A year of devotion ...

Today's devotional message (see below) brings one full year of devotionals for the Westview team to completion. Not all of the first month made it onto the blog, but on May 13, 2008, this practice of the community began.

My hope and prayer is that God will take this practice and use it to help form us more perfectly into the image of Jesus Christ, virtue by virtue.

May God make it so.

Blessings,

Ron

Whatever the Lord says ...

This week, we begin to consider the virtues that define a godly people. As a beginning place, we will consider the value of truth. Truth is connected to the virtues of truth-seeking, and truthfulness (both in speech and action). Let’s start with a favorite piece of history from the book of Kings:

It is an odd event. The king of Judah and the king of Israel meet to decide about matters of war. They choose to ask God what to do, and Ahab, the king of Israel, calls out his 400 prophets, who are unanimously for the attack. For some reason this is disturbing to Jehoshaphat. Does this unity of opinion seem unlikely? Are the prophets so obviously inclined to answer Ahab in the way that Ahab wishes to be answered? Something disturbs him, because he asks for another opinion: a 401st opinion.

The messenger who had gone to summon Micaiah said to him, "Look, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king; let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably." But Micaiah said, "As the Lord lives, whatever the Lord says to me, that I will speak."

When he had come to the king, the king said to him, "Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we refrain?" He answered him, "Go up and triumph; the Lord will give it into the hand of the king." But the king said to him, "How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?" Then Micaiah said, "I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep that have no shepherd; and the Lord said, 'These have no master; let each one go home in peace.'" The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy anything favorable about me, but only disaster?"

Then Micaiah said, "Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, with all the host of heaven standing beside him to the right and to the left of him. And the Lord said, 'Who will entice Ahab, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' Then one said one thing, and another said another, until a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, 'I will entice him.' 'How?' the Lord asked him. He replied, 'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' Then the Lord said, 'You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do it.' So you see, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has decreed disaster for you."

Then Zedekiah son of Chenaanah came up to Micaiah, slapped him on the cheek, and said, "Which way did the spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you?" Micaiah replied, "You will find out on that day when you go in to hide in an inner chamber." The king of Israel then ordered, "Take Micaiah, and return him to Amon the governor of the city and to Joash the king's son, and say, 'Thus says the king: Put this fellow in prison, and feed him on reduced rations of bread and water until I come in peace.'" Micaiah said, "If you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken by me." And he said, "Hear, you peoples, all of you!"
1 Kings 22:13-28 – NRSV

Isn’t it amazing that Ahab knows, even before he called Micaiah, that the prophet would deliver a contrary opinion? Ahab isn’t looking for truth; he is seeking affirmation. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Ahab criticizes Micaiah by saying that he has to make him swear to tell the truth? Isn’t it ironic that, when the prophet of God delivers what Ahab wants to hear instead of his true opinion, Ahab catches it right away? Especially when 400 of his own have delivered a lie (from a false spirit) that fit Ahab’s fantasies?

Micaiah must be true to God; the prophet says that he must speak “whatever the Lord says to me.” The role of the prophet is truth-teller. Sometimes that truth involves the future, but in many cases, that truth is right in the midst of our current reality. The prophet’s voice is different because of perspective. He or she speaks from the viewpoint of God, and not that of human beings or any other spirits. Human beings require communities to discover and verify truth, but God can do this as a part of his nature. Consequently, one prophet who speaks with the voice of God from the perspective of God trumps 400 other prophets who speak from any other point of perspective. This is why John tells us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1-2 – NRSV).

Seeking and speaking the truth is an adventure that is sometimes painful and dangerous, yet always rewarding. Let us be a people who value truth, and who dare to deal with it, no matter how difficult that challenge may be.

Grace and peace,

Ron

Spiritual food

Toward the end of one of the most intriguing narratives in the gospel of John, Jesus speaks some curious words. Although exhausted, he has been talking with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well at Sychar while his disciples go into town to buy some food. This shopping trip takes a while, so the disciples expect Jesus to be as famished as they are when they return to the well:

. . . . . . the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something."

But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about."
So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?"
Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.”
Jn 4:31-34

Now, even though Jesus confuses the disciples, John makes it obvious to us that the Father must have filled Jesus with some sort of spiritual food. This idea of “spiritual filling” makes us think about the words from Jesus’ sermon:

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” - Mt 5:6

Consider the wisdom of Gregory of Nyssa as he explains these words of Jesus. Hear how the virtue that makes up righteousness can satisfy us:

To me, this saying seems to mean that none of the things pursued for the sake of pleasure in this life satisfies those who pursue them . . . Are not all pleasures that are accomplished through the body fleeting, since they do not remain for long with those who have attained them? . . . Only the pursuit of virtue that is planted with us is firm and lasting. For a person who aims his life straight at the higher things—such as prudence, temperance, [or] piety toward the divine—does not in those virtuous actions obtain transitory and unstable enjoyment but enjoyment that is firm, enduring, and extends to all of one’s life.

Why is this so? Because one can always do these things and there is no time throughout our lives that produces a satiety of doing good. For prudence, purity, unchangeableness in every good, and avoidance of the bad can be done at all times. As long as one longs for virtue, one’s enjoyment grow through its practice. For those who give themselves over to improper desires, even if their soul is always attentive to licentiousness, the pleasure does not last indefinitely. Satiety puts a stop to the gluttonous enjoyment of food and when thirst is quenched, so is the pleasure of drink. It is the same with other things; once the desire for please has been quenched by its satisfaction, a certain interval of time must pass before the desire for pleasure is again called forth.

On the other hand, when the possession of virtue is firmly established within someone, it is not limited by time or satiety. It always provides those who live by it a pure, ever-new, and flourishing experience of its own good things. . . . The possession of virtue follows the desire for virtue, and this ingrained goodness brings unceasing enjoyment to the soul. . . . Virtue is both the work of those who live uprightly and the reward for virtuous deeds.

On the Beatitudes, 4

To hunger or thirst after righteousness is to desire virtue. To desire a particular virtue is to value it, which is the first step toward possessing it. The practice of a specific connected discipline begins to develop the virtue in us. Such practice requires us to displace the opposing vice, as well as the connected fears. After we practice the virtue long enough for it to become a habit, we acquire a taste for it, a taste that can be satisfied by more of the same. Gregory explains this to us, and Jesus demonstrates.

If, for example, we desire the virtue of peacemaking (Mt 6:10), then not only must we give up anger (or sarcasm, impatience, or incaution), we must also put aside our fear and avoidance of conflict in order to come close enough to bring reconciliation. When God uses us to make peace enough times, he fills us with the joy of knowing that we are truly behaving like children of God. That joy will overflow into the lives of other people. Remember the woman at the well? Jesus told her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life." Jn 4:13-15

If you would be filled, prayerfully hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Grace, peace, and love,

Ron

Live by the Spirit

Our character is made up of virtues and vices.
The events of the day, and our disposition toward the Spirit,
tend to lean us toward either our virtues or vices.
If we yield our body and soul to chasing physical desires,
then we will become more animal than truly human.
If we live by the Spirit, practicing spiritual disciplines with our body and soul,
then God can work in us to replace our vices with virtues,
and shape our character to conform more closely
to that of Jesus Christ.

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.
For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit,
and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh;
for these are opposed to each other,
to prevent you from doing what you want.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions,
envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.
I am warning you, as I warned you before:
those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another
Galatians 5:16-26 (NRSV)

Here is a prayer to turn our minds to the virtues:

Teach me, O God, so to use all the circumstances of my life today
that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness
rather than the fruits of sin.
Let me use disappointments as material for patience;
Let me use success as material for thankfulness;
Let me use suspense as material for perseverance;
Let me use danger as material for courage;
Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering;
Let me use praise as material for humility;
Let me use pleasure as material for temperance;
Let me use pains as material for endurance.
John Baillie

I pray for you two of the great virtues:

Grace and peace,

Ron