves. Hands. Works units. Not persons created in the image of God but equipment for making bricks and building pyramids. Humanity was defaced.- Eugene Peterson

💭Question to Consider:

How might the truth God doesn't want to use you, but to enjoy you, give you a vision for the celebration of the Sabbath?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, Sabbath rest is truly an unbelievable gift! Thank you that there is nothing I can do to earn your love; It comes without any strings attached. As I close my eyes for these few minutes before you, all I can say is, thank you! In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 9:49-55

✍️Devotional

We often forget that the people Jesus chose to form the leadership of his church were neither spiritually nor emotionally mature. Like us, they had a great deal to learn.

Peter, the point leader, had a big problem with his mouth and was a bundle of contradictions. Andrew, his brother, was quiet and remained behind the scenes. James and John were called 'sons of thunder" because they were aggressive, hotheaded, ambitious, and intolerant. Philip was skeptical and negative. He had limited vision."We can't do that", summed up his lack of faith when confronted by the problem of feeding the five thousand. Nathanael Bartholomew was prejudiced and opinionated. Matthew was the most hated person in Capernaum, working in a profession that abused innocent people. Thomas was melancholy, mildly depressive, and pessimistic. James, son of Alphaeus, and Judas, son of James, were nobodies. The Bible says nothing about them. Simon the Zealot was a freedom fighter and a terrorist in his day. Judas the treasurer, was a thief and a loner. He pretended to be loyal to Jesus and then betrayed him.

Most of them, however, did have one great quality. They were willing. That is all God asks of us.

💭Question to Consider:

What is one step you can take to place yourself (with all your flaws) in the hands of Jesus, inviting him to mold you into a spiritually and emotionally mature disciple?

🤲Prayer:

LORD Jesus, I can relate to the disciples who wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans and who fought over which of them was the greatest. Forgive my arrogance. Cleanse me and fill me with your power so that I might love well today for your name's sake. Amen!

🗓️Day 1: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Mark 5:30-34

✍️Devotional

As emotionally mature Christian adults, we recognize that loving well is the essence of true spirituality. This requires that we experience a connection with God, with ourselves, and with other people. God invites us to practice his presence in our daily lives. At the same time, he invites us to "practice the presence of people", with an awareness of his presence, in our daily relationships. Sadly, the two are rarely brought together.

Jesus' profound, contemplative prayer life with this Father resulted in a contemplative presence with people. He saw every person he met as someone new who never existed before, something original and unique. We see this in his interactions with the woman suffering from a twelve-year bleeding problem (Mark 5).

This ability to really listen and pay attention to people was at the very heart of Jesus's mission, and it could not help but move him to compassion. In the same way, out of our contemplative time with God, we too are invited to be prayerfully present to people, revealing their beauty to them.

Unfortunately, the religious leaders of Jesus' day, the "church leaders" of that time, never made that connection.

💭Question to Consider:

How can you "practice the presence of people" within an awareness of God's presence today?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I have unhealthy ways of relating to others that are deeply imbedded in me. Please change me. Make me a vessel to spread mature, steady and reliable love so that those I come in contact with will sense your tenderness and kindness through me. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 15:20b-24

✍️Devotional

In the famous people's parable of the prodigal son, Jesus' description of the father gives us a glimpse of what it looks like for us to be emotionally mature adults. The Church is full of "younger sons" who wander from the love of God every time he does not meet their expectations. It is also full of "elder brothers" who are angry, bitter, and grumpy. I know them both well. I relate to both.

Yet people are desperately looking for fathers and mothers in the faith who are able to embrace, love, empathize, be present, and forgive freely. It is a love without conditions, something the world very knows little about. To become this kind of person does not come naturally. As Henri Nouwen has written:

I have to kneel before the Father, put my ear against his chest, and listen, without interruption, to the heartbeat of God. Then, and only then, can I say carefully and very gently what I hear. I know now that I have to speak from eternity into time, from the lasting joy into the passing realities of our short existence in this world, from the house of love into the houses of fear, from God's abode into the dwellings of human beings.

💭Question to Consider:

Which words from Nouwen's quotation about the prodigal son speak to you?

🤲Prayer:

Father, help me to be still and listen to you, feel your embrace, and rest in your love- and then speak to others from that place. In Jesus' name. Amen.

🗓️Day 2: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 130

✍️Devotional

I am able to "wait for the LORD" for something- a new opportunity, blessings for my children, the healing of a friendship, or a safe trip out of town. It is much more difficult for me to "wait for the LORD" for nothing, but to be still before him. Yet this is one of the keys to loving others well.

Although I often try to pull it off, I know that I cannot really be present for another person when my inner world is filled with preoccupations and distractions. This is one of the biggest challenges I face in being present for others- being still within my own soul. Stillness is the precondition of presence. I must first be still to myself if I am to be still with another. And, of course, I must learn to be still before God if I am to learn to be still in myself. Presence befinfs with a still place within one's self. If I have no such still inner place, I cannot really be present for others.

- David Benner

💭Question to Consider:

What is the biggest challenge you face in being still before the LORD?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I confess to you that I am not sure what it looks like to still and quiet my soul before you. Lead me on a journey to discover that still place within myself, and I will follow wherever and however you lead me. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Matthew 25:34- 36,40

✍️Devotional

In 1952 Mother Teresa began picking up the dying in the streets of Calcutta, India. By 1980 she and over three thousand members of her order, the Missionaries of Charity, were working in fifty-two countries. Her teachings and life give us profound insight into what it means to follow Jesus as emotional and spiritual adults in our world. She wrote:

I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look only at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one. You get closer to Christ by coming closer to each other. As Jesus said, "Whatever you do to the least of my breathren, you do it to me." So you begin... I begin. I picked up one person... The whole work is only a drop in the ocean. But if we don't put the drop in, the ocean would be one drop less. Same thing for you. Same thing in your family. Same thing in the church where yo go. Just begin... one, one! At the end of our lives, we will not be judge by how many diplomas we have recieved, how much money we have made or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless and you took me in"

💭Question to Consider:

How can you begin to see Jesus Christ in the people you meet this week?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I am often overwhelmed by the needs of the world around me. Thank you that you are responsible for the world, and I am not. Help me see the individual today- the "one, one, one"- so that the words and actions that flow from my life might reflect your life. In Jesus' name.

🗓️Day 3: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 10:30-37

✍️Devotional

The great Jewish theologian Martin Buder described the healthiest or maturest relationship between two human beings as an "I thou" relationship. In such a relationship, I recognize that I am made in the image of God, and so is every other person. This makes them a "Thou" to me. They have dignity and worth and are to be treated with respect. I affirm them as being unique and separate human beings apart from me.

In most of our human relationships, however, we treat people as objects- as an "it". In an "I-it" relationship, I treat you as a means to an end as I might a toothbrush or a car. I talk to people in order to get something off my chest, not to be with them as separate individuals. I talk about authority figures, people in the news, and so on- as if they were subhuman. I get frustrated when people don't conform to my plans or see things the way I do.

The priest and the Levite did not make the connection that emotional maturity (loving well) and loving God are inseparable. They missed the "Thou" lying on the side of the road and simply passed him by.

💭Question to Consider:

Take a few moments to consider the people you will encounter today. What does it look like for you to slow down and treat each one as a "thou" rather than an "it"?

🤲Prayer:

LORD Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. I am aware, LORD of how often I treat people like an "it". Help me to view each person I meet with the eyes and heart of Christ. In Jesus' name! Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Matthew 7:1-5

✍️Devotional

From the third to the fifth century, the Desert Fathers left a rich deposit of wisdom about how a genuine life with God must lead to a mature, non-judgemental love towards others.

The monk must die to his neighbor and never judge him at all in any way whatever.

If you are occupied with your own faults, you have no time to see those of your neighbors.

Many of us have no trouble at all dispensing advice or pointing out the wrongdoings of others. We don't tend to allow others to be themselves before God or move at their own pace. Instead, we project onto them our discomfort with their choice to live life differently than we do. We end up eliminating them in our minds, either trying to make them like us or falling into a "who cares" indifference.

Unless I first take the log out of my own eyes, knowing that I have huge blind spots, I am dangerous. I must see the extensive damage sin has done to every part of who I am- emotion, intellect, body, will, and spirit- before I can attempt to remove the speck from my brother's eye.

💭Question to Consider:

Is there someone God is calling you to stop judging? What might it look like to bless and extend mercy to them?

🤲Prayer:

Abba Father, forgive me for having so many opinions about so many people and judging them. Wipe my slate clean and give me the grace to see my logs instead of rushing to judge others. In Jesus' name! Amen

🗓️Day 5: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Matthew 10:28, 34-36

✍️Devotional

Unresolved conflicts are one of the greatest tensions in the lives of Christians today. Most of us hate them. We don't know what to do with them. We prefer to ignore the difficult issues and settle for a false peace, hoping against hope that the issues will somehow go away. They don't, and as a result, we end up:

• Saying one thing to people's faces and another behind their backs.

• Making promises we have no intention of keeping, blaming, or becoming sarcastic.

• Giving in because we are afraid of not being liked.

• "leaking" out our anger through subtle criticism.

• Telling only half of the truth because we can't bear to hurt a friend's feelings.

• Saying yes when we mean no.

• Avoiding people and giving them to silent treatment.

However, conflict and trouble were central to the mission of Jesus. He disrupted the false peace of his disciples, the crowds, the religious leaders, the Romans, those buying and selling in the Temple, and even in the families.

Jesus understood that we cannot build His Kingdom on lies and pretense. Only the truth will do.

💭Question to Consider:

Where are you experiencing tension in relationships that you are afraid to disrupt?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, you know that everything in me wants to runaway from tension, and conflict, or at least to spin the truth in my favor! Transform my ways of relating to others. Help me to speak the truth with great love and tenderness, and may yo be honored and glorified in my relationships. In Jesus' name.Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Daniel 1:3-5, 8

✍️Devotional

King Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian armies conquered Jerusalem and carried off most of the city's inhabitants as slaves. One of those taken was. a young teenager named Daniel. Babylon had one simple goal: to eliminate Daniel's distinctiveness as a follower of God and absorb him into the values of their culture- and their gods.

How did Daniel resist the enormous power of Babylon? He was not a cloistered monk living behind the walls. He had heavy job responsibilities and many people giving him orders. He had a minimal support system and I, imagine very long to-do list each day.

Daniel also had a plan, a "Rule of life", He did not leave the development of his interior life to chance. He knew what he was up against. While we know little of the specifics, it is clear that he oriented his entire life around loving God. He renounced certain activities, such as eating the king's food (Daniel 1), and engaged in others, such as the Daily Office (Daniel 6). Daniel somehow managed to feed himself spiritually, and he blossomed into an extraordinary man of God- despite his hostile environment.

💭Question to Consider:

What is your plan, in the midst of your busy day, for not leaving the nurturing of your interior life with God to chance?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I just need to be with you- for a long time. I can see that there are a lot of things in me that need to change. Show me one small step I can take today to begin to build a life around you. LORD, help me to develop an effective plan in my life for paying attention to you whether I am working, resting, studying, or praying. In Jesus' name. Amen.

🗓️Day 1: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 73:12-17, 25

✍️Devotional

Christianity is not a set of intellectual beliefs, but a love relationship with God. We need to do what the psalmist did in Psalm 73- go into the sanctuary of God and be alone with him. This especially applies when we are in the midst of suffering and darkness.

The saying of the Desert Fathers comes from men and women who fled to the desert as a sanctuary to seek God with their whole hearts. Eventually, they formed communities around a "Rule of Life". The following are a few of the teachings they left behind. Read them slowly and prayerfully. (A "cell" was an ancient term for a quiet, private place to be with God.)

Abba Anthony said... "just a fish die it they stay too long out of water, so the monks who loiter outside their cells or pass their time with men of the world lose the intensity of inner peace. So like a fish going towards the sea, we must hurry to reach our cell, for fear that if we delay outside we will lose our interior watchfulness.

Abbot Pastor said: " Any trial whatever that comes to you can be conquered by silence."

A certain brother went to Abbot Moses in Scete and asked him for a good word. And the elder said to him: "Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything."

💭Question to Consider:

How and why do you think finding time alone with God in silence might "teach you everything"?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, you know how easily and quickly I lose my interior sense of you. Grant me grace for the rest of today to silence the exterior noises around me so that I can hear the warmth of your voice, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

📖Scripture Reading: Acts 2: 42-47

✍️Devotional

My central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing- by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself. If we have faith in Christ, we must believe that he knows how to live. We can, through faith and grace, become like Christ by practicing the types of activities he engaged in, and by arranging our whole lives around the activities he himself practiced in order to remain constantly at home in the fellowship of his Father.

What activities did Jesus practice? Such things as solitude and silence, prayer, simple and sacrificial living, intense study

and meditation upon God's Word and God's ways, and service to others. Some of these will certainly be even more necessary to us than they were to him, because of our greater or different needs.

So, if we wish to follow Christ- and to walk in the easy yoke with him- we will have to accept his overall way of life as our way of life totally. Then, and only then, we may reasonably expect to know by experience how easy is the yoke and how light the burden. - Dallas Willard

💭Question to Consider:

What spoke to you when you read about the lifestyle of the early Christians in Acts and the way they sought to follow the life of Jesus?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, you say your yoke is easy and your burden is light. (Matthew 11:30), yet the life I live often feels hard and heavy to me. Show me the activities, decisions, priorities, and relationships that are not what you want for me today. I submit my life to your lordship and ways to this day. In Jesus' name. Amen

🗓️Day 2: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 63:1-5

✍️Devotional

Gregory of Nyssa, the great bishop and theologian of the 4th century, argued that there exists in us a ceaseless yearning for God's infinite beauty and splendor. He wrote: "We are led to God by desire. We are drawn upwards towards Him as if by a rope". When the soul glimpses the beauty of God, it years to see more. His writings are filled with images describing our longing for God: a lover asking for another kiss, a person tasting a sweetness that can only be satisfied by another taste, the dizziness one experiences standing at the edge of a precipice as one peers into a vast space. Gregory compares the contemplation of God to a person looking at a spring that bubbles up from the earth:

As you came near the spring you would marvel, seeing that the water was endless, as it constantly gushed up and poured forth. Yet you could never say that you had seen all the water. How could you see what was still hidden in the bosom of the earth? Hence no matter how long you might stay at the spring, you would always be beginning to see the water... It is the same with one who fixes his gaze on the infinite beauty of God. It is constantly being discovered anew, and it is always seen as something new and strange in comparison with what the mind has already understood. And as God continues to reveal himself, amn continues to wonder; and he never exhaust his desire to see more, since what he is waiting for is always more magnficent, more divine, thatn all that he has already seen.

💭Question to Consider:

Where can you find the time in your week to "gaze on the infinite beauty of God"?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, grant me an even richer glimpse of your infinite beauty and loveliness this day. In Jesus' name! Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22

✍️Devotional

Fire

What makes a fire burn is a space between the logs,

a breathing space. Too much of a good things,

too many logs packed in too tihgt can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would.

So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between,

as much as to the wood. When we are able to build open spaces in the same way we have learned to pile on the logs,

then we can come to see how it is fuel, and absence of the fuel together, that make fire possible.

💭Question to Consider:

What difference might it make if you were to practice "building open spaces" in your life?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I need breathing space. I have too much going on in my life, too many logs on the fire. Show me the way to create space in my, and may the fire of your presence burn-in and through me. In Jesus name! Amen

🗓️Day3: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 27: 3-4

✍️Devotional

The most striking thing about this Psalm is what David does when he finds himself besieged by armies and enemies eager to kill both him and his family. He does not ask for victory or wisdom or changed circumstances. Instead, David gets quiet to seek God, to dwell with him, and to reflect upon his beauty.

Each of us needs an opportunity to be alone and silent, or even, indeed, to find space in the day or in the week, just to reflect and to listen to the voice of God that speaks deep within us... In fact, our search for God is only our response to his search for us. He knocks at our door, but for many people, their lives are too preoccupied for them to able to hear. - Cardinal Basil Hume

💭Question to Consider:

In what ways might God be searching for you today- knocking at the door of your life?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, a part of me so longs to be alone with you. Another part of me wants to run and avoid time with you at all costs. Thank you for this opportunity today to stop and listen to you. Thank you for continuing to knock at my door- especially when I am too anxious or distant to hear you. Grant to me, I pray, a heart like David- one that genuinely longs for you above all else in this life. In Jesus' name! Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:27-32

✍️Devotional

The most famous "Rule of Life" in the Western world is the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the sixth century. In a nonstop, distracted world like ours, a "Rule of Life" brings balance and simplicity, inviting us to a life that seeks everything in proper measure: work, prayer, solitude, and relationship.

Benedict begins his Rule with a call to listen and an invitation to surrender to God:

Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you, welcomes it, and faithfully puts it into practice. The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. This message of mine is for you, then if you are ready to give up your own will, once and for all, and armed with the strong and noble weapons of obedience to do battle for the true King, Christ the LORD...

Therefore we intend to establish a school for the LORD's service... Do not be daunted immediately by fear and run away from the road that leads to salvation. It is bound to be narrow at the outset. But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God's commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.

💭Question to Consider:

What would it look like for you to "run on the path of God's commandments?"

🤲Prayer:

LORD, you know my world can be nonstop and complex. Help me to balance the demands coming at me today, remembering you while I work, and keeping you at the center of all I do. In Jesus' name. Amen!

🗓️Day 4: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Psalm 139:1-6

✍️Devotional

St. Patrick (AD 389-461), originally from Britain and raised a Christian, was sold into slavery in Ireland for six years. Upon his escape, he became an ordained bishop and returned to Ireland, traveling widely, evangelizing tirelessly, and organizing churches and monasteries. His mission to Ireland marked an important turning point in the history of missions in the Roman Empire.

Prayer of Saint Partick

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me;

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's Word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's hosts to save me

From snares of the devil,

From temptations to vices,

From every one who desires me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone or in a multitude....

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,

Christ in the eye that sees me,

Christ in the ears that hears me,

I arise today

Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,

Through a belief in the Threeness,

Throught a confession of the Oneness,

Of the Creator of creation.

💭Question to Consider:

Which lines from St. Patrick's prayer speak to you? Carry them in your heart today.

🤲Prayer:

LORD, thank you for your reassuring presence that surrounds me. This is almost too wonderful for me to take in! By the Holy Spirit, enlarge my capacity to remain aware of your presence throughout the remainder of this day. In Jesus' name. Amen

📖Scripture Reading: Romans 8-14-17

✍️Devotional

Jesus constantly addressed the Almighty, eternal, infinite Yahweh as "Abba", an intimate, warm, familiar word a child would use- not unlike "Daddy". The heart of the gospel is that Jesus gives his disciples the authority to address God as Father. Through Jesus, we too are Abba's child.

Contemplative spirituality moves us toward a more mature relationship with God. We progress from the "give me, give me, give me", attitude of a small child to a more mature way of relating with God in which we delight in being with him as our "Abba Father". The progression of this movement can be broken down as follows:

• Talking at God: This is simply parroting what our parents or authorities told us to pray. For example, "Bless me, LORD, for these thy gifts, which we are about to receive through Christ our LORD, Amen!"

• Talking To God: We become more comfortable finding our own words to speak to God, rather than using the ready-made prayers of our childhoods. For example, "Give me, give me, give me, O God".

• Listening to God: At this point, we begin to listen to God, and we begin to enjoy a two-way relationship with him.

• Being with God: Finally, we simply enjoy being in the presence of God- who loves us. This is far more important than any particular activity we might do with him. His presence makes all of life fulfilling.

💭Question to Consider:

What fears are you carrying that you can release to your Abba Father today?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I believe that living a life in your presence is what makes all of life fulfilling. I am just not sure how to get to that point in my spiritual walk. I want to grow beyond a "give me, give me" relationship with you. Fill me with the Holy Spirit so that I might learn to enjoy being with you and stop simply going to you for your gifts and blessings. In Jesus' name. Amen!

🗓️Day 5: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:7-12

✍️Devotional

God has a different path for each of us. My closing prayer for you is that you will be faithful to your path. It is a tragedy to live someone else's life. I know; I did it for years.

I would like to end our time together with a story about Carlo Carletto. He lived among Muslims in North Africa for 10 years with the Little Brothers of Jesus community. He wrote about how, one day, he was traveling by camel in the Sahara desert and came upon about fifty men laboring in the hot sun, trying to repair a road. When Carlo offered them water, to his surprise, he saw his friend Paul, another member of his Christian community.

Paul had been an engineer in Paris-working on the Atomic bomb for France. God has called him to leave everything and become a Little Brother in North Africa. At one point, Paul's mother came to Carlo and asked for help understanding her son's life.

"I have made him an engineer", she said. "Why can't he work as an intellectual in the church? Wouldn't that be more useful? Paul was content to pray and to disappear for Christ in the Sahara desert. Carlo then went on to ask himself: "What is my place in the great evangelizing work of the Church? He answered his question as follows:

I understood that my place, too, was there, amid the ragged poor, mixing in the mob. Others in the church would have the task of evangelizing, building, feeding, preaching. The LORD asked me to be a poor man among the poor, a worker among workers...

It's so difficult to judge!...

But to one truth we must always cling desperately- to love! It's love which justifies our actions; love must initiate all we do. Love is the fulfillment of the law.

If, out of love, Brother Paul chosen to die on a desert track, by this he is justified.

If, out of love, [others]builts schools and hospitals, by this they were justified. If, out of love, Thomas Aquinas spent his life among books, by this he was justified...

I can only say, "Live love, let love invade tou. It will never fail to teach you what you must do."

💭Question to Consider:

What might be look like for God's love to invade and fill you, guiding you to what you 'must do'?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I can see that there are a lot of things in me that need to change. Let your love invade me. Give me the courage to faithfully follow your unique path for my life- regardless of where it might lead, and regardless of the changes you want to make in me. In Jesus' name! Amen.

📖Scripture Reading: Luke 7:36-39

✍️Devotional

The Pharisee did not see the sinful woman as a human being loved by God. He saw a sinner, an interruption, and a person without the right to be at the dinner table. Jesus saw her very differently.

Love springs from awareness. It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.

Therefore the first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is. And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projection, your selective way of looking, a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service that submit to the burning fire of this asceticism... So first ingredient of live is to really see the other.

The second ingredient is equally important to see yourself, to ruthlessly flash the light of awareness on your motives, your emotions, your needs, your dishonesty, your self-seeking, your tendency to control and manipulate. - Anthony De Mello

💭Question to Consider:

What sometimes distracts you from seeing the people you are with as they really are?

🤲Prayer:

LORD, I have been forgiven much more than I will ever realize. Yet I can relate to the Pharisee in this parable. Help me to slow down and be present with you and others so that I might truly see people as you do. In Jesus' name. Amen.

🗓️Day 4: Evening 🌗

📖Scripture Reading: Mark 10:41-44

✍️Devotional

Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God is an upside-down Kingdom. The disciples kept thinking of the worldly model of power over people rather than Jesus' model of power under to serve.

It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.

Jesus asks, "Do you love me?

We ask, "Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your Kingdom? (Matthew 20:21).

Ever since the snake said, "The day you eat of this tree your eyes will be open and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil" (Genesis 3:5), we have been tempted to replace love with power.

Jesus' lived that temptation in the most agonizing way from the desert to the cross. The long painful history of the Church is the history of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over cross, being leader over being led. - Henri Nouwen

💭Question to Consider:

What might be one way you can let go of power and control and, in love, choose to serve someone today?

🤲Prayer:

Father, you know how much I struggle with trying to love some of the difficult people in my life. If find it easier, like the disciples, to exercise control and have power over people. Fill me with your power so that I can choose to serve, in love, the people I encounter this day. In Jesus' name.