Category: Sister Judy (Page 213 of 271)

Devotions based on Kenneth Boa’s book, Conformed to His Image

Our presuppositions shape our perspective in life and our perspective shapes our priorities and our priorities shape what we do. We all have a set of presuppositions about life, even we are not really aware of it. So often we choose temporal and earthly visible things over the eternal things that are invisible. We think we are in control and tend to seek pleasure, recognition, popularity status and power. But these earthly things lead to emptiness and delusion. But when we seek God and His kingdom we find true fulfillment and wisdom and love. Sometimes God takes away our “toys’’ for a time so that we can find eternal pleasure in Him. When we have a faith presupposition we find that life is about God and not about us: we exist to serve Him and not to persuade God to serve us. Another implication is that we have no higher purpose than to grow in knowledge and grace of God and become like Him. Also, we learn the scriptures and apply them to our lives. God is in control and our obedience flows out of trust in Him. We realize we do not know better than Him. When we have an eternal perspective we realize that our earthly journey is a preparation for life forever with Him. When we travel to another country we must exchange our currency. The currencies of this world will do us no good in the next unless we invest them for His sake in the lives of others.  Let us present Christ to the world and not miss the opportunities He sends us.

Devotions based on Kenneth Boa’s book, Conformed to His Image

“There is no sin so great that God will not forgive but there is no sin so small that it does not need to be forgiven.”  Because of Jesus death on the cross, we are offered the wonderful gift of forgiveness and a secure relationship in God’s family. His forgiveness erases our sin from existence and removes it as far as the east if from the west. ( Ps. 103:12)  Many of us find it hard to accept God’s unconditional forgiveness and feel we have to earn it or work off the debt. Guilt feelings can cause us to revisit the sin instead of receiving God’s forgiveness. If we think we can outsin the grace of God, it is really our failure to take hold of the depth of his grace and love. But when we have experienced His forgiveness ourselves, we can forgive others, just as we have received. There is a tendency in us to excuse our own faults and to blame others for theirs. But we are to offer grace, rather than justice, to all those who have hurt us.  Lewis Smedes said, “When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover the real prisoner was yourself.”  That does not mean we will forget what others have done but we entrust justice to God rather than seek it ourselves. The author suggests writing down the names of people who have hurt us and betrayed us. Then offer this list to God along with all of the pain, and make a choice to forgive each one. Then crumple the paper and burn it before the Lord who forgave each of us.

Devotions based on Kenneth Boa’s book, Conformed to His Image

As we grow in our awareness of our freedom in Christ, more and more we are able to put others first.  “Do nothing out of selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” (Phil. 2:3-4)  It’s not easy to have other-centered concern for people who may reject us or cause us pain.  But it need not destroy us since we look to God alone for our true identity and worth.  “When we are secure in Christ, the rewards of investing our lives in people exceed the pains that people can cause.”  As Christ increases in our lives and we decrease, we will find more joy in serving others than pursuing possessions, power, performance, or prestige. The world system switches the price tags and encourages us to pursue things that will not last. If we value the world first, we will miss out on the joys of knowing Him and quality relationships with others.   Our vertical relationship with the Lord is the key to our horizontal relationships with others. We bring nothing into this world and we can take nothing material out of it. But if we allow Him to accomplish His work in and through us, the results last forever!

Devotions from Kenneth  Boa’s book, Conformed to His image

The more we love God the more we will express His love to others in acts of kindness and goodness. “There is no act that begins with the love of God that does not end with the love of neighbor.”   As we grow in our understanding of His love, we are free from using people to meet our needs.  Our modern world view is so individualistic, autonomous, and self-serving but the biblical view is interdependent, communal, relational, and self-transcending.  Jesus derived his identity from his relationship with His Father and not from the opinions of his family and peers. He knew who He was and this relationship with His father gave him the power and security to love and serve others.  When we find our identity in Him we also will become secure enough to love and serve others without seeking our own interests first. We don’t need to be controlled by the opinions and responses of others. When we know who and whose we are we don’t need to impress others and manipulate people. The more we are concerned with what God thinks of us the less we will be worried about what others will think. How wonderful to not be enslaved to people’s opinions of us and free to love them as Christ loves us- with no strings attached.

Devotions based on Kenneth Boa’s book, Conformed to His Image

We are either defined by our world or by God. “To love ourselves correctly is to see ourselves as God sees us.”  We are always in danger of letting the world define us instead of God. It is so easy to shape our self-image by the attitudes and opinions of our parents, peer groups and society. We may also think we have to perform and earn God’s love. We need to define ourselves by the truth of the Word, rather than the artificial way of the world. TO grasp who we are at the core of our being requires that we know the truths of scripture, and to have the fellowship of other believers. Otherwise we gradually lose who we are and may not grasp our true identity. Grace tells us that we are new creatures in Christ and our past has been changed, that we are secure in Him.  The most important thing about us is not what we do but who we are in Christ. Our actions should flow out of being (our identity) and reflect His character. The more we embrace the affirmations from the Word, the more stable, grateful, and assured we will be in the course of our lives. May we see ourselves as God sees us!

Devotions based on Kenneth Boa’s book, Conformed to His Image

Our spiritual life is an all-encompassing, lifelong response to God’s initiative in our lives, as our trust is in Him.  It begins with the gift of forgiveness and goes on through faith and obedience. It is a journey with Christ rather than a journey to Christ.  We never arrive on this earth for our journey is not complete until the day of our resurrection. In the meantime we are pilgrims and exiles as our citizenship is in heaven. ( Heb 11:13) Nothing on this earth can fully satisfy our deepest longing for that longing is for God. Our pilgrim-life is filled with joy and sorrow, pleasure and affliction, clarity and confusion, comfort and pain, hope and despair  etc. But others have preceded us in this journey and left us some maps along the way to guide us. And God has equipped us with the spiritual resources He knows we will need throughout our journey. This author gives 12 facets of the spiritual journey which I will share in the future devotionals. If we approach our spiritual journey with an open and teachable spirit, we will get fresh insights from the Word, the people we meet, the books we digest etc. One size does not fit all. Because of our unique temperaments and circumstances we will be drawn to some more than other approaches. It is good that we are all different and need each other to grow, for we are not complete without others.

Devotions from Kenneth Boa’s book, Conformed to His Image

God created us for intimate relationship with Him- to know, enjoy, and honor Him. Because God is a relational being, He wants fellowship with us. The better we know Him, the better we know ourselves. Isn’t it amazing that our God who created over 200,000,000,000 stars and knows them by name, wants to seek intimacy with us?  His love for us is causeless, measureless, and ceaseless. (Rom. 5:6-11). God’s love is spontaneous and unending and nothing we do can cause Him to love us less. A prayer of St. Richard of Chichester often prayed today  is,  “..That we may know Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, and follow Thee more nearly; for Thine own sake.” Loving Him completely involves our intellect, our emotions, and our will. The more we come to know Him the more we love Him and are then willing to trust and obey Him in the things He calls us to do. If we are to cultivate this kind of relationship we need to set aside time in silence and solitude, prayer, reading of scripture etc. The more we experience Him the more or hearts will respond in love and gratitude. May we realize that God is not the enemy of our joy but the source of our joy.  “Our great task in the spiritual life is to will to do His will, to love the things He loves, and to choose the things He sets before us for our good.”

Devotions based on Juliet Benner’s book, Contemplative Vision

As I read this book I saw how spiritual sight is even more important than physical sight for without it we are limited in seeing God in our lives and world. If we go through life “blissfully unaware” we feel disconnected from God and ourselves. To be truly aware in life is to be truly alive. I want to be awake to God’s presence and see Him in everything, not just the good times but in the painful times as well.  I believe God wants us to see through His eyes and to see Him in all of our circumstances. As we do this we will be living out of our center, where our heart is aligned with His. To be intentional about practicing awareness it helps to spend times in solitude and stillness with Him and open our hearts to what ever He wants to do in us. Life is never the same when we give everything to Him in surrender and we become full of joy. At times we might be surprised  where we find Him but with clearer vision we will be alert to His presence. As we reach out to the world we not only see with His eyes but respond with His heart of compassion. May our eyes look to Him and as it says in Ps. 124:1-2 “To You I lift up my eyes…Our eyes look to the Lord our God, until He is gracious to us.”

Devotions based on Juliet Benner’s book,  Contemplative Vision

The life of Jesus was a life of love and He saw value and worth in each person. There was no one that was excluded from his welcoming embrace. He invited His followers to change the way they saw others and to see with His eyes of love and compassion. He wants us to change our perspective too and to reach out to those who seem undeserving and least like us. Juliet uses Giordano’s picture of The Good Samaritan to show us how when we extend mercy to the least of them, we are ministering to Jesus himself. ( Matt. 25:40 ) The word compassion means “to suffer with” and we need to be connected with those that suffer and show mercy and compassion. We must allow ourselves to be close enough to feel their suffering, as the Good Samaritan. There is a Jewish proverb that says most people will not see God because they will not stoop low enough.  As we are transformed we can see our neighbor as equally loved by God as we are.  Let us look at others in our midst and see God in them and have His heart of compassion.

 Devotions based on Juliet Benner’s book, Contemplative Vision

When we surrender our will and life to God we don’t do it out of fear but rather in response to His love. His love risked everything for us and reaches out to us even when we are most unlovable. He desires to unite us with Him in depth and closeness. Juliet shares her thoughts of Peter Rubens painting of Descent from the cross. Rubens created art for the church with the intent to speak to the senses and emotions rather than through reason. It is a moving picture of Jesus close friends lowering His body from the cross. Their love and devotion is so evident in their expressions and each one provides care and dignity in their own way to Him. They are united in their grief and in their attention just as we are with other believers as we focus on Christ. As we serve in sacrificial love we become a Christ-bearer too. This picture was intended to be placed above the altar of the cathedral so that when they took communion the picture of His body was right at the Communion Table. Just think of the impact on those receiving. We also receive His body each Sunday as we receive the bread and the wine and enter into this mystery of the sacrament.