our identity in Christ, monday

Monday, September 15

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer: O God, our Heavenly Father, who created us beautifully and wonderfully, may we always look to You for our value and worth, remembering that we are a unique expression of your infinite love, care, and creativity.  Help us, O Lord, to see ourselves as you see us in Christ—objects of your extravagant love and tender affection.  Amen.

          

Scripture Reading for the Day: Matthew 3:13-17

                      

Reading for Reflection:

 

     What do you do when alone with God?  Many of us think, talk, or ask.  But when alone with God how vital also to listen!  Solitude is the place where you can hear the voice that calls you the beloved, that leads you onto the next page of the adventure, that says, as God said to Jesus early in the Gospels, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17)

     How vitally that the word beloved can resound across our lives!  Can you hear it?  Everyone hears voices that seem to speak for God: “Prove yourself.  Do something that makes you significant and then I will show up in love.”  Or we hear, “Do something relevant, be sure that people speak well of you.  Be sure you gather money and property and influence, then I will love you.”  In our insecurity we try very hard to respond to such voices.  And then we stay busy proving to others that we deserve some attention, that we are good people worth praise, that we merit affection or attention.

     We push ourselves to wield influence or make a mark.  Often we call that “vocation” but Jesus calls it “temptation.”  He has no patience with the one who insists that he jump from the temple to show his power or turn stones into bread to prove his ministry credentials.  He has heard God speak of his belovedness as God’s Son.  That forms the basis of what he does and knows himself called to do.  He will not be distracted by merely doing superficial good.  He bears the very presence of God.

     It is hard for us to hear the voice that proclaims that we are loved in Christ, not for our reputation or impressive actions, but because God has loved us with an everlasting love.  “I don’t hear anything,” some say.  We are too prone, too conditioned to listen for all the other voices that insist on “success” or “results.”  I hear only the voices that urge me to go here or do that or get done this mandate, we sometimes think.  But then we also long for that other voice.

     I do not suggest by this that you or I should not see fruit from our ministries, not own property, or not enjoy any possessions.  I am not saying we should not want to find affection and love from others.  I am saying, however, that our identity can find its basis only in God’s word to us that we are beloved, not on the world’s fickle promises.  In Christ we live as God’s beloved before we were born and after we have died; all the circumstances in between will not negate that. (Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri J. M. Nouwen)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                      

Closing Prayer: Lord God, our Heavenly Father, thank you that, in Christ, I am your beloved.  Thank you that your love for me does not depend on my accomplishments, or achievements, or impressive actions.  You love me simply because you made me.  You love me because I am yours.  I belong to you.  Help that truth guide my steps and transform my heart this day.  Amen.