Psalm 20 Augustine: Sometimes people run off to a mountain to pray, as though God will be able to hear them better from there. Do you want to make contact with God in your prayer? Humble yourself. But again, just because I have said, “Do you want to make contact with God? Humble yourself,” do not take it literally and materialistically and go off down to underground vaults and there start beseeching God. Do not go seeking either caverns or mountains. Have lowliness in your heart, and God will give you all the high altitude you want. He will come to you and be with you in your bedroom. Loving Father, above all the requests I could ever bring you, I ask you to give me a humble heart that seeks you above all else and desires only what you desire. For you have told me through our Lord Jesus Christ that when we seek you and your kingdom first, you will provide what we need. So, Lord, I know that will also require me to trust you above all else. I don’t want to trust in material things and technology, man-made plans and schemes, or even my own intuition, but in you. I know you have provided wisdom and that godly counsel from others is a good thing. Yet, empower me trust in you and the guidance of your Spirit and word. Lead me not into the temptation of trusting in “chariots and horses” but to stand firm in you… your character, your word, your promises, and your grace. Lead me, O Lord, into paths of righteousness and remind me of your presence as I wander through the valley of the shadow of death. Above all else, Father, let my life glorify you, reflect you, and point others to you. In Christ I pray. Amen.
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Luke 20:41 – 21:4 Leo the Great: Although the spite of some people does not grow gentle with any kindness, nevertheless the works of mercy are not fruitless, and kindness never loses what is offered to the ungrateful. May no one, dearly beloved, make themselves strangers to good works. Let no one claim that his poverty scarcely sufficed for himself and could not help another. What is offered from a little is great, and in the scale of divine justice, the quantity of gifts is not measured but the steadfastness of souls. The “widow” in the Gospel put two coins into the “treasury,” and this surpassed the gifts of all the rich. No mercy is worthless before God. No compassion is fruitless. He has given different resources to human beings, but he does not ask different affections. I am tempted to let Leo the Great’s words suffice for they are beautifully and poignantly expressed. This morning I was reading A Christmas Carol by Dickens. The two men collecting money for the poor introduced themselves and their errand to Scrooge, at which time they were immediately and ungraciously rebuffed with his contempt and disdain for others. Here was a man who could have financially helped everyone within his sphere yet closed his heart to them. (Of course, we know the rest of the story and what can happen to a person whose heart is reborn and reopened by grace.)
Yet the people Jesus describes in today’s Scripture are those who can give much and do so. It’s not that they were wrong to give. But they were giving out of their abundance and thus their offering was not sacrificial. The poor widow, who probably should have been the recipient of the temple treasury’s provision for the poor, gave out of her impoverished condition. Hers, according to Jesus, was the sacrificial gift that is dear to our Father’s heart. Whether we are giving money or our time and talent, God calls us to be living sacrifices, which is our acceptable service to the Lord (Romans 12:1). It shows our commitment to God to be sure. But it also reveals a deep dependence upon him as well. For if we give what we will not miss, or do that which costs us nothing, we are not living sacrificial lives. Let me hasten to add that we don’t live this sort of life in order to be saved. If we are Christians, then we have already been saved by God’s grace alone, received by faith in Christ alone. This is no meritorious system. This is fruit. What else would a life redeemed and reconciled by a gracious God do? The other word for us here is not to compare how much we give to any other person. As the old saying goes, comparison is death to contentment. The widow gave numerically less than the others yet gave more because it was all she had. That’s how God’s Kingdom economy works. In Jesus’ parable of the talents, the person who increased the two talents he was given to four, received the same praise as the one who doubled his five talents to ten. Each was given a particular number of talents. Each was faithful with what he was given. Each received the same praise from his master. Whether you are rich or poor, gifted with many talents or few, you are called to give out of what the Lord has provided you. If you have more, give more. If you have little, give what you can from that. Leo was surely correct when he said, “What is offered from a little is great, and in the scale of divine justice, the quantity of gifts is not measured but the steadfastness of souls.” Let the steadfastness of your soul be enlarged, like the widow’s in our Scripture, or like the soul of Ebeneezer Scrooge himself. Not because you have to, as our senior pastor likes to put it, but because you get to. Yet let this paraphrased divine caveat be inserted here: “to the person who has been given much, much is expected (Luke 12:48). Let the recipients of such gifts rejoice at the opportunities that await. Thanks be to God. Isaiah 2:12-22 Origen: Not only do human beings “make gods for themselves” from statues, but you will also find them “making gods for themselves” from their imaginations. For such people can imagine another god and creator of the world in a system different from the divine plan of the world recorded by the Spirit, other than the true world. These all have “made gods for themselves,” and they have “worshiped the works of their hands.” So, too, I believe is the case either among the Greeks who generate opinions, so to speak, of this philosophy or that, or among the heretics, the first who generate opinions. These have “made idols for themselves” and figments of the soul, and by turning to them “they worship the works of their hands,” since they accept as truth their own fabrications. God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, you are the one true God and there is no other. You care deeply that we know this… that we believe this… that we live according to this truth. You built it into the fabric of your people when you taught us that you alone are God and therefore, we must have no other gods in your presence. And yet, O Lord, we are idol factories.
Whether we are cutting down trees and carving idols for our altars with leftover wood, forming and shaping precious metals into images, or bowing before a mirror, our innate need to worship has gone wrong. In some instances of our idolatry, we turn the good into the enemy of the best. We take your good gifts, such as our health, families, jobs, homes, and other good gifts you have provided, and have made them the focus and grand pursuits of our lives. And, at other times, we create fabrications of who you are based on our personal preferences. We turn from your clear commands and go our own ways because we know better and are more enlightened than the ancient words written by ancient people. For this, Almighty and Only Wise God, we ask for your forgiveness and for the desire and power to repent and seek you only. The season of Advent reminds us that as you visited us in the flesh the first time, you will once again return. But you will not return as a babe in a manger but as the judging King of kings and Lord of lords. And as our Scripture for today reveals, there will be no place to hide from you. The idols of our hearts will be laid bare before you. Those lesser things in which we placed our adoration and devotion will be exposed. That will not be the time to repent. That opportunity will have passed us by. O God, today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to meet with you in faith and repentance. Today is the day to humble ourselves before you and recognize you for who you are. Today is the day to bow before you and cry out, “my Lord and my God.” Today is the day to throw our idols into the fire and rejoice in our freedom from them… and to celebrate our true liberation found only in Christ. You alone are God and there is no other. In Christ’s holy name we pray. Amen. Beware of placing the emphasis on what prayer costs us; it cost God everything to make it possible for us to pray. (Oswald Chambers)
This Week’s Scripture
Adoration Psalm 119:97-98 Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. 98 Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. Glory Be to the Father Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. Amen. (Lesser Doxology) Take time now to offer God your praise and worship. Confession 31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34) Blessed Lord Jesus… Take me to the cross to seek glory from its infamy; Strip me of every pleasing pretence of righteousness by my own doings. O gracious Redeemer, I have neglected thee too long, often crucified thee, crucified thee afresh by my impenitence, put thee to open shame. I thank thee for the patience that has borne with me so long, and for the grace that now makes me willing to be thine. O unite me to thyself with inseparable bonds, that nothing may ever draw me back from thee, my Lord, my Savior. (The Valley of Vision) As David did in Psalm 139, ask the Lord to search you and know you through and through. Confess the sins God brings to mind, knowing you are forgiven and that He will cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Thanksgiving Loving and self-revealing God, I thank you for those who have gone before me in the faith and who faithfully passed along the Gospel over the many centuries, so that I now might also partake of it. For your inspired Word, which is able to make me wise for salvation through faith in my Lord Jesus Christ, I give you thanks. Gracious Lord, Please keep your Word alive in me so I may continually be trained in righteousness and equipped for every good work you set before me. In Christ I pray, Amen. (based on 2 Timothy 3:14-17) Spend some time reflecting on the prayer of thanksgiving above and then thank God for who he is and the many ways he has poured out his goodness and grace in your life. Supplication (Petitions – prayers for yourself)
Supplication (Intercession – prayers for others)
Choose this day whom you will serve; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Amen. (Joshua 24:15) |
Devotions, Prayers,
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