In case you missed the November devotions Pastor Bill posted daily on Facebook and Instagram, we have collected them here for you. We hope these bring you closer to God and Jesus every day.
November 1st
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. Acts 1:6-7
We are called to be players not keepers of the clock. Ours is a call to serve not to try and “game” the master, nor anticipate quitting time. The Father has set the time and ours is not to be too concerned over work beyond our assignment. Each of us is to discern and attend to our own calling and trust that God will keep what has been entrusted to each of us. These are blessings and joy, even in the midst of this “present evil age.” Attachment to our preferred future can be an obstacle to living well in the present.
Lord, let me be your servant for my time and not seek to hasten the day of my retirement. Amen
November 2nd
From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded. Luke 12:48
God gives on purpose and for reasons which are beyond our seeing and knowing. To be entrusted by the master with anything is to be both honored and to elicit expectation. God brings completion what God begins and that brings demands upon those who have need of being completing.
We each need to look with faith upon what has been entrusted to us and prepare to be trained so that the fruit produced is the fruit expected. Not that it rightly impacts our efforts, but God has blessed each of us so that we will be a blessing and that our joy is caught up in our capacity to bless. To be pleasing to the heavenly parent is the center of what makes each child of God full. Our becoming what God has made us to be is substantially for our own good.
Lord, help me to see with the eyes of abundance and celebrate what you are accomplishing in and through me. When needed discipline and coach me that I may be more pleasing and productive for you. Amen
November 3rd
When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” Mark 2:17
Jesus is healer and seeker after lost ones. God is redeemer! This is good news for those who know they are needy and willing to both go to and follow the doctors advice. Those who believe they are well or do not trust the physician do not gain the benefit of the physicians care.
Denial of our need does not help our healing. Coming to Jesus can mean repentance in sorrow, it might also mean a willingness to accept help and acknowledge that my condition is beyond my capacities. In truth this latter acknowledgement is a part of repentance.
Lord, I am weary and at times seeking only to complain of my weariness. Help me to trust that there is more to living than complaining about living. You offer healing to those who will receive it, help me to receive what your offer. Amen
November 4th
“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” Mark 9:49-50
We are made with purpose and designed to live with a character that is both consistent with and an expression of the divine character. This “salt” is good and if our character comes to express something other that the divine character, we lose the capacity to express and be transformed according to God’s purpose. Rest and peace become distress and dis-integration when we are out of “season.”
We are to have salt in ourselves regardless of the saltiness around us. Preachy talk at unsavory ones to “straighten up and get in with good flavor” is not the call. We are not to seek conflict, but neither are we to avoid being noticed as seasoned by God. In our social context we must be the selves that God is making us to be – undoubtedly that will lead to confrontations with those who resist. Be encouraged by the peace that comes in the community of all who would be fired up by love of God and neighbor.
Lord, help me to find myself and keep myself in you. Let me know you and even in the midst of fire – from you and others – let my form become as yours. Amen
November 5th
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:27-28
The primary and only lasting identity is that of God. To have enteral life is to be eternally dwelling in the will and personhood of the eternal one. To be baptized into Christ is to die to any “other” and to become one with the “one.” The identity factors that defined the old order carry no meaning. There is “one” in Christ Jesus. The divisions that defined and separated us have been for a while, and each expression and experience will have a perfected place is the full expression of God while all that is not of God is washed away. Ultimately there is only one, “Hear O Israel, the Lord is one…”
We are each stuck in the center of our own blind spots and cannot let go of over attachment to what we look for and call reality. The path is not to pretend that we can fully let go of the eternally meaningless, but rather to take hold of the “one” who brings right meaning to all. Perhaps fasting is preparation for new abiding; working to let go of presuppositions and receiving the witness of others whose stories challenge what we “know.” Still, the goal is to actually become something, not just to move away for something. Casting out the bad just makes things worse if there is no receiving the good. The rejection of racism, sexism, and so many other blind divisions of the human family is a step in the right direction, but it is not the final destination.
Lord, help me to seek you as all in all today; to dwell upon your beauty and invite you to make me as you are. Amen
November 6th
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. Galatians 4:4-5
In accordance with God’s knowledge of when time is right, Jesus came in the flesh to transform the character of flesh. Flesh which is not merely opposite to the non-decaying spirit, but also redeemed as a present vehicle through which adoption and transformation can and will emerge.
We are invited into the family of God and welcomed into transformation. This still is unfamiliar territory and often requires of us more than we are confident we can give. The power to become “fully” adopted comes in God’s time, but it does come. Faith is the expectation that it will come to “me” and to “us” because God is faithful.
Change my heart, Oh God, make it ever new. Change my heart, Oh God, I want to be like you. Amen.
(Prayer from the lyrics of Eddie Espinosa)
November 7th
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love. Galatians 5:6
The external qualifiers are not qualified to define that which is of the divine. There is nothing that can be done outside a person by themselves which can make them like God. Faith working through love is the manifestation of spiritual external power which by essence redefines and reorders. Faith, hope and love last, in these we are connected with the source of all and the destination of everything.
We are to enjoy the creation without obsession to the creation. Its power is a reflection of its source and sustainer. I am to seek and indeed expect to find my (the) source and sustainer of life; this is faith at work through love.
O Lord, you are the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me this is what I pray. Amen
(Prayer from the lyrics of Eddie Espinosa)
November 8th
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:34-36
Faith is the thing or the assurance of things hoped for and not seen. This is the perpetual conflict of perception. On the one hand I can and do focus on what I want and despair when such does not seem likely, and on the other that I might focus on the vision of life grounded in the pursuit of God’s will. In the former, worry and the mitigation of worry become the primary business of life. In the latter, the expectation is that pleasing the Son will lead to standing hopefully (full of hope) before Him. That strength which is grounded in the Son does not fail.
Pragmatically we are surrounded by the witness and expectation that literally “life is what I make of it.” There are many troubles with this notion, not least of which is the temptation to add insult to injury and blame those who have limited access and privilege for lesser opportunities. More than this however is the fundamental assumption that we know what makes “life.” Many people have succeeded in getting what they thought would be “life” only to then despair that they never knew what was good for them. God is the way and makes the way.
Lord, help me to believe you and seek you in every place. Amen.
November 9th
So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying… Acts 11:2-4
It is hard to see beyond what disgusts us. The notion that something or someone believed to be unclean is in fact acceptable is resisted in a place of dis-examination. We can literally be so sure of a presumed “wrong” that the consideration of “why” is also an affront to decency and truth. When we have our own real experience of grace (the unmerited love and yearning of God for our completion and joy) we are confronted with the possibility that what we find disgusting is also under the authority and power of love which makes all things new.
I am not to deny my reality and suggest that “anything and everything” is okay with me. Nor is it prudent to pretend that I also don’t have an opinion over what God wills and how God’s will would likely apply for another. More important however is also to acknowledge that God “makes a way where there is no way;” that Jesus condescends in order to “seek out and save the lost.” Love rejoices more over one child who returns from the place of the lost than over ninety nine who clumped together in the common sense of right. My personal story of redemption reorients what God may do with what disgusts me, and that may mean more of a change for me, than for “them.”
Lord, help me to be open to the grace you extend and not exclude any “in principle” under the assumption that you need protecting and I am needed as the purity police. Amen
November 10th
I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ Acts 26:17-18
God wills to redeem God’s creation which is broad. We are easily and often stuck in darkness and under the power of values and visions which are not of God. Lies and violence are regularly our way and we can even take pride in our ability to do “whatever it takes” in defense of our desired privilege and power. Forgiveness and sanctification come from a confidence that we can be rescued, and that God provides the means for us to see darkness and choose light. Our repentance is a commitment to open to the power of God and be changed. This is the foundation by which we may share the hope we have with those who have been stuck like us even as they resist a light which initially hurts the eyes.
We are to follow God’s way more. We are to be so open to the life of God that the fear of death does not define us. It is one thing to say, “The only way that leads to life is God” and to day by day walk in that growing grace filled confidence.
Lord, transform me after your will and help me to wait, yielded and still. Amen
November 11th
Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!… Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:10-11, 17-18
We are more than what we are; “It is what it isn’t, yet” Glory is fading so that glory may emerge. We are destined to reflect the essential truth – God is who God is and God will be who God will be, and we will be like God for we shall see God as God is. Jesus is the perfect imprint of glory revealing and we are essentially (of essence) like him. Faith in this (content and process) is hope in what manifests love.
Lord, Help me to let go of any passing glory and lean into your transforming. Amen
November 12th
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God. 2 Corinthians 7:1
The transformation which emerges into complete right union and peace with God is the pursuit of the creator for the creation. God is for us and wills the fulfillment of all righteousness perfected in joy and love. We can be clean both in body and spirit as the Lord demands in accordance with what the Lord provides and we will receive. So, part of this completeness is our willingness to be perfected. The hope and personal pursuit of being cleansed which is inspired by the Holy Spirit can not be rightly shrugged off with the arrogant proclamation that we know better than God what God can do with us.
Today is the day of salvation. There is no faithful waiting for a better day to walk with God – no expectation that a rock bottom or mountain top is a superior starting line. Our will and choice to cleanse ourselves from every defilement is an acknowledgement of God’s love for us and God’s choice to allow us to be co-creators with God on our own path to abundant life.To tolerate and acquiesce to defilement is to be unconvinced of either God’s will or God’s power, or both.
Help me to seek you today, O gracious Lord. Empower me to believe and fully commit to your will to transform me. Amen
November 13th
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’ Matthew 7:21-23
Doing the will of the Lord is not simply and completely the works of power, prophecy and deliverance. We need to be known by Jesus. The new creation which Jesus has redeemed requires more than outward action, but an intertwining of soul. We are to accommodate divinity and be essentially assimilated into holiness. Our essence is to be that which was God’s will from the beginning – the image and likeness of God.
Knowing and doing are revealing – being is essential. I must be born from above.
Lord, Help me to abide in you – to become what you will. Amen
November 14th
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;… Matthew 25:34
Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;… Matthew 25:41
God has prepared our inheritance since the foundation of the world, the Kingdom of God is our intended destination and something has gone terribly wrong if/when we do not receive what God has prepared and will for us. There is an ‘eternal fire’ which is also prepared for the liar/slanderer and his angels. This is not the desired location for any of those made in the image and likeness of God.
Living with an expectation that God wills to bless you and that part of that blessing is the capacity to act like God, even when you do not see it. Part of that expectation is the capacity to grow in holy ‘tempers’ and thus to be disposed to do to others as you would like done to you, especially when the needs are so fundamental as food, clothing, shelter, and companionship.
Lord, help me to live in your presence when I am in the presence of any other. By your grace bring me to what you have prepared for me when my given time is fulfilled. Amen
November 15th
May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this. 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Entire sanctification is the expression of peace and our God who is fully peaceful and completely unified wills that such integrity be the expression of the creation, and most notably for those who bear the image of God. Spirit, soul and body are to be sound (complete) and without cause for accusation or departure from the righteous blueprint. This however is not of our own doing for the one who calls is also the one who fulfills (fills full).
We must want entire sanctification. It is not in our ability to achieve, but it is our privilege to seek the fullness of God in and through our lives. This purity of heart, this one aim is the treasure God offers to you and me and we must want to receive it.
God of grace, you have invited me to experience life – grant me the capacity to will your will and live in your life. Thank you for your faithfulness and stubborn pursuit of my entire sanctification. Amen
November 16th
But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. Romans 5:8-9
God proves God’s love by saving us from God’s wrath? It appears that God has an obstacle to loving us as God wills and the wrath of God is the expression of this obstacle. As sinners we cannot handle the expression of God’s holiness and our experience of God in our sin is wrath. The confrontation of the holy with filth is as “light casts out darkness.” When I live, move and have my being in darkness, then the coming of light is a destruction of what I am and seek. Christ’s death makes a way to approach God, and become freed from wrath.
I need transformation. Sin puts me in a place from which I cannot tolerate God, and must seek to escape from God. Since God is, and always will be – to be alienated from God is to be at odds with all. God is life and ultimately there is only communion with God’s “life” for there is no other kind. God is love, God wills for our life and union, and God is very committed to our justification.
Lord, give me the courage to turn the management of my life over to you. Make me fit for a right relating to you, both now and forever. Amen
November 17th
I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not let what you eat cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died. Romans 14:14-15
Do no harm… and who decides what is harmful? Is there an objective answer which is available and unquestionable? God is creator and there is goodness everywhere, to some degree, but also corruption. The corruption most concerning is when those for whom Christ died are valued less than my particular privilege, even in the name of freedom. An individual’s definition and preference for their freedom is not superior to God’s definition and insistence on love, for God is love.
We are bound in love to acknowledge and often attend to the scruples of others – absurd though they may be. To walk in love is to be conscious of how I might injure a brother or sister. It is important to entertain the questions over how my “growth” encourages others to grow. We are not to enable stationary, foolishness, while also seeking not to injure. It is not always easy to discern what this means, but the goal is ever to walk in love. Love of neighbor as concern for ourselves, this is how our steps are to be guided.
Lord, help me to not lose the forest of your will for the trees I enjoy most. Amen
November 18th
All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. Ephesians 2:3
New creation requires acknowledgement that something has changed. The old creation cannot continue unabated and there is a need to proclaim, at a minimum to ourselves, that there was something wrong with the way we were. God is good. There is power in goodness and the consequence of goodness in proximity to wrong is wrath. Goodness facilitates the disruption of what is not right and in order for new or renewed creation. Wrath is the experience of “wrong” in the wake of good.
I must seek to be good, trusting God’s grace and wrath to clean and clear me. This will rarely be entirely what I want. My desires are a part of my problem – not just my actions. God wills that I be a child of God – a change in my “nature” is required.
Lord, help me to be yielded, still and expectant that you will transform me. Amen
November 19th
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. John 3:19 NIV
God is faithful and has sent us all we need to see and live. Jesus our Lord has walked, taught, lived, died, and risen so that we can be right. The orientation of people is away from life and toward evil. We will not find lasting wisdom from the conclusions of those who defend darkness.
We are wise to seek the Lord continually and not attempt to justify our sin because others do, or worse to suggest that somehow we are righteous because we judge others to be more sinful. Our lives are to be lived before God,
Dear Lord, help me to see you today and increase my desire to please you. Help me to live in your will for me in this world and never be so enamored with this earthly path that I fail to seek your divine destination. Thank you Lord, Amen
November 23rd
Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. Ephesians 4:29
Too often the mind and manner follow where the mouth leads. We speak our realities into being and defend our discourse for pride’s sake. To speak ill of someone sets the stage for trying to prove the ill we have spoken. To speak in grace in hopes of building another up allows room for encouragement, and if appropriate, repentance. The proclamation of light conquers darkness – even, or perhaps especially, in us.
We are wise to consider the consequences of the words we utter, and whether the choice to “put someone in their place” is a place we would want to be. To love as I want to be loved, or better, to love as Jesus loves, this is the blueprint by which our words are best built. Let us commit to moving away from the pursuit of giving others their “just desserts” and instead seek to be a witness to the gracious invitation we have received of God and empowered to share with others. Jesus saves, let us talk as those who believe that.
Lord, fill my words and guide my sight, so that you may speak and I may see you and work in me and others. Amen
November 24th
For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. Philippians 3:18-19
True life is not found in protecting and preserving my life. The definition of a healthy creation is to be grounded in the creator – to live for more than the avoidance of the dying moment. Good food abides for only a sliver of experience and the pursuit of slivers only leads to desperation and suffering. Even the sliver is tainted with the inescapable knowledge that the taste will not last. My best bite is spoiled even as we chew, by the awareness of “after the bite, after I am full.” Earthly things have their place as they prepare us for heavenly appetites.
When our minds are set on the cross – the claim of God on us which elevates every mouth full to grander purpose. Moments of feasting or fasting all have a place in the training after love. Let us not be attached to belly values and miss the heart of the matter.
Lord, change my mind and fill my heart so I may surrender my gut reactions and feed on every gift as an expression of your grace. Amen
November 25th
It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil and struggle with all the energy that he powerfully inspires within me. Colossians 1:28-29
The pursuit of maturity (completion/perfection) is the essential path. This sentence is self referring because the essence of any thing is expressed in the pursuit of its being fully what it is. It is wise to seek fulfillment in the broadest sense. Integrity, which literally means to have consistent (not contradictory) wholeness, reveals the fuller truth about acorns and caterpillars as they are becoming oaks and butterflies. In like manner, human maturity is like God for we are made in the image of God. Since God is love, and God is one in three, the individual pursuit of maturity is wrapped up in relationships. We are like God when we love and thus love is in part to assist others in becoming themselves. Becoming mature ourselves is to toil as those gracefully inspired to reveal grace and address obstacles to another’s assent to integrity. The manifestation of this spiritual reality necessarily transforms our earthly (acorn) reality. We are blessed to see ourselves in a new emerging light, and must also see everything and everyone around us in that same light.
There is diversity among the color, size and shape of caterpillars, and this is beautiful for those who have eyes to see, but when applied to the diversity of humans, this has more regularly been a shallow and deceitful vision which misses (denies) the meaning of maturity in “butterfly splendor.” Our individual pursuit of maturity has been consistently hindered by our lack of mature vision, making race, gender, culture, etc. the final revelation of a person. The toiling apostle writes, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, Slave nor Free, Male nor Female” in the mature culmination, but for his hearers, then and now, such distinctions are the basis of “reality” in this world. Our spiritual call is welcome personal maturity as we toil in love so that all may claim their God intended inheritance.
Lord, Help me to see you in myself and all those around me. Amen
November 26th
This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all. 1 Timothy 2:3-6
“I will take care of him!” Henri Nouwen pointed out that these words can have contradictory meanings depending on the context and tone. To offer care or to threaten are wrapped up in the location and orientation of the speaker. Jesus is God and he is fully one of us. He cares for us and ransoms us in order that we may know full and abundant life for all eternity. It is His will, to the glory of God, that all who bear the divine image will come to the truth and be saved.
God wills life and joy, peace and love for you and us all. God wills that we would “know” the meaning of those words beyond detached descriptions and into the realm of meaningful intimacy. Our experience of God’s care is often welcomed and marvelous, but not always. The mediator knows what we need more and better than we do. The ransom paid was not a random whim. Perhaps surprisingly, the care of God will sometimes feel like an attack on the worlds we have been fighting to build and maintain. Jesus is Lord, and it is necessary for us to hold still and let the master mediator work on us.
O Lord, you have come for me. Help me not run from you. Amen
November 27th
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:4-5
We are just not that good – but God is still “into” us. By mercy, God invests so that we may be reborn. Our corruption can be remedied through the door God opens. We cannot and do not open the door by our own will and strength. The opportunity for righteousness is a manifestation of who God is, not who we are. Our part is to hold still and submit to the bath of birth and the renewal by the Holy Spirit’s reenergizing. Defense of who we have been is quite simply and literally “not good.”
There are many obstacles to bathing in grace and renewal over which I am wise to resist. For example, I can ruminate too deeply on my notions of the changes that others could/should make. These perceptions are not always wrong, but they are specs in the eyes where logs rightly take priority. My first order of business is to attend to my part in my remediation rather than be distracted by the shortcomings of others. I am called to let my light shine and so it is pretty important to yield to God so that God can make “my light” actually light.
Lord, Save me, lead me, prepare me, send me – to your glory. Amen.
November 28th
As for you, always be sober, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully. As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. 2 Timothy 4:5-6
Ready, Set, Go! These are not only the instructions for a race, they are also the foundation of a life lived on purpose. “Am I ready for the things that are right? Am I standing in a place from which I could move intentionally and in the right direction? Am I actually willing to move?” Distraction and more insidiously, the pursuit of distraction make “absence” the goal. The avoidance of distress in in fact a move “away” not a move forward. Sometimes we must consciously name the truth – it is not fundamentally us; about our will, our desires, our plans! Full life and thus full ministry is an offering and it is God who supplies our comings and our goings.
I have a calling to fulfill and by God’s grace a time on this side of the veil. I am to be ready for the work (and play) of this day and trust that when the time is right a new day will dawn.
Help me, O gracious Lord, to be ready to go as you direct. Amen
November 29th
Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:12-13
Joyce Meyers echoes this call in her words, “Where the mind goes, the man will follow.” The evil unbelieving heart dwells on “not the living God.” In this is both the quiet desperation which ruminates on death coming in some distant someday, and the very present, dreadful awareness that “someday” is on its way, everyday. We can live in the anticipated sadness of future losses everyday which hardens and deceives us into a perpetual fear of missing out, or of losing what we currently hold and what currently holds us. Thus would our lives be little more than a preamble to loss and death, but that is not the way it must be.
I exhort you to rejoice in the living God – to anticipate in hope, dwelling on the current emerging tastes of joy which are a foretaste of fullness beyond imagination. Our word is not limited to “Pie in the sky after you die” it is also daily bread and living water which wells up to the we were created to share, and have no words to express. You are loved, the eternal lover who has always willed the best for you has more in store for you. Lift your mind to God, today!
Lord, Free me to be open to you, with a heart ready to receive whatever you bring today. Amen
November 30th
Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches—comes not from the Father but from the world. 1 John 2:15-16
We are made of spirit and for truth. The things of the world are an expression of the will of the father but they are less expressive than those whose redemption is the completed image and likeness of God. To love the “less” is to deny the “more.” The desire of the eyes and the pride over grathers of future “discardables” is a fool’s errand.
The world is not to be our home. “I am because God is.” I am for God, from God and destined to be with God. The choice to receive this offer and practice this orientation toward life eternal is the call of our current day. I will be filled full in God’s time, but the Kingdom of God is present now. I am to repent and believe – live in that hope – now.
Lord, you have given me today. Grant also the courage and capacity to to give today back to you Amen.