February 18, 2024

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4.14, 15, 16)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

In light of recent events, we ought to be more cognizant of our need for, reliance upon and our hope for both “the head and the ligaments.” Without either of them, we are incomplete as is the revelation of God incomplete. For us as mighty ones of God, we are then drawn back to the “Three in One,” the Trinity of God which we know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As such, we must then be ready to conclude and to exude that life without the Father renders us “mindless” as if we have no head and “ligament-less” as if we have no connection between ourselves, the head and ultimately God as Father. We may full well accept that there is a God in Heaven but through the lense of mindless and broken/disconnected viewpoints, God’s true nature would be difficult for us to observe, understand, accommodate and assimilate. We would be in chaos as we the whole of existence before God spread His banner over it all and brought it into order.

For me today, this sounds like our purpose of living in these or any days is made real by what we ought to truly live for, live with and live through:

WE LIVE FOR the glory of God.

WE LIVE WITH the whole family of God who as believers by faith in Him find ourselves united with the Father as sons and daughters of the Most High.

WE LIVE THROUGH each day on earth in its wonder and beauty breaking through our walking in the midst of the world in its brokenness, bitterness and angst just as we “walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”

It is with the mind of God made known to us through the mind of Christ that we are able to fathom what it is that we are confronted with in the world both with the profoundness of the gospel and the testimony of the Law and the Prophets.

It is with the Spirit of God made known to us in the blessing of new life upon our profession of faith that Jesus is the Christ which comforts, guides, interprets, translates and enlivens both the gift and the fruit which that gift bears in us and by the seed of truth which we sow in word and in deed across the face of the earth in the presence of the world.

Mighty ones of God, let us take time today on this first day of the week to consider the challenge and the blessing which is afforded to us by God in His love through His Son Jesus the Christ by whose spirit we find our unity and our purpose in each day of our lives so long as we shall live.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit spoke us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit so that others may be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind that we would know that we are Your people and that You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.