WATCHWORD:
What can we bring to the Lord? Should we bring him burnt offerings?
Should we bow before God Most High with offerings of yearling calves? 7 Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins?
No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:6-8
“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. 7 If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is.[c] From now on, you do know him and have seen him!” John 14:1-7
Meditation:
Humility and Life
I’m in the process of reading Randy Alcorn’s book, Deadline, where he presents an interesting, intriguing, and stereotype-changing picture of Heaven. In the story, there is a conversation between Zyor, a Heavenly Being, not an angel, and a new arrival in Heaven. Zyor explains that you cannot separate joy from truth, because you cannot fully embrace joy except through truth.
Zyor continues, “You come from a world where truth is obscured, shrouded, reinterpreted…where lies are mistaken for truths because a majority believe them, as if …truth (was) subject to a vote. Men choose to believe certain things because they find them flattering, comfortable, and popular. But truth is seldom any of these. They choose to disbelieve other things because they are unflattering, uncomfortable and not popular. But none of these have any relevance to the question of truth.”
In our society today, one must dig deep into “breaking news” to find the bedrock of fact, of truth. In today’s political environment, the trend is toward exhaustion, trying to I discover the truly good of the good, and to uncover the truth in the truly bad of the bad. Why is the truth of something, anything, so hard to find in our society?
Do you believe that truth can be created? Invented? Alcorn uses an example of a sundial where man can shine a flashlight on it and make it tell any time they want. The light of the flashlight is fact, the sundial is fact, the combination, though is a fabrication. Add just a pinch of truth to a lie, and the lie becomes fact. Really?
What does our Lord tell us? Ah, yes. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) That is Jesus speaking to us, to you and to me. He doesn’t say, I am the way, the best option, and the life. Nor does He say, it’s my way or you die. However, His way is absolute, His truth is absolute and unchangeable.
Where does that leave us? As a former newspaper reporter who was trained to get it right and unbiased, I find myself distressed over the often wrong and biased reporting of today’s media, print as well as talking heads of TV land. We market all manner of untruth, exaggeration, not to mention libel. Too often what we believe is based almost exclusively on the radio or television channel we dial into. Does that make sense? I leave that to you.
What does our Lord require of us? (Micah 6:8) If we knew and practiced it, would it help our decision-making? I say, Yes! Imagine; people acting justly and fairly, loving mercy, being compassionate, and walking and talking with humility… O Boy! What a difference it would make! Yes, imagine that!
Let’s imagine it. Malcolm Muggeridge in his book Something Beautiful for God, writes of his experience with Mother Teresa, a snapshot of basic Christian humility:
“Doing something beautiful for God is, for Mother Theresa, what life is about. Everything, in that it is for God, becomes beautiful, whatever it may be; as does every human soul participating in this purpose, whoever he or she may be. In manifesting this, in themselves and in their lives and work, Mother Theresa and the Missionaries of Charity provide a living witness to the power and truth of what Jesus came to proclaim. His light shines in them. When I think of them in Calcutta, as I often do, it is not the bare house in a dark slum that is conjured up in my mind, but a light shining and a joy abounding. I see them diligently and cheerfully constructing something beautiful for God out of the human misery and affliction that lies around them. One of their leper settlements is near a slaughterhouse whose stench in the ordinary way might easily make me retch. There, with Mother Teresa, I scarcely noticed it; another fragrance had swallowed it up.”
Few of us are called to the mission field of Calcutta or similar fields. But something beautiful for God is built on truth, is built on compassion, and is built on mercy, and it is built on our recognizing that we, too, have been planted in a mission field. Just look around. It’s up to us to bloom! Amen.
Prayer Reminder:
So many within our circle of family and friends, as well as our nation, needs our continued prayers. Remember, when it comes to our prayers, it is more than one and done. It is keep lifting them up. Amen?
Morning Prayers:
Grant, O Lord, that in all the joys of life we may never forget to be kind. Help us to be unselfish in friendship, thoughtful of those less happy than ourselves, and eager to bear the burdens of others. Amen. Charles Slattery
All through this day, O Lord, by the power of thy quickening Spirit, let me touch the lives of others for good, whether through the words I speak, the prayers I speak, or the life I live. Amen. Anonymous
