Continue your steadfast love ...

Today, let us lift up a psalm of praise to our God.

As we read it, let us meditate on its recurring theme: the hesed, the steadfast love, of the Lord.

Psalm 36:5-10

Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.
Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
your judgments are like the great deep;
you save humans and animals alike, O LORD.

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

O continue your steadfast love to those who know you,
and your salvation to the upright of heart!

How far has the steadfast love of the Lord stretched in your life? How deep is the love of God in your experience? What great blessing has this love brought that you celebrate, even today? How will the steadfast love of God go with you into your future?

Grace and peace,

Ron

God is my helper ...

Hear the word of the Lord:

Psalm 54

Save me, O God, by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
Hear my prayer, O God;
give ear to the words of my mouth.
For the insolent have risen against me,
the ruthless seek my life;
they do not set God before them.

Selah

But surely, God is my helper;
the Lord is the upholder of my life.
He will repay my enemies for their evil.
In your faithfulness, put an end to them.
With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.
For he has delivered me from every trouble,
and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.

Keep moving ...

Hear the word of the Lord:

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness,
and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree.
He asked that he might die:
"It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life,
for I am no better than my ancestors."
Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep.

Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him,
"Get up and eat."

He looked, and there at his head was a cake
baked on hot stones, and a jar of water.
He ate and drank, and lay down again.

The angel of the Lord came a second time,
touched him, and said, "Get up and eat,
otherwise the journey will be too much for you."
He got up, and ate and drank;
then he went in the strength of that food
forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.
At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there.

For many reasons, Elijah is done.
The depression that has plagued him for so many years
has nearly mastered him, nearly become his god.
Which is ironic considering Elijah’s record on idolatry.
Yet still he can hear and respond to the voice of God’s
messengers; he rises to eat and to drink.

Sometimes life with God brings great power
and passion and joy – and then at other times
that same life brings the need for perseverance
and obedience and faithfulness, all in the face of
the great grief that we share with God
when we walk with God.

When we see the world the way God sees it,
when we think thoughts that are like God’s thoughts,
when we feel feelings that mirror our Master’s,
then there are going to be days of great joy,
and days of great grief.

However much grief God expects us to endure,
his awareness, and his share is infinitely more.
yet he keeps moving toward the end of the story.
On the tough days, even on the toughest days,
that is precisely what we need to do.
Keep moving toward the end of the story,
because that is where the real purposes of God,
and blessings of God, and joy of God
are going to be revealed to us,
and experienced by us.

We won't have to ask when we've come to
the end of our story; we'll know.

Keep moving toward the end of the story.

Ron

1 Kings 19:4-9 – NRSV

Faithfulness and steadfast love ...

Today, a reading for us to meditate upon.
Hear the word of God:

I have found my servant David;
with my holy oil I have anointed him;
my hand shall always remain with him;
my arm also shall strengthen him.
The enemy shall not outwit him,
the wicked shall not humble him.
I will crush his foes before him
and strike down those who hate him.

My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him;
and in my name his horn shall be exalted.
I will set his hand on the sea
and his right hand on the rivers.
He shall cry to me, 'You are my Father,
my God, and the Rock of my salvation!'
I will make him the firstborn,
the highest of the kings of the earth.

Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him,
and my covenant with him will stand firm.
I will establish his line forever,
and his throne as long as the heavens endure.
If his children forsake my law
and do not walk according to my ordinances,
if they violate my statutes
and do not keep my commandments,
then I will punish their transgression with the rod
and their iniquity with scourges;
but I will not remove from him my steadfast love,
or be false to my faithfulness.

I will not violate my covenant,
or alter the word that went forth from my lips.
Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness;
I will not lie to David.
His line shall continue forever,
and his throne endure before me like the sun.
It shall be established forever like the moon,
an enduring witness in the skies."

Blessings,

Ron

Psalm 89:20-37 – NRSV

The limits of our capability ...

Hear the word of the Lord:

He said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet,
and I will speak with you.
And when he spoke to me,
a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet;
and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me,

Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel,
to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me;
they and their ancestors have transgressed
against me to this very day.
The descendants are impudent and stubborn.
I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them,
"Thus says the Lord God."

Whether they hear or refuse to hear
(for they are a rebellious house),
they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

As the servants of God, some days we feel adequate,
and some days we don’t.
We might feel as if we have been the only one
to have ever experienced this inadequacy,
but that just isn’t so.

If we read the first few lines of this scripture with care,
we find that even God’s great servant Ezekiel
struggled with his task, with even standing before God
to hear what his task would be.
Those who stretch themselves to meet the calling of God
will find themselves continually bumping up against
the limits of their human capabilities.
That’s been my experience.
I think I know why.

I think that God wants us to always remember that
it is his power that stands us up to speak and to do.
It is his work in us to keep us growing into a soul,
that is body and spirit together, working toward
becoming a being that is more closely conformed
to the unmistakable and holy image of Jesus Christ.

We must remember that it is his power that enables
us to do any good thing that we do, not ours alone.

To take the stress from our worrying, mortal minds,
God also makes it clear what it is that he expects.
He clearly defines the terms of our success.
“Whether they hear or refuse to hear …
they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.”
Whether people do what God asks of people through us,
or not, is not our responsibility; it is theirs.
Our job is to be God’s people and do what he asks of us.
That’s all. That’s it.

Yes, we can and we ought to care about whether
people are obedient or not, but that does not define our
obedience and success before God.

Faithfulness is success.
Not counting people who become Christians,
because God does that.
Not counting buildings erected for God’s use,
because God does that.
Not counting how much money we gave or raised,
because God does that.
What counts is faithful journey in a faithful direction.
Faithfulness is success.

May God help us to be faithful today.
If we struggle with little faith,
may God give us the faith that we need.

Grace and peace,

Ron

Ezekiel 2:1-5 – NRSV

My portion ...

One of my favorite songs of praise
Actually comes from Lamentations.
You probably know the words altogether
too well, so slow yourself down as you read;
speak the words softly or sing them, but imagine
what the psalmist might have been thinking.
Hear the word of God:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,
"therefore I will hope in him."

The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul that seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for one to bear
the yoke in youth,
to sit alone in silence
when the Lord has imposed it,
to put one's mouth to the dust
(there may yet be hope),
to give one's cheek to the smiter,
and be filled with insults.

For the Lord will not
reject forever.
Although he causes grief, he will have compassion
according to the abundance of his steadfast love;
for he does not willingly afflict
or grieve anyone.

Blessings,

Ron

Lamentations 3:22-33 – NRSV

Because you are with us ...

Today, a prayer meant to follow the reading of 2 Samuel 7:

The threats do not wane
Walter Brueggemann

The threats do not wane,
The dangers are not imagined,
The power to undo is on the loose . . .
And in the midst, you speak your word.
It is your word that cuts the threat,
that siphons off the danger,
that tames the powers.
You speak and all is made new.
You speak your true self of abiding faithfulness,
of durable presence,
of long-standing reliability.
You give yourself in the utterance of “fear not,”
and we do not fear.
We do not fear,
because you are with us,
with us, and so safe,
with us, and so free,
with us, and so joyous.
We diminish our lives in our feeble anxiety . . .
and you veto our anxiety;
We cheapen our neighbor with our frantic greed . . .
and you nullify our greed with your satiation;
We pollute our world in our lust for safety . . .
and you detoxify our mess.
Now come here and in Kosovo,
here and in Littleton,
here and in East Lake,
here and in Louisville,
here . . . and there . . . and there . . . and there,
Override the fickleness of it all,
And give us faith commensurate with your true, abiding self.
Amen

Grace and peace,

Ron

Magnified forever ...

David gets a new “house” of cedar; David (through Nathan) offers to build God a “house”; God declines a “house” and instead (through Nathan) offers David a “house” that isn’t cedar. Now it’s David’s turn.

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and said, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God; you have spoken also of your servant's house for a great while to come. May this be instruction for the people, O Lord God!

Did you catch that? David is done with intermediaries. He “went in and sat before the Lord.” There are times when God’s goodness is so good that just need to sit down and talk for a while. Yet this is no casual conversation; hear the awe and humility in David’s words: “Who am I …” and “What is my house …?” David well knows that God’s promises are from the goodness of God’s heart and not merited favor. Yet as world-changing as God’s promises turn out to be, they do not require a large expenditure of God’s power. Through what “small thing in the eyes of the Lord God” has God wrought such a huge blessing in your life?

And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God! Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have wrought all this greatness, so that your servant may know it. Therefore you are great, O Lord God; for there is no one like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

David has heard about a lot of gods, but he has heard of no God like Yahweh God. Humans seek to manipulate and provoke their gods with a little “g”, but they waste such efforts on Yahweh, a God who will, on his own, seek the highest good for his people. He often shapes these good things in forms that his people could not even begin to imagine. How has God seemingly passed over your prayers in order to give you something better than that for which you hoped?

Who is like your people, like Israel? Is there another nation on earth whose God went to redeem it as a people, and to make a name for himself, doing great and awesome things for them, by driving out before his people nations and their gods? And you established your people Israel for yourself to be your people forever; and you, O Lord, became their God.

Just he sent Israel, so God sends out the church to share his redemption, to sing his praise, to press the cause of his kingdom, and to replace worldly idols in the hands of others for his real and powerful presence. How is God acting through us, as his people today, to accomplish these very things?

And now, O Lord God, as for the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and concerning his house, confirm it forever; do as you have promised. Thus your name will be magnified forever in the saying, 'The Lord of hosts is God over Israel'; and the house of your servant David will be established before you. For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, 'I will build you a house'; therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. And now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are true, and you have promised this good thing to your servant; now therefore may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you; for you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing shall the house of your servant be blessed forever."

While David’s posterity was faithful, his house reigned over Israel. Sadly that faithfulness found a bitter ending. Yet even past the promise as David understood it, God maintained his promise by continuing David’s house. What David could not have fully understood was that God would take David’s acts of faithfulness and use them as a pathway to enter into the world as Jesus, God Incarnate. In the hands of an eternal king, the throne of David has become truly eternal. In the hands of the eternal king, Jesus, God has fulfilled his promise to David in a way that immeasurably dwarfed David’s understanding.

So, the question comes to us: “How will God use our faithfulness to advance his kingdom into the eternal through the seemingly insignificant things that we say or do?” Not only do I believe that God will do this, but that he has already begun to do so. We don’t have to foresee all of the possibilities for God to make use of the work of our hands. Yet I think that we will find great encouragement in this imagining if we will allow ourselves to see the possibilities of our diligent ministry. We will also find innumerable reasons to praise God for his work in our world in our lives.

“Thus your name will be magnified forever!”

Blessings,

Ron

2 Samuel 7:18-29 – NRSV

Those who hope ...

Dwell on the words of the psalmist today.
Listen for the words trustworthy, faithful, steadfast.
Discern the potential sources of hope for the psalmist,
and then consider what you hope for,
and in what or whom you hope today.
How does faithfulness connect to hope,
both for the one who hopes,
and the one in whom one hopes?

Psalm 33

Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous.
Praise befits the upright.
Praise the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness.

He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
The Lord looks down from heaven;
he sees all humankind.
From where he sits enthroned he watches
all the inhabitants of the earth —
he who fashions the hearts of them all,
and observes all their deeds.

A king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
The war horse is a vain hope for victory,
and by its great might it cannot save.
Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
to deliver their soul from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.

Our soul waits for the Lord;
he is our help and shield.
Our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.

Grace and peace,

Ron

NRSV

What I thought I wanted

Following is a bit of poetry in song, written and performed by Sara Groves. She speaks of learning how to live in the place where you trust that God is working something out in the unseen space.

What I Thought I Wanted

Tuxedo in the closet, gold band in a box
Two days from the altar she went and called the whole thing off
What he thought he wanted, what he got instead
Leaves him broken and grateful

I passed understanding a long, long time ago
And the simple home of systems and answers we all know
What I thought I wanted, what I got instead
Leaves me broken and somehow peaceful

I keep wanting you to be fair
But that’s not what you said
I want certain answers to these prayers
But that’s not what you said

When I get to heaven I’m gonna go find Job
I want to ask a few hard questions,
I want to know what he knows
About what it is he wanted and what he got instead
How to be broken and faithful

What I thought I wanted
What I thought I wanted
What I thought I wanted
What I thought I wanted

Staring in the water like Aesop's foolish dog
I can’t help but reflect on what it was I almost lost
What it was I wanted, what I got instead
Leaves me broken and grateful
I’m broken and grateful
I want to be broken and grateful
I want to be broken, peaceful, faithful, grateful, grateful
I want to be broken, peaceful, faithful, grateful, grateful

Blessings,

Shiann

It is trustworthy

It is a trustworthy statement:
For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him;
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him;
If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.
-2 Timothy 2:11-13

Blessings,

Julia

Wickedness and holiness

This week, Greg Steele has prepared our devotional thoughts.

I wish now to review in memory my past wickedness and the carnal corruptions of my soul--not because I still love them, but that I may love thee, O my God. For love of thy love I do this, recalling in the bitterness of self-examination my wicked ways, that thou mayest grow sweet to me, thou sweetness without deception! Thou sweetness happy and assured! Thus thou mayest gather me up out of those fragments in which I was torn to pieces, while I turned away from thee, O Unity, and lost myself among "the many."
- Augustine, Confessions

Guilt, and the confession which it brings forth, are means by which we come to understand God's commitment to us in the context of our sin. Admitting and examining our own iniquity points us directly to God's long-suffering love, which welcomes us back in spite of our wrong-doing.

Now therefore, O our God, the great, mighty, and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love, do not let all this hardship seem trifling in your eyes - the hardship that has come upon us, upon our kings and leaders, upon our priests and prophets, upon our fathers and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until today. In all that has happened to us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully, while we did wrong.
- Nehemiah 9:32-33

Confession, the admission of guilt, draws us to God. Recognizing our stains pulls us toward the only one who can wash them. Rather than trying to avoid or downplay our guilt, we identify it and call out to God to rectify it. Being drawn to God, we depend on the faithfulness of His commitment to us. We have done wrong, but His word still stands.

Guilt is not something to be afraid, but rather an integral part of the transformative process of salvation. Guilt, articulated in confession, recognizes who God is and who we are in relation. Confessing the sin that separates us draws us closer to our Savior, and enables us to become more like Him.

Lord, we have sinned, and betrayed you
We have wandered from you, but you have never left us
Forgive us, Lord
We have dug our own graves, apart from you
But please remember your covenant of forgiveness and of love
Do not leave us to our mistakes
Rather, please rescue us, that we may know your love
Your love, which is greater than all our mistakes Amen

Let us be drawn to God even in our struggles, that we may also participate in His holiness. May Christ move you today.

Greg