Devotion - Tuesday, March 26

Cece Parker lead the devotion at last night's Congregational Council meeting.  She shared a reading which reminded us that God does indeed come to us to aid us and comfort us, but God also sends (pushes) us out into the world.  Christian faith is a relationship with God and a commitment to God's hope for the world.  Christian faith is fully expressed when we take what was first given to us and share it with others.

I was reading this morning from Jeremiah 7.  God is not angry with his people, he is hurt.  How it is that they have received so much from God's hand and yet they chose to follow the ways of self-interest and greed?  This is a theme we will return to in this Sunday's Gospel lesson.  How good the father is, and yet we insist on straying and ignoring.

It seems like a cliche or overreach to say that there may have never been a time more in need of God's involvement than the times in which we find ourselves - but I believe this to be true.  There seems to be a resurgence of "me first", and a parallel neglect of those struggling to survive.  There is open and boastful talk of how "wrong" others are and name-calling has ceased to be seen as a childhood trait which is outgrown as we become adults.

Jesus came into the world, to redeem the world.  Jesus told his followers to feed the lambs, tend the sheep.  God comes to us so that we might go out, to do the will and work of our Heavenly Father.  Ours are the hands which will do what God wants done.