WATCHWORD:
28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:28-30
17 Now tell us what you think about this: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” 18 But Jesus knew their evil motives. “You hypocrites!” he said. “Why are you trying to trap me? 19 Here, show me the coin used for the tax.” When they handed him a Roman coin,20 he asked, “Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. “Well, then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” 22 His reply amazed them, and they went away. Matthew 22:17-22
Meditation:
What Belongs to God?
Yes, good question. What does belong to God? How am I to understand this? Jesus told the rich young ruler to ‘sell all you have, and give to the poor’. That was confusing to him and to us. Why impoverished that young man? I think I understand the tax issue in that exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees, but when we apply it to ourselves in this modern era, do we have a problem with this?
How would you explain Jesus words? Give to God what belongs to God. Let me start with an assumption: if you have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, haven’t you surrendered your life to him? Wouldn’t that be all? I mean everything? So maybe one explanation is, give all you know of yourself to all you know of Christ, isn’t that the ‘all’ we can do?
It’s not easy to accept the premise that everything we are, everything we have, everything we do is the Lords. We are the Lord’s, which means we have our marching orders and they’re pretty simple: Love God and love others. We are to make no exceptions, for any reason. Which explains why it’s not easy. So, if everything we claim belongs to God, then we give back to Him the graces and the gifts, physical, spiritual, emotional…all.
When we accept Jesus, He invites us to come, bring our problems and our worries, our rough patches and our smooth and, everything to Him and He will give us rest. He tells us to take His yoke upon us and He will teach us and we will learn from Him. The true lesson is that He is the way, the truth and the life, and it’s on that basis that we find the joy of our salvation. Amen.
God Nudging, Nagging Us:
We are told repeatedly not to worry and to fear not, yet out we go into the day and we fear and we worry, and then we repeat it. I think it’s quite a coincidence that the Bible reminds us 365 times not to fear, not to worry, one for every day of the year. A loving God that nags us? Well, okay. That must mean he really loves us. I wonder if our loving-significant-other sees that as a ‘license’ to remind us, to nag us? Hmm. Love that!
Closing Prayer:
Lord of life and love, help us to worship thee in the holiness of beauty, that some beauty of holiness may appear in us. Quiet our souls in thy presence with the stillness of a wise trust. Lift us above the dark moods and the shadow of sin, that we may find thy will for our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The Book of Worship
