Category: daily devotions

Is everything everything?

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There must be more to life than having everything. ————-Maurice Sendak

There are many ways to look at having everything but for our culture it usually means having money and or fame. We make idols of the rich and famous. We see them as happy and complete.

If you read about most of them their lives are not what we think. The money and the fame don’t make up for what they are really missing…. a relationship with God. Only God can fill that space inside of us that feels to empty.

God fills

 

 

Infinite God, you are what fills and completes us. Help us to draw closer to you each day. AMEN

Be welcoming

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Hospitality is a form of worship —————————The Talmud

Welcoming people is so important. I have been to churches where no one spoke to me. Obviously I was in no hurry to go back.

Being together over a dinner table is so important. Meals bring us closer together. Jesus left us with a meal for us to share. It is the ultimate hospitality.

Greet people in love and share meals of food and meals from the altar.

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Generous God, help us to be as generous to others as you have been to us. AMEN

The field

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My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain. ————Sara Teasdale

This may sound depressing. The thought that my soul is in this state. But think about that field. It is plowed by God and ready for planting. It is rich soil and can produce food to eat or flowers for beauty. It is ready to receive the seed that God will plant.

plowed field

Creative God, we wait for the seed… your gift to bring our soul, not only to fruition but also, to joy. AMEN

The enemy is us

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pogo-met-the-enemy.0This is so true that it is scary. We are the person who get ourselves into trouble. We are the person who doesn’t follow the path of Jesus. We are the one who passes by the homeless person on the street. We are the person who judges others. We are the person who tells malicious stories about our acquaintances. We would like to blame someone else but we can’t.

We HAVE met the enemy and he is us!

Loving God, help us to take the log out of our own eye. Remind us that what we hate most is others is frequently one of our own failings. Teach us to love. Forgive us and grant us your mercy. AMEN

And the greatest is love

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Today I am tired so I ask you to think deeply on these words about love.

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1 Corinthians 13 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Gift of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly,[b] but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Safety with God

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Prayer is essentially about making the heart strong so that fear cannot penetrate there. ————-Matthew Fox

The more that we spend time with God the more he becomes our home. Home with God is our safe place. When we are held in his countenance we are secure. Fear is let go as we rest in his arms. Pray, pray, pray, not always with words. Silence with God is prayer too.

safety

Intimate God, if we come to you and ask to dwell with you we will be in a safe place. That safety can remove fear. AMEN

The breath of life

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The Bible shows a relentless movement toward intimacy and divine union between Creator and creatures. For this to happen, there needs to be some degree of compatibility, likeness, or even “sameness” between the two parties. In other words, there has to be a little bit of God in us that wants to find Itself. —–Richard Rohr

The must be something of God in us. God created us and breathed into us the breath of life. His breath. In doing so we became a part of him. His breath remains with us forever.

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Creative God, you gave us life and a part of yourself. Help us to acknowledge this part of us and give thanks. AMEN

God’s Love

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Today I decided to post my favorite scripture.

Romans 8:37-39 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God's Love Means He's Always With Us link

This is what I believe. I hope you do too.

Thank you God for your love. AMEN

Be a steward

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Nature is perfect, wherever we look, but man always deforms it. ———J.C.F. von Schiller

God made us stewards of the earth. He made us and then expected us to care for everything else. Instead we listened to the part about being in charge and forgot the rest. If we can’t learn to be stewards (dictionary: manage or look after another’s property) before long there will be nothing to manage.

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Abundant God, your plan was for us to care for your creation. Help us to do just that. AMEN

Talk to God

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In California everyone goes to a therapist, is a therapist, or is a therapist going to a therapist. —–——Truman Capote

It seems in earlier generations we needed less therapists. Some might say it was because less people were diagnosed. I have a different idea. Many of us lived in small towns and had more people to talk our problems over with. I think we also depended more on God than on science. We shouldn’t discard the science but more time spent with God may solve some of the things that confront us. God is always there…waiting on us…ready to listen…ready to help. Spend more time with God.

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Loving God, you are the perfect listener for our troubles. AMEN