pause Daily Devotions for Lent Week 2 Wayzata Community Church Lent 2018
connection February 22 2018 Connection by Rev. Rustin Comer Scripture Psalm 119: 33-37 Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I will observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. Turn my heart to your decrees, and not to selfish gain. Turn my eyes from looking at vanities; give me life in your ways. Confirm to your servant your promise, which is for those who fear you. Turn away the disgrace that I dread, for your ordinances are good. See, I have longed for your precepts; in your righteousness give me life. Pause I remember when the internet first came into our lives. We hooked our lightening fast Gateway computer to a telephone line, logged into AOL-online and heard the wonky sounds of a desired connection. I remember that beloved high pitched hum that would let you know you were now online to surf the world wide web. We were so cool. But when the connection wasn t there or even worse when someone in your house would pick up the phone and break your connection I remember feeling like my whole world had fallen apart.
Teens today have no idea what I m even talking about. No idea about Gateway, and definitely no idea about dial-up internet access. They have instant access all the time no strings attached, no worries of being interrupted. Connection matters. It matter when trying to search the web, and it matters even more in relationships. Connection is the starting point. It gives us access to the rest of the world we seek. We have complete access to God. Complete capacity to connect fully at any given moment. So why is it so hard? What keeps us away from connecting to the Divine every moment of the day? What keeps us from connecting to the kin-dom of God at each moment? We keep our connection with God alive by spending time with God. We can do this in a multitude of ways but three great opportunities are reading the Bible and prayer/meditation and by actively loving others. The writer of Psalm 119 recognized the importance of a connection to God. He asked God to teach him His statutes and give him understanding of His law (vv.33-34). Then he prayed that he would observe it with his whole heart (v.34), walk in the path of God s commandments (v.35), and turn away his eyes from looking at worthless things (v.37). By meditating on God s Word and then applying it, the psalmist deepened and maintained his connection to God. Reflect Is your connection to God currently like dial-up or high speed DSL? What practices can you put in place to deepen your connection with God? With your neighbor, and with the earth? Where in your life are broken connections that need to be repaired? Prayer God, help me to connect to you more deeply this Lenten season. Action Disconnect from social media for the entire day. Spend the time you are not on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Snap talking to God, and mending a broken connection.
follow February 23 2018 Follow by Rev. Rustin Comer Scripture Luke 5:27-28 After this he went out and saw a man named Levi at his work collecting taxes. Jesus said, Come along with me. And he did walked away from everything and went with him. Pause Of the Roman officials in Palestine, none were more hated than the tax collectors. The fact that the taxes were imposed by a foreign power was a continual irritation to the Jews, being a reminder that they no longer had independence. And the tax gatherers were extortionists on their own account, enriching themselves at the expense of their own people. A Jew who accepted this office at the hands of the Romans was looked upon as betraying the honor of his nation. He was despised as an apostate, and was classed with the vilest of society. To this class belonged Levi-Matthew, who, was the fourth disciple to be called by Jesus. The Pharisees had judged Matthew according to his employment, but Jesus saw in this man a heart open for the reception of truth. Matthew
had listened to Jesus teaching. He had heard about what Jesus was doing. As the convicting Spirit of God revealed to Matthew his brokenness, he longed to seek help from Jesus; but he was accustomed to the exclusiveness of the rabbis, and had not thought that this Great Teacher would notice him. Sitting at his toll booth one day, the tax collector saw Jesus approaching. He was astonished to hear the words of Jesus calling to him, Follow me. Matthew left everything, got up, and followed. There was no hesitation, no questioning, no thought of the lucrative business the he would exchange for poverty. It was enough for Matthew that he was being asked to follow Jesus. To Matthew in his wealth, and to Andrew and Peter in their poverty, the same test was brought; the same consecration was made by each. At the moment of success, when the nets were filled with fish, and the impulses of the old life were strongest, Jesus asked the disciples at the sea to leave all for the work of the good news. (Conflict and Courage, p. 283) Reflect What would be difficult to leave behind if Jesus were to call you today, like he called Matthew? What in your life would be nice to leave behind as you walk in Lent toward a deeper relationship with Jesus? Prayer Jesus, as you ask me to follow you may I be as moved as Peter, James and Matthew. May I follow you boldly, leaving behind anything that is in my way. Action Today: let go of something that is distracting you for the rest the week.
February 24 2018 Home by Rev. Rustin Comer Scripture Luke 15:18 I will set out and go back to my father s house. Pause G. K. Chesterton tells the story of an English sailor who miscalculated his course and thought he d discovered a new land in the South Seas. Ready to plant the British flag and claim the land as New South Wales, he d actually landed back in his homeland. In search of the new, he had discovered the old. And for the first time he saw what he had left behind. Jesus tells a parable about a young man who made a similar discovery. He headed off to a distant country where he thought life would be great. Wine, women, and song looked more attractive than plowing his father s fields. But one day the prodigal son came to his senses. He returned home to discover the amazing welcome of his forgiving Father. Prodigal means lavish, and what we discover is that the love of the heavenly Father is more prodigal more lavish than our deepest desires can comprehend. God s children come home to discover that life in the Father s house is what they ve craved all along. Some of us are in a distant country as we walk into this Lenten season. We ve wandered far from our home in God. We ve sailed as far as we think we can from the land of God s grace only to realize that the land of God s grace is always surrounding us. It s time to turn our ship around and head home. When we do, we ll discover that our heavenly Parent has been waiting and watching for our return. God has the lights on and is calling us to come home. (Bob Heerspink)
Reflect Where is your ship headed? Are you trying to drive closer to or farther from the presence of God? Do you recognize the lavish love of God around you? Where have you seen it this week? Prayer Father, we know you are watching and waiting for us. Forgive us for wandering so far away. Thank you for calling and receiving us back again into your family. In Jesus, Amen. Action Write down five ways that you have seen Jesus lavish love in your life. Choose one way to offer lavish love to someone else in your life this week.
February 26 2018 Family by Rev. Rustin Comer family Scripture John 14: 2-4 My Father s house has many dwelling places. If it were otherwise, I would tell you plainly, because I go to prepare a place for you to rest. And when everything is ready, I will come back and take you into me so that you will be where I am. And you already know the way to the place where I m going. Pause It is believed that nearly two thousand years ago, Pliny the Elder said, Home is where the heart is. He was a Naval and Army commander of the early Roman Empire. Spending much of his life on expeditions, missions and traveling in the field, perhaps he knew a thing or two about longing for home, and finding out where home really was. This quote can also be translated to say, Family is where the heart is. But sometimes family is the LAST place we want to call home. For many Family is messy, complicated, uncomfortable and upsetting. Even thinking about family can sometimes seem to drive us further from God. Family/Home for some conjure up warm fuzzy feelings of tender longings for the place where we belong. But just as our hearts carry ALL that is US, so too, do our homes and families. Home is where you laugh and cry; make stuff and break stuff; Our families and homes are battlegrounds and dream factories and peaceful havens and correction facilities and everything in between. Over the years I ve realized that family are the people you keep on returning to at the end of a big day, it s the people with whom you can be you no masks, no pretending. Therefore often in my adult life my family has been the intimate community of people I ve surrounded myself with.
Perhaps instead of speaking of Heaven, what Jesus is referencing in the scripture today is the here and now, Heaven on earth, kin-dom come. Perhaps the place he prepares is the foundation of our lives, the walls, floors, rooms and contents. Maybe he takes us to live within ourselves a place we rarely dare to venture. Not the self that needs to impress and perform; not the false-self built from a place of seeking approval and belonging. He deconstructs our lives to reconstruct our hearts. And it s a life-long experience: tearing down walls, fears, offenses, unforgiveness, ideas and more, and rebuilding hope and faith and love. A place where everything in our lives is included, redeemed and restored. Reflect What needs to be deconstructed and/or reconstructed in the confines of your family? What needs to be deconstructed and/or reconstructed in the confines of your heart? Prayer Jesus, tear down the walls of my life that keep me from healing, that keep me from restoration, and rebuild me from within. Amen. Action Write a letter to those in your life who have been faithful family. Tell them you love them and thank them for the gifts they have given you.
February 27 2018 New by Rev. Rustin Comer Scripture Mark 2:22 No one puts new wine into old wineskins: otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins: but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins. Pause When wine is new, it is in a state of fermentation. It bubbles and expands as the fermentation gases are released. A fresh, pliable wineskin can absorb such expansion and slowly age-with the wine until the fermentation process is complete. To put fresh wine into an old wineskin, however, is asking for trouble. The old wineskin has assumed a definite shape and is no longer pliable. It is fixed and somewhat brittle. The activity of new wine will stress it beyond its ability to yield. And so both the wine and the skin are lost. We can t put new ideas into old mindsets. We can t get new results with old behaviors. Lent is a fitting time to work with this idea. It is a time of reflection for us, a time to take stock to evaluate where we are and to embrace new directions.
Reflect What new ideas and new behaviors do you feel God is calling you to this Lenten season? How have you tried to place the new realities into old paradigms? How can you change your thinking in order to actually put these ideas and behaviors into practice? Prayer Jesus, show me where my desired life is being constricted by old ways of thinking. Amen. Action Using a piece of paper, fold the paper in thirds. In the first section write down the new ideas and behaviors you seek to embody. On the second section of the paper, write the things that keep these ideas from manifesting. On the third, write ways to overcome the barriers you listed in section two.
empty February 28 2018 Empty by Rev. Danielle Jones Scripture Habakkuk 2:2-4 And then God answered: Write this. Write what you see. Write it out in big block letters so that it can be read on the run. This vision-message is a witness pointing to what s coming. It aches for the coming it can hardly wait! And it doesn t lie. If it seems slow in coming, wait. It s on its way. It will come right on time. Look at that man, bloated by self-importance full of himself but soul-empty. But the person in right standing before God through loyal and steady believing is fully alive, really alive. Pause Living by faith is a bewildering venture. We rarely know what s coming next, and not many things turn out the way we anticipate. It is natural to assume that since I am God s chosen and beloved, I will get favorable treatment from the God who favors me so extravagantly. Yet challenging situations and pain continue to come my way. Prior to this passage in the book of Habakkuk, the prophet questions God about his silence in the midst of a Babylonian ruler who is taking the lives of people all around him. Waiting for God to speak, Habakkuk cries out to God and this passage is God s answer to his question.
It seems God favors the long term over the short term. God can see where the arc of the entire story is going and He knows how it will end. And so God tells Habbakuk, that although the leader seems to have it all full of himself and whatever he wants in reality he is soul-empty. Looks can be deceiving in this world and God continuously looks past what the world sees to the condition of the heart. It can seem that having it all according to the world s standards is the way to a full life, but in God s economy emptying ourselves, as Jesus did, is the only way to avoid having a full life but being soul-empty. Oddly, emptying ourselves of the empty stuff the world has to offer is the only way to truly be full in God. Reflect What does it mean to you, to be soul-empty? Is there anything God is asking you to empty from your life so that your soul can be full with the things of God? What would it mean for you to truly let God fill you up? Prayer God, help me to put my full trust in you in every area of my life. Amen. Action Empty out a drawer or closet of the things you no longer need. Donate them as a physical act of emptying yourself.