Daily Devotion, September 7, 2019

Devotion:

Read Acts 10:34-43.

  It’s a lesson that Jesus had taught Peter and the other disciples several times. Peter knew that he had spoken to that Samaritan woman that day at the well. He had healed the Roman centurion’s servant. He invited Matthew the tax collector to be one of his disciples. He made a Samaritan the hero of one of his most memorable parables. He had healed a foreign woman’s daughter.

  Time after time, Jesus had shown his followers that his kingdom was about including those thought to be outside of a relationship with God. In this passage from Acts, we see the same Spirit of Jesus continuing to teach Peter that lesson. Through the dream he had earlier in this chapter and his encounter with Cornelius and his household, Peter finally gets it: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”

  Even though Peter had been with Jesus for three years, he still needed to fully learn this lesson and accept this truth. What lesson might the Holy Spirit who is God still be trying to teach you?

Personal Worship Option:

Spend some time in prayer and reflect on who the people are you consider outside of a relationship with God. Ask God to help you know how to connect with them and help them connect with God.

Daily Devotion, September 6, 2019

Devotion:

Read John 8:1-11.

Jesus loved people. He was not concerned with class or nationality, past sins or present accomplishments. This incident demonstrates Jesus’ love for those condemned by others. This woman was assumed to be outside of any connection with God and yet Christ loved and forgave. Christ desires to reconcile those who others have “written off”. God’s role is to judge, not ours. Our job is to show forgiveness and compassion to others, no matter what.

Personal Worship Option:

Reflect on your personal attitude toward others? Are you quick to judge? Are you distant from God? Know He longs to bring you close. Reach out to God and reach out to others.

Daily Devotion, September 5, 2019

Devotion:

Read John 21:15-17.

Since love is at the center of our lives, it is not surprising that Jesus would press Peter with the question of “Do you love me?” Peter had denied Jesus three times when he found himself under questioning in the courtyard of the high priest during Jesus’ trial. Peter felt terrible after he had done that. Then Jesus died on the cross for our sins. That probably made Peter feel even worse.

Now Jesus was alive, raised from the dead by the power of God. Jesus wanted Peter to be restored as a faithful disciple. So Jesus asked Peter three questions, paralleling his three denials. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” By asking this question three times, Jesus was urging Peter to look deep into his heart, to see whether his love for Christ was real and steadfast. Before Peter could truly follow Christ and lead the church, his heart needed to be completely given to Christ. He had to completely love the one that he had denied.

Jesus' loving confrontation of Peter wasn't about shaming Peter, but reclaiming him. Jesus reaffirmed Peter's call to ministry three times. 

“Feed My Sheep”, which meant His people. So it is with us. We as believers should constantly be assessing and renewing our discipleship. Jesus wants one thing more than anything else. He wants our love. Do we love him more than anything and anyone else?

Personal Worship Option:

Holy Spirit, penetrate the layers of self-defense in our hearts so that we can learn the truth about how much we love Jesus. Then fill us with love for him. Amen.

Daily Devotion, September 4, 2019

Devotion:

Read Luke 17:11-14.

“Outcast”-is not a word in this story, but the words “Leper” and “Samaritan” are. The people of Jesus’ day knew that people who had leprosy and people who were Samaritans were considered to be “outcasts.” People with leprosy were literally quarantined to live outside of the city.

In verse 14, the phrase which says, “And when He saw them,” is the phrase which has always left an indelible impression on my mind. So often, we turn our eyes away from the people of this world for whom society considers to be “outcasts.” But the writer recognized this important action of Jesus. “He saw them.”

As you and I read this story, where do we find ourselves----as an “insider” or an “outsider”? I believe there were the “insider” disciples with Jesus observing this experience with him such that it could be recorded in the gospels.

If we identify as one who feels on the “outside” of things, we can know that Jesus sees us, has compassion on us, offers healing and welcomes us. If we identify as an insider, perhaps as the disciples did, we can follow Christ’s example to also have compassion, see people in new ways, offer healing and be welcoming to all into Christ’s kingdom.

In Walt Disney’s animated version of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, Esmeralda sings a prayer on behalf of Quasimodo. The music and lyrics of the song, “God Help the Outcasts” were written by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.

Esmeralda’s prayer begins by realizing that Jesus must have known what it was like to be treated as an outcast. “Yes, I know I’m just an outcast, I shouldn’t speak to You, still I see Your face and wonder, were You once an outcast too?” Then she concludes her prayer with, “Please help my people, the poor and downtrod, I thought we were all the children of God. God help the outcasts, children of God.”

Personal Worship Option:

Whether you see yourself on the “outside” or “inside”, know that God sees you, is hearing your prayers, has compassion for you, offers you healing and wholeness and welcomes you. Let us also hear Christ’s call to go forth and offer the same for others.

Daily Devotion, September 3, 2019

Devotion:

Read John 4:5-15.

Jesus' request for a drink of water from this woman at the well was unusual and even shocking in the Jewish culture. First, men didn’t usually initiate a conversation with women they didn’t know. Second, Jews considered Samaritans to be unclean. The Samaritans received only the five books of Moses and rejected the writings of the prophets and all the Jewish traditions. So to use a Samaritan's vessel for water would have been considered by strict Jews to make them unclean. Third, we know that this woman is living with a sixth man and was considered immoral. She had perhaps married at a young age, maybe had lost husbands to death, desertion, hard times, maybe divorce, who knows? Most of the time women got water from the well in the evening, not in the heat of the day. But about noon is the time the woman in our story appears, perhaps so she wouldn't have to be subject to the constant abuse from the women in the town who despise her as perhaps a home-breaker, a loose woman, a woman who can’t keep a man, a woman who has been desperate, a woman who lives a different life from them, a woman who doesn’t have life figured out the way they do.

Nevertheless, Jesus asks her for a drink, and, though she doesn't refuse, she wonders aloud why he would go against the social norms to ask her for a drink. Jesus ignores her lack of understanding, but continues to explain the gift he is talking about. He compares literal water with spiritual water.

This thirsty Samaritan woman is beginning to understand her deep need for salvation and wholeness, and Jesus is her answer. Jesus models for us the need to share him with the outsiders in our world.

Personal Worship Option:

Pray today for those in your neighborhood, workplace, or sphere of influence who go against the grain of our culture’s values and morals. Consider how you might offer them the living water of Jesus.

Daily Devotion, September 2, 2019

Devotion:

Read Matthew 9:10-13.

Matthew was the Greek name of a Jew named Levi who collected taxes from his fellow Jews for the Roman government. Just doing that as his occupation would have caused Matthew to be viewed as a traitor by his Jewish people. But tax collectors were notoriously crooked, bidding on the right to collect as much as they could from Jewish subjects, paying the Romans what was actually due the government, and keeping the rest for themselves. The people knew this but were powerless to resist, so tax collectors were generally despised.

When Jesus, the rabbi, called Matthew to follow him and then ate at Matthew’s house with other “tax collectors and sinners,” the highly religious and very judgemental Pharisees questioned his actions. Jesus responded that he, like a doctor coming to heal the sick instead of those who are healthy, had come to call sinners instead of those who are righteous. The Pharisees would soon learn that Jesus could have said this more explicitly as “those who realize they are sinners instead of those who are self-righteous.” The church is called to reach out to those whom we see as disconnected. This means we are to have some unchurched friends to whom we are called and sent. 

Personal Worship Option:

As you pray today, give thanks that God loved us and sent God’s Son to die for us while we were yet sinners! Think about someone you know who feels disconnected from God and the church. Pray for a way to connect them to the love of Christ. Remember, that is what Jesus did time after time! 

Daily Devotion, September 1, 2019

Devotion:

Read Ephesians 2:1-10.

  “You were dead…” Paul writes. “But because of his great love for us, God...made us alive with Christ…” How? Through offering us a gift called grace. Through putting our trust (faith) in him by receiving this gift, we are put in a right relationship with God. We are forgiven of our sin (and the sins that are symptoms of it).

  John Wesley was an Anglican priest in England in the 18th century. He was deeply devoted to Jesus Christ. He tried to start a movement of renewal within that Church. Though his efforts and methods were rejected at that time, the movement continued to grow and the people involved in it became known as the “Methodists.” 

  Wesley taught that grace was God’s activity in our life throughout our life. God is active in our life even before we know God. He called that “prevenient grace.” It is grace that comes before, or previous, to our response to God’s activity. When we do respond and seek relationship with God, God accepts with what Wesley called “justifying grace.” It is that gift of forgiveness that puts us right with God. From then on, we live in what Wesley called “sanctifying grace,” God’s continuing activity that seeks to guide us into receiving and sharing God’s perfect love for every person.

  So you might say that God’s grace seeks you, saves you and changes you. It’s a life-long gift!

Personal Worship Option:

Reflect on (and give thanks for) the many times God has been active in your life through these understandings of grace.