March 22, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor… [but] among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.” (Ephesians 4.25a, 5.3-4)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

At the close of yesterday’s reflection, I spoke of the word and lifestyle of “thanksgiving.” I mentioned an axiom that every person and especially ever Christ follower, should hold true: thanks giving is thanks living. In anticipation of Paul’s further edifying the word of God we find in the gospel of Jesus who is the Christ, he adds a list of “places” we shouldn’t be and the one “place” we should be. That place of residence is a place of thanksgiving. Without question then we should be dwelling in a place of thanks living. Have you considered how best to live in and live out your “thanks”? For what is it we, and especially we as Christ followers, should be thankful. We all have lists of things for which we are thankful. Some items on those lists are food, water, shelter, family, friends, jobs, opportunity, health and [oh by the way] a future which extends to a positive residence in Heaven. But, look at that list (which is not a sum total of all we can be thankful for) and you will see that from a different perspective, they are also places of a lack of thanksgiving. You see them, right?

We are thankful for some food but long for something else more satisfying.

We are thankful for water but long for something else to drink.

We are thankful for shelter but long for a bigger house.

We are thankful for family but long for either reconciliation or the absence of some members.

We are thankful for our jobs but long for a better paying one.

We are thankful for opportunities but long for those that better serve our wants.

We are thankful for our health but long to meet a different picture of ourselves that meet “expectations.”

We are thankful for Jesus but long for an easier discipleship with the same benefits.

Do I need to go on? It is in this light I believe Paul found himself in and wrote to the Philippians, the Hebrews, the Romans, the Corinthians, to Timothy and others “Be content in whatever situation you may find yourself.” It is that longing for more, better, richer, more influential, more self-serving, etc. that drives us beyond the right kind of thinking and living which honors God and serves others. It doesn’t mean we are to settle for less and on that don’t get me wrong, please. It is the attitude toward what we have that enriches or exacerbates what we have. When Jesus speaks of “You cannot serve two masters lest you love one more and one less. It is impossible to serve them both equally.” In that instance where Jesus uttered those words He connected them to the polar opposites of “God” and “Money.” He knew, as should we, that money is not the root of all evil any more than big houses, nice cars, good food, strong families, etc. are. What is the root of all evil is the “love of” and the “desire for” more than what we have. Why is that a problem and the root of all evil? It is because of the emphasis we place on that which we pursue as the first priority in our lives. That first priority becomes our religion and stands in contrast to our “first love.” Again, I come back around to that term only because it is germane (and we see it in retrospect from this distance of history) to the Ephesian community of faith as in the Revelation of Christ to John concerning the end of the age, Jesus speaks from Heaven “You have forsaken your first love.”

And in the twentieth and now the twenty-first century, we see the cultivation of the danger of such wrong thinking in what has been proposed as “the Prosperity Gospel.” It isn’t new. It has existed for decades, centuries and aeons. The basic premise is that to the most righteous and faithful is due the whole of riches such as cars, jewelry, houses, vacation spots, power, prestige and so on and so forth. The contrast is that the lack of such things becomes the evidence of disfavor with God because of not enough faith, not enough hope, not enough love and not enough of “whatever” it is that makes you righteous according to standards not created and revealed by God. How is it then that we are to live thankfully? Is it not in serving others, loving others, sacrificing for their behalf, trusting in God for ours, believing in all things that work together for God according to the revelation of God as to “the way, the truth and the life” intended for us in Jesus who is the Christ? Now can you see why Paul was so adamant about “how we speak to others”? He is addressing the issue both verbally (with the words of our mouths and the meditation in our hearts) and non-verbally (how we live out those words, thoughts, ideas and intentions). Mighty ones of God, it serves us well to practice a better sense of thanksgiving with a more refined sense of thanks living. The measure of such is found in Christ Jesus alone. He is our template of spirit and truth in which we should live, serve, worship and give thanks to God for the many blessings we have received and will receive as it best meets the need of “loving one another.”

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.