ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 13, 2020 Prayer for the Week: You seek to inspire our imaginations, O Source of Life and Love. Yet your existence raises concerns with no simple remedy. Your love enfleshed was rejected and executed by those who believed the existence of such love undermined their power. They believed, as we so often do, that love is too weak, fragile and inadequate. It is given plenty
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 12, 2020 Scripture: Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. Thought for the Day: Transforming and renewing are the life ambitions of those who wish to be participants in the good and acceptable and perfect things of
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 11, 2020 Scripture: Deuteronomy 6:4-7 Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 10, 2020 Scripture: Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction. Thought for the Day: I did some graduate work with a guy who was twenty years older than I was, and he often spoke about his early school years. He attended a religious school in which the punishment for rule infractions, and the intimidation that
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 9, 2020 Scripture: Ephesians 4:14-15 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, Thought for the Day: If you know the musical Godspell, then you
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 8, 2020 Scripture: John 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Thought for the Day: Jesus speaks of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit that shall come in his stead. Of course, in good Trinitarian thinking, Jesus is of the same essence as
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 7, 2020 Scripture: 1 Timothy 4:4 Everything that has been created by God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected. Thought for the Day: Let me do some fun confessing in this devotional. I know that “confessing” and “fun” are not words usually put alongside one another. On Sunday, I was wearing a new casual sports coat that I got
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 6, 2020 Prayer for the Week: No category defines those who seek you – No class or classification, no degree or distinction, no title or entitlement delineates the boundaries of those who yearn to know you. O Holy One born in Bethlehem, O Nativity of Grace formed upon the earth, the world is drawn to you because of a deep yearning. As we begin a
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS January 5, 2020 Scripture: Matthew 2:12 Because the Magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by another route. Thought for the Day: It is one thing to return home and something very different to return to a place you once called home that no longer feels like your home because of a transformative experience. Have