Sunday, Oct. 1 (Twenty-third after Pentecost)
Psalm 124
We Need God
Perhaps you’ve heard similar psalms in their “updated” versions. “Believe what you feel/ And know you're right, because/ The time will come around /When you say it's yours” (The Wiz). “Believe in yourself/And the world belongs to you...” (’n Synch). These renditions are recited at countless motivational seminars. They appear on business card cases, mugs, posters, and even turn up in the theme song for Arthur, the children’s TV show.
But God’s people sing Psalm 124. It carries us on a spiritual arc, moving us from focusing on ourselves and our predicaments (“If the Lord had not been on our side”) to God Himself (“Maker of Heaven and Earth.”) We do not trust ourselves for deliverance, for we know we are not our own. Rather, we are His beloved creatures; we belong to Him, and He has bought us for a price. Trust in the Lord. He is able to help us when we admit that we cannot make or save ourselves.
Our Father and Creator, deliver us from ourselves so that You can meet our needs.
Monday, Oct. 2 - Genesis 2:18-24
We Need Friends
Have you ever been “alone” in a crowd? That was Adam’s situation. Eden was teeming with countless curious creatures, and even the Lord liked to hang out there with Adam, but it wasn’t enough. Adam was alone, and God knew it. God was Adam’s superior; the plants and animals were his subordinates. Adam needed a companion that would be his equal. God’s image in Adam was finally completed when He placed Adam in a relationship with another being of his own kind: Eve. Only she was “suitable:” literally, a helper “corresponding to” Adam; a friend.
When Steve and I were married, we wrote our vows, promising to be each other’s friend. The clergyman who performed the ceremony bristled. “You aren’t going to be friends!” he fumed. “You are going to be man and wife!” Twenty seven years later, I’m glad to say he was mistaken.
Thank you, Lord, for giving us friends, and for being our best Friend, Who makes our relationships with You and each other possible. Help us to mirror Your life as Trinity.
Tuesday, Oct. 3 - Numberss 11:4-6, 10-18
We Need Discipline
Yahweh is into variety. Why else to so many different species? 28,500 fishes, 8163 reptiles, 9917 birds, and 5416 mammals! As Gerard Manley Hopkins writes, God delights in whatever is “counter, original, spare, strange.” Yet the Israelites regard Him as the god of monotony. They have no anticipation of the manifold goods He has prepared for them in the Promised Land. All they expect is a daily grind of “long obedience in the same direction.” Incredibly, after everything God has done for them, they pine for the pickings they had as Egyptian slaves. Jaded by God’s journey mercies, they crave something different—now! Their thankless wailing depresses Moses. When God does something new, it is for His glory, not a response to our whims. His new leadership strategy of seventy helpers for Moses leads to blessing; and the novelty of quail is his design for discipline.
How often does this scene replay in our churches and in our own lives?
Gracious Father, guard us from ingratitude and peevishness. Help us to desire Your newness, not novelty.
Wednesday, Oct. 4 - Esther 3:5-6; 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
We Need a Defender
“I come from a people that gave the ten commandments to the world. Let us agree that we need three more … thou shalt not be a perpetrator; thou shalt not be a victim; and thou shalt never, but never, be a bystander.” -- Yehuda Bauer
God’s people have constantly been attacked. Today’s passage tells the story of a woman who refused to be a bystander. Her actions are chronicled in a book that never mentions God, yet they are unimaginable apart from Him, for the people she seeks to defend are a people only because of His calling. (1 Peter 2:9-10). But ironically, as our Lord Jesus later demonstrated, sometimes in order not to be bystanders we must risk becoming victims. Esther risked her resources, her position, and her very life to save the Jews.
Who is God calling us to defend? Are there ways we are perpetrating injustice and sin?
Almighty Father, deliver us from evil. Resurrected Son, show us how to be victims for Your sake. Indwelling Spirit, move us to righteous actions.
Thursday, Oct. 5 - Hebrews 1:1-4
We Need the Last Word
Jews, Christians and Moslems are all sometimes called “People of the Book,” but this passage makes it clear that Christians are People of the Son. Jesus Christ is the “hard copy” of the Father; the exact and ultimate revelation of God to humanity. God has spoken to us through nature, through his prophets, and a variety of other means, but in all cases the communication was incomplete or unable to contain everything He wanted to share. But now that Jesus Christ has come, no further revelation is necessary, because there is nothing more to be said or done.
What remains to be disclosed, after we have been presented the Man Who is God and the God Who is Man? What else is there to see after He has been unveiled as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe? What more is there to desire after He eradicates sin and restores us to our original perfection? Jesus Christ is God’s last and best Word.
Son of God, Son of Man, having you, we need nothing more.
Friday, Oct. 6 - Hebrews 2:5-12
We Need to be Restored
God’s people acknowledge that there is an order to creation, wherein diverse beings assume their proper place and perform their particular functions to His glory. Psalm 8 is a moving affirmation of that belief. But sin has subverted His perfectly designed, perfectly balanced order, and as a consequence every relationship we have—with God, with each other, and with creation—has been upset. Nature (including human nature) strains, cracks and disintegrates under sin’s load.
This order cannot be re-established by mere men and women, or even angels. Only Jesus is able to help us and defend us against sin. But the cure is a terrible one: to reconstruct what has been broken, He must be broken. Shame, suffering and death are the necessary restoratives, and they are applied with painstaking effectiveness, allowing us to pray:
Jesus our Redeemer,
You not only sustain all things but restore them to your Father’s original design. We marvel at Your love, that—after all we have done to defy you—You proudly pronounce us your brothers and sisters.
Saturday, Oct. 7 - James 5:10-20
We Need Mercy and Compassion
I dreaded making the call. We had left Steve home sick, with a 102 degree fever. Now I had to tell him that I had just rear-ended a family in their brand new Jetta, smashing the left front of our Camry. The girls and I had driven an hour north to celebrate Thanksgiving with relatives at their new home, but in the darkness, fog and drizzle my eyes lingered too long trying to make out a street sign. Steve met my news with patience, concern and resourcefulness. All would be well.
The Lord welcomes our admissions, no matter what they are, no matter what the circumstances. However, we can’t be “double-minded.” We may not speak in the Lord’s name like the prophets, but we act on His behalf. How can we persevere, and help others to persevere today?
Steadfast Father, thank you for meeting the sicknesses of our bodies and souls with compassion, mercy and forgiveness. Merciful Jesus, thank you for surrounding us with your people, who listen, pray and minister in your Name.
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